Ten Things Your IT Guy Wants You To Know

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1. If you ask me technical questions please don’t argue with me because you don’t like my answer. If you think you know more about the topic, why ask? And if I’m arguing with you…it’s because I am positive that I am correct, otherwise I’d just say “I don’t know” or give you some tips on where to look it up, I don’t have the time to just argue for the sake of it.

2. Starting a conversation by insulting yourself (i.e. “I’m such an idiot”) will not make me laugh, or feel sorry for you; all it will do is remind me that yes, you are an idiot and that I am going to hate having to talk to you. Trust me; you don’t want to start a call that way.

3. I am ok with you making mistakes, fixing them is my job. I am not ok with you lying to me about a mistake you made. It makes it much harder to resolve and thus makes my job more difficult. Be honest and we can get the problem resolved and continue on with our business.

4. There is no magic “Fix it” button. Everything takes some amount of work to fix, and not everything is worth fixing or even possible to fix. If I say that you just need to re-do a document that you accidentally deleted 2 months ago, please don’t get mad at me. I’m not ignoring your problem, and it’s not that I don’t like you, I just cant always fix everything.

5. Not everything you ask me to do is “urgent”. In fact, by marking things as “urgent” every time, you almost ensure that I treat none of it as a priority.

To ensure that we give credit where credit is due, read the other five here.

 

They gotta learn somehow.

Sometimes, it's good to show them first-hand that you're right by doing what they ask you to do despite your warnings:
"Hey, the network's running slow..."
"See? What'd I tell you yesterday?"

 

Haha

 

:hhhmmm I think the above relates to my work place, with the help desk putting "urgent" on every job they raise and some of them can be solved over the phone! It does make me think the jobs not really urgent!

The other day I had a job raised saying a customer could not log into windows, job marked as Urgent. When I rang the customer I found out the keyboard was not working. I asked simple questions:-

Me: is there a light on the keyboard when pressing caps lock or num lock?
Customer: No!
Me: is the keyboard plugged into the PC?
Customer: how can I tell if the keyboard is plugged in?
Me: follow the lead from the keyboard to and see if the end of the lead is attached to the PC base.
Customer: No! it's not plugged in!
Me: that's why you can't log in, you need to connect the end to the PC base make sure you line up the pins and making sure you put it into the correct connection.
Customer there's 2 connections how do I know which is which
Me: make sure it goes into the purple connection (PS2)

I mean simple these are just simple question that should of been asked on a Help Desk Not at 3rd line support!

the magic fix button, is a good one as well:-
Customer:- I've accidently deleted a file
Me: what was the name of the file and it's location?
Customer I can't remember the name and I saved it somewhere on the network drive.
Me :- OK what dept do you work in?
Customer: Records and it was a word document, does that help?
Me: not really, the network drive is huge, over 4000 users save their data onto it!
Customer: Oh
Me: the network drive is backed, so chances are your document would be saved and archive, but we need to know where to look and name of the file! When was the last time you save the document?
Customer: I didn't saved it?
Me: OMG - but didn't you say you save it the network drive?
Customer: well I thought I did and normally do, except I selected cancel instead of save!
Me: so this is a new document?
Customer:yes, does this mean I have to type it out again?
Me: no of course we have a magic button that I can press here to travel back into time!

 

I apply this theory at work, the problem is now they think I will do whatever they tell me to do but its just me being awkward and unhelpful when it goes wrong like I told them it would

I need a new job

 

I have a user that does all of these things and more. She's a directors PA so has a bit of clout

Most recently she lied her ass off to me about a file she lost that needed recovering then five minutes later, after I had found it and went to physically show her where on her system it was. Rather that admit her mistake and that she had found it she claimed she had redone it in the end.

She doesnt realise We can see her drive. The files open and stored on it and more importantly THE DATES THE FILES WERE CREATED

I could rant about user stupidity and unrealistic expectations all day.
I'm sure this thread will get quite big as we all share stories and annoyances

 

or not

 

The users that believe in magic/mind reading crack me up:

Caller: Hi, it's ann here, can you reset my password?
Me: Ok
Caller: Thanks, bye


No user id, system, DoB, etc given - they expect you to work it out by magic! Rather than get annoyed tho I take it as compliment that they think we're that good!!

 

Allow me to add one from a self-employed wonk:

11. My store hours are from 9am - 5pm, Mon - Fri. We are closed weekends and major holidays. The fact that it is inconvenient for you to call me during my hours of business is not my problem. I don't want to accept your phone call at 8pm in the evening when I'm putting my daughter to bed. I don't want to talk to you on the weekend when I'm enjoying a well-earned day off. I especially don't want to talk to you on my cell phone, which I only carry for emergencies. I would, however, dearly love to know who gave you my cell number so I can track down and kill the @#$%. An "emergency" is only an emergency to me during business hours. Deal with it.

 

...and make sure you do it with the PC turned OFF!
...uh-oh, you did it with the PC turned on, didn't you...

 

Well said!
Also, people ask me often to look at their computer because "you are a specialist on that matter". They don't care if it is system related, software related or even dumb use related. So now a days I ask them what their proffession is. (well, I'm in building.) Ok, could you get me a new layer of stucka on my wall? the old one is a bit warn out. (No problem. We will discuss the price... ). Wait a minute, did I say anything about price? for my problem? or for your problem? If I calculate my normal hourly cost, you could stucka my whole house... twice. Do you still want me to look at your computer?

 

http://www.weakendproductions.co.uk/movs/jebsjobs.html

This thread so reminded me of this