If you want to know how to really annoy your IT Support Department, just follow through the list below and see which one takes your fancy today.
Your IT Support Department members have had a lot of training in dealing with a myriad of different computer related problems. Whether it’s hardware or software, they usually know what to do in order to fix most of the problems that you go to them with, but do you know what the biggest problem is that your IT Support Department faces?
To enlighten you, in case you didn’t realise, it’s LIVEWARE! Liveware, the human element! Whereas hardware and software problems have some sort of logic involved when they go wrong, liveware, that means YOU, is often random and confusing in the problems that they present to IT.
A typical example of a support request from a user might be an email or message that simply says “My computer’s not working” or even more typical with a subject of “Help”.
Now that tells the IT Support person nothing, so they then have to reply and ask for more information, while you complain as to why they are taking so long to fix your problem.
A more useful request would be to tell them that a certain function isn’t working as expected and to send one or more screen prints along with the support request to at least give IT a clue. But no, you expect them to be able to read your mind, and although they are often brilliant at what they can do, mond readers they are not.
Anyhow, it you really do want to try and get on the bad side of your IT Support Department (which I wouldn’t recommend by the way), here are a few ways in which you can do it. Having worked in IT for more than 40 years, trust me, I’ve experienced most of these first hand!
When you call us to have your computer moved, be sure to leave it buried under half a ton of postcards, baby pictures, stuffed animals, dried flowers, bowling trophies and children’s art. We don’t have a life, and we find it deeply moving to catch a fleeting glimpse of yours.
Don’t write anything down. Ever. We can play back the error messages from here.
When an IT person says he’s coming right over, go for coffee. That way you won’t be there when we need your password. It’s nothing for us to remember 700 screen saver passwords.
When you call the help desk, state what you want, not what’s keeping you from getting it. We don’t need to know that you can’t get into your mail because your computer won’t power on at all.
When IT support sends you an email with high importance, delete it at once. We’re just testing.
When an IT person is eating lunch at his desk, walk right in and spill your guts right out. We exist only to serve.
Send urgent email all in uppercase. The mail server will automatically pick it up and flag it as a rush delivery.
When the photocopier doesn’t work, call computer support. There’s electronics in it after all.
When something’s wrong with your home PC, dump it on an IT person’s chair with no name, no phone number and no description of the problem. We love a puzzle.
When an IT person tells you that computer screens don’t have cartridges in them, argue. We love a good argument.
When an IT person tells you that he’ll be there shortly, reply in a scathing tone of voice, “And just how many weeks do you mean by shortly?” That motivates us.
When the printer won’t print, re-send the job at least 20 times. Print jobs frequently get sucked into black holes.
When the printer still won’t print after 20 tries, send the job to all 68 printers in the company. One of them is bound to work.
Don’t learn the proper term for anything technical. We know exactly what you mean by “My thingy blew up”.
Don’t use on-line help. On-line help is for wimps. So are FAQ pages.
If you have a really tricky problem that needs looking at and it’s urgent, the best time to ask for help is just as your IT Support staff are in the middle of their lunch break, or in the last half hour of the working day on a Friday. They love to work during lunch or to stay late on a Friday.
If you really piss off yout IT Support specialist, they may tell you that you have a PEBCAK problem. That is techno-speak for Problem Exists Between Computer And Keyboard!
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