Dear Users... (A thread for Sysadmin, Technical Support, and Help Desk people)

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"Sir, you do of course realise that by making all your jobs no.1 priority that none of them have priority?"

"If you don't have time to attend the application training, we don't have time to support you."

"No, you should not partition your internal hard drive to enable backing up to the new partition."

"I don't care if your login is slower than you'd like, do not disable your anti-virus to speed up logging in."

"No, we will not attach your usb powered drive to the back of the server to provide more capacity."

"Yes sir, I DO know who you are. This is how I can let the COO know that you're attempting to create a software licensing non-compliance situation within the company."
 
JoeMorgue said:
- "Oh I'm not a computer perso..." SHUT UP! Just shut up. Your entire job consists entirely of things that are completely done on a computer. This cutesy poo passive aggressive "Oh I'm not a computer person" line whenever I try to explain anything to you is insane. You don't get to remain functionally (and oddly proudly) intentionally ignorant of the core conceit of your entire job.
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THIS!

This is my biggest pet peeve. The ability to use a computer has been part of every government selection criteria since the 90s. Did you lie on your job application?
 
Dear users:

Error messages are important. If you have an error message on screen, expect that the agent will ask you what it says. And you need to be precise. Error messages, contrary to popular opinion, are usually very informative and helpful, if you understand what it’s trying to tell you. And if the agent you’re talking to doesn’t understand it, they will need to take a verbatim copy (or a screenshot) so that they can pass it on to someone who does understand it.

ETA: I wrote a whole pile of these a little while ago.
 
Here's another one.

Dear users:

Procedures exist for a reason. All service desks have a set of procedures, and these procedures exist for a reason. Please don’t try to circumvent them. Doing so leads to a lack of documentation, a lack of clarity, a lack of transparency, and a lack of accountability. If the agent asks you to complete a form, then complete the form. Procedures don’t exist just to annoy you; they exist to facilitate the incredibly complex process of providing IT services to an organisation.
 
arthwollipot said:
Dear users:

Error messages are important. If you have an error message on screen, expect that the agent will ask you what it says. And you need to be precise. Error messages, contrary to popular opinion, are usually very informative and helpful, if you understand what it’s trying to tell you. And if the agent you’re talking to doesn’t understand it, they will need to take a verbatim copy (or a screenshot) so that they can pass it on to someone who does understand it.

ETA: I wrote a whole pile of these a little while ago.
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Oh, good. You can help!

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I am particularly NOT fond of the "Just before you go..." at about 4:45pm.

-- Just before you go, could you find out what all those fire alarm noises in the server room are about and fix them?

-- Just before you go, could you reinstall all the email servers with new versions of software including anti-virus?

--Just before you go, could you come and fix this blue screen thingy on my Windows PC? Oh, and all the other PCs in our office. I think it's a virus...

-- Just before you go, the boss needs his new laptop unpacked, configured, and all of Office installed. And have it connected to the wifi so he can do some urgent Skype-for-Business stuff at a shareholders' meeting tomorrow morning at 8:30am. Yes, he's gone home now and I don't know his account or password.
 
Incidentally, I have a cure for the "Just before you go" syndrome.

"Yes, I will gladly fix your [PC | server | blocked drain] provided you stay here with me until it is fixed and do some testing afterwards. What, you have to go home? Where do you think I was going tonight? If you can't stay then it can't be THAT important, can it! So you can choose: If it is really urgent then you can stay with me until midnight and we will get it done together, or if it is not so urgent then you can call this in to Helpdesk tomorrow morning. I'm going in a minute, so let me know now..."
 
I wasn't going to post another one just yet, but given the previous posts, it seems relevant.

Dear users:

Be aware of the timing of your call. Agent shifts usually end on the hour and on the half hour. Calling one or two minutes before that means that you are likely to be holding an agent past their shift end time. Some agents might need to leave to catch a bus, but even if they don’t you’re not likely to get them when they’re at their best. Your call can wait a couple of minutes.
 
It always amazes me how technophobic people can be. I don't even come close to being a qualified tech support person, but at a previous job many years ago, I was often the one that people turned to for connecting their laptops to our projector, simply because they hadn't figured out the complex problem of plugging the red plug in the red socket, the white plug in the white socket, and the yellow plug into, you guessed it, the yellow socket.

For this in depth knowledge, I was "The Tech Guy".

It's not that I minded, it just amused me that people with far more education than I have seemed to be flummoxed by this task.
 
Hellbound said:
-When the system is all working fine and there are no issues, that doesn't mean we aren't doing our job. In fact, that usually means we have been doing our job, and well, consistently. Things don't run smoothly just because; networks and enterprises take proper care and feeding so the users don't see problems.
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This, 100 % this.

We have a reward system at work whereby you can send a "thank you" to anyone in the company (their manager also gets to see it so it gets included in the annual review), if you think it's appropriate you can put a value against it £10 - £100.
Recently I got £50 from one of team leads at work for a system that I did a lot of work on the database for it. He noticed that the application was more stable - part of me said "I was just doing my job" another part went "Yay - what we do is recognised and appreciated sometimes."
 
It's been years since I had decent nntp access (ISP issues) but I used to enjoy alt.sysadmin.recovery (aka scary devil monastery). One of its rules was "No useful information" - i.e it was a place to vent and relax not to be pointed at page 531 of a manual. Then it seemed like every other day some newb convinced of their own brilliance and originality would post "But suggesting how they can vent is useful information so you suck".
 
True story:

Got a call from a client who said their keyboard did not work. I asked them to confirm it is plugged in. They got mad and said they were not stupid. They insisted I come fix it because they are paying for a monthly service contract and bla bla bla...

I drove across town, and plugged in their keyboard for them. Then I went to their boss and let them know the problem was solved, by plugging in the keyboard for them.


Sometimes I liked to mess with my clients. As an obvious joke to relieve tension I would start by suggesting the most likely cause of the problem is that they are not clicking the mouse properly and should get some more practice.

Other times when it was not clear what caused the issue in the first place, that I could not replicate or find any evidence that it ever happened, I would explain that it was most likely a cosmic ray that flipped a bit in their computer. And boy were they lucky it hit the computer instead of them!
 
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