Getting the most from your I.T. department

1. 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.

2. Don't write anything down. Ever. We can play back the error
messages from here.

3. When an I.T. 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 300 screen saver
passwords.

4. 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.

6. When I.T. support sends you an E-Mail with high importance, delete
it at once. We're just testing.

7. When an I.T. person is eating lunch at his desk, walk right in and
spill your guts right out. We exist only to serve.

8. Send urgent email all in uppercase. The mail server picks it up
and flags it as a rush delivery.

9. When the photocopier doesn't work, call computer support. There's
electronics in it.

10. When you're getting a NO DIAL TONE message at home, call computer
support. We can fix your telephone line from here.

11. When you have a dozen old computer screens to get rid of, call
computer support. We're collectors.

12. When something's wrong with your home PC, dump it on an I.T.
person's chair with no name, no phone number and no description of the problem. We love a puzzle.

13. When an I.T. person tells you that computer screens don't have
cartridges in them, argue. We love a good argument.

14. When an I.T. 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.

15. When the printer won't print, re-send the job at least 20 times.
Print jobs frequently get sucked into black holes.

16. 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.

17. Don't learn the proper name for anything technical. We know
exactly what you mean by "my thingy
blew up".

18. Don't use on-line help. On-line help is for wimps.

19. If the mouse cable keeps knocking down the framed picture of your
dog, lift the computer and stuff the cable under it. Mouse cables were designed to have 20kg of computer
sitting on top of them.

20. If the space bar on your keyboard doesn't work, blame it on the
mail upgrade. Keyboards are actually very happy with half a pound of muffin crumbs and nail clippings in
them.

21. When you get a message saying "Are you sure?" click on that Yes
button as fast as you can. Hell, if you weren't sure, you wouldn't be doing it, would you ?

22. When you find an I.T. person on the phone with his bank, sit
uninvited on the corner of his desk and stare at him until he
hangs up. We don't have any money to speak of anyway.

23. Feel perfectly free to say things like "I don't know nothing about
that computer crap". We don't mind at all hearing our area of professional expertise referred to as crap.

24. When you need to change the toner cartridge in a printer, call
I.T. support. Changing a toner cartridge is an extremely complex task, and Hewlett-Packard recommends that it be
performed only by a professional engineer with a master's degree in nuclear physics.

25. When you can't find someone in the government directory, call I.T.
Support.

26. When you have a lock to pick on an old file cabinet, call I.T.
Support. We love to hack.

27. When something's the matter with your computer, ask your secretary
to call the help desk. We enjoy the challenge of having to deal with a third party who doesn't know anything about the
problem.

28. When you receive a 30mb (huge) movie file, send it to everyone as
a mail attachment. We've got lots of disk space on that mail server.

29. Don't even think of breaking large print jobs down into smaller
chunks. Somebody else might get a chance to squeeze a memo into the queue.

30. When an I.T. person gets on the elevator pushing $100,000 worth of
computer equipment on a cart, ask in a very loud voice: "Good grief, you take the elevator to go DOWN
one floor?!?" That's another one that cracks us up no end.

31. When you lose your car keys, send an email to the entire company.
People out in Birmingham like to keep abreast of what's going on.

32. When you bump into an I.T. person at the grocery store on a
Saturday, ask a computer question. We do weekends.

33. Don't bother to tell us when you move computers around on your
own. Computer names are just a cosmetic feature.

34. When you bring your own personal home PC for repair at the office,
leave the documentation at home. We'll find all the settings and drivers somewhere.

35. In no way do we believe that end-users are ungrateful. It hurts
our feelings that one could even think
such a thing on the basis of the above statements. In truth we wish to
express our deepest gratitude to the hundreds of wonderful end-users portrayed herein, without whom none of
this would have been remotely
possible.

Your friendly computer guy.