Freshly Baked Chaos with a Side of Laptop

Sometimes I wonder why I bother!

It's the first lates of the new year, and nothing and no one prepares me for the evening ahead. And it started off so promising too.

It was all planned out, I had a pile of laptops to fix/image/configure and a phone ready to ring off the hook with stupid questions from idiotic users. Then it all went to hell. For some reason every idiot user chose tonight to show their talents at their very best.

It starts off with the usual innocent job that turns out to be a false alarm. I was asked to fix a faulty projector/computer situation that was magically working perfectly when I got to the room. WHEN I GOT TO THE ROOM!

The Lunacy of Technology

It is an understatement to say that modern technology has come on in leaps and bounds in the last fifteen years or so. When I was at school, I remember marvelling at the release of the brand new Intel Pentium 200 processor. A few years later came the Pentium 2, and the newer AMD chips. Then there were the RAM chips that increased in capacity (and length), and the 80 MB hard drives that became 500 MB, and later to 6.4GB.

"Too big. We'll never fill it" we would say as we looked wide eyed at the wondrous, yet mysterious black box encased in anti-static bags, wrapped in bubble wrap, and hidden behind protective glass. It constantly amazes me now at the total disregard for these precautions, as attitudes towards the delicacy of components has changed. In comparison, the price of technology has reduced, allowing people to care less.

The Empty Mailbox

It's the umpteenth attempt at calling her; I have been trying to get in touch with a user for over a fortnight after a fault was passed on to me from our helpdesk:

"A huge chunk of my emails are missing". It had claimed in big bold capital letters; providing lots of useful information to go on as usual.

The problem is urgent, and absolutely must be fixed immediately (apparently). As urgent as is may be, all attempts to contact the person who reported the fault have been in vain.

I hang up the phone again after the about the twelfth ring, and with everlasting regret, I send the user another email explaining that I was looking into their fault, and needed to speak with them about it. Finally a few hours later I get the returning phone call:

The Server Upgrade Uncertainty

I am often asked what it is like to work in IT Support. Most people assume that it is a geeky and uncool job. Others believe it to be never ending fun; playing with gadgets all day long and never doing any "real work". The rest are usually amazed at the flashing lights, and the unidentifiable, yet intriguing components that lay about the office, and believe it to be a glamorous, and trouble free profession. Most never see what we do in the background, unable to appreciate the hard work we do: The early mornings, the late nights, the endless progression bars. Failures and down time are fixed in their memories like the 1966 world cup, but our successes are usually forgotten almost instantaneously.

Occasionally, but not very often, the frustrations of the IT world come not from the users, but from the systems themselves.