The Early Morning Phone Call

Early one morning, I have been in office about five minutes and the phone rings. It's early and I am still slowly waking up. My colleague takes pity on the caller and picks up the phone.

As far as I can gather, the person on the other end has had an email stopped by the firewall. My colleague gives them my number, and asks them to phone me as he hasn't dealt with that problem before. He hangs up and leaves the office for this morning caffeine intake.

Five minutes later and my phone rings. I am finally waking up and answer with as much enthusiasm as I can muster.

"IT support" I say politely and introduce myself.

Internet Security

Although not overly strict, we have considerably tight filters on our firewall that scans and filters websites and applications from the internet. Protection from unwanted "nasties" such as malware and viruses. These days it is essential to any business and home use alike.

Every once in a while a site that is required may be found to be blocked; we review it and unblocked it if we deem it suitable.

One day a guy comes in with his laptop complaining that it is "running slow" and the software he had installed was reporting hundreds of viruses. He also took the time to tell us how vulnerable our network was and that we should be protecting against such things. He even took the liberty of telling all about viruses and how dangerous they could be. He also complained that he could pick up malware but couldn't get to sites he wanted or certain applications.

Obviously we are always open to being told our jobs by someone with a laptop in the condition it was in and remained in a silent loathing while we checked it out.