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.

Little Miss Know It All

Knock Knock!

A woman walked into our office one afternoon with a laptop bag in her hand. She had a smile on her face and seemed friendly enough.

"I have come for my new loan." She exclaimed excitedly, assuming we were psychic. You know what they say about assumption being the mother of all.... Enough said!

It's amazing how many people walk into our office like that, making announcements and believing we automatically know all the details of what they are talking about.

Quality of Service

I get an email one morning from a friend who works at another site. She was having issues retrieving an archived email. This was a common problem at the time and just required a quick install of an updated client. We arranged a time when she would have a few minutes to phone and let me connect remotely to the computer.

It's 12:10pm and my friend phones. All I needed to do was connect to her laptop, install the update and check that she could open the archived email. Simples...

I ask her what her "pc name" is. Now we run a program called BGInfo. This pulls information from the computer; including the pc name, ip address, RAM, disk space etc. This updates every time a user logs on and displays it on the desktop beneath our corporate logo.

Yearly Upgrade Gripes

Working in an educational environment I have to occasionally work in teaching rooms. Many of these are populated with a couple of dozen or so computer workstations and a printer.

Every year we spend a couple of months replacing older equipment and upgrading the newer. All have to have their software replaced with a fresh image and usually several other tasks have to be carried out afterwards.

One year we were running a week or two behind schedule and classes were coming in to the rooms on  introductory tours.

Oi You!

A few years ago we had a woman working for our company who was almost "allergic" to IT to say the least. It was ironic really as she was a tutor and taught IT for a living.

She could also be one of the rudest people you could meet, epecially if she had a technical problem.

One evening I was working a late shift and had the pleasure of two run-ins with her in less than an hour.

During the start of my shift I had to sort out an important meeting room, making sure everything was working and that the users could log on. This resulted in me going back and forth, if I needed parts or to reset users passwords etc.

Helpdesk Hell

We have a hardware vendor that we have to phone on a regular basis for replacement parts. Most of the time when we phone it takes a while, but the person on the other end usually accepts we know what we are talking about and arranges for the part to be delivered.

I say most of the time...

One day I have a laptop that had ceased to function. It was a common problem, one fixed by replacing the motherboard that luckily is under warranty.

I phoned the hardware vendor support line as usual, hoping to get the part for the next day.

What is RAM?

"I am applying for a new job." A guy from another department announced to me one day. "It's for a 'Technical Computer Job' and I was wondering if you would help me with a couple of the questions on the application form?"

"Ok, I'll help you if I can." I agree somewhat taken aback by the new 'Job Title.'

"This is the main question I am having a problem answering." He says pointing to a large box on the application.

"Describe any technical IT experience that you have had?" I read out loud.

"Yes" he says. "What shall I put?"