The IT Confessional

I know, you’re all surprised and excited. I know I am. The second piece to this post is what you’re all want to hear. Who won the contest?

The winner of this particular contest is Kevin Potter for his awesome, “Is that a big or little zero?” story! I will be contacting Kevin (or better yet, if he wants to email me at jesse.middleton at b5media dot com) to get him his KB.

I want to thank everyone who posted and emailed in their stories, they were a great read and many of them will be used to form some, hopefully, entertaining posts at That Damn PC.

Keep checking back for me and sending your stories in.

Post from: EveryJoe

Two great pieces of news!

First, a question (or two) — What is the worst situation that you have experienced while dealing with an IT department? What is the worst situation that you have experienced while working in an IT department? Now as you can see, I want your stories from both sides. I believe in what my father used to say, “I don’t pick favorites between you and your brother. I dislike both of you equally.” So please, leave a comment below and I promise, I’ll read it.

Now, on to the story. Just a couple of weeks ago I had a wonderful coworker ask me:

How do I fix my monitor?

I started to rattle off a canned answer before I realized that they had not told me any information about what the issue was. When I pressed them for more information, they had no idea of how to respond. As we went back and forth with questions like, “Is the monitor on? Is it dim? Does it have lines across it?” I came to realize that this issue stems from a much larger problem — We in IT don’t have all the answers. I know it’s hard to believe but it’s true. This is especially true when we don’t have all the information.

The reason I’m telling you this is that most of the time when a problem arises relating to a computer, people grab the closest tech-savvy person and ask them to fix it. This does not work. People are trained in different aspects of IT. If you were an accountant, you probably wouldn’t want me running to you each time I was short on cash. Why? Because you’re not a loan shark. Sure you deal in money but that doesn’t make you qualified nor interested in what it is I have to say. The same rings true in IT. A desktop support guy (or gal) is probably trained in desktop computer issues. This doesn’t include servers, networks, car engines or your blender. So please, be kind to your IT guy and give them the information that they need so they can either solve your issue or point you in the right direction.

By the way, in case you were wondering — This user had unplugged the VGA cable from their computer while cleaning. They didn’t think it did anything so they coiled it up, nice and neat, and taped it to the back of the monitor.

Post from: EveryJoe

A new way of thinking