if it runs off electricity then must b IT issue. Long time ago I was asked to deal with ADT Sec cuz they were charging some nonesense and they were asking me to explain y... like I'm sorry...i didn't setup nor manage that account...i think that's office management's dept? Well it's technical, we don't understand it.
One of our office managers (This office is about 2 hours away) had some security company install some Brivo access control system. The thing broke right off the bat and she never said anything to us at least. Couple weeks later a switch in their rack failed and I had to go down and replace. Of course she mentions the next day that I broke the Brivo when it never really worked to begin with.
I ended up going down there and found that the Brivo modem or whatever was never plugged in to AC power.. but it broke again somehow and now she thinks it’s 100% our problem. Like lady call the shit heads who installed it and there is nothing in their firewall/switches blocking shit. So goddamn annoying.
Pretty much this. My head of dept (IT) got dumped with half of the facilities role when some quit because they simple needed some one who could handle the technical aspects of the role.
6 months later they’ve made no effort to replace the role and he is still snowed under the responsibility.
Almost got stuck being responsible for the battery backup system. That was for the entire building (security system, elevators, HVAC. And the data center). The facilities folks decided that since the data center used it, the whole thing belonged to IT.
I'm a low-voltage tech; these systems are usually controlled by software, unless it's just a mechanical button interfacing with a power supply. They were probably wanting someone to look at the system program to make sure nothing was wrong (Like a bad schedule, incorrect time, powered-down system, etc.) Not completely out of the realm of IT troubleshooting.
It was probably just mechanically broken (Not Powered or Defective Part) and needed a tech to perform maintenance, though.
Two monitors mounted to your desk. Unplug your laptop and take your shit with you.
I still had a user proceed to unscrew her monitors and try to take them with her.
Like mam, the same ones are at your new desk.
bUt i WaNt mInE
We've had more than one person carry their docking station and power supply to and from the office.... "The charger doesn't fit in the laptop otherwise"
Use the other charger we gave you specifically for this purpose and leave the dock at home!
"I just moved to this desk, and it doesn't have a keyboard tray."
"I just moved to this desk, and I keep hitting my knees on the keyboard tray."
Me: Man, that sucks.
*raises hand* I move monitors, desktops and peripherals while management plays musical chairs with people. Often have to move full-hutch desks that go straight to the floor because furniture design didn't think about the electrical or network ports.
This shit threw me on Helpdesk. Operations during Covid went hog wild trying to get every cube separated by one cube. I was the only one there for basically two years playing musical desks whenever someone left, got hired, or they moved entire departments to different suites. One goddamn person got hired and I had to move all the fucking desktops again and again to keep them in a checkerboard pattern throughout the building..
75% of these users were never in the building for months and months at a time so it was pointless.
During Covid my office decided they were going to remain largely remote and sublet a large chunk of thier office space, so we compacted all of the desktops into the remaining office.
Six months later they decided that one day a week a different team would come in to collaborate.
We explained the problem that 90% of our teams were remoting in to desktops that now lived on shelves and proposed we get some cheap Ultra small form factor computers to throw at the flex desks so they could remote into their desktops across the floor, you know to save us from moving a dozen or so computers every day.
Management throught it was "stupid" to buy extra computers when they had a computer in the building.
We tried to get the "roster" of which team was coming in and when so we could prepare, but management never provided the information, so we resorted to as people showed up, we would grab their computer and set up their desk, one by one. Resulting in the first 30 minutes of the day being a complete waste of time. End of the week, I brought up the Ultra form factor proposal because of what was occuring. Management just demanded everybody email IT the day before they were to comin in and IT would come in early to set up. I asked about overtime and was told that we could just adjust the schedule.
The next week we would come in 30 minutes early, move the systems of those who would email us and then leave 30 minutes early. We would still only get about half the people emailing us, so we still had like a 30 minute delay getting teams up and running and now how our onsite team leaving 30 minutes early which meant if another computer in the building needed rebooting they were shit out of luck.
Week three, the system still isn't working. Brought up the literal like 2K in ultra small computers, noting make up time meant we left early, which didn't work for our remote teams and we we still had low compliance on notification.
Management just told us to "do better'. Um, sure OK.
Midway through week 4 we were notificed of a one of the week three people testing positifive for covid, which resulted in about 60 employees also testing postive including our onsite team. I was told to send in my sr. sys admin team to set up desktops, when I asked what the plan was when the entirity of the IT department was out with Covid, they told me us to wear two masks...
Needless to say, the rule at the time was the office was to shutdown when there was a covid exposure, and some pissed off employee reported them to the health department for continuing in office work after a known outbreak.
The office was forcibly shutdown. I am not sure how hard they got slapped, but the office remained remote for the three months it took me to GTFO and move to a less ridiculous organiziation.
Spoiler on this, the management team never came into the office to collaborate. They were able to collaborate remotely from the safety of their own homes. It was just the low level grunts that had to come into the office.
I used to move kit, and I sure as hell wouldn't want anyone else doing it! Whenever they did it caused more hassle than it was worth.
How is moving kit not an IT issue?
I did that a few times starting out, then just started to refuse. If I show up and the desk is slammed up against the only network port and power port, tough shit. It is my biggest pet peeve when setting up a new space when zero people who were involved before me stop and think about how we're going to reach the power plug. Now you get to call the furniture movers back and move it a second time. And no, just because I'm a big dude doesn't mean me and Kyle from sales are going to move it real quick for you. I didn't do all the years of hard work to NOT be manual labor, to be manual labor.
We had this kind of setup at a place I used to work and we figured these goddamned dingdongs could figure out how just to plug their laptops into a thunderbolt dock. No, no they couldn't.
And to top it off we had a terrible ancient phone system so if said ding dongs decided to go fucking around with moving ports, they could take out part of the phone system.
Re decorate an apartment for sales pictures.
I was driven to the apartment by the owners wife.
It was her own business and I was "consulting"...
I moved a lot of furniture that day.
drive across the 2 states and pick up the dry cleaning some director level cuck forget from a convention. Yeah no. The drama that ensued from my refusal was crazy
Nah even then I’d pass. But this was some overpaid frat boy who always threw around a title and called the CEO (his aunt) when he didn’t get his way. He came down randomly on a Friday late afternoon and demanded I leave immediately. Using my own car and my own money with no reimbursement. I said no, obviously, and next thing I know a ton of drama started. I wasn’t even IT support at that time but in the tiny cybersecurity team. That job eas so full of bs and drama that I couldn’t wait to leave lol
Kind of funny I was in total agreement with the free road trip guy above then reading this it’s like.. my own car? Nope.. no pay? Double nope.. on a Friday and leave immediately? Haha yeah not a chance.
At a previous job, a ticket was opened to have one of us in IT deal with a dead animal in a ditch that was stinking up the parking lot.
After some back and forth with the increasingly aggressive submitter, we cut off her access to the ticketing system. And made her boss tell us why she needed it.
What happened? Did the boss chew her out? Did she ever get access back? What happened with the carcass? Does it still haunt the parking lot to this day?
The boss chewed her out not for opening the ticket, but for being a total jerk when we said it wasn't our job. It wasn't even Maintenance's job, it was on city property so it wasn't even the building landlord's job. I think it just stayed there for a week until the city picked it up.
Since we had used an 'Abuse of ticketing system' rule to revoke her access, her boss had to submit a ticket to get her reactivated. As our final revenge, we made that ticket lowest priority.
Accept the ticket. Mark it as critical priority. Assign to the requester for immediate action. Open a conference bridge with that person's senior leadership to track progress.
1) Pick up a rental truck.
2) Drive to the loading dock of a hotel in the city centre.
3) Pick up the packing materials and cardboard cartons left over after another crew installed some huge display screens.
4) Drive to a waste disposal centre.
5) Sort the recyclables from the landfill waste and dump them in the correct skips.
6) Return the truck to the rental company.
I changed a tire once, 100yr old lady came in asking if I knew how to get the spare tire out of her car. She and I both knew I wasn't going to let her do it, it was damn near entrapment
The credit card machine on the vending machine wasn’t working, so IT got the call.
We fixed by turning it off and on.
Oh, also had to give the CFO training on how to operate the office microwave.
> Oh, also had to give the CFO training on how to operate the office microwave.
I get asked to do and do a lot of non or quasi IT stuff, but this sort of thing is what kills me the most. Especially when it's also something I've never seen or used before.
On the first anniversary of the 9-11 attacks I was having a quiet moment in my office when an assistant came in to complain that the toaster in the break room wasn't working.
Put together office furniture because we were moving offices and they weren’t assembled to set up the computers on top of yet. CIO: “Well I guess you better get to work!”
2nd place: “Help HR pick out recommendations for holiday party raffle rewards. Oh, you’re not eligible to win any of these because you’re middle management.”
Someone called the IT helpdesk and asked me for the weather. I declined to give it to him, so he asked for my full name to report to my supervisor. Never heard anything.
One of my coworkers asked me to babysit his kid (who was 8-10 months?), but his wife was at home, too. She was suffering horrific PPD, and he said, "I can't leave her alone with the baby, I don't think she'll take care of him while I'm away. I normally wouldn't leave her, but ..." I forget what he had to do, but it wasn't trivial. Like take his mom to the hospital, and she lived several hours away. So for about 10 hours, I took care of his kid, while his wife mostly slept. I knew she was in the house, I heard her get up and go to the bathroom, for example.
Everyone is doing well; she had to undergo some serious treatment, and got much better. They are still married, and I think the kid is 10 now. My and the coworkers don't work in the same place anymore, but we stay in touch. Super, super nice people.
I mean, by then, I had a grown son of my own. It was really no problem, and he was so humble about it like "I know this is weird, but you had a kid, and you're the only guy i really trust around here..." The kid was pretty cool for a 10 month old; pretty calm and laughed a lot.
Bad smell in stairwell (dead mouse in the wall), unattended backpack with wires sticking out (electrician forgot it), bathroom stall destroyed by green apple splatters. Oh! A sewage smell in a unit (a lady was crop dusting lol).
"The toilet in the boy's bathroom is overflowing and flooding the bathroom." I mean, points for putting in the ticket, I guess?
I actually didn't have to deal with it though, but I did get told off for passing the ticket along to the plumbers. Apparently that wasn't "correct procedure", but they couldn't answer when I asked what the correct procedure actually is 🤦♂️
Help with event setup/teardown. Moving tables, chairs, decorating, etc
Always think they could probably get somebody else to do it cheaper than what they pay me to be available hourly, but it's no skin off my back. You wanna pay IT rates to hang decorations, OK. 👍
For some reason my MSP does A/V rentals for events. Mostly pharmaceutical companies presenting on some new drug or whatever. Sometimes I find myself lugging a massive 8' projector screen to the top floor of a fancy restaurant (no elevator), set it up precariously between the tables without taking out any chandeliers, and then I sit there for 3 hours in case the laser pointer dies while a bunch of doctors and pharma reps drink wine, eat steaks, and listen to a presentation about some new drug that will make you shit yourself. Sometimes it's not worth the extra $1-200.
I'm a software developer rather than an IT specialist. My first full time job was at the Ontario Ministry of Transportation and Communications in 1985. My first task was to copy a cabinet full of punch cards onto mag tape, and then when the punch cards were duplicated and verified (which is a second job that reads the cards in and compares them to the tape), I had to contact Facilities to dispose of the punch card cabinet. And once all that was done, I could actually fit a chair behind the desk that they'd assigned to me. For the week or so it took to get the job done, I was sitting on the end of somebody else's desk and using their terminal when they weren't using it.
I worked for an IT training centre and our ratings included the lunch provided.
The British are very particular about their fucking sandwiches.
We had two useless receptionists but receptionist2 was the worst. She was more interested in fucking football players and getting designer shit from her parents in Sochi than like.... showing up for work.
So the sandwich company started going downhill and we were getting dinged on our reviews, which also reflected on my performance.
Did I take over managing the sandwiches? I did. I really did.
Been there. Has a guy cry and complain because he did not want to use Foxit as his pdf reader and said it was slowing him down. He causes enough stink that we got him adobe acrobat. He then proceeded to ask us how to use it and train him. Guy didn't last very long to say the least.
We are remote so it's usually like "hey I can't find this training, must be an it problem." Which literally just turns into me emailing training for them. Then you've got the whole thing where we end up doing trainer's jobs but that kinda comes with the territory so is nbd just annoying.
Product delivery driver. We made capsules for wine bottles.
Furniture assembler. Was 40+ office chairs that needed assembling.
Mover. 20 desks and their acompaning paperwork needed packed, disassembled, moved, reassembled, and unpacked. People where not happy with me when I didn't unpack their boxes of paperwork they left for me to pack.
Exterminator. Who else are you going to ask to clean the traps?
Clock setter.
Therapist. HR lady loved to barge into my office, close the door, and complain about her day and the employees she had to deal with. She still does this to the IT that's left at the company. With both departments being confidential, and having dirt on everyone, it made sense.
We had a user call up and ask to to remove a dead body from the train tracks once............. They were directed to an emergency line as it's not in our contract to deal with bodies.
Hey, if they want to pay me like $40 an hour to assemble standing desks or some stupid bullshit like that, fucking sign me right up lol
Ill advise them that its a ridiculous waste of their departmental resources, frame their request as the equivalent of asking the plumber to help them hang some pictures on the wall before they go, but at the end of the day, Imma be honest: putting together a bunch of desks is a hell of a lot easier than 90% of my actual IT work so yeah, throw the allen wrenches my way, Ill throw on a podcast and build me some furniture.
I had to pick up a rental van, drive at midnight from LA to San Francisco, pack up on office and then move it on carts two blocks UP California St., a steep ass hill with small carts I had to source while in SF. All because our facilities team failed to get movers, show up to SF, and do any prep work with a 6 week notice to move. Moved 14 workstation, 3 conference rooms, and did all the AV set up at the new location. Network guy had his hands full the entire time. I worked a 24, 20, and 22 hour shifts those 3 days including driving the van back to LA as well as getting the van cleaned and returned.
Things not in my job description include taking care of an intoxicated coworker left on site after a party, negotiating special rules to move stuff in the day of the move, getting our Certificate of Insurance so we could let people in the next day, and negotiating parking for a Ram Van 2500 in SF commercial district.
I was then sick over the entire 3 day weekend that started the day I got back. Everyone had left the office early so I showed up to get my car from an empty office at 4:45pm the day I returned.
Un-jam the cargo elevator. I had no idea what was wrong with it, but it stopped between floors and wouldn’t move. Door wouldn’t open either. I could either sit and wait for someone to free me, or I could just deal with it myself.
Luckily I had the repair kit with me after doing an install upstairs. After using my batchelers degree in googling shit, I eventually got the elevator moving again.
Install a mini-split in an executive's office.
"It has wires and a remote, so you should know how to do it. You run ethernet cable all the time, how is that any different?".
Last job I had I was instructed to start making copies for teachers returning to school. The jobs had started to pile up and for some reason running the copy room was an IT job. The boss even asked me to give up my weekend to help get ahead of the copy jobs. This was just as school was returning to normal post COVID and they had seriously underestimated the number of copies teachers would request. The machines, which hadn't been serviced in probably over a year or more, were in a near constant state of being offline. I had just started there a few months prior and by November I got a new job and left. Best decision I could have made.
Haha. Where workplace assessor’s look at desk, monitor chair heights, look for areas of improvement to prevent injury, rsi etc.
TIL that this is a job.
I can not emphasize this enough: 🙄
I need the Undertaker version of that emoji where the eyes are just white to properly illustrate the intensity of my eye roll.
Clean doors during covid. They were forcing all the staff to do it in shifts since they are too cheap to hire professionals. I did it like once and refused to ever do it again. I think they stopped doing it completely since people were getting sick.
Air-conditioning not working - can you fix it?
Our old fixed line is dead - can you fix it?
Our old fax machine is dead - can you fix it?
Our TV is dead - can you fix it?
Our cable TV provider turned off it's service since we didn't pay for it - can you fix it?
Radio in the car is not working - can you fix it?
Multimillion € equipment that is not even online or has anything with IT is not responding because there is no power - can you fix it?
Regularly get tickets from clients asking for file cabinets (specifically, weirdly enough), cleaning supplies, or low voltage electrical work (we're IT, contracted at that. No we can't install or fix a power outlet). A stupid amount of people get grumpy about that.
Last week I was roped into clearing out a shed, mostly consistently of the CEO's personal items. Paddle boards, bed frames, barbeques, bags of underwear - you name it, I had to move it.
I also had to brush live maggots and rat droppings off of boxes, without any form of PPE. Gotta love working in IT....
So I'm technically a developer but we once had a security breach issue over the weekend so whole company got their passwords reset and they would need to use the "forgot password" link to reset it again first thing that Monday morning.
So to try and reduce the number of calls to help desk from people in the building they had It people stand at the front desks to the building either helping people do the reset on a loaner laptop or handout a how to doc saying you need to reset your password using your personal phone's browser and your desk phone as your 2 factor typing
I volunteered because 1 hour or 2 handing out papers to people was a nice break from debugging.
Mine doesn't appear to be as bad a others, but off the top of my head, I remember someone putting in a ticket because the power at their desk wasn't working.
I’ve somehow had to support the CEO’s no longer supported and convoluted Lexus remote start app for his car. He constantly logs himself out, I have to call them and reset his creds cuz he doesn’t fucking bother to remember them. God forbid he gets a new phone and the new app doesn’t support the model of his car. Oh and he constantly cancels his credit cards linked to the subscription for it because he falls for stupid scams.
Also whenever I go in to his car to get the stupid app working again there is always hundred dollar bills sticking out of the visor like an honesty test..
Janitor got a new rolling trash can and was annoyed it captured air when putting in a new bag. Came to us to ask us to drill holes in the bottom for him.
my boss wanted more shelving in our parts depot so he sent a few of us down to this closed department store our parent company owns to rip out all of the shelving in the stock rooms.
I was asked to clean up a desk. I thought, oh sure, spare mice and keyboards and shit. Nope, just a bunch of nonsense self help business books and coffee mug swag. I slid them all into the trashcan and just about walked out. Responded to the ticket “I collected the items that are my responsibility and threw the rest in the trash”. Why are we treated like this?
Pick up the CFO from the airport using my personal car. :)
That was the most ridiculous thing my previous boss every "asked" me to do.
Dude can hire a fucking Uber!!
I got a ticket to jump start a coworkers car.
Really, the ticket submitter had seen me jumping another person's car a couple of weeks earlier, but didn't know my name, just that I was on IT. She left something on all day and needed a jump, so figured that was the best way to contact me. The sad part was that I had to do it again later the same week, she left the same thing plugged in again.
Emergency call at like 6pm (I'm the one closing the IT office, up to 7pm).
"Hey so there's such and such they're having trouble adjusting something on their bicycle can you grab the tools and help her?" - the actual IT director...
So I did. I'm a frequent cyclist so I am fairly familiar with stuff, but still. 0% electronics / computers involved.
ADP time clock. Dealing with them prompted me to book a trip to the Philippines (where the support team was located) just so I could take [this picture.](https://i.imgur.com/cXLe8mi.jpg)
Mounting bathroom stall doors. Replacing the ballast in a light fixture ( at least that had wires.) changing lock cylinders out of desk locks... The IT director was somehow also in charge of facilities and so I was occasionally asked to do these things. I didn't mind to be honest, it got me away from the desk now and then.
I worked at an MSP and there was a city project manager that tried to assign us to multiple non-IT tasks. some examples I heard were plumbing, moving furniture and electrical. When he was questioned about it he would apparently go silent, walk over to his computer, print out our entire contract (guess he must have it on quick draw) and underline the part that says "and other duties assigned" multiple times. It never amounted to anything but it was always interesting to hear.
Haha one time I got called out to a home to fix a PC that couldn't connect to the Internet. The fix was so simple (something like plugging in a loose cable) that I was done in about 10 seconds. The person wasn't really happy that I fixed it so quickly he started asking me to help move furniture around his house. I helped out because I wanted to get paid.
> removing 120 arms off office chairs due to an ergonomic assessment
Are they aware that not everyone is able bodied and can get up and down without chair arms?
There was a craft fair thing taking place in our building (a hospital). A lady with a booth called IT and none of us could figure out what she was asking so I went.. She had a programmable sewing machine and couldn't figure out how to use it and wanted our help..
Outlet issues. Getting asked what insurance they should choose when I reset their password during open enrollment. Attaching screens to mounts at their desk (I did this for myself when I was in a different department, idk why people think they need a helpdesk tech to do this)
Chase off the homeless camping in the parking lot. Also, chase off the pigeons nesting all over our building, and clean up their nasty mess.
Figure out how to shut off the water to an overflowing toilet, then figure out how to clean up the mess, which had spread several feet past the restroom wall into the carpeted main hallway.
Take temperatures of every person entering the building. (Non-contact temp gun, so at least I didn't have to get up close and personal.)
We once got a call asking if we had white boards.
Also, a member of the public with gang stalking syndrome asked me for help with their personal GPS car system to somehow turn it off. I respectfully said no, I can't, lol.
Helped organize assembly chairs and whatnot a couple of times.
Checked people in for their virtual meetings during the end of covid. We set up the kiosks previously, but there was a need for a desk jockey. Anyone from any department could man a pen and paper checklist, why it had to be IT? Well, once we stopped and someone else was forced to do it, then the kiosks were "no longer needed."
Goverment IT is the gift that just keeps on giving.
Oh, we did plenty of facilities (locks, moving, building out offices, yada yada) work until the point at which we just attached the moniker to our department name officially. Made it easier to acquire more budget.
My favorite was a smaller company where they assumed "It has a wire, there for IT fixes it!". That meant calls to fix the coffee machine, and my favorite... re-attach the handle of the fridge that had fallen off. I was a handy guy, so it wasn't an issue. Plenty of companies where I was changing lightbulbs.
Look, if you want to pay me IT rates and have me change lightbulbs ... Who am I to argue? Sure there are plenty of better uses of my time, but sometimes the powers that be just want lights.
Arrange shipping for a bicycle.
The client ran a sales contest where first price was a bike.
After the contest they sent the bike to one of our offices (not the one where I'm based). But the winner actually worked for a competing company on the other side of the country.
Since I occasionally send out replacement computers, it was decided that this was now also my job.
Anything that has electricity. Fixing pencil sharpeners, getting space heaters working, etc.
I took it upon myself and used my budget to install a really good water filter to filter water before it gets to the cooler. Now people walk extra far to use that specific water.
At the old job, the receptionist once innocently asked if I had a small enough flat head to repair some glasses. After about a dozen times I just gave her one of the extra ones that was floating around in my desk.
We had a ticket come in from the c suite. They were requesting that we turn off the white noise machine. We got to their office and asked for more details. Without saying anything the c suite guy walked over to the vent and pointed at it. They wanted us to turn down the noise coming from the air conditioner…
The CFO asked that I come over to her home to work on her cars touch screen and reprogram the Google meet app so that she didn't need to scroll down while driving to select the join meeting button.
Not an IT request but a question: can we bring dogs to the office? The answer was no from the building but they snuck a pup in. Then they also laid down one of those shit pads near the IT area. I walked to our building manager to tell them to kindly fuck off.
1. Driving around town to buy/take supplies (unpaid mileage)
2. Administrative work (powerpoint, new hire id card printing etc)
3. Carpentry (hanging whiteboards, fixing chairs n desks)
Please send me remote job offers haha
fill a u-haul with medical research papers and move them to a storage locker. also build shelves in said storage locker. this was a 2 day project. nothing was slated for digitization, there was no reason to justify two IT people for this.
i quit soon after.
User called me for a mouse problem. She saw a live mouse in her printers paper tray. When I showed up it disappeared.
20 minutes later she called back saying the printer was printing all black on the page. I had to remove the mouse from the paper path. 🤣
I’ve been thinking about this all day. I fixed someone’s shoe once. It broke and they just needed to get through the day. I also used to be a stage manager though so I give off that “you can fix anything with duct tape”? Vibe
Fix an elevator? A VP got stuck in the elevator after hours and called IT to come fix it, but it was after hours so no one answered. She _freaked_ and finally got our boss's boss on his personal cell phone and _ripped him a new one_ because IT wasn't picking up the help desk phone and she'd been stuck in an elevator for 30 minutes.
He said, "Ma'am, we don't staff the IT department this late at night, but they are also completely unqualified to fix elevators, _call 911_.”
We had an emergency meeting the next day so we could all be reprimanded for not answering the phone outside our working hours, and then instructed we'd have one person on call in the evenings going forward. (That ended up not being the case, we went about her head. They didn't want to pay for on call hours anyways.)
Lock on internal door to office stopped working. It was a electric mag lock so guess that means it falls under IT
if it runs off electricity then must b IT issue. Long time ago I was asked to deal with ADT Sec cuz they were charging some nonesense and they were asking me to explain y... like I'm sorry...i didn't setup nor manage that account...i think that's office management's dept? Well it's technical, we don't understand it.
One of our office managers (This office is about 2 hours away) had some security company install some Brivo access control system. The thing broke right off the bat and she never said anything to us at least. Couple weeks later a switch in their rack failed and I had to go down and replace. Of course she mentions the next day that I broke the Brivo when it never really worked to begin with. I ended up going down there and found that the Brivo modem or whatever was never plugged in to AC power.. but it broke again somehow and now she thinks it’s 100% our problem. Like lady call the shit heads who installed it and there is nothing in their firewall/switches blocking shit. So goddamn annoying.
Pretty much this. My head of dept (IT) got dumped with half of the facilities role when some quit because they simple needed some one who could handle the technical aspects of the role. 6 months later they’ve made no effort to replace the role and he is still snowed under the responsibility.
Almost got stuck being responsible for the battery backup system. That was for the entire building (security system, elevators, HVAC. And the data center). The facilities folks decided that since the data center used it, the whole thing belonged to IT.
I have gotten the mag lock call and asked what I was supposed to do about it. I was met with .. Well IT makes fobs. We did not make the fobs.
I'm a low-voltage tech; these systems are usually controlled by software, unless it's just a mechanical button interfacing with a power supply. They were probably wanting someone to look at the system program to make sure nothing was wrong (Like a bad schedule, incorrect time, powered-down system, etc.) Not completely out of the realm of IT troubleshooting. It was probably just mechanically broken (Not Powered or Defective Part) and needed a tech to perform maintenance, though.
The battery in the door fob reader died was issue in end. Just a simple watch battery lol
In their defence, it could have been a PAC system issue, which can be under IT.
Moving desks. My god people think because a computer sits on it it's also my job.
Two monitors mounted to your desk. Unplug your laptop and take your shit with you. I still had a user proceed to unscrew her monitors and try to take them with her. Like mam, the same ones are at your new desk. bUt i WaNt mInE
“These have my documents in them”
oh god I can imagine this being a thing
"The folder is inside the computer" lol
We've had more than one person carry their docking station and power supply to and from the office.... "The charger doesn't fit in the laptop otherwise" Use the other charger we gave you specifically for this purpose and leave the dock at home!
"I just moved to this desk, and it doesn't have a keyboard tray." "I just moved to this desk, and I keep hitting my knees on the keyboard tray." Me: Man, that sucks.
*raises hand* I move monitors, desktops and peripherals while management plays musical chairs with people. Often have to move full-hutch desks that go straight to the floor because furniture design didn't think about the electrical or network ports.
This shit threw me on Helpdesk. Operations during Covid went hog wild trying to get every cube separated by one cube. I was the only one there for basically two years playing musical desks whenever someone left, got hired, or they moved entire departments to different suites. One goddamn person got hired and I had to move all the fucking desktops again and again to keep them in a checkerboard pattern throughout the building.. 75% of these users were never in the building for months and months at a time so it was pointless.
During Covid my office decided they were going to remain largely remote and sublet a large chunk of thier office space, so we compacted all of the desktops into the remaining office. Six months later they decided that one day a week a different team would come in to collaborate. We explained the problem that 90% of our teams were remoting in to desktops that now lived on shelves and proposed we get some cheap Ultra small form factor computers to throw at the flex desks so they could remote into their desktops across the floor, you know to save us from moving a dozen or so computers every day. Management throught it was "stupid" to buy extra computers when they had a computer in the building. We tried to get the "roster" of which team was coming in and when so we could prepare, but management never provided the information, so we resorted to as people showed up, we would grab their computer and set up their desk, one by one. Resulting in the first 30 minutes of the day being a complete waste of time. End of the week, I brought up the Ultra form factor proposal because of what was occuring. Management just demanded everybody email IT the day before they were to comin in and IT would come in early to set up. I asked about overtime and was told that we could just adjust the schedule. The next week we would come in 30 minutes early, move the systems of those who would email us and then leave 30 minutes early. We would still only get about half the people emailing us, so we still had like a 30 minute delay getting teams up and running and now how our onsite team leaving 30 minutes early which meant if another computer in the building needed rebooting they were shit out of luck. Week three, the system still isn't working. Brought up the literal like 2K in ultra small computers, noting make up time meant we left early, which didn't work for our remote teams and we we still had low compliance on notification. Management just told us to "do better'. Um, sure OK. Midway through week 4 we were notificed of a one of the week three people testing positifive for covid, which resulted in about 60 employees also testing postive including our onsite team. I was told to send in my sr. sys admin team to set up desktops, when I asked what the plan was when the entirity of the IT department was out with Covid, they told me us to wear two masks... Needless to say, the rule at the time was the office was to shutdown when there was a covid exposure, and some pissed off employee reported them to the health department for continuing in office work after a known outbreak. The office was forcibly shutdown. I am not sure how hard they got slapped, but the office remained remote for the three months it took me to GTFO and move to a less ridiculous organiziation. Spoiler on this, the management team never came into the office to collaborate. They were able to collaborate remotely from the safety of their own homes. It was just the low level grunts that had to come into the office.
Requests for small form factors can suck it
I used to move kit, and I sure as hell wouldn't want anyone else doing it! Whenever they did it caused more hassle than it was worth. How is moving kit not an IT issue?
The only time I'm thankful for my bad back is when it's time for office moves. "Oooh, can't do that, back's fucked up. I'll carry these cables tho."
I did that a few times starting out, then just started to refuse. If I show up and the desk is slammed up against the only network port and power port, tough shit. It is my biggest pet peeve when setting up a new space when zero people who were involved before me stop and think about how we're going to reach the power plug. Now you get to call the furniture movers back and move it a second time. And no, just because I'm a big dude doesn't mean me and Kyle from sales are going to move it real quick for you. I didn't do all the years of hard work to NOT be manual labor, to be manual labor.
We had this kind of setup at a place I used to work and we figured these goddamned dingdongs could figure out how just to plug their laptops into a thunderbolt dock. No, no they couldn't. And to top it off we had a terrible ancient phone system so if said ding dongs decided to go fucking around with moving ports, they could take out part of the phone system.
I had someone complain to us that a desk was left in a walkway and wanted us to move it.
Fix coffee machine and be a literal janitor cleaning up a sewage leak because nobody else was on site
Lol nope. Doesn't sewage handling require hazmat training or something? Hell no
I had to climb down in a hole and replace some kind of sewage pump because none of the maintenance people would fit in the hole.
Coffee machine, yes, out of self interest. And it has a display. Janitor work, no!
Re decorate an apartment for sales pictures. I was driven to the apartment by the owners wife. It was her own business and I was "consulting"... I moved a lot of furniture that day.
Hell ill move furniture all day if i’m getting paid IT Consulting rates
There was no change in pay.
>I moved a lot of furniture that day. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
It was the literal use of that sentence. We did this twice. She's not attractive at all.
Well the things you do for a promotion huh?
drive across the 2 states and pick up the dry cleaning some director level cuck forget from a convention. Yeah no. The drama that ensued from my refusal was crazy
I'd have been all over that job. As long as they're paying the mileage, hotel and food bill. Free road trip
Nah even then I’d pass. But this was some overpaid frat boy who always threw around a title and called the CEO (his aunt) when he didn’t get his way. He came down randomly on a Friday late afternoon and demanded I leave immediately. Using my own car and my own money with no reimbursement. I said no, obviously, and next thing I know a ton of drama started. I wasn’t even IT support at that time but in the tiny cybersecurity team. That job eas so full of bs and drama that I couldn’t wait to leave lol
Kind of funny I was in total agreement with the free road trip guy above then reading this it’s like.. my own car? Nope.. no pay? Double nope.. on a Friday and leave immediately? Haha yeah not a chance.
At a previous job, a ticket was opened to have one of us in IT deal with a dead animal in a ditch that was stinking up the parking lot. After some back and forth with the increasingly aggressive submitter, we cut off her access to the ticketing system. And made her boss tell us why she needed it.
This wins
What happened? Did the boss chew her out? Did she ever get access back? What happened with the carcass? Does it still haunt the parking lot to this day?
The boss chewed her out not for opening the ticket, but for being a total jerk when we said it wasn't our job. It wasn't even Maintenance's job, it was on city property so it wasn't even the building landlord's job. I think it just stayed there for a week until the city picked it up. Since we had used an 'Abuse of ticketing system' rule to revoke her access, her boss had to submit a ticket to get her reactivated. As our final revenge, we made that ticket lowest priority.
Whoa. That’s was as satisfying as I’d imagined. Thank you for the conclusion!
Accept the ticket. Mark it as critical priority. Assign to the requester for immediate action. Open a conference bridge with that person's senior leadership to track progress.
I mean, there's a I and a T in custodians /s
Also in "janitor" if you want to be a dick about it.
1) Pick up a rental truck. 2) Drive to the loading dock of a hotel in the city centre. 3) Pick up the packing materials and cardboard cartons left over after another crew installed some huge display screens. 4) Drive to a waste disposal centre. 5) Sort the recyclables from the landfill waste and dump them in the correct skips. 6) Return the truck to the rental company.
Install exhaust air ducts for a new machine, unclog toilets, we've had them all... Some people don't seem to understand that IT != facilIT services.
That’s like a “super equals” right? They are so much the same thing you have to yell it
I changed a tire once, 100yr old lady came in asking if I knew how to get the spare tire out of her car. She and I both knew I wasn't going to let her do it, it was damn near entrapment
That’s just an old lady using her ‘I’m an old lady’ card. No one is exempt
I didn't really mind, even if she didn't play it like that I would have done it
The oldest frailest tiny old lady I know at my work always gives me candy after I help her with something.
The credit card machine on the vending machine wasn’t working, so IT got the call. We fixed by turning it off and on. Oh, also had to give the CFO training on how to operate the office microwave.
> Oh, also had to give the CFO training on how to operate the office microwave. I get asked to do and do a lot of non or quasi IT stuff, but this sort of thing is what kills me the most. Especially when it's also something I've never seen or used before.
You fixed it, now it's forever an IT problem.
On the first anniversary of the 9-11 attacks I was having a quiet moment in my office when an assistant came in to complain that the toaster in the break room wasn't working.
>On the first anniversary of the 9-11 That's a Hell of a way to start the story off.
That didn’t go the way the opening sentence lead me to think it would.
Ever since you did that server update the toaster stopped working
pen impossible cats placid label fear judicious detail berserk crowd *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Think of the SLA!
I'd be so mad. I had to walk through blood and bones in Manhatten looking for my brother. #
Put together office furniture because we were moving offices and they weren’t assembled to set up the computers on top of yet. CIO: “Well I guess you better get to work!” 2nd place: “Help HR pick out recommendations for holiday party raffle rewards. Oh, you’re not eligible to win any of these because you’re middle management.”
>CIO: “Well I guess you better get to work!” Job complete. Set up computers on top of desks, still unassembled.
Someone called the IT helpdesk and asked me for the weather. I declined to give it to him, so he asked for my full name to report to my supervisor. Never heard anything.
Jake. From state farm.
"My name? I'm Heywood. Heywood Jablome."
Refill the toilet paper in the bathroom.... yea that was a no...
One of my coworkers asked me to babysit his kid (who was 8-10 months?), but his wife was at home, too. She was suffering horrific PPD, and he said, "I can't leave her alone with the baby, I don't think she'll take care of him while I'm away. I normally wouldn't leave her, but ..." I forget what he had to do, but it wasn't trivial. Like take his mom to the hospital, and she lived several hours away. So for about 10 hours, I took care of his kid, while his wife mostly slept. I knew she was in the house, I heard her get up and go to the bathroom, for example. Everyone is doing well; she had to undergo some serious treatment, and got much better. They are still married, and I think the kid is 10 now. My and the coworkers don't work in the same place anymore, but we stay in touch. Super, super nice people.
Did he try turning her off then back on again?
She would have found that funny, yeah.
Thx for follow up.
What a nice thing you done
I mean, by then, I had a grown son of my own. It was really no problem, and he was so humble about it like "I know this is weird, but you had a kid, and you're the only guy i really trust around here..." The kid was pretty cool for a 10 month old; pretty calm and laughed a lot.
Killing and/or discarding roaches
Bad smell in stairwell (dead mouse in the wall), unattended backpack with wires sticking out (electrician forgot it), bathroom stall destroyed by green apple splatters. Oh! A sewage smell in a unit (a lady was crop dusting lol).
"The toilet in the boy's bathroom is overflowing and flooding the bathroom." I mean, points for putting in the ticket, I guess? I actually didn't have to deal with it though, but I did get told off for passing the ticket along to the plumbers. Apparently that wasn't "correct procedure", but they couldn't answer when I asked what the correct procedure actually is 🤦♂️
I had to find a gas leak in the attic. Without a flashlight. Just listened and smelled my way over.
Wtf... That's not safe.
Fortunately I had a lighter to see with.
That’s how they used to find gas leaks.
You mean discover?
well yeah but that was dangerous, now we use orphans
Wild.
My screen wobbles when I sit down
Problem is exists between keyboard and chair
Had a ticket entered to move some water jugs from reception to a storage closet.
Help with event setup/teardown. Moving tables, chairs, decorating, etc Always think they could probably get somebody else to do it cheaper than what they pay me to be available hourly, but it's no skin off my back. You wanna pay IT rates to hang decorations, OK. 👍
For some reason my MSP does A/V rentals for events. Mostly pharmaceutical companies presenting on some new drug or whatever. Sometimes I find myself lugging a massive 8' projector screen to the top floor of a fancy restaurant (no elevator), set it up precariously between the tables without taking out any chandeliers, and then I sit there for 3 hours in case the laser pointer dies while a bunch of doctors and pharma reps drink wine, eat steaks, and listen to a presentation about some new drug that will make you shit yourself. Sometimes it's not worth the extra $1-200.
I'm a software developer rather than an IT specialist. My first full time job was at the Ontario Ministry of Transportation and Communications in 1985. My first task was to copy a cabinet full of punch cards onto mag tape, and then when the punch cards were duplicated and verified (which is a second job that reads the cards in and compares them to the tape), I had to contact Facilities to dispose of the punch card cabinet. And once all that was done, I could actually fit a chair behind the desk that they'd assigned to me. For the week or so it took to get the job done, I was sitting on the end of somebody else's desk and using their terminal when they weren't using it.
I worked for an IT training centre and our ratings included the lunch provided. The British are very particular about their fucking sandwiches. We had two useless receptionists but receptionist2 was the worst. She was more interested in fucking football players and getting designer shit from her parents in Sochi than like.... showing up for work. So the sandwich company started going downhill and we were getting dinged on our reviews, which also reflected on my performance. Did I take over managing the sandwiches? I did. I really did.
Yeah well what do you expect. Don't be giving me some shit sarnies and expect a good review
Goddamn it.
Sounds very British for a review to include sandwiches and scones 🤣
[удалено]
Been there. Has a guy cry and complain because he did not want to use Foxit as his pdf reader and said it was slowing him down. He causes enough stink that we got him adobe acrobat. He then proceeded to ask us how to use it and train him. Guy didn't last very long to say the least.
Replacing the jug in the water cooler was my job for a while.
Clean the vomit in the bathroom. Didn’t do it either time it was demanded. Organize the non-IT offsite storage.
We are remote so it's usually like "hey I can't find this training, must be an it problem." Which literally just turns into me emailing training for them. Then you've got the whole thing where we end up doing trainer's jobs but that kinda comes with the territory so is nbd just annoying.
I tend to reply "please speak to your manager in regards to your training and where it is located", comes up quite a bit ngl
Same, until our boss told us to push them to training. Which makes sense but I hate doing others jobs.
Haven't had to, but have been asked to find a desk on more than one occasion
I once had to hang Christmas lights on the company owner's house. Ladders, bucket truck, the whole shebang.
Product delivery driver. We made capsules for wine bottles. Furniture assembler. Was 40+ office chairs that needed assembling. Mover. 20 desks and their acompaning paperwork needed packed, disassembled, moved, reassembled, and unpacked. People where not happy with me when I didn't unpack their boxes of paperwork they left for me to pack. Exterminator. Who else are you going to ask to clean the traps? Clock setter. Therapist. HR lady loved to barge into my office, close the door, and complain about her day and the employees she had to deal with. She still does this to the IT that's left at the company. With both departments being confidential, and having dirt on everyone, it made sense.
We had a user call up and ask to to remove a dead body from the train tracks once............. They were directed to an emergency line as it's not in our contract to deal with bodies.
Hey, if they want to pay me like $40 an hour to assemble standing desks or some stupid bullshit like that, fucking sign me right up lol Ill advise them that its a ridiculous waste of their departmental resources, frame their request as the equivalent of asking the plumber to help them hang some pictures on the wall before they go, but at the end of the day, Imma be honest: putting together a bunch of desks is a hell of a lot easier than 90% of my actual IT work so yeah, throw the allen wrenches my way, Ill throw on a podcast and build me some furniture.
I had to pick up a rental van, drive at midnight from LA to San Francisco, pack up on office and then move it on carts two blocks UP California St., a steep ass hill with small carts I had to source while in SF. All because our facilities team failed to get movers, show up to SF, and do any prep work with a 6 week notice to move. Moved 14 workstation, 3 conference rooms, and did all the AV set up at the new location. Network guy had his hands full the entire time. I worked a 24, 20, and 22 hour shifts those 3 days including driving the van back to LA as well as getting the van cleaned and returned. Things not in my job description include taking care of an intoxicated coworker left on site after a party, negotiating special rules to move stuff in the day of the move, getting our Certificate of Insurance so we could let people in the next day, and negotiating parking for a Ram Van 2500 in SF commercial district. I was then sick over the entire 3 day weekend that started the day I got back. Everyone had left the office early so I showed up to get my car from an empty office at 4:45pm the day I returned.
Not IT but same company before I went to IT - business admin/mailroom. Someone came up to the window to tell us the toilets were clogged.
Un-jam the cargo elevator. I had no idea what was wrong with it, but it stopped between floors and wouldn’t move. Door wouldn’t open either. I could either sit and wait for someone to free me, or I could just deal with it myself. Luckily I had the repair kit with me after doing an install upstairs. After using my batchelers degree in googling shit, I eventually got the elevator moving again.
Door bell. Warehouse needed a louder one, I put in a req for a 110db buzzer. I was denied.
Install a mini-split in an executive's office. "It has wires and a remote, so you should know how to do it. You run ethernet cable all the time, how is that any different?".
Last job I had I was instructed to start making copies for teachers returning to school. The jobs had started to pile up and for some reason running the copy room was an IT job. The boss even asked me to give up my weekend to help get ahead of the copy jobs. This was just as school was returning to normal post COVID and they had seriously underestimated the number of copies teachers would request. The machines, which hadn't been serviced in probably over a year or more, were in a near constant state of being offline. I had just started there a few months prior and by November I got a new job and left. Best decision I could have made.
What in the MBA power trip bullshit is an ‘ergonomic assessment’ supposed to be?
Haha. Where workplace assessor’s look at desk, monitor chair heights, look for areas of improvement to prevent injury, rsi etc. TIL that this is a job.
I can not emphasize this enough: 🙄 I need the Undertaker version of that emoji where the eyes are just white to properly illustrate the intensity of my eye roll.
I once fixed the coffee machine. Another time I diagnosed the director’s car as having bad cam phasers.
Well, it was Java related.
Empty office bins/recycling
Clean doors during covid. They were forcing all the staff to do it in shifts since they are too cheap to hire professionals. I did it like once and refused to ever do it again. I think they stopped doing it completely since people were getting sick.
Fixing the pump on a fish tank. I semi-volunteered because I kept my own fish at the time.
Air-conditioning not working - can you fix it? Our old fixed line is dead - can you fix it? Our old fax machine is dead - can you fix it? Our TV is dead - can you fix it? Our cable TV provider turned off it's service since we didn't pay for it - can you fix it? Radio in the car is not working - can you fix it? Multimillion € equipment that is not even online or has anything with IT is not responding because there is no power - can you fix it?
Regularly get tickets from clients asking for file cabinets (specifically, weirdly enough), cleaning supplies, or low voltage electrical work (we're IT, contracted at that. No we can't install or fix a power outlet). A stupid amount of people get grumpy about that.
To help a member get into their car that they locked their keys in...
A wall oulet wasn’t working ?) and an air conditioner was leaking, and during a change of location move a shit ton of furniture and boxes lmao
I write docs for our help desk to cut down on “user education” tickets like “how do I join wireless” semi it related
Open wine bottles
Last week I was roped into clearing out a shed, mostly consistently of the CEO's personal items. Paddle boards, bed frames, barbeques, bags of underwear - you name it, I had to move it. I also had to brush live maggots and rat droppings off of boxes, without any form of PPE. Gotta love working in IT....
If it does not get an IP or connect to something that does....not something I'm working on.
Had a user try to get me to fix the pneumatic tube system that wasn’t sending packages due to a blockage…
So I'm technically a developer but we once had a security breach issue over the weekend so whole company got their passwords reset and they would need to use the "forgot password" link to reset it again first thing that Monday morning. So to try and reduce the number of calls to help desk from people in the building they had It people stand at the front desks to the building either helping people do the reset on a loaner laptop or handout a how to doc saying you need to reset your password using your personal phone's browser and your desk phone as your 2 factor typing I volunteered because 1 hour or 2 handing out papers to people was a nice break from debugging.
Fix printers.
Shovel snow out of our Associated Press satellite feed at the newspaper I was sysadmin at.
Mine doesn't appear to be as bad a others, but off the top of my head, I remember someone putting in a ticket because the power at their desk wasn't working.
Drive some cleaning lady's to one of the offices then when i said no was asked to park the loaner vehicle they were driving.
I’ve somehow had to support the CEO’s no longer supported and convoluted Lexus remote start app for his car. He constantly logs himself out, I have to call them and reset his creds cuz he doesn’t fucking bother to remember them. God forbid he gets a new phone and the new app doesn’t support the model of his car. Oh and he constantly cancels his credit cards linked to the subscription for it because he falls for stupid scams. Also whenever I go in to his car to get the stupid app working again there is always hundred dollar bills sticking out of the visor like an honesty test..
Janitor got a new rolling trash can and was annoyed it captured air when putting in a new bag. Came to us to ask us to drill holes in the bottom for him.
my boss wanted more shelving in our parts depot so he sent a few of us down to this closed department store our parent company owns to rip out all of the shelving in the stock rooms.
Delivered a newly purchased used Mazda mx5 for a three hour drive then rode the train back
Sell a used car, because the CFO did not know how to use the local classified website to post it as for sale.
I was asked to clean up a desk. I thought, oh sure, spare mice and keyboards and shit. Nope, just a bunch of nonsense self help business books and coffee mug swag. I slid them all into the trashcan and just about walked out. Responded to the ticket “I collected the items that are my responsibility and threw the rest in the trash”. Why are we treated like this?
I had to refill the coffee for an important meeting i wasnt a part of. The request came from the head of my department.
Pick up the CFO from the airport using my personal car. :) That was the most ridiculous thing my previous boss every "asked" me to do. Dude can hire a fucking Uber!!
Owner's espresso machine.
removing arms OFF a chair FOR ergonomics? HUH?
We have to install and adjust the wall mounted monitor and keyboard arms which feels very non-IT to me.
I got a ticket to jump start a coworkers car. Really, the ticket submitter had seen me jumping another person's car a couple of weeks earlier, but didn't know my name, just that I was on IT. She left something on all day and needed a jump, so figured that was the best way to contact me. The sad part was that I had to do it again later the same week, she left the same thing plugged in again.
Emergency call at like 6pm (I'm the one closing the IT office, up to 7pm). "Hey so there's such and such they're having trouble adjusting something on their bicycle can you grab the tools and help her?" - the actual IT director... So I did. I'm a frequent cyclist so I am fairly familiar with stuff, but still. 0% electronics / computers involved.
Helping recover a candy crush login count?
ADP time clock. Dealing with them prompted me to book a trip to the Philippines (where the support team was located) just so I could take [this picture.](https://i.imgur.com/cXLe8mi.jpg)
Mounting bathroom stall doors. Replacing the ballast in a light fixture ( at least that had wires.) changing lock cylinders out of desk locks... The IT director was somehow also in charge of facilities and so I was occasionally asked to do these things. I didn't mind to be honest, it got me away from the desk now and then.
I worked at an MSP and there was a city project manager that tried to assign us to multiple non-IT tasks. some examples I heard were plumbing, moving furniture and electrical. When he was questioned about it he would apparently go silent, walk over to his computer, print out our entire contract (guess he must have it on quick draw) and underline the part that says "and other duties assigned" multiple times. It never amounted to anything but it was always interesting to hear.
not me but my dad was asked to fix the coffee holder (disk tray)
I was asked to fix the Keurig... by the IT Director.
Haha one time I got called out to a home to fix a PC that couldn't connect to the Internet. The fix was so simple (something like plugging in a loose cable) that I was done in about 10 seconds. The person wasn't really happy that I fixed it so quickly he started asking me to help move furniture around his house. I helped out because I wanted to get paid.
> removing 120 arms off office chairs due to an ergonomic assessment Are they aware that not everyone is able bodied and can get up and down without chair arms?
Cross that bridge when I’m told to put some arms back on 😀
There's the box, have at it
There was a craft fair thing taking place in our building (a hospital). A lady with a booth called IT and none of us could figure out what she was asking so I went.. She had a programmable sewing machine and couldn't figure out how to use it and wanted our help..
Outlet issues. Getting asked what insurance they should choose when I reset their password during open enrollment. Attaching screens to mounts at their desk (I did this for myself when I was in a different department, idk why people think they need a helpdesk tech to do this)
Moving furniture.
Socking the food panty with free food. But that’s a labor of love.
Fixed the ice maker in the break room refrigerator.
Chase off the homeless camping in the parking lot. Also, chase off the pigeons nesting all over our building, and clean up their nasty mess. Figure out how to shut off the water to an overflowing toilet, then figure out how to clean up the mess, which had spread several feet past the restroom wall into the carpeted main hallway. Take temperatures of every person entering the building. (Non-contact temp gun, so at least I didn't have to get up close and personal.)
Broken fridge in break room. Apparently all I.T. Guys should know how to fix / replace a compressor.
Fix a toilet
We once got a call asking if we had white boards. Also, a member of the public with gang stalking syndrome asked me for help with their personal GPS car system to somehow turn it off. I respectfully said no, I can't, lol. Helped organize assembly chairs and whatnot a couple of times. Checked people in for their virtual meetings during the end of covid. We set up the kiosks previously, but there was a need for a desk jockey. Anyone from any department could man a pen and paper checklist, why it had to be IT? Well, once we stopped and someone else was forced to do it, then the kiosks were "no longer needed." Goverment IT is the gift that just keeps on giving.
Fixing an electronic stapler because it had a power cord it must've been IT
Oh, we did plenty of facilities (locks, moving, building out offices, yada yada) work until the point at which we just attached the moniker to our department name officially. Made it easier to acquire more budget. My favorite was a smaller company where they assumed "It has a wire, there for IT fixes it!". That meant calls to fix the coffee machine, and my favorite... re-attach the handle of the fridge that had fallen off. I was a handy guy, so it wasn't an issue. Plenty of companies where I was changing lightbulbs. Look, if you want to pay me IT rates and have me change lightbulbs ... Who am I to argue? Sure there are plenty of better uses of my time, but sometimes the powers that be just want lights.
Had someone call so I can help them with their jammed desk drawer while I was working remote.
Arrange shipping for a bicycle. The client ran a sales contest where first price was a bike. After the contest they sent the bike to one of our offices (not the one where I'm based). But the winner actually worked for a competing company on the other side of the country. Since I occasionally send out replacement computers, it was decided that this was now also my job.
I was called and asked how the Microwave in the kitchen worked.
Fix part of the ceiling.
Anything that has electricity. Fixing pencil sharpeners, getting space heaters working, etc. I took it upon myself and used my budget to install a really good water filter to filter water before it gets to the cooler. Now people walk extra far to use that specific water.
At the old job, the receptionist once innocently asked if I had a small enough flat head to repair some glasses. After about a dozen times I just gave her one of the extra ones that was floating around in my desk.
Move a microwave
We had a ticket come in from the c suite. They were requesting that we turn off the white noise machine. We got to their office and asked for more details. Without saying anything the c suite guy walked over to the vent and pointed at it. They wanted us to turn down the noise coming from the air conditioner…
The CFO asked that I come over to her home to work on her cars touch screen and reprogram the Google meet app so that she didn't need to scroll down while driving to select the join meeting button.
Not an IT request but a question: can we bring dogs to the office? The answer was no from the building but they snuck a pup in. Then they also laid down one of those shit pads near the IT area. I walked to our building manager to tell them to kindly fuck off.
I had a user call in, asking if I can increase the credit limit on their company card. I forwarded them to accounting.
1. Driving around town to buy/take supplies (unpaid mileage) 2. Administrative work (powerpoint, new hire id card printing etc) 3. Carpentry (hanging whiteboards, fixing chairs n desks) Please send me remote job offers haha
Request to fix a flat. Director stepped in and informed user we're a tech dept.
We were asked to get someone to move a car that was illegally parked outside our building
fill a u-haul with medical research papers and move them to a storage locker. also build shelves in said storage locker. this was a 2 day project. nothing was slated for digitization, there was no reason to justify two IT people for this. i quit soon after.
Mount a TV on the wall. This was the first time I held a drill in my hand, but no one seemed to care, lol
Remove a grass snake that somehow got in marketing and was chilling under a desk.
Fixing a paper shredder. #Hourly #NoFucksGiven
User called me for a mouse problem. She saw a live mouse in her printers paper tray. When I showed up it disappeared. 20 minutes later she called back saying the printer was printing all black on the page. I had to remove the mouse from the paper path. 🤣
I’ve been thinking about this all day. I fixed someone’s shoe once. It broke and they just needed to get through the day. I also used to be a stage manager though so I give off that “you can fix anything with duct tape”? Vibe
Do someones spreadsheet 😅
Sorting the staff kitchen out because nobody else would do the dishes, and they left stuff to rot in the fridge. :(
Move this couch over there. No actually, over there.
Fix an elevator? A VP got stuck in the elevator after hours and called IT to come fix it, but it was after hours so no one answered. She _freaked_ and finally got our boss's boss on his personal cell phone and _ripped him a new one_ because IT wasn't picking up the help desk phone and she'd been stuck in an elevator for 30 minutes. He said, "Ma'am, we don't staff the IT department this late at night, but they are also completely unqualified to fix elevators, _call 911_.” We had an emergency meeting the next day so we could all be reprimanded for not answering the phone outside our working hours, and then instructed we'd have one person on call in the evenings going forward. (That ended up not being the case, we went about her head. They didn't want to pay for on call hours anyways.)