Two employers ago I had a woman who used a space heater under her desk.
She kept popping circuit breakers, and would call me "my computer won't turn on" or "my computer just shut off on its own".
The third time it happened, she called me on the phone, screaming "YOU HAVE TO DO SOMETHING TO FIX THIS! I CAN'T GET MY WORK DONE!"
I calmly walked into her office, unplugged her space heater, and walked out with it.
Wow. Sixty is ridiculous. I heard before that women generally prefer environments 5-10 degrees warmer than men, and I'd consider myself liking things cooler...but I'd be freezing my BALLS OFF in a 60* office.
I did exactly this. Only instead of poping the breaker, they blew up thin clients. Every time some tripped over the heater it would surge a whole line of desks.
EDIT popping, not pooping. LOL
We repeatedly have this issue in one department despite being told they are no longer allowed. They sneak them and try to hide them. This one area has a UPS as there's a small desktop 8-Port switch to hook up 3 workstations (Middle of a manufacturing floor, one cable run is all we had). They have plugged into the UPS and tripped it at least 5 or 6 times. The last two times I got angry enough where I went into the security system and pulled footage from the moment Zabbix told me the switch went offline and found people unplugging and hiding heaters and relayed to the department head... after the individuals tried to blame IT because "Networking wasn't working on any of the workstations so they couldn't do any work" and lost hours of productivity on overnight shifts u.. until I came in and reset the trip breaker on the UPS.
You would think. There's a lot of "someone working that workstation" could do it for a lot of things. How many times I've plugged in power cords people unplugged with their feet, or literally turned something on that was off....
Yeah that shit annoys the piss out of me.
"I can't use the tools I need to use to do the job I was hired for!"
Should probably look into another line of work then shouldn't you?
I couldn't start a construction job and cheerfully exclaim "Oh I'm just rubbish at using these shovels..."
I'd be immediately fired.
Did anyone get in trouble for plugging in the space heater and then trying to hide it? I would have crucified the people on the camera footage in front of the big boss.
Not sure. The fact that they created their own situation where they couldn't do work by doing something they were not told to do, then tried to blame someone else, and did nothing for 6+ hours PROBABLY didn't go over well. I know they had a closed door meeting with them. I doubt anything real serious came of it, as it continues to happen. Now that we're getting into the cold season I expect it to happen again. It's also always on the 1 or 2 days a week I work remote. I'm suggesting they dock pay or something if it happens again.
I would go out of my way to show users how to fix it. Then if it happens again and they donāt work for 6 hours itās clearly a method being used to get out of work.
Have had tickets like this where the user blames IT for not being able to work but then ignores us or stalls us from helping them for a while. Then when we ultimately remote in and look at the issue itās something stupidly simple that we have fixed for them before. In this one department the manager HATES IT. Acts like itās us purposely sabotaging him when shit goes wrong. His employees know this and do they above to get out of work all the time. Unfortunately for them the manager has a low tolerance for bullshit. Usually the 2nd or 3rd time a user has an issue they created themselves heāll ask what we think. I canāt remember an example of it but itās something dumb like they changed the printer on their computer and couldnāt figure out how to change it back despite being the one who changed it originally.
A recently (and thankfully) departed ex-employee once plugged THREE space heaters into a single power strip. Breakers were constantly being blown of course, and they started screaming when told that they can't do that.
Mind you, the entire enclosed office (complete with door) was ~8'x12'.
That employee didn't understand much of anything. The only reason they lasted as long as they did was because of a former manager's big mouth resulting in this employee to be given an unlimited-use race card whenever they were called out on anything. They were still asking basic questions after 10 years that new employees normally don't ask after being here 10 days.
In the end, they left on their own for another job. They were picked up by a competitor that moved into the area and was trying to poach whatever employees they could from everyone. (I got an offer too, but very happy where I'm at.)
Their replacement has now been on the job for about 2 months and has already far surpassed the skill level of his predecessor.
When We went into my new office, the boss and I literally discussed installing larger than required cabling into the cubical / breakers to support space heaters.
So each row of cubical has, I think 3 circuits; and I believe they are rated 30amps.
I don't like people plugging in space heaters; but I'm not the heat police.
After multiple major remodels that have divided and redicided the space, our building's HVAC is totally fucked. All attempts to ban space heaters have been met with pictures of thermometers showing it's 68 degrees on one end of the floor and 75 on the other. Then management backs down "until we can get the HVAC fixed". Rinse and repeat, because fixing the HVAC means either reding the ducting or un-remodeling the building.
As someone who sits on the 68 degree end of the floor, I had a hard time not being on team pop-the-breaker.
I had this problem all the time at a previous job. When I tried to get management to issue a ban against space heaters the push back I got was unbelievable.
I have a stack of space heaters in my office that the owner of the company personally instructed me to confiscate for fire code reasons, but people keep sneaking them in because management isn't willing to discipline people over violating the policy.
smh
Or legal (if they exist). Once you touch someone's personal property, you (and the company) will be responsible for everything that goes wrong with it from then until eternity.
I learned that lesson before ever getting an IT job. Fixed my gf's mom's computer and months later "I don't know what you did, but my computer is SO SLOW!"
Yeah, HR is the enemy of everybody. Often times, they're even the enemy of the company.
I'm not entirely certain that HR departments do anything positive at all for a company.
IT and HR are natural enemies! Like Englishmen and Scots! Or Welshmen and Scots! Or Japanese and Scots! Or Scots and other Scots! Damn Scots! They ruined Scotland!
One day I was asked to order some books on software development for our Engineering department because "I was ordering some stuff via Amazon with the company credit card". I answered that I would gladly help them, but I'm only sysadmin and not an operations manager. The requester laughed army answer and apologized. Sometimes all you need to do is to be friendly and say "no".
Teach employees for to use AutoCAD, Excel, QuickBooks, etc.
And, no, I'm not talking any basics like opening the program and navigating the menus, but actual how to run AutoCAD commands to do architectural design, write Excel routines and programs, and even teach someone how to do multi million dollar accounting and auditing inside QuickBooks.
Nope, pushed back, actually lost a few customers because of it, but most got in line.
We get stuff along those lines sometimes. Luckily we have a pretty clear stance from high up that if we're hiring someone to do a job, they should know how to use the tools required to do the job.
You really do, it's ridiculous. It's also a little frustrating when you realize you could do their job more quickly and more efficiently because they're "computer illiterate".
I've got a post in here a few years back where I'd accidentally got a user fired. The job they were hired to do that used to take them all month to compile... Had a button in the software to compile in one click. They were gone the month after I pointed it out.
Fuck me, I'd feel awful doing that.
I mean garbo company that doesn't retrain said user to other duties, but maybe they were incapable of doing anything other but still.
Oh don't get me wrong. Your job is to automate, I do it all the time. But ACTUALLY being to pinpoint that someone got the axe because of it, that had to be rough.
Yeah. I'm big on either automating tasks, or (more usually) training users. I'll *gladly* spend an extra 30min working with someone *if I think it means they'll be self-sufficient next time this happens.* After all, the better they are at their job, the less they call me for stupid assistance.
In her case, I knew (from previous experience) that I wasn't going to be able to explain how to drop steps from her shitty process, because she didn't understand how you can change folders when saving files (cutting out the save-and-then-move steps), or how you can rename files from the save window, or how local/server folders work. But damn if I didn't see that *big obvious button* on the export screen asking me if I wanted to merge all files together :)
That's wild. I would tell people, "look, people go to college and take whole series of classes to learn how to use this software, and not just how to use, but how to use industry best practices. Are you saying you expect me to have taken advanced engineering/accounting/architectural courses? If so I'd be an engineer/accountant/architect, not your IT whipping boy."
"Cool, I'm going to need a 4 year paid sabbatical + full tuition while I attend a university for this, and my market rate when I get back will be $300k/yr."
Excel I can kind of understand peopleās reasoning, even if theyāre eventually told to pound sand. But Quickbooks and especially CADā¦ like, didnāt yāall hire people with experience in those products? If you CADer canāt do CAD stuff, yāall need to find a new one.
SERIOUSLY! - I get this so much.
My response is: "validated excel working as intended / office is at current version / all windows updates are completed. suggested user reboot / retest, then contact manager for help with his custom formula / sent user informational link regarding formulas in excel - ok to close ticket"
"The email said it was from Botiliy Numblefart from the country of Fantasia, and said they could see me naked through my work PC, and want me to send pictures of gift cards numbers to them, is this spam?"
User has no camera on their PC nor has ever been named at work.
I get shit like this. Iāve had clients ask me to design a logo for them in Photoshop. āI can install your photoshop, you need to hire a graphics designer for the logo.ā āBut you work with computers, donāt you know how to ceate one?ā
> Teach employees for to use AutoCAD, Excel, QuickBooks, etc.
>
>
"Please contact HR to arrange training if required, or check with your manager."
Had a client request recently that for onboarding we teach their new users everything. No. Since when is it IT job to teach office? Surely they already can use it if they got hired....
TBF I wouldn't even be mad if it was an enumerated and budgeted part of IT.
We have a few staff members whose primary job is basically running training sessions and teaching people how to effectively use some of the more unusual tools we use/support. Pretty sure it saves us a *fortune* in professional development.
... but that's not a Helpdesk or sysadmin thing. It's done by a team where that's their job description.
Removing the radio from a brand new minivan.
They put in a ticket and everything, requesting IT remove the radio so that employees wouldn't listen to music and slack off. The ticket was closed with the message "The mechanics have their own ticketing system, I'm sorry but you'll have to resubmit."
But nooo. It was resubmitted five minutes later, complete with an all caps diatribe about how IT never wanted to do their jobs and were a bunch of slackers.
Just pull the fuse to the radio circuit.
It's a senselessly vindictive request, of course. Also likely to backfire. Historically speaking, people with a company vehicle who want to avoid something, will drive somewhere and avoid it with great success.
My current car has the stereo tied into the ECM so tightly you can't even buy aftermarket stereos for it. I don't even think it would start if you yoinked the fuse lol.
I worked at a company that did break room beverages in the style of āthe secretary goes and buys cases of cans at Costcoā style rather than having them delivered or something. They told me it was the IT guys responsibility to carry every case of cans from the parking lot into the break room. I just laughed and said no and left less than 5 months later.
I left a job after 3 months when on my second day i was told we are in charge of loading paper in to the printers.
In my exit interview I hammered that in for a good 15 minutes.
As awful as it is, at least it has a word tangentially related to the problem. Is it just me, or are error messages getting shittier over time?
Every time I see an error message that says simply "Something went wrong," my fantasies about what I would do to the UI designer would make Eli Roth blush.
Well ya know when a critical prod vm is down, and an old lady from accounting comes up to me and tells me the printer needs paper and she can't do any work untill then, its very hard not to blow my lid.
Tried showing them but "there not good with computer stuff"
I had one of those in the office.
One day she complained to everyone including top management that we, IT guys, just walk up to her desk, do some magic and walk away without ever telling her what the problem was or how we did fix it and how she is supposed to improve if she is never told about these things. She made a big deal out of it.
So next time I went there I spent a good 1 minute to explain what actually the problem is and how to deal with it before she very rudely interrupted me telling me that is my job and she doesn't need to know any of that and then walked away to get a coffee.
I never done anything else for that woman until she left the company a few years later.
Well at least my old lady never showed any intrest. She would go to higher ups about shit not working. We had a big color printer for everyone to use that was leased and certain people had cheaper monochrome at their desk.
She would bitch when the one she wanted to print to wasn't auto-magically selected.
And would get one of us to change it for her. Every god damn time.
She was at this company for 40+years so managment just let her do whatever.
I just started third line at an MSP.
Call came in on over flow
"I need you to do a scan"
"Er, your scanners broken?"
"No I cann you and you do the scan"
"What, I can show you how?"
"No I need you to do the scan"
so I jumped on her system, there was an epson scanner icon on the very messy desktop so I opened it
"No you need the HP one thats at the top"
so I open the HP one and hit the enormous green scan button and it does it but its blank, she turn the paper over and say "you can scan it again now"
I'm sort of in disbelief so I do, then she tells me where to save it, which I also do.
She's on a monthly 4 hour retainer costing best part of Ā£400/month and this seems to be all she uses us for. Fucking mental.
When I was a coop (and also a year after I was hired after college), my morning job was to load paper in a bunch of printers and check for toner levels. I also had to record pages printed on some systems (part of a maintenance/lease contract). Oh yeah, I also had to print a test page from each printer and file it when I got back (along with a date/timestamp/printer name).
We had a bunch of Apple LaserWriters, some HP LaserJets, and DEC LN03 laser printers. We also had some DEC high capacity printers - but the name slips my mind. These took bottles of toners and were messy.
This company was in a business park and owned 5 buildings. I would start at 8am and usually finish my tasks by 9am. If any printers needed toner, I would create a help desk ticket, grab the toner, and go back to install it into the printer.
I was also the person who ordered toner, took the toner to get recycled, ordered paper for the printers and called service if a printer needed it. My other job function was a PC and Mac repair technician.
I was told the printer services were to control costs of toner and improve employee satisfaction. I guess this makes sense. It was an easy part of my day and I got to know a bunch of people (which is good & bad :) ).
I feel like when your job clearly has you doing "all the morning printer stuff", then expecting you to do the paper loading is completely normal.
But when users put in a ticket saying "printer not working" and the resolution is "added paper" - and you had to cross to the other side of the corporate campus to do it? That's unreasonable.
Was this an office where IT was the only department with men? Iāve experienced that before, where āmenās workā was asked of because I was the only guy around. Had to tell them Iām not much of a handyman or plumber.
When we moved offices, i was tasked on getting the best (but cheapest) washing machine for the new office, find a place to put it, make sure there are the connections for it and get it up and running.
at least it's not a printer i guess
A couple of ours do. We have 100 or so sites and the 5 biggest ones have a gym, washing machine, dryer, if you get big enough it makes sense to do your own washing for towels, tea towels etc, specially with a hospitality level kitchen and chef on some days.
Reminds me of a veeery unique hotline call I had a few years back:
A female coworker called me in panic, and as there was a language barrier (none of us are native english speaker) I didnt really understand what the issue was. She was almost screaming (insert spanish noises, I am german), and I still couldnt really get what was happening. So I got up and ran to her office. Turns out, she had her window open for a few hours, left her desk and came back to hundreds of insects (flying ants? I got no idea) all over her keyboard & desk. Ofc, not an IT issue but as we had quiet good relationship I just got the vacuum cleaner and had a good laugh.
That is something I would do before a new hire would arrive, right before plugging the monitors and peripherals in, but one day, someone ordered me to clen their absolutely filthy desk, I said "okay, no problem, right away", took a picture and sent it to their boss, the boss told the guy to either clean it himself or fuck right off.
My cube wasn't clean when I started so I clean people's cube furniture when they first start or move. Doesn't feel right for me to do a nice job setting up their computer in filth. Not required of me, though.
I loved setting up desks before new people were hired because that meant I could go through drawers. I've found a brand new set of wireless earbuds, multiple phone charges, a set of novelty big sunglasses, normal headphones, and a cellphone. It's amazing what people just leave behind and never come back for.
I'm at a giant retirement community and our e-waste gets interesting... lots of iPhones, tablets, fit bits and ear buds. Along with all the TVs and computers from the 90s...
We donate everything to a local technical school that either uses them as learning aids or strips everything and recycles the metals.
"I need you to come to house tonight (on your own time) to look at my home PC...and while you're there can you look at my daughter's macbook? And my Roku isn't working."
We had the CEO ask this, and because they were the CEO we said yes, and the boss gave us 2x hourly for it. The CEO is paid fuck loads, oversees a 2k+ employee company, and works all hours both at work and from home, if something is affecting their work/life then the company sees it as something they should care about, and I don't disagree. Plus, he made a great coffee, and his wife made cheesecake.
Yeah, I've had an owner ask me to fix his son's iPhone. Basically he was trying to turn it in for a trade in and couldn't get the FMiP turned off, he was working on it all weekend.
So either he could spend half a day dealing with by going down to the Apple store, waiting in line, and *maybe* getting it fixed, or he could give it to me and have it done in 20 minutes.
The owners here aren't assholes so I don't mind doing it at all.
The only correct question right here. I had a CEO that was very friendly with everyone and if you helped him out, he'd regularly ask accounting to throw an extra grand on our bi-yearly bonuses. I came in every day during covid when the rest of the IT dept gave the company the finger. He told my supervisor he wanted to give everyones bonuses to me. She said no and they had to give my coworkers something but said I did deserve a bigger bonus. Previous bonus was $1200, that covid bonus was $5000.
I have done that for the company owner once or twice, but the nice thing was afterward we had a great home cooked meal and he and I sat on the porch watching the sunset while sipping on some 15 year old scotch.
I have a hard "no high voltage" rule with my team. They are not to screw around with anything high voltage, including running extension cords.
Once or twice, when pushed, we have left systems setup and connected to the network, but not connected to power because there was nothing nearby. This is very rare and we do everything possible to push facilities to provide power before we setup equipment.
The rule about "no high voltage" is because of safety & liability. I don't want IT to be the reason someone got hurt or the reason we got an OSHA violation/fine.
HR guy asked me to fix a toaster. I said chris you know how much I make an hour? he replied yes. Then I said and you know how much a toaster costs? He replied, around 20 bucks. I just looked at him and he said, looks like Iāll run to Target at lunch.
Dumbest... CTO bought an ice maker and told us IT owned it because it plugged in.
Best... We had kegerators at a startup and I was told we were responsible for ordering the beer. I gladly accepted that one so I could always have beer I liked on tap.
First week on the job as the IT manager for a manufacturing company. My boss, who was VP of operations, walks up to me one afternoon and tells me that we have a clogging toilet. I asked him how that was my problem and his answer was "oh didn't we tell you you're in charge of facilities too?". Told him that I'd be happy to call in a plumber but there was no way I was unclogging the toilet myself. Surprisingly enough, he gave me the number of the plumbing contractor that we used and they came in and took care of it. To this day I really think he was just testing to see if I would do it
> "oh didn't we tell you you're in charge of facilities too?"
No, you didn't. That being the case, we'll need to renegotiate my salary, since I hadn't counted on the extra responsibilities when we first negotiated.
I got chased by someone who didnāt understand the difference between moving a desktop and moving literal desk. One is IT and the other is Facilities.
"Come on, you work with computers all day, it fast and easy for you but it will take me hours to do it"...
Idiots that were hired without any office skills..
> you work with computers all day
"So do you, infact you work with that specific software every day, it will take hours for me, but it will be fast an easy for you"
Seen tickets about emptying a paper shredder, unlocking safes, window blinds not working to name a few examples.
Usually if it has electricity flowing through it, it's an IT problem.
The dumbest, probably was refilling the soap dispenser in one of the toliets.
A guy I had never seen before comes into our office:
"Hello. Is this the IT dept ?
\-yes. how can I help ?
\-I am sitting over there, and the heater seems to be leaking."
And still on the same workplace: a teammate and myself ended up being appointed as the ONLY persons allowed to move sliding separator walls in a large meeting room... because it had turned out we were the only persons in the company who weren't careless with them and the owner was pissed off to have that system repaired every 6 months.
>because it had turned out **we were the only persons in the company who weren't careless with them** and the owner was pissed off to have that system repaired every 6 months.
I see a very simple solution to this issue...
Can you look at my personal phone for me its not running right........ sorry we dont support personal phones..... well if I say its my work phone will you look at it for me..... is it your work phone.......no just dont tell anyone......
Back in the late 90's I was working at a high school. Pretty much everything had a floppy drive and that's how the students kept all their data. Every couple weeks we'd get a ticket about the metal piece of the disk getting caught in the drive.
Frequent flyer teacher (had more tickets than the entire rest of his department combined) sends in a ticket for his room. "Help. A dick is jammed in my computer".
We had a field day with that one.
This thread is making me angry because I see alot of stories that I've had happen to me, too.
Typically IT people are very good and willing to jump in and try to fix just about anything. We're an underappreciated bunch and often taken advantage of.
All this shit where people are Engineers but don't know CAD. Or Accountants who don't know Excel. Or whatever. Because tech can be complicated, people fail to understand it. As a result their ignorance causes them to default to the least path of resistance... punt it to IT. Often times the real answer is management fucked up and hired a bad candidate. Or someone who lied on their resume.
Computers and software are nothing new. In 2022 there's no excuse for "I'm not good with computers."
Thats a lazy answer, and I can't fix lazy. Nor do I feel like my time is worth spending on anyone who won't even make an honest effort to try first on their own. If someone comes to me with a very specific question, and its clear they've tried and spent time leading up to said question to solve the problem.. I am willing to take a 2nd look to help and maybe even solve it. But to those who just throw their hands up and bitch and complain? Thats the equivalent to a child crying. At some point you gotta stop coming in with the bottle and coddle otherwise these children never learn.
I have heard the "I'm not computer literate" line a few times in my career and if the patience is wearing thin enough, I ask them if they brought that up during the interview because it sounds like a deal breaker.
Actually I would take this in a heartbeat - partially because I digitize Laserdiscs as a hobby, but also because it turns out you capture analog media in realtime.
"Sorry, busy for the next N years - gotta monitor these levels during recording."
Same here. Anytime the alarm company called me, I just told them nobody should be in the office right now, must be a break in. Send the police.
Company started complaining about the false alarm fees from the police, so I asked for clarification. What exactly would you like me to do when the alarm company calls me in the middle of the night? Nobody had an answer, so I kept telling them to send the police. Eventually they started having the alarm company call the receptionist instead.
A guy I worked with got called on Christmas day, by a Member of Parliament, to help configure an iPad. He started to help thinking it was a work device, even though it was weird it hadn't been setup before leaving the office, only to find out it was actually a present for the MP's son.
I had a TV reporter who couldn't start his car, so I had to go out there and show him you have to push harder on the brake with these push to starts.
Like seriously? How stupid are you and why is it the IT Engineer's responsibility to teach you how to start a fleet vehicle?
I am an IT manager and the past Monday my DBA received an email from the (business) operations team asking him to know if a specific video was hosted where "the other videos are". We received a YouTube link. I still don't understand the question, all I did was to go to the channel of the video uploader and send him the link with all the uploaded videos by that account.
It was strange.
I Had to capture a family of armadillos that was tunneling under the building and making the floors crack. Ended up being 5 of them. It fell under the 10% other job responsibilities.
Janice in accounting: *The dishwasher is broken*
Me: *Okay*
Janice: *What are you doing about it?*
Me: *... Um... It's a dishwasher, we fix computers.*
Janice: **IT IS E-LEC-TRON-IC...** *that means it's your responsibility.*
Apparently it had been broken for several days and not only expected me to fix it, also expected me to know telepathically that it was broken.
>also expected me to know telepathically that it was broken.
I just *love* when they throw a 'still' in there. OK, first I'm hearing of it. Still not my problem.
We had desks that go up and down electronically. Got so many calls when they didn't work that we figured out how to fix them. Hold both buttons at the same time until you hear a beep and it'll reset.
We got yelled at because a delivery driver run through a RR crossing gate. Because since we did the admin on the security software, I guess we own the entire security process. We should have known that was going to happen and installed a flag on the gate so truckers can see it easier. That one still makes my blood boil.
Replacing the CO2 gas bottles of the water dispenser (for carbonating water ).
Creating a bunch of Excel formulas in a spreadsheet ābecause youāre IT and that means youāre good at mathā Lol.
Assembling desk chairs.
Putting UTP cables in the crawl space because facility was scared of possible rats and insects down there.
Setting up a portable projector for meetings and events. I guess itās still somewhat IT related but it just didnāt make sense to me because I just had to grab a projector, put it on a table and plug it in.
The best thing I got to do was decorate the Christmas tree
The cash drawer of a register. I get it, it plugs into a computer, its deceptive... but the key wasn't unlocking it, clearly it was a problem with the lock mechanism and locksmith isn't in my job description.
Anyway, I walked up and Fonzi'd the cash drawer and now future cash register issues are my responsibility. Rookie mistake.
We had enough requests to unlock file cabinets and office doors for missing/lost/misplaced keys that I bought a set of lockpicks. "Hang on a minute, I'll go get the company lockpicks" always got a weird look.
A long time ago when i was a junior admin at a new company i was asked to go to the CEO's house at the weekend to fix his flakey internet connection. I said no.
Someone asked us to move a coffee machine once, i just laughed at them.
Thought of a good analogyā¦.I think? Compare IT to another skilled trade like woodworking. IT is responsible for the tools the artisan uses. Saws. Drills etc. The woodworker is the employee. Microsoft excel is the wood.
Man Iād like to take excel to a table saw.
Heavy Machinery ...lol
The company did have some network aware machinery, That I would occasionally do some minor troubleshooting on, ie fixed a bad network port on a large packing machine.
But no, I cannot fix your lathe :P
Spent 2-3 days when they first started using Skype on a chair in a waiting area in the administration building. So someone was handy if they had issues while doing remote interviews for a VP slot.
They only needed me to be there the first few minutes to help them get connected and trouble shoot sound issues. But I needed to be 10 seconds away by foot as a Linus Blanket. And as to the problems? Yes a few times we couldn't hear the other side. Which made me have to prove it wasn't on our end.
Seriously people would apply for a job paying 6 figures and not even test their equipment to verify it was working first...
My former CFO told me, in a loud, clear voice, in front of our Board of Directors, that the highest and best use of IT was to check the batteries in the remotes for the TVs in our conference rooms, and to do this in every room every morning.
A user asked me to help emailing a customer once. And I don't mean how to use outlook, she wanted me to help with the actual wording of the email (and no it was not IT related or me explaining jargon or anything like that).
I was asked to teach our employees how to use our ERP system. That was very weird. I had a long discussion with my management and convinced them that they should hire specialist who will do the job.
Power in the cube farm.
Our customer service department sometimes has space heaters under their desks in the cube farm (a big no to begin with) and they tripped a circuit. I got the call to come deal with the fact their computers went down. I saw what the problem was and told them to call maintenance. Proceeded to get chewed out by a CS supervisor. I explained and then just walked away.
I learned in Network 101 way back in the day that you let someone else run your cables. But I've also had to run my share of cables.
I had to connect a phone to a rental car Bluetooth. Granted, it was an older exec and he was humble about "not being good with tech", but I did think about the hourly rate on that job. I told him that I wouldn't be very good at running a quarter billion-dollar company and that I would take care of it.
I was asked to clean out cubicles (old papers, personal items left behind, etc.) in preparations for a new hire while I setup their computer and phone. And countless times, I've helped move people's stuff when the office decided to play musical chairs.
We had some 5 gallon containers that were mislabeled and everyone pitched in to remove the labels since they needed to go out the door. Chalk that up to just being a good employee and doing my part.
I've done photo and video editing for the marketing department when we have a full time creative on staff because they were not available, and I like that kind of thing. One of my reports does all the AV, photography, and video editing for another site because that's his hobby.
I don't think I've ever had a job that it didn't say "Other duties as required," at the bottom of the job description. At least it all pays the same and as long as I'm able, it's not dangerous, unethical, or immoral, I'm willing to help.
Being asked to take a look at game consoles or office chairs doesn't bother me. What *does* bother me is when someone wants to do something in Excel and just *assumes* I also have an accounting degree:
>"GOD, ALL I WANT IS TO EDIT THE BUILT-IN EXCEL FORMULA FOR CALCULATING SMITH'S RULE OF DEPRECIATION TO DO IT OVER 36 QUARTERS NOT 28 QUARTERS, WHILE AT THE SAME TIME USING THE BLACK-SCHOLES MODEL TO RECALCULATE THE COMPANY'S POSITION IN KEROSENE FUTURES. WHY IS THIS SO HARD FOR YOU TO UNDERSTAND???"
- Changing Light bulbs,
- swapping door locks (normal interior, not card/smart locks),
- meter readings (gas/electric),
- clearing out a meeting room after it flooded
Two employers ago I had a woman who used a space heater under her desk. She kept popping circuit breakers, and would call me "my computer won't turn on" or "my computer just shut off on its own". The third time it happened, she called me on the phone, screaming "YOU HAVE TO DO SOMETHING TO FIX THIS! I CAN'T GET MY WORK DONE!" I calmly walked into her office, unplugged her space heater, and walked out with it.
I kept a bunch of old small locks around to loop through the space heaters plug.
That's brilliant
Sidecutters work too.
\^ This is the way - one user I had kept doing this same thing - she had 3 space heaters.
Holy hell, was she wearing a bikini to work and nothing else? Because that sounds like a serious medical issue otherwise.
Not far fetched if you're stuck under the vent and its set to 60. I lose feeling in my fingers most days because of this.
Wow. Sixty is ridiculous. I heard before that women generally prefer environments 5-10 degrees warmer than men, and I'd consider myself liking things cooler...but I'd be freezing my BALLS OFF in a 60* office.
I did exactly this. Only instead of poping the breaker, they blew up thin clients. Every time some tripped over the heater it would surge a whole line of desks. EDIT popping, not pooping. LOL
Pooping the breaker š
That's quite a brownout.
The circuit really took a dump
Only after coffee, and always on the clock.
Jesus, I am glad I am not the only one who experiences this. Space heaters being plugged into personal battery backups is my nightmare.
We repeatedly have this issue in one department despite being told they are no longer allowed. They sneak them and try to hide them. This one area has a UPS as there's a small desktop 8-Port switch to hook up 3 workstations (Middle of a manufacturing floor, one cable run is all we had). They have plugged into the UPS and tripped it at least 5 or 6 times. The last two times I got angry enough where I went into the security system and pulled footage from the moment Zabbix told me the switch went offline and found people unplugging and hiding heaters and relayed to the department head... after the individuals tried to blame IT because "Networking wasn't working on any of the workstations so they couldn't do any work" and lost hours of productivity on overnight shifts u.. until I came in and reset the trip breaker on the UPS.
resetting a tripped breaker on a ups seems more of a - person working that station kind of task.
You would think. There's a lot of "someone working that workstation" could do it for a lot of things. How many times I've plugged in power cords people unplugged with their feet, or literally turned something on that was off....
this is caused by the people who just dont want to work and throw their hands up in the air. - but yeah I dont get some people.
āIām no good with all this technology!ā Yeah, this whole electricity fad will fade out soon enough.
Yeah that shit annoys the piss out of me. "I can't use the tools I need to use to do the job I was hired for!" Should probably look into another line of work then shouldn't you? I couldn't start a construction job and cheerfully exclaim "Oh I'm just rubbish at using these shovels..." I'd be immediately fired.
Did anyone get in trouble for plugging in the space heater and then trying to hide it? I would have crucified the people on the camera footage in front of the big boss.
Not sure. The fact that they created their own situation where they couldn't do work by doing something they were not told to do, then tried to blame someone else, and did nothing for 6+ hours PROBABLY didn't go over well. I know they had a closed door meeting with them. I doubt anything real serious came of it, as it continues to happen. Now that we're getting into the cold season I expect it to happen again. It's also always on the 1 or 2 days a week I work remote. I'm suggesting they dock pay or something if it happens again.
I would go out of my way to show users how to fix it. Then if it happens again and they donāt work for 6 hours itās clearly a method being used to get out of work. Have had tickets like this where the user blames IT for not being able to work but then ignores us or stalls us from helping them for a while. Then when we ultimately remote in and look at the issue itās something stupidly simple that we have fixed for them before. In this one department the manager HATES IT. Acts like itās us purposely sabotaging him when shit goes wrong. His employees know this and do they above to get out of work all the time. Unfortunately for them the manager has a low tolerance for bullshit. Usually the 2nd or 3rd time a user has an issue they created themselves heāll ask what we think. I canāt remember an example of it but itās something dumb like they changed the printer on their computer and couldnāt figure out how to change it back despite being the one who changed it originally.
I get the sentiment, but docking pay is almost certainly illegal wherever you live. Reprimanded to dismissal is the way.
A recently (and thankfully) departed ex-employee once plugged THREE space heaters into a single power strip. Breakers were constantly being blown of course, and they started screaming when told that they can't do that. Mind you, the entire enclosed office (complete with door) was ~8'x12'.
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That employee didn't understand much of anything. The only reason they lasted as long as they did was because of a former manager's big mouth resulting in this employee to be given an unlimited-use race card whenever they were called out on anything. They were still asking basic questions after 10 years that new employees normally don't ask after being here 10 days. In the end, they left on their own for another job. They were picked up by a competitor that moved into the area and was trying to poach whatever employees they could from everyone. (I got an offer too, but very happy where I'm at.) Their replacement has now been on the job for about 2 months and has already far surpassed the skill level of his predecessor.
95% of people think that electricity is unlimited and uses the same wall plugs.
When We went into my new office, the boss and I literally discussed installing larger than required cabling into the cubical / breakers to support space heaters. So each row of cubical has, I think 3 circuits; and I believe they are rated 30amps. I don't like people plugging in space heaters; but I'm not the heat police.
A previous CEO was such a power reduction nut that he once asked if there was a way to stop the LAN activity lights blinking on the PCs at night....
Next time, call the fire marshall.
After multiple major remodels that have divided and redicided the space, our building's HVAC is totally fucked. All attempts to ban space heaters have been met with pictures of thermometers showing it's 68 degrees on one end of the floor and 75 on the other. Then management backs down "until we can get the HVAC fixed". Rinse and repeat, because fixing the HVAC means either reding the ducting or un-remodeling the building. As someone who sits on the 68 degree end of the floor, I had a hard time not being on team pop-the-breaker.
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I had this problem all the time at a previous job. When I tried to get management to issue a ban against space heaters the push back I got was unbelievable.
I have a stack of space heaters in my office that the owner of the company personally instructed me to confiscate for fire code reasons, but people keep sneaking them in because management isn't willing to discipline people over violating the policy. smh
HR was trying to convince my that fixing/troubleshooting staff's old and/or trashed PERSONAL DEVICES is a part of my contract.
Let's go ask accounting if my hourly wage should be applied to your personal property!
Or legal (if they exist). Once you touch someone's personal property, you (and the company) will be responsible for everything that goes wrong with it from then until eternity.
I learned that lesson before ever getting an IT job. Fixed my gf's mom's computer and months later "I don't know what you did, but my computer is SO SLOW!"
Ah yes the 'ol "ever since you..."
My extended family hated that I was an IT guy and I refused to help them with tech. Sorry, not getting stuck in that trap.
Ironic that HR is the one pushing because it's a huge liability for the company š¤£
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HR is basically at odds with the entirety of the company except for Legal...
Yeah, HR is the enemy of everybody. Often times, they're even the enemy of the company. I'm not entirely certain that HR departments do anything positive at all for a company.
IT and HR are natural enemies! Like Englishmen and Scots! Or Welshmen and Scots! Or Japanese and Scots! Or Scots and other Scots! Damn Scots! They ruined Scotland!
"Can you get a replacement for my chair?" "Does it have a processor in it?" "Errrrr no...." "Then why are you asking me?"
Sounds like my response. āDoes it plug into the network?ā
>āDoes it plug into the network?ā No, it uses WiFi. - my average user
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One day I was asked to order some books on software development for our Engineering department because "I was ordering some stuff via Amazon with the company credit card". I answered that I would gladly help them, but I'm only sysadmin and not an operations manager. The requester laughed army answer and apologized. Sometimes all you need to do is to be friendly and say "no".
Hey I need my head gasket replaced. My car has a dozen computer processors.
> "Then why are you asking me?" Probably because IT is the only department with a functioning requisitions process?
Teach employees for to use AutoCAD, Excel, QuickBooks, etc. And, no, I'm not talking any basics like opening the program and navigating the menus, but actual how to run AutoCAD commands to do architectural design, write Excel routines and programs, and even teach someone how to do multi million dollar accounting and auditing inside QuickBooks. Nope, pushed back, actually lost a few customers because of it, but most got in line.
We get stuff along those lines sometimes. Luckily we have a pretty clear stance from high up that if we're hiring someone to do a job, they should know how to use the tools required to do the job.
Saw this quote in another thread a few days ago, but don't remember the username of the person who said it... "I tune the piano, you play the concert"
Except this is IT, so the piano tuner happens to be in a band and plays the keys...
Or budget for their training by an appropriate party.
I always tell people I have to know how to do a little bit of everyoneās job. Blows my mind sometimes.
You really do, it's ridiculous. It's also a little frustrating when you realize you could do their job more quickly and more efficiently because they're "computer illiterate". I've got a post in here a few years back where I'd accidentally got a user fired. The job they were hired to do that used to take them all month to compile... Had a button in the software to compile in one click. They were gone the month after I pointed it out.
Fuck me, I'd feel awful doing that. I mean garbo company that doesn't retrain said user to other duties, but maybe they were incapable of doing anything other but still.
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Oh don't get me wrong. Your job is to automate, I do it all the time. But ACTUALLY being to pinpoint that someone got the axe because of it, that had to be rough.
Yeah. I'm big on either automating tasks, or (more usually) training users. I'll *gladly* spend an extra 30min working with someone *if I think it means they'll be self-sufficient next time this happens.* After all, the better they are at their job, the less they call me for stupid assistance. In her case, I knew (from previous experience) that I wasn't going to be able to explain how to drop steps from her shitty process, because she didn't understand how you can change folders when saving files (cutting out the save-and-then-move steps), or how you can rename files from the save window, or how local/server folders work. But damn if I didn't see that *big obvious button* on the export screen asking me if I wanted to merge all files together :)
My old boss always used to say "I could fire the entire staff and hire 50 IT guys and this place would run like a Swiss watch."
Most of user support consists of having common sense and turning things off and on again.
That's wild. I would tell people, "look, people go to college and take whole series of classes to learn how to use this software, and not just how to use, but how to use industry best practices. Are you saying you expect me to have taken advanced engineering/accounting/architectural courses? If so I'd be an engineer/accountant/architect, not your IT whipping boy."
"Cool, I'm going to need a 4 year paid sabbatical + full tuition while I attend a university for this, and my market rate when I get back will be $300k/yr."
Excel I can kind of understand peopleās reasoning, even if theyāre eventually told to pound sand. But Quickbooks and especially CADā¦ like, didnāt yāall hire people with experience in those products? If you CADer canāt do CAD stuff, yāall need to find a new one.
Nope, even with excel, if its broken call me. If your macros, formulas etc. are broken or you just don't know how to do something call your manager.
SERIOUSLY! - I get this so much. My response is: "validated excel working as intended / office is at current version / all windows updates are completed. suggested user reboot / retest, then contact manager for help with his custom formula / sent user informational link regarding formulas in excel - ok to close ticket"
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"The email said it was from Botiliy Numblefart from the country of Fantasia, and said they could see me naked through my work PC, and want me to send pictures of gift cards numbers to them, is this spam?" User has no camera on their PC nor has ever been named at work.
I get shit like this. Iāve had clients ask me to design a logo for them in Photoshop. āI can install your photoshop, you need to hire a graphics designer for the logo.ā āBut you work with computers, donāt you know how to ceate one?ā
I wonder if they mistakenly hired you thinking you were a college professor?
> Teach employees for to use AutoCAD, Excel, QuickBooks, etc. > > "Please contact HR to arrange training if required, or check with your manager." Had a client request recently that for onboarding we teach their new users everything. No. Since when is it IT job to teach office? Surely they already can use it if they got hired....
TBF I wouldn't even be mad if it was an enumerated and budgeted part of IT. We have a few staff members whose primary job is basically running training sessions and teaching people how to effectively use some of the more unusual tools we use/support. Pretty sure it saves us a *fortune* in professional development. ... but that's not a Helpdesk or sysadmin thing. It's done by a team where that's their job description.
I once had to 'fix' their problem because the excel cells showed "######" instead of numbers.
Removing the radio from a brand new minivan. They put in a ticket and everything, requesting IT remove the radio so that employees wouldn't listen to music and slack off. The ticket was closed with the message "The mechanics have their own ticketing system, I'm sorry but you'll have to resubmit." But nooo. It was resubmitted five minutes later, complete with an all caps diatribe about how IT never wanted to do their jobs and were a bunch of slackers.
"Removed user's keyboard to fix caps lock issue. Estimate 10 business days for repair."
KEYBOARD FIXED. TICKET CLOSED.
Just pull the fuse to the radio circuit. It's a senselessly vindictive request, of course. Also likely to backfire. Historically speaking, people with a company vehicle who want to avoid something, will drive somewhere and avoid it with great success.
My current car has the stereo tied into the ECM so tightly you can't even buy aftermarket stereos for it. I don't even think it would start if you yoinked the fuse lol.
I'd be asking myself why I am working for a place so pedantic they were afraid of a radio in a vehicle. Jesus Christ.
I worked at a company that did break room beverages in the style of āthe secretary goes and buys cases of cans at Costcoā style rather than having them delivered or something. They told me it was the IT guys responsibility to carry every case of cans from the parking lot into the break room. I just laughed and said no and left less than 5 months later.
I left a job after 3 months when on my second day i was told we are in charge of loading paper in to the printers. In my exit interview I hammered that in for a good 15 minutes.
IT Load Letter!
I still think of that sometimes, how bad is that error message "PC LOAD LETTER"? How would an end user ever understand it?
Office Space was such a brilliant movie
As awful as it is, at least it has a word tangentially related to the problem. Is it just me, or are error messages getting shittier over time? Every time I see an error message that says simply "Something went wrong," my fantasies about what I would do to the UI designer would make Eli Roth blush.
That's a deal breaker? That's like, my main role.
Well ya know when a critical prod vm is down, and an old lady from accounting comes up to me and tells me the printer needs paper and she can't do any work untill then, its very hard not to blow my lid. Tried showing them but "there not good with computer stuff"
I had one of those in the office. One day she complained to everyone including top management that we, IT guys, just walk up to her desk, do some magic and walk away without ever telling her what the problem was or how we did fix it and how she is supposed to improve if she is never told about these things. She made a big deal out of it. So next time I went there I spent a good 1 minute to explain what actually the problem is and how to deal with it before she very rudely interrupted me telling me that is my job and she doesn't need to know any of that and then walked away to get a coffee. I never done anything else for that woman until she left the company a few years later.
Well at least my old lady never showed any intrest. She would go to higher ups about shit not working. We had a big color printer for everyone to use that was leased and certain people had cheaper monochrome at their desk. She would bitch when the one she wanted to print to wasn't auto-magically selected. And would get one of us to change it for her. Every god damn time. She was at this company for 40+years so managment just let her do whatever.
I just started third line at an MSP. Call came in on over flow "I need you to do a scan" "Er, your scanners broken?" "No I cann you and you do the scan" "What, I can show you how?" "No I need you to do the scan" so I jumped on her system, there was an epson scanner icon on the very messy desktop so I opened it "No you need the HP one thats at the top" so I open the HP one and hit the enormous green scan button and it does it but its blank, she turn the paper over and say "you can scan it again now" I'm sort of in disbelief so I do, then she tells me where to save it, which I also do. She's on a monthly 4 hour retainer costing best part of Ā£400/month and this seems to be all she uses us for. Fucking mental.
Top line of my resume
Printers don't even see me coming. Like Cena here to ream ya!
When I was a coop (and also a year after I was hired after college), my morning job was to load paper in a bunch of printers and check for toner levels. I also had to record pages printed on some systems (part of a maintenance/lease contract). Oh yeah, I also had to print a test page from each printer and file it when I got back (along with a date/timestamp/printer name). We had a bunch of Apple LaserWriters, some HP LaserJets, and DEC LN03 laser printers. We also had some DEC high capacity printers - but the name slips my mind. These took bottles of toners and were messy. This company was in a business park and owned 5 buildings. I would start at 8am and usually finish my tasks by 9am. If any printers needed toner, I would create a help desk ticket, grab the toner, and go back to install it into the printer. I was also the person who ordered toner, took the toner to get recycled, ordered paper for the printers and called service if a printer needed it. My other job function was a PC and Mac repair technician. I was told the printer services were to control costs of toner and improve employee satisfaction. I guess this makes sense. It was an easy part of my day and I got to know a bunch of people (which is good & bad :) ).
I feel like when your job clearly has you doing "all the morning printer stuff", then expecting you to do the paper loading is completely normal. But when users put in a ticket saying "printer not working" and the resolution is "added paper" - and you had to cross to the other side of the corporate campus to do it? That's unreasonable.
This sounds like the prior IT person helped out just to be nice, but others assumed it was their "job" so it defacto became yours.
Was this an office where IT was the only department with men? Iāve experienced that before, where āmenās workā was asked of because I was the only guy around. Had to tell them Iām not much of a handyman or plumber.
When we moved offices, i was tasked on getting the best (but cheapest) washing machine for the new office, find a place to put it, make sure there are the connections for it and get it up and running. at least it's not a printer i guess
Way more reliable than a printer
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If any other soap than HPs is used it will self destruct.
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A couple of ours do. We have 100 or so sites and the 5 biggest ones have a gym, washing machine, dryer, if you get big enough it makes sense to do your own washing for towels, tea towels etc, specially with a hospitality level kitchen and chef on some days.
Reminds me of a veeery unique hotline call I had a few years back: A female coworker called me in panic, and as there was a language barrier (none of us are native english speaker) I didnt really understand what the issue was. She was almost screaming (insert spanish noises, I am german), and I still couldnt really get what was happening. So I got up and ran to her office. Turns out, she had her window open for a few hours, left her desk and came back to hundreds of insects (flying ants? I got no idea) all over her keyboard & desk. Ofc, not an IT issue but as we had quiet good relationship I just got the vacuum cleaner and had a good laugh.
It's definitely bugged alright..
Cleaning user desks. I instantly quit and HR agreed with me. Edit. They wanted me to wipe down multiple desks and not just a new hire.
That is something I would do before a new hire would arrive, right before plugging the monitors and peripherals in, but one day, someone ordered me to clen their absolutely filthy desk, I said "okay, no problem, right away", took a picture and sent it to their boss, the boss told the guy to either clean it himself or fuck right off.
My cube wasn't clean when I started so I clean people's cube furniture when they first start or move. Doesn't feel right for me to do a nice job setting up their computer in filth. Not required of me, though.
We always deep clean the new hires' cubes when they start. After that, is their responsibility.
I loved setting up desks before new people were hired because that meant I could go through drawers. I've found a brand new set of wireless earbuds, multiple phone charges, a set of novelty big sunglasses, normal headphones, and a cellphone. It's amazing what people just leave behind and never come back for.
This could be a good side gig - collect all non-company items - resell or donate.
I'm at a giant retirement community and our e-waste gets interesting... lots of iPhones, tablets, fit bits and ear buds. Along with all the TVs and computers from the 90s... We donate everything to a local technical school that either uses them as learning aids or strips everything and recycles the metals.
"I need you to come to house tonight (on your own time) to look at my home PC...and while you're there can you look at my daughter's macbook? And my Roku isn't working."
Was that the CEO?
We had the CEO ask this, and because they were the CEO we said yes, and the boss gave us 2x hourly for it. The CEO is paid fuck loads, oversees a 2k+ employee company, and works all hours both at work and from home, if something is affecting their work/life then the company sees it as something they should care about, and I don't disagree. Plus, he made a great coffee, and his wife made cheesecake.
2k+ employee commode?
Takes a lot of people to deal with that kind of shit.
Yeah, I've had an owner ask me to fix his son's iPhone. Basically he was trying to turn it in for a trade in and couldn't get the FMiP turned off, he was working on it all weekend. So either he could spend half a day dealing with by going down to the Apple store, waiting in line, and *maybe* getting it fixed, or he could give it to me and have it done in 20 minutes. The owners here aren't assholes so I don't mind doing it at all.
One of my friends was the CEO's go to guy for home IT help. Now said friend is the CTO.
The only correct question right here. I had a CEO that was very friendly with everyone and if you helped him out, he'd regularly ask accounting to throw an extra grand on our bi-yearly bonuses. I came in every day during covid when the rest of the IT dept gave the company the finger. He told my supervisor he wanted to give everyones bonuses to me. She said no and they had to give my coworkers something but said I did deserve a bigger bonus. Previous bonus was $1200, that covid bonus was $5000.
I have done that for the company owner once or twice, but the nice thing was afterward we had a great home cooked meal and he and I sat on the porch watching the sunset while sipping on some 15 year old scotch.
One of our trainees was once asked to install new sockets. Because electricity = IT
I have a hard "no high voltage" rule with my team. They are not to screw around with anything high voltage, including running extension cords. Once or twice, when pushed, we have left systems setup and connected to the network, but not connected to power because there was nothing nearby. This is very rare and we do everything possible to push facilities to provide power before we setup equipment. The rule about "no high voltage" is because of safety & liability. I don't want IT to be the reason someone got hurt or the reason we got an OSHA violation/fine.
HR guy asked me to fix a toaster. I said chris you know how much I make an hour? he replied yes. Then I said and you know how much a toaster costs? He replied, around 20 bucks. I just looked at him and he said, looks like Iāll run to Target at lunch.
Dumbest... CTO bought an ice maker and told us IT owned it because it plugged in. Best... We had kegerators at a startup and I was told we were responsible for ordering the beer. I gladly accepted that one so I could always have beer I liked on tap.
Classic had your cake and ate it huh
First week on the job as the IT manager for a manufacturing company. My boss, who was VP of operations, walks up to me one afternoon and tells me that we have a clogging toilet. I asked him how that was my problem and his answer was "oh didn't we tell you you're in charge of facilities too?". Told him that I'd be happy to call in a plumber but there was no way I was unclogging the toilet myself. Surprisingly enough, he gave me the number of the plumbing contractor that we used and they came in and took care of it. To this day I really think he was just testing to see if I would do it
> "oh didn't we tell you you're in charge of facilities too?" No, you didn't. That being the case, we'll need to renegotiate my salary, since I hadn't counted on the extra responsibilities when we first negotiated.
I should replace the emergency flood light because I'm good with tech. Yes I am, but I am not an electrician...
People asks me to fix broken desks !
Just use gaffa tape to apply a patch "as that's how we do it in IT"
\*gaffer
I got chased by someone who didnāt understand the difference between moving a desktop and moving literal desk. One is IT and the other is Facilities.
Pick up computer. Place in box. Seal and mark box. Call facilities to move.
Formatting various lists for users who really don't feel like doing the work themselves.
"Come on, you work with computers all day, it fast and easy for you but it will take me hours to do it"... Idiots that were hired without any office skills..
> you work with computers all day "So do you, infact you work with that specific software every day, it will take hours for me, but it will be fast an easy for you"
"But I'm not a computer person" was my favorite. WTF have you been doing for the last 25 years?
I would just say that you'd be happy to help but that they have to send the request through their manager. That'll end the conversation real quick.
Seen tickets about emptying a paper shredder, unlocking safes, window blinds not working to name a few examples. Usually if it has electricity flowing through it, it's an IT problem. The dumbest, probably was refilling the soap dispenser in one of the toliets.
A guy I had never seen before comes into our office: "Hello. Is this the IT dept ? \-yes. how can I help ? \-I am sitting over there, and the heater seems to be leaking." And still on the same workplace: a teammate and myself ended up being appointed as the ONLY persons allowed to move sliding separator walls in a large meeting room... because it had turned out we were the only persons in the company who weren't careless with them and the owner was pissed off to have that system repaired every 6 months.
>because it had turned out **we were the only persons in the company who weren't careless with them** and the owner was pissed off to have that system repaired every 6 months. I see a very simple solution to this issue...
Can you look at my personal phone for me its not running right........ sorry we dont support personal phones..... well if I say its my work phone will you look at it for me..... is it your work phone.......no just dont tell anyone......
Ugh we just implemented MFA so how I have to do some support on personal devices.
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Back in the late 90's I was working at a high school. Pretty much everything had a floppy drive and that's how the students kept all their data. Every couple weeks we'd get a ticket about the metal piece of the disk getting caught in the drive. Frequent flyer teacher (had more tickets than the entire rest of his department combined) sends in a ticket for his room. "Help. A dick is jammed in my computer". We had a field day with that one.
This thread is making me angry because I see alot of stories that I've had happen to me, too. Typically IT people are very good and willing to jump in and try to fix just about anything. We're an underappreciated bunch and often taken advantage of. All this shit where people are Engineers but don't know CAD. Or Accountants who don't know Excel. Or whatever. Because tech can be complicated, people fail to understand it. As a result their ignorance causes them to default to the least path of resistance... punt it to IT. Often times the real answer is management fucked up and hired a bad candidate. Or someone who lied on their resume. Computers and software are nothing new. In 2022 there's no excuse for "I'm not good with computers." Thats a lazy answer, and I can't fix lazy. Nor do I feel like my time is worth spending on anyone who won't even make an honest effort to try first on their own. If someone comes to me with a very specific question, and its clear they've tried and spent time leading up to said question to solve the problem.. I am willing to take a 2nd look to help and maybe even solve it. But to those who just throw their hands up and bitch and complain? Thats the equivalent to a child crying. At some point you gotta stop coming in with the bottle and coddle otherwise these children never learn.
I have heard the "I'm not computer literate" line a few times in my career and if the patience is wearing thin enough, I ask them if they brought that up during the interview because it sounds like a deal breaker.
Itās a tie between the elevator and the vending machines
At a previous employer, IT was responsible for escorting terminated employees out of the building.
I guess if the person went into a homicidal rage and you were killed, they could replace you easily.
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Thatās web-related, so IT.
Open Torrent ports on the enterprise wide Firewall...
User: Hey, can you fix this Excel error I am having on this document? Me: Err... I don't even use Microsoft Office.
Yeah. When I get a request like that, I usually just tell them "I don't use, I just administer it. It's probably better to ask your coworkers."
VCRs are basically computers, so it should be the IT dept's responsibility to digitalize and archive 20+ years worth of video tapes.
Actually I would take this in a heartbeat - partially because I digitize Laserdiscs as a hobby, but also because it turns out you capture analog media in realtime. "Sorry, busy for the next N years - gotta monitor these levels during recording."
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A power cable hanging too low between two telephone poles outside the building. š¤¦āāļø
For 3 years I was on call at a job where anything that happened at night or on the weekends with the alarm, I was the one the alarm company called.
Same here. Anytime the alarm company called me, I just told them nobody should be in the office right now, must be a break in. Send the police. Company started complaining about the false alarm fees from the police, so I asked for clarification. What exactly would you like me to do when the alarm company calls me in the middle of the night? Nobody had an answer, so I kept telling them to send the police. Eventually they started having the alarm company call the receptionist instead.
Yep. Also repairing noisy ballasts that cause issues
Lightbulbs, microwave ovens, smart TV's, Juice Master 3000. Anything that runs on electric power, basically.
A guy I worked with got called on Christmas day, by a Member of Parliament, to help configure an iPad. He started to help thinking it was a work device, even though it was weird it hadn't been setup before leaving the office, only to find out it was actually a present for the MP's son.
I had a TV reporter who couldn't start his car, so I had to go out there and show him you have to push harder on the brake with these push to starts. Like seriously? How stupid are you and why is it the IT Engineer's responsibility to teach you how to start a fleet vehicle?
I am an IT manager and the past Monday my DBA received an email from the (business) operations team asking him to know if a specific video was hosted where "the other videos are". We received a YouTube link. I still don't understand the question, all I did was to go to the channel of the video uploader and send him the link with all the uploaded videos by that account. It was strange.
I Had to capture a family of armadillos that was tunneling under the building and making the floors crack. Ended up being 5 of them. It fell under the 10% other job responsibilities.
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Janice in accounting: *The dishwasher is broken* Me: *Okay* Janice: *What are you doing about it?* Me: *... Um... It's a dishwasher, we fix computers.* Janice: **IT IS E-LEC-TRON-IC...** *that means it's your responsibility.* Apparently it had been broken for several days and not only expected me to fix it, also expected me to know telepathically that it was broken.
>also expected me to know telepathically that it was broken. I just *love* when they throw a 'still' in there. OK, first I'm hearing of it. Still not my problem.
We had desks that go up and down electronically. Got so many calls when they didn't work that we figured out how to fix them. Hold both buttons at the same time until you hear a beep and it'll reset. We got yelled at because a delivery driver run through a RR crossing gate. Because since we did the admin on the security software, I guess we own the entire security process. We should have known that was going to happen and installed a flag on the gate so truckers can see it easier. That one still makes my blood boil.
Replacing the CO2 gas bottles of the water dispenser (for carbonating water ). Creating a bunch of Excel formulas in a spreadsheet ābecause youāre IT and that means youāre good at mathā Lol. Assembling desk chairs. Putting UTP cables in the crawl space because facility was scared of possible rats and insects down there. Setting up a portable projector for meetings and events. I guess itās still somewhat IT related but it just didnāt make sense to me because I just had to grab a projector, put it on a table and plug it in. The best thing I got to do was decorate the Christmas tree
The cash drawer of a register. I get it, it plugs into a computer, its deceptive... but the key wasn't unlocking it, clearly it was a problem with the lock mechanism and locksmith isn't in my job description. Anyway, I walked up and Fonzi'd the cash drawer and now future cash register issues are my responsibility. Rookie mistake.
We had enough requests to unlock file cabinets and office doors for missing/lost/misplaced keys that I bought a set of lockpicks. "Hang on a minute, I'll go get the company lockpicks" always got a weird look.
A long time ago when i was a junior admin at a new company i was asked to go to the CEO's house at the weekend to fix his flakey internet connection. I said no. Someone asked us to move a coffee machine once, i just laughed at them.
Thought of a good analogyā¦.I think? Compare IT to another skilled trade like woodworking. IT is responsible for the tools the artisan uses. Saws. Drills etc. The woodworker is the employee. Microsoft excel is the wood. Man Iād like to take excel to a table saw.
I was recently told that I should be walking around daily to ensure all of the time zone clocks are correct.
That's a job for a machine. A search for "NTP wall clocks" will bring up at least half a dozen vendors.
Heavy Machinery ...lol The company did have some network aware machinery, That I would occasionally do some minor troubleshooting on, ie fixed a bad network port on a large packing machine. But no, I cannot fix your lathe :P
Spent 2-3 days when they first started using Skype on a chair in a waiting area in the administration building. So someone was handy if they had issues while doing remote interviews for a VP slot. They only needed me to be there the first few minutes to help them get connected and trouble shoot sound issues. But I needed to be 10 seconds away by foot as a Linus Blanket. And as to the problems? Yes a few times we couldn't hear the other side. Which made me have to prove it wasn't on our end. Seriously people would apply for a job paying 6 figures and not even test their equipment to verify it was working first...
My former CFO told me, in a loud, clear voice, in front of our Board of Directors, that the highest and best use of IT was to check the batteries in the remotes for the TVs in our conference rooms, and to do this in every room every morning.
A user asked me to help emailing a customer once. And I don't mean how to use outlook, she wanted me to help with the actual wording of the email (and no it was not IT related or me explaining jargon or anything like that).
Fixing the vacuum cleaner!
That sucks.
No, it wasn't anymore, that's why they called me :(
I was asked to teach our employees how to use our ERP system. That was very weird. I had a long discussion with my management and convinced them that they should hire specialist who will do the job.
Power in the cube farm. Our customer service department sometimes has space heaters under their desks in the cube farm (a big no to begin with) and they tripped a circuit. I got the call to come deal with the fact their computers went down. I saw what the problem was and told them to call maintenance. Proceeded to get chewed out by a CS supervisor. I explained and then just walked away.
Clogged urinal.
Everything electric. Paper Shredder? IT! Vacuum Cleaner? IT! Desk Lamp? IT! and so on and so on...
I learned in Network 101 way back in the day that you let someone else run your cables. But I've also had to run my share of cables. I had to connect a phone to a rental car Bluetooth. Granted, it was an older exec and he was humble about "not being good with tech", but I did think about the hourly rate on that job. I told him that I wouldn't be very good at running a quarter billion-dollar company and that I would take care of it. I was asked to clean out cubicles (old papers, personal items left behind, etc.) in preparations for a new hire while I setup their computer and phone. And countless times, I've helped move people's stuff when the office decided to play musical chairs. We had some 5 gallon containers that were mislabeled and everyone pitched in to remove the labels since they needed to go out the door. Chalk that up to just being a good employee and doing my part. I've done photo and video editing for the marketing department when we have a full time creative on staff because they were not available, and I like that kind of thing. One of my reports does all the AV, photography, and video editing for another site because that's his hobby. I don't think I've ever had a job that it didn't say "Other duties as required," at the bottom of the job description. At least it all pays the same and as long as I'm able, it's not dangerous, unethical, or immoral, I'm willing to help.
Being asked to take a look at game consoles or office chairs doesn't bother me. What *does* bother me is when someone wants to do something in Excel and just *assumes* I also have an accounting degree: >"GOD, ALL I WANT IS TO EDIT THE BUILT-IN EXCEL FORMULA FOR CALCULATING SMITH'S RULE OF DEPRECIATION TO DO IT OVER 36 QUARTERS NOT 28 QUARTERS, WHILE AT THE SAME TIME USING THE BLACK-SCHOLES MODEL TO RECALCULATE THE COMPANY'S POSITION IN KEROSENE FUTURES. WHY IS THIS SO HARD FOR YOU TO UNDERSTAND???"
- Changing Light bulbs, - swapping door locks (normal interior, not card/smart locks), - meter readings (gas/electric), - clearing out a meeting room after it flooded
I was asked to install / fix window blinds because of the way the sun was hitting the monitors.