Nick Burns: Your Company's Computer Guy

21. if you're a teleworker and I'm trying to help you over the phone don't give me vague descriptions like "I can't get to my stuff. I clicked on the thing and I can't get in now." I'm not in the room looking over your shoulder for the past 5 minutes, you need to describe the steps you took to get to where you are now. And don't give me this exasperated tone when I ask you to do something the Help Desk already asked you to do, like reboot your computer. You got a cab waiting?

22. Don't present a problem like "My FAX123 program won't connect" as if was working yesterday and stopped connecting today. When more likely you have been told many times your supervisor needs to request an account for you and you haven't bothered to start the process. And you think somehow I have the magic touch and can circumvent that whole process on the spot. And even if I could do it you would appreciate it for all of 3 seconds, then come to expect it every time. And so would your colleagues sitting within earshot.

23. Don't ask me to work on something without telling me another tech is already working on it and you just haven't heard back from them in a timely manner and thought you would start over with me.

24. Not everyone in IT knows each other and can do each others' jobs and are cross-trained on account creation, purchasing, application support, etc. So the guy at the home office in Virginia hasn't created your account after a week, you want me to drive there and stand over him? There are MBA's who get paid buckets to manage this mess, you want bottom-rung techs to somehow make it all better?

25. Make sure to follow the last instructions I gave you with troubleshooting an issue, like try it on a spare computer, or reboot, or try printing from a different app, etc. Because when you don't, and a week later when I get a high priority email from your manager saying "why is nobody helping them with this issue?" I will provide a record of our last contact where the ball was in your court.

26. You wonder why it's hard to get a hold me by IM, email or voice mail now? You no doubt wasted my time with one of the previous entries above, or sounded annoyed and impatient that I can't do everyone's job or escalate your issue instantly.

27. If you see me in the building don't ask me IT questions any more, I have moved on to SQL development.

I thought he did a pretty poor explanation of the difference between RAM and a hard drive, especially for a target audience that thinks a computer is a hard drive.

And on the flip side, don't tell me to restart my computer.

I love how frustrated IT guys get with the very reason they have job security to begin with.

"job security"? We got outsourced to some offshore low-bidder whose call center was apparently staffed by AOL dial up veterans. The very first all-hands telecom was hosted by some guy on the other side of the planet, who actually spent 30 minutes reading off names instead of using some modern technology to capture attendance. I'm glad I got out of that racket.

Like me. I will be on my (seven/7)th month tomorrow of being unemployed again.

Damn, sorry to hear that. I could go off on a frothing at the mouth rant at how bad it was, what we went through. To save money our original company, a nationwide US health insurance company, outsourced us right at merit raise time (nice touch, a-holes) to an off-shore company that would probably only ever meet expectations running an assembly line operation for building PCs.

They were out of their league taking over level 1 and 2 operations for a large company, which was already working through the pains of merging with other companies they had acquired. Instead of inspiring the legacy workers to stick around to make the transition work, their attitude was we were lucky the host company insisted we get first crack to reapply for "our" jobs. Like it was all one big assembly line and we could be easily replaced with someone with an A+ cert for $11\hr. The equivalent of pulling up to a storefront and having IT landscapers jump in the back of a pickup truck to work that day. Might work for an assembly line but not for a complex embedded IT infrastructure with 1001 local support quirks. They were completely clueless.

Add insult to injury, their internal processes were so bad, over the course of a year they asked us continually to remind them of the phone# of the iPhone they gave us and the serial# of the laptop they gave us. At least half a dozen times, it was fucking absurd. And when we were offered an incentive to help reduce the ticket log backup, they mailed unsigned money orders to fictional home addresses they had on record for us. With the stamp on the wrong part of the envelope for those lucky enough to receive their unsigned money orders. You had the option of mailing the money order back to get it signed (good luck getting it back) or committing a felony to get the money you legally earned, by not using the first option. Took me 7 months to finally get my money order, who knows where they originally mailed it. Their indifference during this whole mess was staggering, you had to badger management and HR like they were a deadbeat drunk brother-in-law who owes you money.

And they kept putting off the review\raise process until they finally offered us 50 cents an hour for the highest performers. I gave my notice the next day.

Sorry for the rant, it was such a colossal failure on all fronts, except no doubt for the amount the host company saved on IT during that time. But of course nobody is interested in capturing the countless hours of downtime and lost productivity introduced by these IT cost "savings". Last I heard they were putting the contract back out to bid before the scheduled end of the current contract, which doesn't surprise me. What a freaking waste.

I hope you find work soon, Ant.