IT Helpdesks can be muppets too...
I work in customer service for a very large photocopier concern (as in, we invented the damn things) and that has its own little world of dumb-arse behaviour: the guys who call us about the fact that the machine says it's out of paper, or toner, or staples seriously try my ability to control my sarcasm gland. And let's not even go into the ridiculous excuses you get when some twunt has broken the glass by trying to photocopy their arse, even though there's a copy of their arse in the double-sided path (not sure why you'd want a double-sided copy of your arse, but there you go).

All our machines are Energy-Star compliant, but the legions of people who complain about the machine switching itself off are unbelievable: full-on RTFM arguments have been had, even with secretaries who believe fervently that WE are trying to disrupt their working day by, er, saving some energy and imposing a two-minute wait for it to warm up again after they've touched any button...

These days, of course, all our machines are network-connected digital devices that some poor sods in the US have spent years making an unfuck-uppable as possible. Still doesn't stop it happening, though...

The litanies include: machines that apparently need a new Ethernet card (actually the cable plugged back into the router), machines that are dead (because the cleaner has unplugged it to use the hoover), machines that have disappeared off the network (because some twit has disabled half the ports on the server), machines that can't scan to the network (because, erm, the scan server is down)... you name it.

And the best of it is: I can run about the back of so many incredibly insecure networks, yet apparently all these problems are in fact my responsibility...
(freeradical, Fri 2 Jan 2004, 1:48, Reply)