How to Irritate your IT Dept

A list of the top things that get on the nerves of the people who run your company's IT Dept

When a tech says he's coming right over, log out and go for coffee. It's no problem for us to remember 2700 screen saver passwords.

When you call us to have your computer moved, be sure to leave it buried under half a ton of postcards, baby pictures, stuffed animals, dried flowers, and trophies. We don't have a life, and we find it deeply moving to catch a fleeting glimpse of yours.

When tech support sends you an e-mail with high importance, delete it at once. We're probably just testing the email system.

When a tech is eating lunch at his desk, walk right in and explain your problem(s) and expect him to respond immediately. We don't even like eating food and only exist to serve.

When a tech is at the coffee machine or outside having a smoke, ask him a computer question. The only reason why we drink coffee or smoke at all is to ferret out all those users who don't have e-mail or a telephone line.

Send urgent e-mail ALL IN UPPERCASE. The mail server picks it up and flags it as a rush delivery.

When you call a tech's direct line, ignore the bilingual greeting that says he's out of town for a week, record your message, and wait exactly 24 hours before you send an e-mail straight to the director because no one ever returned your call. You're entitled to common courtesy.

When the photocopier doesn't work, call computer support. There's electronics in it, right?

When something's wrong with your home PC, dump it on a tech's chair with no name, no phone number, and no description of the problem. We love a good mystery.

When you have a tech on the phone walking you through changing a setting, read the paper. We don't actually mean for you to DO anything, we just love to hear ourselves talk.

When we offer training on the upcoming software upgrade, don't bother going. We'll be there to hold your hand after it is done.

When the printer won't print, re-send the job at least 20 times. Print jobs frequently get sucked into black holes.

When the printer still won't print after 20 tries, send the job to all 68 printers in the office. One of them is bound to work.

Don't use online help. Online help is for wimps.

If you're taking night classes in computer science, feel free to go around and update the network drivers for you and all your co-workers. We're grateful for the overtime when we have to stay until 2:30am fixing them.

When you have a tech fixing your computer at a quarter past one, eat your lunch in their face. We function better when slightly dizzy.

Don't ever thank us. We love this AND we get paid for it!

When a tech asks you whether you've installed any new software on this computer, lie. It's nobody's business what you've got on your computer.

If the mouse cable keeps knocking down the framed picture of your dog, lift the computer and stuff the cable under it. Mouse cables were designed to have 45 lbs. of computer sitting on top of them.

If the space bar on your keyboard doesn't work, blame it on us. Of course keyboards work much better with half a pound of bread crumbs, crisps, and nail clippings under the keys.

When you get the message saying "Are you sure?" click on that "Yes" button as fast as you can. Hell, if you weren't sure, you wouldn't be doing it, would you?

Feel perfectly free to say things like "I don't know nothing about that computer crap". It never bothers us to hear our area of professional expertise referred to as crap.

When you need to change the toner cartridge, call tech support. Changing a toner cartridge is an extremely complex task, and Hewlett-Packard recommends that it be performed only by a professional engineer with a Master's degree in nuclear physics.

When something's the matter with your computer, ask your secretary to call the help desk. We enjoy the challenge of having to deal with a third party who doesn't know jack sh*t about the problem.

When you receive a 30-meg movie file, send it to everyone as a high-priority mail attachment. We've got plenty of disk space and processor capacity on the mail server.

Don't even think of breaking large print jobs down into smaller chunks. God forbid somebody else might get a chance to squeeze into the print queue.

When you bump into a tech in the grocery store on a Saturday, ask a computer question. We work 24 hours a day 7 days a week, even while at the grocery store on weekends.

If your son is a student in computer science, have him come in on the weekends and do his projects on your office computer. We'll be there for you when his illegal copy of Visual Basic 6.0 makes your Access database flip out.

When you bring us your own no-brand home PC to repair for free at the office, tell us how urgently we need to fix it so your son can get back to playing DOOM. We'll get right on it because we have so much free time at the office. Everybody knows all we do is surf the Internet all day anyway.

Don't write anything down. Ever. We can play back the error messages from our video recording.

When we do something as a favour in our own time at our own expense, feel free to criticise us.

That's OK, we don't expect you to lift anything or get under your desk. Manual labour was part of our IT degree.

When an IT person tells you that computer screens don't have cartridges in them, argue. We love a good argument.

When an IT person tells you that they'll be there shortly, reply in scathing tone of voice: "And just how many weeks do you mean by shortly?" That motivates us.

Don't learn the proper name for anything technical. We know exactly what is meant by "my thingy blew up" and "I've got gobbledegook on my screen".

When you call someone in to fix a problem - don't tell them about the other 10 problems until they physically arrive. That's OK - we can clear our schedule for the rest of the day.

When your application can't do what you want, blame us. We write all the software that runs on your PC and can customise it on the fly. Bill Gates lets us do this.

Remember the IT guy doesn't need to think - they've seen every problem before.

When you find an IT person on the phone, sit uninvited on the corner of their desk and stare at them until they hang up.

When you think the network/e-mail/office application is going slow, call us. We have a button to press that makes it go back to it's normal speed.

The instant you call us (on our mobile) we can see what's happening on your screen and can solve it instantaneously.

Be aware that IT people don't need to use the toilet, so you have a right to be upset if we don't answer the phone.

And finally, always remember.... we were sitting there waiting for Your call.. The whole day!!!