As I said today: "Number one rule of Tech Support. Never admit you are at fault. ALWAYS blame it on the System'

What is the System? It's a strange mythical beast. It has no form, and just exists in the hearts and minds of whoever speaks it. It grows from being filled with complaints, cursing, and scapegoating. The system is every PC that crashed ("The system went down"), every database that ever went corrupt ("The system lost all your data"), ever button that was incorrectly clicked ("The system changed the wrong setting"), and every techie that goofed ("The system blew up your PC" (OK, maybe thats a stretch)). The great thing about The System, is that because it can be blamed for all wrongs, equally the people who administer it (every techie in the world), can be responsible for its achievements ("The system I designed will increase productivity 100%", "I made the changes in the system to give you network access", "The report I produced from our [HelpDesk] system gives you looks of good data"), and is a great clause for getting-out of a tricky HelpDesk call, or the awful totally stumped deskside situation, ("I'll just check this data on the system", "I need to research this problem on the system", "It's a system fault-just let me go downstairs and correct that")

Being held in such high terms means that the (L)users will be amazed at it's power, and never question what it is or how it operates. Besides, even trying to explain the technical details of anything to most users is like getting a young child to eat his greens.
posted by Chris at 11:25 PM [edit]

Hard Drive death. No it shouldn't happen to anyone, but today I had one. Long drawn out, it's on it's way out. Now, when you've got a P3 800 that running about the speed of a 386, and refuses to give you network access you better hope to whoever that there isn't much needing backing up. Fortunately it was only two floppys worth - phew. Yes, it's an easy fix. Slap a new HD in and a clean install. It's still annoying though, time-consuming, and booooorrrrinnngggg, I'd much rather be playing with a server. I miss you HelpDesk server already, with your 1Ghz processor and even with your noisy fan. Why does everyone else get the good stuff?
posted by Chris at 11:14 PM [edit]