When I am in the main part of the office, and I am plugging leads into a patch panel, do not walk up behind me and make fake explosion noises, or talk loudly to the person next to you along the lines of “Max is about to blow everything up”, or “Max is touching things, the system’s gonna crash”, or some other smart-arse wise-alecky thing. It’s not funny, and it pisses me off. I’m a professional, goddamit, and very good at my job!
And listen, you pack of ungrateful cunts, ever since I took this job, downtime has been reduced to less than 24 hours a year (combined downtime for over 40 servers). That’s 99.72% uptime for the combined infrastructure! Most of our systems (with the exception of the aging VMS system) are operating at 100% availability! Even the fucking VMS system, for all its flaws, has a greater than 99% availability. So fuck off. Just fuck off already!
The next prick who says something witty the next time I’m trying to do an upgrade will find a CAT5e cable stuck up his or her arse. It’ll feel oh-so-good going in, but I promise it won’t be easy pulling it back out. You have been warned.
IT people and/or techie types: feel free to add your pet peeves here!
Actually, mine’s the same as yours. The joke, “Man, what’d you break THIS time?” wasn’t funny the first time I came over to fix your ailing computers; why do you think it’s still funny after five years?
I know that our computers are in a damp, fur-filled environment with leaky roofs and unstable temperatures. I can’t control that. I can just try to use enough duct tape and baling wire, and a little bit of chewing gum, to keep them all working. Please make your jokes funnier.
In my shop they know not to joke. Or rather, that they are the slightest bit unsure about how it may be received. (During working hours anyway… if it’s after 5 and I’ve got a beer in my hand, you can say pretty much whatever ya want).
One guy thought he was being really funny ONE time. He didn’t think that after 6 months went by and his ‘problem’ was still unrepaired; while meanwhile the guy next to him had his ‘problem’ resolved in a few minutes.
Course, I support a small group of about 10 users, for a family business. But we do still have all the fancy doo hickeys that tend to break from time to time; from patch panels to SQL servers.
After having worked in IT in corporate America for more than a decade - it’s about time I was able to just plain old tell someone to fuck off if they don’t deserve my help.
Egads, the only jokes I’d ever make around IT types would be along the lines of: “I didn’t do anything to that machine.” What kind of person goes around blaming the doctor for their own ills?
My freakin’ notebook is my freakin’ notebook. Unless I’m endangering the data or the hardware itself, you have no reason to change settings and lock me out. I don’t want my computer to hibernate after 20min of inactivity. It screws up lengthy synchs when I’m on the road.
Don’t treat me like an imbecile because the VPN doesn’t work at remote locations. I’ve verified that it works on my home network, so clearly I haven’t ‘broken’ it. And, as God as my witness, if you ask me if I’ve got the cable plugged in or if the caps lock was on while I typed the password, I will bludgeon you into a bloody heap of jelly.
Do I really need to prove that IE is security risk? Enable the ports Opera uses for chrissake so that I don’t have to use IE anymore.
Don’t tell me that both a bios level password and a MS login are both required by law. That’s just silly. Pick one or the other.
Your expensive re-mailer and spam filter lets through more spam than Hawaiian diner. Ironically, I never received any before the ‘upgrade’.
Yes, I installed Palm software and a DVD player on my computer. Want to fight about it?
Don’t give me eight-hundered and fifty reasons why a customer can’t get limited access to data on our servers until you have at least listened to what they want to do. You’d rather not, I get it, but at least wait to understand what is being asked before you manufacture excuses.
“…why yes, I am in the IT industry. I’m a system/data archi… aha… Well, ummm… No, I can’t really say why your printer is jamming.”
“…yes, yes I am looking for new opportunities… really?.. your son does the same thing?.. I see, he works with computers. You must be so proud.”
“…ah… so every time you load your needlepoint instruction software your bridge game stops working?.. hmmmm… well, I wasn’t consulted when those particular programs were written. Yes, I’ll do some research on the internet and get back to you.”
And people wonder why the ones on my Christmas list, the secretaries and the techies, get home-made treats (like Bourboned Cherries and hand-made candy) and the rest of the faculty get stiffed!
‘… why no I’m not familiar with Blah Blah Bible software… no, just because I am a computer engineer does not mean I know every piece of software ever written…’
Why do people insist upon pissing off the ones who control their Internet access and have the ability to read their email?
Let me recap for you:
[ul]
[li]Don’t make jokes about the IT person while they’re busy trying to fix your problem[/li][li]At least have the common sense to wait until they’re out of earshot[/li][li]Otherwise the IT person will exact a very unpleasant revenge upon you![/li][/ul]
MC$E, oh yeh, this is one of my favourites. Our spam filter catches a whole lot of spam, but sometimes it’s not too sure if an email is legitimate or not… so it sends a notification to the user, along the lines of “You’ve received an email with such-and-such a subject header, we’ve put it aside as spam, but just in case this message is NOT spam, just reply to this message and it will be automatically released”.
Do they reply to the message? No. They forward it to me, with the question, “what do I do to get this message?”. :rolleyes:
Catsix, sometimes when it all gets too much, I issue an empty threat such as, “Piss me off any more and I’ll remove all mention of you from the payroll computer!”. It’s a joke, but nevertheless it works. It doesn’t matter that I don’t have access to the payroll computer. Or that even if I did, my sense of ethics would stop me from doing such a thing. What matters is that they stop for a moment and (usually) realise they’re being twats and to just shut the fuck up!
I’m feeling a little disgruntled at the moment. Please, carry on
Max
