techrecovery | Things We Don't Do.

Dear clueless upper management and callers,

Certainly, there are a number of jobs which the Technical Helpdesk performs. In fact, we know this better than you because we spend all day doing them.

However, it has come to my attention that you apparently think we also do a number of unrelated tasks. Personally, I blame this on your own wilful ignorance, coupled with the bright stickers with our phone number on every corporate PC, the author of which I shall be dismembering shortly.

Allow me to refresh your knowledge.

1) We are not the company switchboard. The switchboard is not even part of the I.T. department. I will not look up numbers for you or transfer you to Bob Smith. The corporate phone book is built into your browser's locked-down homepage for a reason.

2) We are not secretaries for your IT group. Do not forward emails to us purely to be typed into the ticketing system unless you (a) have broken fingers, or (b) want some.

3) We are not free classifiers for your team's incoming email. Do not forward your inbox to us for sorting. We'll simply invalidate your address on the corporate mailservers and set up a bounce message with your home phone numbers.

4) Likewise, we are not a dumpster for I.T.-related email misdirected to you. Either tell the sender to call us if they don't know who it should go to, or phone us yourself if you're feeling charitable.

5) We are not a cheap-labor extension of your own team, so don't bitch when we assign your problems low priorities. If you really wanted your work done, you'd be doing it.

6) To the bosses - we are a computer troubleshooting team, not one of your pet call centres serving the general public. Yes, we both use headsets. No, our job could not be done - properly done - by a potted plant with a script. See, a call centre can't (clickkky-click) trash your email and meeting calendars while (tappetty-tap) wiping out all your project data for the last five years.

Are we understanding each other now?