Manifesto for corporate support IT helpdesks

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

After spending far too many years supporting large organisations, I have compiled a list of rules which seem obvious, but which managers and other staff have to be constantly reminded of in one form or another. Here's the distilled crack:

OTHER TEAMS
1) We are not here to do the work of local office management, administrators, trainers, local technical staff or other IT teams. They have staffing budgets for a reason.
2) We are not a call logging or secretarial division for other teams.
3) We are not a dumpster for other teams to throw unknown jobs into. ESPECIALLY when those jobs are the responsibility of the team in question.
4) Corollary: We are not a switchboard.

5) We are not here to provide ongoing workarounds for other teams’ incorrectly or inefficiently coded or configured hardware, software or procedures while said teams sit around on their butts for YEARS doing nothing about the problem.

OTHER STAFF
1) We are not responsible for training staff, either in basic computer skills or how to do their jobs.
2) We are not here to take up the slack for lack of correct staff training.

SCOPE
1) We will not provide more than basic troubleshooting for equipment or services we do not have access to ourselves or have never heard of.
2) Just because a piece of equipment is beige or uses electricity, this does NOT mean that it is on our list of supported hardware.

MANAGING OURSELVES
1) We are not in the business of employing staff purely to cover inefficiencies, whether our own, other teams’, or those of management. I don't care if some manager wants to empire-build.
2) Analysts are not to be expected to jump through inefficient extra hoops at the whim of upper management, especially when there is no good technical reason for it.

FUNCTION
1) We are not a ‘friendly face’ for IT, or any other form of managerial fluffiness. We are a technical troubleshooting and repair division, not your secretaries or assistants.

Comments

[nikator.livejournal.com]

Bwah ha ha ha that sounds like my corporation; they deflected calls to a queue that was deemed to be quiet, yet completely unrelated. Then, they stopped when it was up to its ears in customers.

[kalidor.livejournal.com]

2) Just because a piece of equipment is beige or uses electricity, this does NOT mean that it is on our list of supported hardware.


The infamous "they" wanted me to fix the microwave "they" broke last week. I told them that I could help them as soon as they found the login prompt ..

[shirenomad]

That's it, you're both going on metaquotes.

[kalidor.livejournal.com]

HAHA :)

[kuang.livejournal.com]

I was called up to a room a year or so back to identify a 'wierd whistling noise' comming from one of their workstations. It turned out to be an airlock in the radiator behind the desk, but that still didn't stop them asking me if I could fix it..

I always liked the sign our library had display before mismanagement aked them to remove it:

'A lack of planning on your part doesn't guarantee urgency on my part'

:)

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Hee :)

The canonical version is, I think, "Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on our part."

[absurdwords.livejournal.com]

Do we work for the same company?

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

This is the cut-down, summarised, severely truncated version. And every item in it is the direct result of hundreds of calls, dozens of clueless managers, and far too many people who needed a foot planted in their ass.

[absurdwords.livejournal.com]

I know the feeling...