Tech support rules for users1. Don't write anything down. We can play back the error messages from here.
2.When a tech says he's coming right over, go for coffee. It's nothing for us to remember 481 screen saver passwords.
3. 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, bowling trophies and Popsicle art. We don't have a life, and we find it deeply moving to catch a fleeting glimpse of yours.
4. Send urgent emails all in uppercase. The mail server picks it up and flags it as a rush delivery.
5. When you call a tech's direct line, press 5 to skip 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 email straight to the director because no one ever returned your call. You're entitled to common courtesy.
6. When the photocopier doesn't work, call computer support. There's electronics in it.
7. 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 puzzle.
8. When a tech tells you that computer monitors don't have cartridges in them, argue. We love a good argument.
9. When you get a message about insufficient disk space, delete everything in the Windows directory. It's nothing but trouble anyway.
10. When you get a message about a hard disk controller failure, and then you reboot and it looks okay, don't call tech support. We'd much rather troubleshoot it when it's dead as a doornail.
11.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.
12. When a tech tells you that he'll be there shortly, reply in a scathing tone of voice: "And just how many weeks do you mean by shortly?" That'll get us going.
13. When the printer won't print, re-send the job at least 20 times. Print jobs frequently get sucked into black holes.
14. When the printer still won't print after 20 tries, send the job to all 68 printers in the branch. One of them is bound to work.
15. Don't learn the proper name for anything technical. We know exactly what you mean by "my thingy's outta whack".
16. Don't ever thank us. We're getting paid for this.
17. 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.
18. If the space bar on your keyboard doesn't work, blame it on the mail upgrade. Keyboards are actually very happy with half a pound of muffin crumbs and nail clippings in them.
19. When you get a 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?
20. When you find a tech on the phone with his bank, sit uninvited on the corner of his desk and stare at him until he hangs up. We don't have any money to speak of anyway.
21. Feel perfectly free to say things like "I don't know nothing about that computer crap". We don't mind at all hearing our area of professional expertise referred to as crap.
22. 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.
23. When you receive a 30-meg movie file, send it to everyone as a mail attachment. We got lots of disk space on that mail server.
24. When a tech gets on the elevator pushing $15,000 worth of computer equipment on a cart, ask in a very loud voice: "Good grief, you take the elevator to go DOWN one floor?" That's another one that cracks us up to no end.
25. When you bump into a tech at the grocery store on a Saturday, ask a computer question. We don't do weekends.
26. Don't bother to tell us when you move computers around on your own. Computer names are just a cosmetic feature in NT 4.0; they won't be doing anything useful until the next major release.
27. When you can't access some shared directory on your boss's machine, just tell us that you've lost your X: drive. We know all that crap by heart.
28. If you need to buy a computer for your daughter in college, feel free to pick our brains while we're taking a leak. We're good at talking shop with our Johnson in our hands.
29. We're aware of that problem with computers just sitting there and not doing anything. We're confident that with the next service pack they'll be able to dance the jig.
30. The correct location to store important files is the Recycle Bin. It's just like a real office, where you keep your tax receipts in the blue can under your desk.
31. If you miss Windows 3.1, find the line that goes shell=explorer.exe in your SYSTEM.INI file and replace it with shell=progman.exe. It makes troubleshooting infinitely easier when we ask you whether you have a Start button at the bottom of your screen and you truthfully answer us that you don't.
32. If you curse every morning when you start to type your password and the Virus Shield splash screen pops up in your face, disable the Virus Shield. Again, this is just like real life: if you don't like condoms, just don't use them, that's all.
33. We don't really believe that you're a bunch of ungrateful twits. It hurts our feelings that you could even think such a thing. We wish to express our deepest gratitude to the hundreds of clueless losers
portrayed herein, without which none of this would have been remotely possible.
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"We have a strange and wonderful relationship. You're strange and I'm wonderful."
[This message has been edited by FeistyGirl (edited 03 April 2002).]