Coping with the I.T. Department

Do you get along with your I.T. Department? I'm spending my 9 to 5 these days as a supervising network engineer. Maybe reading this will take some stress away from your day when you have a computer problem, and have to reach out to the I.T. Department.

Here are some things to consider:

First, the computer: 
For many people, when they see a computer, something in their brain shuts off. I'm talking about intelligent people who know how to behave around a computer, or can learn how to behave around a computer, but some Pavlovian prank occurs in their brain that prevents them from doing so. So what can we do about this?

Picture, if you will, a VCR. (If you're too young to know what a VCR is, or remember having one in your home, you're probably not who this section is intended for. If you'd like to follow along anyway, picture a DVD player instead. Didn't have a DVD player? How about a Wii U, Xbox One, or PS4? A Television? A microwave?) The VCR sat on top of your television set (that's the fat kind, not the flat kind) plugged in to the wall for electricity, and the TV to get it's signal onto your screen. The VCR got its signal from either an antenna inside or outside, or cable, or a satellite dish, so it was plugged into probably another box or another spot on the wall. As long as all of the cords were plugged in and not faulty, and there was electricity, and your TV was on the right channel, you would at least get a picture on your screen. Want to watch a movie? Pop a tape in there and hit play. Life is good.

But that's a lot of conditions already just for a VCR, isn't it? Power in, signal in, signal out, TV/VCR mode, tuner mode, power to the TV, TV channel, the tape itself, tracking, did you hit play?

Suddenly, the VCR seems pretty complicated - but it didn't seem that way when you were recording Magnum P.I., did it? Sadly, the majority of problems are caused by things not being plugged in. But that's not really even what important. Here's what's important. You wouldn't kick your VCR so hard that it tumbles onto the floor several times over a two or three week period, and then blame the VCR repair man when he says it was damaged by the kicks and falls since it worked after the other five times you kicked it onto the floor? But that happens. Your desktop at work bulk ordered from Dell is not one of those hardened military laptops that are designed to survive war - it's the cheapest damn thing your company could buy that would actually work. Also, if you ever had a collection of potted plants on your VCR, and then blamed the VCR repair man when the VCR broke and when he opened it, potting soil and dead leaves fell out, and there were obvious signs of water damage, please stop reading this and promptly kick yourself in the ass - FIRMLY. I've found this, and other disgusting things, inside computers that were "running just fine" yesterday "so it couldn't possible be all this garbage I let get in it since I've been letting garbage get in it for ages!"

So be at least as gentle with your computer as you would a VCR.

Second, The Help Ticket System:
If your company has a help ticket system, use it! Don't try to get in the front of the line with a phone call or email. Here's why: The I.T. department is busy! Even if nothing breaks there is a lot of work that needs to be done to keep things running - especially if your company has any sort of compliance (I'm looking at you schools, healthcare providers, and/or any company doing business with any government entity). You're rolling your eyes right now, aren't you? Almost all of the work a network tech/admin/engineer does, even if it's on equipment in another state, is done from his or her desk. Desktop techs/admins, on the other hand, will be up and about more often, but even in the right set-up, they can get everything done from their seat. So just because you don't ever see the person leave their office, doesn't mean that they're not busy.

Oh, that's not why you were rolling your eyes, is it? It's because you know that you can get the I.T. department to handle your stuff first if you just show up in their office or call them, isn't it? Well, then that's the I.T. department's fault, but by order of management, that doesn't fly where I work.

Finally, the annoying questions:
Every dang time I talk to I.T., they ask a million boring questions and I JUST WANT THEM TO FIX IT! Well... WE'RE TRYING, DAMNIT! That's what the questions are for. And I know some of you feel like when we're asking these questions, it's because we don't believe you. That's not the case. It's not like fixing a flat tire where you can just say "The tire is flat" and the repair person will say "Okay we'll replace it with a new one". They never ask "When did the tire become flat? Where were you driving when it happened? How fast were you going? Has it happened before? Was it just one tire or all four? Did the other people you could see on the street also get flat tires?" Wouldn't it be nice if computers were like tires, and we could just fix them without knowing what was wrong?

But computers are not like tires. If you have a problem, and tell us that it's happening to everyone, you're not only going to get a faster response, you're going to get a faster response of us looking in the absolute wrong direction, which means that it will take longer to fix. If it's just your computer (as far as you know), and you tells us that, then we will probably know where to look first, and you'll be fixed in a matter of minutes instead of hours. We need to know when it started in order to find a correlation with other events - either in firewall logs, or workstation logs, or maintenance logs, or maybe there is no correlation, and it's an isolated event.

And finally, the most annoying question of all is when we ask you to show us. Maybe it's a website that doesn't do what it's supposed to. Well, we're going to ask to see it. Maybe an error message comes up when you're running a program. Not only do we want to see the error message, we want to see exactly what you did when the message appeared. This is called replicating the problem and is the absolute crux of any troubleshooting process, whether it be cars, mechanics, or even I kid you not sometimes the doctor will tell you to move your elbow in the way that causes pain when you tell her that moving your elbow a certain way causes pain. Replicating the problem allows us to see a lot of other details that you may not have picked up on. To no fault of your own, of course! We're the ones trained to look for these things.

So back to the website example: I'm going to either be sitting next to you with my own laptop, or connected to your computer via remote access. I'll ask you to click that thing that didn't work again, and while you plainly see that it's not working, I'm also checking for any indication on your screen, watching your event viewer from my computer, and probably watching traffic cross (or get blocked by) the firewall in real time. Was the problem with your computers operating system, browser, browser plugin like Adobe, Flash, ActiveX, Java, or your antivirus? Or maybe it was actually something interrupted by a faulty switch or router. Or maybe the firewall detected an unsafe element on that page and has decided to block it.  Maybe there's a problem with the Internet Service Provider's connection? Or Domain Naming Service? Or the web server it self? I once had a director call me at home at 8PM because she was being "blocked" to a certain website and wanted me to fix it immediately when it turned out the owner of the website she was visiting hadn't paid their damn website bill and the hosting company took the website down until they paid the next morning!

So yes, we're going to ask you to show us the thing, whatever it is, not working. And yes, we're going to ask you to do this multiple times while we change certain variable to get a solution working. No, it's not because we don't believe you, and no, you don't have to cooperate if you really don't want to - only cooperate if you want us to be able to fix your problem.

Honestly, there are a lot of jobs computer science degrees or various computer certifications can get you in to, and many people go into Information Technology (i.e. support) because they enjoy helping people. We want to fix the thing that isn't working. Help us help you.

Hopefully, if you've read this entire rant, you'll be able to take a deep breathe and work with the I.T. crew in order to have a less stressful experience. Because that's what I want. I want you, the end-user, to have a less stressful day. Aren't I nice?