Please Send Your Request into IT Support.

Hey you, … yes you! You think I’m available to fix all of your insignificant problems just because I sit two offices down from you? You think I’m just sitting here doing nothing twiddling my thumbs all day? You think I’m waiting here for you to enlighten me with your presence? Huh, is that what you think? You think that because I’m sitting in my office that you can now barge in and demand that I fix a problem for you? You think that your printing problem or your lack of Word 2003 skills is more important than all of the pre-scheduled work I have planned for the day? You think that I’m going to try ‘fit’ you in somewhere in my busy schedule. You expect it right? Yes you do, because it’s you. But you’re wrong. You see, we have a support tracking system in place for a reason, its used to help me prioritize my day, to sort the menial tasks from the critical ones, to sort your little techno-peasant issue from the real ones like having an oil-rig down because our rig laptops aren’t working. I have respect for the people that take the time to send an email into our support system, I have even more respect if that person has done some preliminary troubleshooting and tried to fix the problem by themselves before contacting me. Those people I will fix first, why? Because they deserve it more than you do.

We have this one guy that moved into the office from the warehouse, he thinks he’s special now and not a day goes by that he doesn’t approach me 3-4 times to ask stupid questions such as “How do I print to an envelope on the printer?” and “I’m moving my computer, how do I plug the cords in?”. First of all let’s ignore the fact that if you ask me to show you how to print an envelope all I’m going to do is RTFM or click F1 and educate myself, let’s also ignore the fact that if you wanted to move your computer that all the cables are color coded and can only go in one way, keen observation skills you have indeed. But you are just one of many…

We have other people that have been educated and educated again on the importance of sending support requests into ‘IT Support’, there’s a very real reason we need you to do that, statistical data aside we’re not being silly when we tell you to do this. We’re not brushing you off either, move your intelligence to a higher level and lets start working together on this, please don’t make me repeat myself for the 15th time.

We don’t think very high of you but here’s some tips you need to know when sending your requests into IT Support so as to prevent us from going schizophrenic and landing up in a mental ward:

• Think before you start typing., know what you’re requesting.
• Please be sure to be as descriptive as possible about the problem or request, saying things like “The printer is not working” isn’t going to help you in the slightest bit because all I’m going to do is put it at the bottom of my list of more important things to do and then later reply and ask questions such as “Which printer are you talking about?”. This all delays the process in getting it fixed. Think! If you can’t be bothered to be descriptive then I’m not going to be bothered to help you. If you’re too busy to be descriptive then I’m too busy to help you. It’s a two way street here, works both ways. Think!
• Take a screenshot of the error message if applicable, this helps us in ways you can’t even comprehend.
• Remember to fill out any scanned forms in full, include your names on all forms you send to us.
• Don’t scan your incomplete or half ass filled out forms from the scanner directly to IT Support, how will we know who sent the request, rather, scan the form to your own email address and then forward it to IT Support. This is a simple basic process, it’s not complicated at all! Having an email come from ‘Susan Brown” is better than having an email come from “HPLJ9000″. As much as we like to play mystery games and try figure out who sent the request it’s not going to help you in the long run!
• If you live in a different timezone don’t send your request in at 3am Calgary time and expect an answer within 15 minutes, and just because it’s not answered immediately don’t then proceed to phone me on my Blackberry thereby waking me up from what little sleep I already have.
• Once we respond to your request that you diligently sent into IT Support please don’t proceed to send in additional requests on the same problem if it hasn’t been fixed yet, it’s not going to make your request any more important, instead, it’s just going to clutter our inbox with more trife to deal with. We know about your problem, we’re working on it and we’ll let you know once it’s fixed!
• Remember that you are not the only person in the company, as big of a shock as it is!

Do these little things and help us out. What are some of your ideas for educating employees that have the IQ of a walrus?