Rules To Live By For Computer Users From The Tech Support Department
  1. Don't write anything down. Ever. We can play back the error messages from here.
  2. When an I.T. person says he's coming right over, go for coffee. It's nothing for us to remember 3,000 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. When you call the help desk, state what you want, not what's keeping you from getting it. We don't need to know that you can't get into your mail because your computer won't power on at all.
  5. Send urgent email all in uppercase. The mail server picks it up and flags it as a rush delivery.
  6. When you call an I.T. person'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.
  7. When the photocopier doesn't work, call computer support. There's electronics in it.
  8. When you're getting a NO DIAL TONE message at home, call computer support. We can fix your line from here.
  9. When you have a dozen CGA monitors to get rid of, call computer support. We're collectors.
  10. When something's wrong with your home PC, dump it on an I.T. person's chair with no name, no phone number and no description of the problem. We love a puzzle.
  11. If you hate your mouse, get some other pointing device and discard the manual. We know all the keyboard accelerators.
  12. When an I.T. person tells you that computer monitors don't have cartridges in them, argue. We love a good argument.
  13. When you get a message about insufficient disk space, delete everything in the Windows directory. It's nothing but trouble anyway.
  14. When you get a message about a hard disk controller failure, and then you reboot and it looks okay, don't call I.T. support. We'd much rather troubleshoot it when it's dead as a doornail.
  15. When you have an I.T. person 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.
  16. When an I.T. person tells you that he'll be there shortly, reply in scathing tone of voice: "And just how many weeks do you mean by shortly?" That'll get us going.
  17. If you have a 14-inch monitor that says VGA on it, set the display to true color, 1024 x 768. You'll never again have to worry about people reading confidential files over your shoulder.
  18. Don't learn the proper name for anything technical. We know exactly what you mean by "my thingy's outta whack."
  19. When an I.T. person finds the AOL shortcuts in your Recycle Bin, tell them you've never seen those before. We couldn't tell a lie if it kicked us in the face.
  20. If the mouse cable keeps knocking down the framed picture of your dog, lift the computer and stuff the cable under it. Mouse cables were designed to have 45 lbs. of computer sitting on top of them.
  21. When you receive the new Yanni CD for your birthday, shove it into any slot on the front of your computer. We like getting physical with 5 1/4" floppy drives.
  22. Feel perfectly free to say things like "I don't know nothing about that computer nonsense." We don't mind at all hearing our area of professional expertise referred to as nonsense.