There are only 24 hours in the day

It’s always interesting to me to have a user come over to the IT group and exclaim, “My laptop will not work!” This is not so interesting because their laptop won’t work but because of the statements that follow… and follow… and follow.

Let me show you by quoting a famous movie about a guy who works in a boring, dead-end job:

Peter Gibbons: The thing is, Bob, it’s not that I’m lazy, it’s that I just don’t care.
Bob Porter: Don’t… don’t care?
Peter Gibbons: It’s a problem of motivation, all right? Now if I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don’t see another dime; so where’s the motivation? And here’s something else, Bob: I have eight different bosses right now.
Bob Slydell: I beg your pardon?
Peter Gibbons: Eight bosses.
Bob Slydell: Eight?
Peter Gibbons: Eight, Bob. So that means that when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That’s my only real motivation is not to be hassled; that, and the fear of losing my job. But you know, Bob, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.

It may not be to this extreme but this is how most IT people feel when they have someone coming over with a story about their life and how their computer not working will affect their kids, their spouse, their dogs, cats, roosters, pigs, and cars — all without telling me what the problem is. A prime example is the other day when someone came to me with a laptop that “didn’t work”.

They sat down, explained how they took it home, it wouldn’t work, they took it to their grandmother’s and it wouldn’t work, they even brought it to the airport for a trip and it wouldn’t work. In addition, it caused them to be late on sending out an Evite for their kid’s birthday party which meant that it inconvenienced their husband because he had to send it out at the last minute. All the while they never once explained what was happening with the machine when it “didn’t work” because as I saw it (on my desk), it was running, with word open and their Lotus Notes software churning away at their email. Finally, they explained that their wireless would not work and when they were away from the office they could never connect to the Internet. A simple push and explanation of the “wireless on/off” button did the trick. A 10 minute explanation took a 10 second fix.

So please, be kind to your IT guy. Cut him/her some slack as they probably have 8 different bosses who all want their time and your life story doesn’t make their day any easier.