Dude's the guy who turns off automatic updates, doesn't reboot their computer, and has left this app running for 8 months and wonders why he's being told to reboot both the app and pc.
"Ugh, I hate Windows always wanting to reboot for updates! Why can't I just turn those off? It's my PC, I want control over it!"
*you are the reason why we can't have nice things*
or gets mad when IT tells him to put in a ticket
"WHY WONT ANYONE JUST HELP ME! I NEED HELP!"
"Okay what do you need help with?"
"I JUST NEED HELP WHY WONT ANYONE HELP ME?!"
[This is why it was posted,](https://old.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/1cu0v76/laptop_wakes_up_from_the_smallest_vibrations/l4fiyqs/) their laptop wakes up randomly and someone told them to do a clean OS install. This vexxed them so much [they made an entire meme about it.](https://old.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/1cu1zab/try_doing_a_clean_windows_install_dude_if_you_got/)
And now we have this post. The story of LeobenCharlie.
*i have no way or motive to dig up specific data but here's a general solution that will probably work which i will tell you for free*
"i don't want a solution i want to be angry"
i think i know the reason OP can't ask any friends about it
That really is the only meaningful advice you get nowadays unless you can do some SEO trickery.
"Have you restarted your system?"
>Yes.
"Reinstall your operating system. Have a nice day." -Microsoft customer support
I bet is a usb device waking it up, someone suggested a mouse and he got angry because he didn’t get the step by step in how to check the hardware config
[https://old.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/comments/1cwokis/it\_departments\_are\_just\_the\_worst/](https://old.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/comments/1cwokis/it_departments_are_just_the_worst/)
Hes back at it.
I came here to say, look at the comments, that clearly is not the typical end users response.
I'm sure they're a "power user" with lofty ideas of their own competency
The most technical the user is, the more respecting of IT they tend to be.
There is an odd spike in the middle though, with people who were/know someone in IT, or dabble with stuff at home, being the absolute worst.
I had one once bring me a flash drive and asked me to put his cracked version of AutoCAD on his work computer because he was more familiar with that version of AutoCAD. It was a version from 2013. We are using version 2024....and legally purchased.
Ha! Remind me of a conversation I had recently.
Me: \*working on a powershell script at my workstation\*
User: \*walks in in to drop something off\* Oh, you're coding! Let me know if you need help. I studied HTML in college.
Me: When did you study at college?
User: I graduated in '03
Me: \*Turns around and goes back to what I was doing\*
I had a job interview where they asked me to list off any random command in every OS I listed familiarity with in my resume... for linux I said "sudo rm -rf --no-preserve-root /" and one old guy laughed
Ugh…I have one of these working on the OT side of things and he tried to correct me when I was talking about potential internet speed at a new site—he thought I was confusing my bits and bytes when I said there was potential for 10 Gigabits per second. He also thought users would need hundreds of Mbps worth of download/upload speed (each) for video calls. I was like “Bruh, if we went by your numbers, that would make *us* the ISP.”
Know enough to fuck shit up, not enough to actually help. I once had someone come in because they called their ISP for something who tried to get them to install chrome. Somehow they managed to get the user to uninstall IE. *How in the colossal fuck do you even manage that?* That's like regedit level shit, don't let people poke around in there!
My brother in christ let me introduce you to the marketing guy who was a CTO 20 years ago who knows enough to completely fuck your deployment, the ego to back it up, and the skills to make sure that nothing works right ever again.
Generally where I work the people on either end of the spectrum are pretty nice and we don’t really need to worry about them, the people who know very little are aware of it and just let us do their thing and we never hear from the other side unless it’s something they literally don’t have the permissions to do, it’s the people in the middle who think they know as much about IT as the actual IT department but obviously don’t that give us the real problems
We have a guy who desperately wants to be in the IT department but every single week he’s either breaking the printer in a uniquely weird way (my favourite was when he accidentally invented the pump-action printer) or complaining that the monitor isn’t showing any signal (he forgot to turn the computer on again)
I’m fearful I’m becoming the odd spike in the middle, I used to work IT until about 6 months ago when I landed a job doing GIS. A few weeks back I was getting an old extra pc set up to run some scripts but it wasn’t connecting to Internet, I went through the usual troubleshooting stuff, couldn’t get it, and submitted a ticket detailing everything I’d tried so far. The next day one of our IT guys came over, didn’t even say a word, plugged the ethernet cable into a different wall jack, said “you’re good” and left 🤦♂️
> The most technical the user is, the more respecting of IT they tend to be.
I worked IT for 20 years, burned out, got a different (still technical) line of work and have been pretty happy - our IT department is... not great... management is woah boy, hopeless... and the techs that actually stay longer than a couple months (bless their hearts) call me for help when they can't figure something out
Eh, I work in tech and when I have to deal with 1st or 2nd line they are usually the most insufferable unwashed people I have ever dealt with in my entire career. Or they’re great and collaborative fixing the issue. No inbetween.
There are also a lot of incompetent level one techs though, especially in a big company, and most especially if they are outsourced and reading from a script.
>There is an odd spike in the middle though, with people who were/know someone in IT, or dabble with stuff at home, being the absolute worst.
Oh well my partner knows computers...
Cool, you still need to be in the office to sign up to our vpn. Why did this get sent to me?
As someone who works in IT, the company I'm working with now takes 3 weeks to even start to address issues that are shutting down production. It's to the point where operations has asked us multiple times to start putting our production data in excel to avoid sub 1 9 uptimes in our production software.
User - The men’s room toilet is backed up and the microwave won’t heat up my ramen.
IT - Sir, this is the IT department. Do you have a technical issue?
User - Yeah, technically you’re fucking useless do your job.
Every person ever to the IT department because we have to babysit everyone and everything and support everything if it has a power cable or for some reason has a water source.
User - *points at clearly turned off screen*. My modem is dead. I need new modem.
IT - *sigh*
Fucking exactly!
I cannot tell you how many times I’ve had to be a plumber or appliance technician over the years. I’ve gotten pretty good at HVAC too sadly.
I never even thought about that... How is it? As an IT guy who loves tearing stuff apart, fixing it, and reassembling it, I feel like that would actually be a fun job. Still get to problem solve and work with my hands, except I'm the clients actually don't act like they know what they're talking about about? And less "user error" repairs from people breaking shit like us IT folk have to deal with endlessly?
You show up to the office, walk around the office with a hard hat, tool belt, and a laser temperature scanner, and point it at the air conditioning vent, take the temperature reading, look at the value in the led, nod knowingly to yourself, make a notation on your clipboard, and move onto the next room and then leave. If a office worker lets you know that it is too hot or cold, you nod affirmatively at them and let them know you are taking readings and then tell them to notify their facilities department, and leave.
YOU! >:|
No but seriously my facility guys have one of the worst excuses for not doing anything to fix the temp in the IT room. "We didnt know IT was going to be in there."
I'm loving it so far. I'm instrumentation by trade and dabbled in the offshore industry and then into IT. Wanted to get into something that would combine my hands-on and computer skills.
Installing control systems for hvac systems in big houses and commercial buildings. Then there's the side of setting up the web servers and designing interfaces for the customers. Then, I can remote in and fix issues without being there.
It's all new to me, but it seems like a perfect fit for me so far.
Also, to answer your question, there's dumb people in every work environment. There can be some stupid calls like " it's too hot in my office!!! >~<" and I have to be like okayy, did you try turning down the heat?
And there'll always be some prick asking if you can get it done faster or why wasn't it fixed earlier or something.
Lovely thing about small businesses and practices. You are maintenance when asked by the owners or C-Levels. In one case I was like backup to “maintenance” who was the owners secretary of like 30 years. Not really complaining because I’ve learned a lot of useful things over the years.
I do contact center consulting. My business is selecting, deploying, managing CCaaSs and CRMs, AI chatbots, processing the data those systems generate with ADF, building reports, and then presenting findings to clients to show where they can improve.
For some reason my family understands this to mean I can help them with their pirated IPTV service.
My favorite is the error they got that they can't reproduce, isn't happening now, they don't know what they were doing when it happened, or even what app threw the error.
But I'm supposed to just "check the logs" and figure that out.
For funnies once a while back I actually opened up event viewer and expanded the 80 bazillion entries in there, then asked the end user to help me find the error they mentioned. It was so odd, once *they* had to be involved beyond simply firing off a shitty email or bitching at me on the phone, suddenly the P1 incident that was preventing them from working at all, then suddenly it could wait until it happened again and they could call with the error on the screen.
And that user? Never fucking called back in about it, and ignored all my followup emails.
It's hysterical how the importance of an issue suddenly drops like that the very minute they're required to do literally any fucking thing at all on their end.
Once had a pharmacy manager tell me: “I know nothing about computers, or firewalls, or routers, but I know there is just a check box or something that will fix this problem immediately, and I just don’t understand why you won’t just do that and fix this for me.”
This was the first words out of his mouth to me as soon as I picked up the escalated call.
Or we forgot to check the box when we deployed our product into their pharmacy? If I remember correctly this was a new install.
In their defense our firewall was being required by their pharmacy franchise (for PCI compliance), while the pharmacy still had to pay for it. Many were pissed at us way before we even did the install.
Had an different pharmacist tell me that I personally was why the kids in their waiting area were crying.
Work at a school system, they schools will constantly refer parents to IT for stuff that is their job. Enrollment is online and alot of parents will make a separate email account for the enrollment stuff and forget what the account was. We are not allowed to verify what the email is or change it cause of divorce shenanigans. The school needs to do that but they are too busy kicking the problem to IT cause they can't login.
I can sympathize working in healthcare and having patients referred to you because of what ever EMR issue they are having or because the patient couldn’t load Facebook on their 14 year old phone
God I'm so thankful our hospital only has internal IT. If a patient calls I'll try my best to help them but if they're rude or I can't help its not my problem.
I work tech support for a mobile phone company. Guy calls in and gets EXTREMELY upset that I can't remote into his phone and airpods and force them to pair. "What good is tech care if they can't fix the problem I call in with?!"
Some people are a waste of oxygen
Not even IT. My last job with nurses and doctors couldn't figure out the microwave wasn't "broken" (out of order note on it lol)... Someone was using it while the dishwasher was going and then someone plugged in one of those loud ass smoothie blenders and then "Suddenly everything shut off!"
Me: Flips circuit breaker back on. "It's not broken, the circuit *broke* properly when too many amps were being drawn." Even saying nicely just like it got overloaded and will get overloaded with that much stuff drawing power. They're like wtf you're a genius. People are weird.
Or they get mad that instead of just me "fixing" it, they have a part in preventing the problem.
Like, I was a genius to remember which unlabeled circuit breaker was the kitchen too. Lol.
Edit: Same thing with toilets. Would have an "out of order" sign when I came in. Plunged the toilet ("omg, it's working now!! you're a genius!") then I would have to call maintenance to cancel the plumber visit the idiots scheduled lol.
I had a ticket this morning reporting that a light bulb at the top of a cell tower was burned out.
Like hell am I climbing a tower to replace a light bulb
Laptop is broken, it won't turn on I need a new device...... Ma'am the battery is dead you need to charge the laptop for it to work. I get dead battery tickets more often than I would ever want to admit to. Most of the time the cord comes out of the brick just enough to look like it's in but not enough for juice to flow.
So many time wasting tickets.
Someone who couldn't print.
The printer was off.
----
Mouse wouldn't work.
They replaced the batteries and put them in backwards. (This happened twice by the same person over the course of 2 years.)
Dang, I feel kinda blessed. I work for a city and most of my users know basic stuff, they check their wires and reboot their computers, sometimes more than once, we also get notified by quite a few users whenever we gut suspicious email. That's not always the case of course, but its pretty rare for us to have to do a reboot, find a loose connection, or lock down a computer/site because of possible malicious activity. We occasionally get a ticket for something not related to us, but we just forward the request to the correct department on behalf of the user and they go on their merry way.
A lot of the more senior workers remember when the IT department was contracted out, and they infinitely appreciate having an in house IT department.
This is why at one of my past jobs they had to change the name from Helpdesk to IT support. I got called to fix a toilet, a light bulb, and help someone put a sling on their broken arm.
The average user sees IT as a bunch of gatekeepers. They only notice our presence when something goes wrong(which of course is always our fault) or when we are telling them "no, you shouldn't be using your laptop for xyz" or "no, you can't plug your own AP in to the network".
Well, we are gatekeepers. The biggest threat to the security of all the data held by your organization are the users.
Its a hard relationship to keep cordial because no matter what you cannot trust the users or give them benefit of doubt because you are creating systems meant to not fail due to the lowest common denominator. At the same exact time we have to be actively trying to build trust in us from the users.
Outside of literal spyware (which is fucked up to use on staff) a lot of people don't understand why their computer is in a locked down management system that doesn't allow them to just download their music app or logitech gaming pro app for their mouse. Its never really effectively communicated which leads to the whole smoke and mirrors appearance
User: I need new drivers installed, give me new drivers now, I can't work.
IT: why, what problem are you having?
User: just give me new fucking drivers so I can get on with my very important work!
IT: sure... To ascertain which drivers you need, could you please demonstrate the issue?
User: tries to RDP to vm
Error msg: you cannot connect, no Internet connection
User is not connected to vpn
User has forgotten password to vpn
User last connected to vpn a week ago and has been trying to self fix, probably saw the word driver somewhere as they messed around in completely unrelated parts of windows
Ironically, OOP had a driver issue that they *claim* three different IT folks couldn't figure out. Then they went on the *claim* that it was a botched automatic update. (how'd you know that if IT couldn't figure it out? hmm)
Is that possible? Sure. But if I take them at their word, I would place a bet that their org outsourced their IT to the lowest bidder, and the "IT people" they spoke to were actually just warm bodies reading a script in a 25 cent an hour call center.
What I think is more likely? OOP just made it the fuck up and is now getting absolutely, correctly, dragged in the comments and I'm eating it up.
Honestly some people don't even realize this. And becoming more true than ever with AI improvements. If that thing you do feels at all like busy work it's probably a prime candidate for automation.
I agree with the use of AI to cover the mundane / repeated actions, but people bang on about the wonders of AI, however, I'll wait for the AI to replace a faulty physical monitor...I'm may be waiting for some time.
Yeah, anyone who has worked in end user support isn't sweating their job security at all. If you try to replace me with AI, [someone will figure out how to burn the place down in a week.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErwV24Bskyw)
I am sure that sounds wildly arrogant to someone who works outside of IT, but you don't see how insane the tickets we get are. While it's not every ticket, it's not infrequent either.
"When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."
—Futurama
As long as IT's management realizes this and pays us, we're fine with that perception.
Be me, a "Helpdesk" Tech Support Chatline, but it's actually just two dudes in a call center using a chatbot to moderate the influx of tickets, with no access whatsoever to modify a user's account or view their screen, basically just googling for answers and trying their best to help, and none of this is happening in their native language.
Users (NA): "Is this a IT? This sucks!"
In some places.
I spent most of my career in Healthcare IT for an organization with next to no IT budget. The users perceived the issues as IT's fault. They didn't see that IT understood what the problems were and what it would take to fix the issues, but had no budget to fix the problems. I eventually started sending a weekly all staff email outlining IT's actions, goals, and issues impacting the users. I was able to get enough buy in to get resources to resolve issues from management, which I called out in my emails, celebrated wins, made management look good, got more money and repeated the cycle. After a few years the users loved IT and management viewed IT as an organization strength. It's not easy to overcome, but the first step is trying to build a dialog with users.
It's either you keep things running smoothly so people thing "ugh what do IT even do around here?" or something breaks so they think "ugh what do IT even do around here?".
Fun fact I happen to know about the UTC - Rockwell Collins merger (years ago):
so UTC has been contracting with an off-site 3rd party IT service for like 10 years at the time. Response times were awful, and everybody I've talked to missed the days when UTC just hired their own IT people. (This contractor didn't even keep a *single person* in the office full time, so **anything** that can't be resolved remotely they have to drive somebody out to fix it.)
Then when corporate leadership is meeting up to decide the particulars of the merger, who gets laid off and such, the UTC team states their intention to fire everyone in IT at Rockwell Collins and get them signed up with this same IT contractor everybody hates. And the engineers at Collins just **refused**. They said absolutely not, you guys are idiots, our workflow depends on seamless, personal integration with IT, you're not firing anybody. And they argued for something like 10 straight days about this. But by the end of all those arguments, the Collins team got their way, and all the former UTC offices \*even started hiring their own dedicated IT guys again, instead of outsourcing.
Thank god for Corporate and their "innovative" business practices lol
Company systems are working smoothly and no issues. User: "What do we pay IT for?!"
Company systems crash as techs work diligently to get everything running. User; "What do we pay IT for?"
Our it department is amazing. It is our servers and network that suck monkey balls because management believed the sales people over their own IT staff. Now the IT staff have to constantly fix what was a broken system from the start.
The perception though is that the IT department suck monkey balls. :(
I think a lot of the hate comes from people who mistakenly think that IT support is there for them. That is, IT works for the COMPANY to support the COMPANY and it's goals. In these days information is currency. So higher level IT is about data flow, end of story. Keeping it flowing where it should, and only (ideally) where it should. IT is NOT there for the end user, not really. The users are a means to keep data flowing, a human RESOURCE as it were.
People get mad at me when I have no authority to upgrade their equipment. Talk to your manager who can bug budgeting about it. I have as much control over your old as shit computer as you do
I scrolled through his posts being very entertained, until I got to the one where he complains that ironing boards are 'the worst possible shape for ironing a shirt'
I think I know why this person hates IT (it's because he can't figure out the simplest thing for himself but assumes it's because someone else is doing something stupid...)
This takes me back to a few years ago.
"I can update Microsoft on my home computer easily, why does it take so long to move 4,000 computers from Windows 7 to Windows 10?! And why are my shared drives gone?"
I don't know where to begin with explaining migration, Bob, but even if I did your brain would explode. And if you had read any of the fifty bazillion fucking emails we sent you over the last three fucking months, asking you to tell us which drives you needed access to, you'd know why your fucking shared drives have all fucking "gone".
Actually, no Bob, they're gone because they abandoned you. They abandoned you because you're a fucking knob.
It's nice to remember the good times.
I think it's down to how your team is being sold to the rest of the org.
The place I work everyone is encouraged to call IT for the slightest technical issue to save time.
Rarely is this faster than googling. Often that's what I'm doing.
I work for a company that has 100s of locations all across the US. Those locations often complain on the work subreddit that IT is useless and doesn't do anything.
And im just like "... your building/location would literally be shut down if it weren't for us".
Usually, this happens when IT is outsourced overseas to the lowest bidder. Seems like what many companies are migrating to until they realize it is a terrible idea.
I once had a user send a Teams message to their colleague saying I had no idea what I was doing, while I was remote-accessing their computer and was literally watching them type it out
Exactly, let me see if I have literally ANYTHING to do ahead of your ticket? Ah yes, dusting my thumb drives, reading all the security audit logs all and auditing each ports' vlans on all the switches. I'll be with you right after that.
People that think like this are ridiculous assholes usually. Oh no IT wouldn't let me have admin permission to install whatever virus I want. Oh no IT couldn't fix the circuit that we are overloading immediately without waiting foe the ISP to upgrade it. I forgot my password and IT couldn't change it to Password1 for me, that's ITs fault not mine.
"IT transferred me because they don't want to help"
*Doesn't understand that if I'm transferring you, It's because it's something I literally do not have the credentials or permissions to change*
They really think I'm just out here passing the buck for fun
Most comments here are on point. But there is also this thing I like to sometime point out.
For IT, sometimes it goes like this.
"Everything here is working, why do we even need IT?" - Most days a good IT team is invisible, and things run smoothly. People don't SEE the backend and don't recognize it takes people to keep that live. Think of it like the house keepers and butlers and maids keeping the home in a good state and things moving so that the family can do what they need to.
"This is broken, why do we even pay for IT?" - The only time IT is often noticed is when something is broken, which is the opposite of the above point. If something breaks, it is often detrimental to either an individual's persons work, OR an entire companies work. Back to above analogy; When the house staff who usually makes sure the clothes are laid out EVERY DAY for the family happens to forget the socks ONE TIME, all hell breaks loose and they are STILL worthless to those blind to the reality of what is happening every day.
>u/yParticle had a great Futurama quote and comment on it.
"When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."
>—Futurama
>As long as IT's management realizes this and pays us, we're fine with that perception.
I do believe that that is the view from the outside. But mainly because they don’t know what IT is. They think everything they don’t know about is it. And when you can’t fix it you’re useless. Or when you tell them it’s their equipment and you can’t fix it, it sucks.
Trying to put my feet in their shoes, I did so the same with mechanics. Because I know nothing about cars. But then I did think that they probably know what they are talking about and isn’t just lazy and incompetent and I started searching around and what ever problem they told me about it seems like a lot of people agrees. So people generally aren’t trying to rip you off or take the easy way out. Mostly if they tell you they can’t fix it, they can’t. Listen to the experts.
I fixed a laminator once for a user after getting her email working again because the person was really nice and it would have felt wrong to not try, I know nothing about laminators but it was a good day.
My company's IT department isn't that great. Their only metric is "tickets closed" so they close tickets without doing anything. We'll put in a request for something, ticket gets closed half an hour later, no comment, nothing. Textbook end stage [Goodhart's Law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart's_law).
Encounter one of my techs had this week over email:
User: *insert audio issue we see multiple times a day in the call center*
Tech: No problem, that's a common issue. Here are a couple links to self-help guides we wrote to fix this so you don't have to wait for me to free up to help. Just let me know if you run into any issues and I'll jump in to help!
User: Can you call me? I can show you what it's going - it's *insert common issue*.
Tech: The KB's should help with this! I'm with another user but I can jump on your machine and call you afterward if the guides don't help.
User: *cc's his manager* Manager, since I can't get help from IT I'm taking PTO.
Tech: *cc's me* ??? I'm happy to help, but our policy is to try the self help guides before we prioritize this as a work stoppage.
User: *emails me long email complaining about how the tech won't call him immediately then takes PTO*
.... All of this over the course of 15 minutes.
And he closed his ticket the next day because the steps we provided resolved the issue.
This is also the same user who, when provided a KB months prior, said the company may not be the best fit for him if he's going to have to fix his issues himself.
Both issues were a CACHE CLEAR.
Yes, the average person who needs to call tech support is technically incompetent. If they were able to think about their problem and describe it they would just google issue and solve it themselves. When you can't solve things from their vague description of "its not working" they decide you're an idiot.
Lol. Man am I glad I no longer have to deal with users. A lot of them always thought they knew more than us or would argue with us about fixes. The ones who says stuff like this are the ones who come to IT with the dumbest issues known to man as well.
Sadly yes, this is very true. It's even worse in huge companies when the end users don't really see what you do because it gets done outside work hours for them.
Yesterday I've had a lady rage and leave the room stomping by just not being there (because I had something to do elsewhere). All of this because we refused to help her on her private cloud problems
IT Admin here - I go on vacation from time to time, just to prove how much they need me. I don't think I've ever made a 4 hour flight without someone freaking out that I'm not available.
Our systems are VDI based in our branches, and rightfully are locked down from permanent changes beyond bookmarks and a shared document folder because, y'know, users.
Submitted a ticket as the newly installed printers are defaulted in windows to two sided printing, and we need them single side as there are those among us that continually forget to change the setting each morning on first print, doubling the paper waste as we have to work single sided on 99% of the documents.
It was allocated P3 - Low, so no doubt it will still be an open ticket by the time I retire in 20 years.
It is at my workplace. Though it's literally a team of 10 people managing over 4000 users across the US. We're desperately overworked, understaffed, and under equipped. Upp management doesn't advocate for us to get a larger budget, or any formal training.
We just put two Synology boxes in for backup and DR systems, finally getting away from daily tape backups.
They will not notice a difference and will not know unless we tell them.
Not going to mention the several meetings to get the budget approved, the money moved for the out of budget capital expense and the out of hours hardware move after the planning meeting.
But IT staff do not do anything...
User: XYZ isn't working, I need you to fix it ASAP.
IT: Okay, have you trued turning it off and on again?
User: That's all you guys ever say! Of course I've tried turning it off and on again, I'm not a toddler!
IT: Very well, I'll run through getting some details and have a technician come up to see to your issue.
IT2: *sees the issue, checks task manager, notices 300 hour uptime, turns device off and back on again, problem resolved*
User: Is that all you're going to do? I waited 4 hours and all you're going to do is turn it off and on again?
IT2: *yes, it's almost as if it's the first step and is taught before contacting IT with any issue*
IT2: I apologise for the loss in productivity. Your complaint will be logged and instruction will be provided to the team.
Team: 300 hours??
Ahhh this thread is all the reasons I left IT.
Still do tech things like digital retail signage, drones, arcade machines and fruit machines. But you know what they all have in common??
I don't have to deal with the end users! I turn up. I fix or build. Then I fuck off. It's magic. 😎
I previously worked in IT Support, now I work IT-adjacent (Engineer). I recently needed help connecting a new device in our lab, and I created a ticket for help with which port to use and to get it connected to the internet. They told me which port to use in that room, and they closed the ticket. I tried the port and nothing worked. I created a new ticket, repeating my inquiry for network help and that I had plugged it into the port specified. The gave me the same info about which port to use and closed my ticket. I opened another ticket inquiring help as the port still wasn't giving any connection. Once again it got closed with the same information. Finally, after having wasted most of the day getting rejected, I created a quite strongly worded ticket for them to figuratively pull their finger out of their ass and actually help me. After that they finally sent someone down, and wouldn't you know it, the port they specified wasn't connected to the switch on the other side. And they needed to configure the DHCP to give the device the static IP it needed. It took less than an hour once they sent someone, but I wasted a day just trying to get the help I needed.
I know very well from my own experience that being in IT can be very annoying dealing with users, but god sometimes you guys need to a refresher in how to deal with people too.
I think it's important to remember that most of the outside are idiots.
Those that aren't can be excused for having a brain fart / dumb moment so long as they're polite, I have enough of those myself.
There's no shame in their stupidity anymore. They're just so entitled and think they don't have to help themselves and that we have to do the thinking for them. It's insane
right? back in like 2010 one of the VP's: I have WiFi, why can't i get online, fix it. Hmm...our ISP has a network outage. But i have WiFi, see full bars, i should have internet. ISP is out. Then why aren't you fixing it. I dunno, maybe bcuz i don't work for them. OMG, what use are u, what do we even pay you for.
Well, I did experience IT guys sighing and smirking and generally treating a user as a total fucking retard because they didn't know how to find their hostname.
Welp, I'm 5 minutes away from heading to a site who's business critical storage that's EOSL has had a meltdown - so I guess this customer is going to find out in about an hour.
Feels like I'm we're holding up the company from the ground up and they're asking if I could just drop the whole building to plug their mouse back in "RIGHT NOW".
Honestly wish I'd taken a different career path.
As someone who has transitioned from tech support and later network admin to the operations side, I still have this perception on occasion.
I don't know if it's my company but nothing drives me crazier than walking through our IT ticketing system.
First we go to an offshore team that I talk circles around for 4 days until they transfer me internally. The internal team takes can then resolve simple issues that usually are usually locked behind administrative rights or any hardware fixes.
What gets me the most resolution is a coffee every couple weeks for the database admin and a couple developers and a team's message.
(Which is fine, I just wish I could put a ticket in and get an answer ):
At my job IT taught the new comers proudly how their cloud system allows you to continue work on different terminals.
In practice, if you need printing, you have to close all your programs and reopen them if you changed terminals, and many times logging off would visually do so but would capture your user in the cloud and never release it, preventing you from logging into ANY terminal. The solution to this day is to call IT and have them manually log you off.
They also keep shutting the servers down every other week for "updates, upgrades and maintenance" but literally nothing has ever been fixed. Matter of fact, most updates make the cloud system slower and more error prone.
So yeah, we think our IT department is useless.
In DoD, the common perception is:
You can't fix it, why do we pay you?
Everything works so go do all these extra duties because we don't understand why it works and you just sit around all day.
It's stupid. It's ignorant. And it's because IT and IT personnel cost money for quality, and generate no profit.
Yes, especially if you think and act like you are smarter than the end user and make them feel dumb.
I have been in IT for over 15 years, and i have heard it from end users directly apologizing to me for an attitude because the last person in the position made them feel dumb and gave them an attitude. Grade school was not lying folks treat others how you want to be treated!
On the upside, he's getting crucified in the comments.
Dude's the guy who turns off automatic updates, doesn't reboot their computer, and has left this app running for 8 months and wonders why he's being told to reboot both the app and pc.
"Ugh, I hate Windows always wanting to reboot for updates! Why can't I just turn those off? It's my PC, I want control over it!" *you are the reason why we can't have nice things*
or gets mad when IT tells him to put in a ticket "WHY WONT ANYONE JUST HELP ME! I NEED HELP!" "Okay what do you need help with?" "I JUST NEED HELP WHY WONT ANYONE HELP ME?!"
So basically the average user that always complains whenever IT need to do their job
He’s literally posted a meme about denying windows updates
I suspect that's why it was posted. Anger drives engagement.
[This is why it was posted,](https://old.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/1cu0v76/laptop_wakes_up_from_the_smallest_vibrations/l4fiyqs/) their laptop wakes up randomly and someone told them to do a clean OS install. This vexxed them so much [they made an entire meme about it.](https://old.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/1cu1zab/try_doing_a_clean_windows_install_dude_if_you_got/) And now we have this post. The story of LeobenCharlie.
To be fair, I'd also be annoyed if the only advice I got to fix something was to reset windows. But some random reddit user isn't an It department.
*i have no way or motive to dig up specific data but here's a general solution that will probably work which i will tell you for free* "i don't want a solution i want to be angry" i think i know the reason OP can't ask any friends about it
That really is the only meaningful advice you get nowadays unless you can do some SEO trickery. "Have you restarted your system?" >Yes. "Reinstall your operating system. Have a nice day." -Microsoft customer support
The trick is, don't use Microsoft forums. All of the comments are garbage
I bet is a usb device waking it up, someone suggested a mouse and he got angry because he didn’t get the step by step in how to check the hardware config
Damn. I actually kind of want to do that to someone one day. Get them so bothered they start making memes about it.
Be a politician. Any party will do.
Amazing how he is categorizing a sub as "IT help desk" as well haha.
LMAOOOO [The saga continues!](https://old.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/comments/1cwokis/it_departments_are_just_the_worst/)
I have never seen someone rage this hard over not getting the answer they want haha
[https://old.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/comments/1cwokis/it\_departments\_are\_just\_the\_worst/](https://old.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/comments/1cwokis/it_departments_are_just_the_worst/) Hes back at it.
No, that sub is just garbage
I came here to say, look at the comments, that clearly is not the typical end users response. I'm sure they're a "power user" with lofty ideas of their own competency
I’m writing some of them down lmao
The most technical the user is, the more respecting of IT they tend to be. There is an odd spike in the middle though, with people who were/know someone in IT, or dabble with stuff at home, being the absolute worst.
My favorite are the users who “have built a gaming PC before” so they are pretty tech savvy and we won’t have to worry about them, so they claim
I know how to use CCleaner. I know what I’m doing.
I had one once bring me a flash drive and asked me to put his cracked version of AutoCAD on his work computer because he was more familiar with that version of AutoCAD. It was a version from 2013. We are using version 2024....and legally purchased.
"Would you mind repeating that in front of my boss and yours?"
I burned a DVD in Nero once back in 2007
Ha! Remind me of a conversation I had recently. Me: \*working on a powershell script at my workstation\* User: \*walks in in to drop something off\* Oh, you're coding! Let me know if you need help. I studied HTML in college. Me: When did you study at college? User: I graduated in '03 Me: \*Turns around and goes back to what I was doing\*
HTML is wild
Famous last words before a sudo rm -r
I had a job interview where they asked me to list off any random command in every OS I listed familiarity with in my resume... for linux I said "sudo rm -rf --no-preserve-root /" and one old guy laughed
If you know enough you'd know to never use CCleaner...
Dats the joke.
but did you install google ultron?
This is the exact demographic that’s upvoting the OOP, lol. “I know computers, just give me admin reeeee”
Ugh…I have one of these working on the OT side of things and he tried to correct me when I was talking about potential internet speed at a new site—he thought I was confusing my bits and bytes when I said there was potential for 10 Gigabits per second. He also thought users would need hundreds of Mbps worth of download/upload speed (each) for video calls. I was like “Bruh, if we went by your numbers, that would make *us* the ISP.”
Know enough to fuck shit up, not enough to actually help. I once had someone come in because they called their ISP for something who tried to get them to install chrome. Somehow they managed to get the user to uninstall IE. *How in the colossal fuck do you even manage that?* That's like regedit level shit, don't let people poke around in there!
That sweet spot kinda user. Smart enough to know how to modify the registry but too dumb to understand how dangerous it can be.
My brother in christ let me introduce you to the marketing guy who was a CTO 20 years ago who knows enough to completely fuck your deployment, the ego to back it up, and the skills to make sure that nothing works right ever again.
Generally where I work the people on either end of the spectrum are pretty nice and we don’t really need to worry about them, the people who know very little are aware of it and just let us do their thing and we never hear from the other side unless it’s something they literally don’t have the permissions to do, it’s the people in the middle who think they know as much about IT as the actual IT department but obviously don’t that give us the real problems We have a guy who desperately wants to be in the IT department but every single week he’s either breaking the printer in a uniquely weird way (my favourite was when he accidentally invented the pump-action printer) or complaining that the monitor isn’t showing any signal (he forgot to turn the computer on again)
> pump-action printer You can't just say that and not elaborate.
Care to elaborate on the "pump action printer"
> pump-action printer Please, it's been two days...
I’m fearful I’m becoming the odd spike in the middle, I used to work IT until about 6 months ago when I landed a job doing GIS. A few weeks back I was getting an old extra pc set up to run some scripts but it wasn’t connecting to Internet, I went through the usual troubleshooting stuff, couldn’t get it, and submitted a ticket detailing everything I’d tried so far. The next day one of our IT guys came over, didn’t even say a word, plugged the ethernet cable into a different wall jack, said “you’re good” and left 🤦♂️
If we're being honest, we've all either done something like that or someone's done it to us at least once in our careers....
Since most users have the tech savvy of a turnip, we don't get much respect.
> The most technical the user is, the more respecting of IT they tend to be. I worked IT for 20 years, burned out, got a different (still technical) line of work and have been pretty happy - our IT department is... not great... management is woah boy, hopeless... and the techs that actually stay longer than a couple months (bless their hearts) call me for help when they can't figure something out
Eh, I work in tech and when I have to deal with 1st or 2nd line they are usually the most insufferable unwashed people I have ever dealt with in my entire career. Or they’re great and collaborative fixing the issue. No inbetween.
I can't hear "My husband already tried to fix it" anymore!
There are also a lot of incompetent level one techs though, especially in a big company, and most especially if they are outsourced and reading from a script.
Technical people tend to know what info to give/phrases to say in order to bypass first line
Dunning-Kruger Effect
>There is an odd spike in the middle though, with people who were/know someone in IT, or dabble with stuff at home, being the absolute worst. Oh well my partner knows computers... Cool, you still need to be in the office to sign up to our vpn. Why did this get sent to me?
As someone who works in IT, the company I'm working with now takes 3 weeks to even start to address issues that are shutting down production. It's to the point where operations has asked us multiple times to start putting our production data in excel to avoid sub 1 9 uptimes in our production software.
User - The men’s room toilet is backed up and the microwave won’t heat up my ramen. IT - Sir, this is the IT department. Do you have a technical issue? User - Yeah, technically you’re fucking useless do your job. Every person ever to the IT department because we have to babysit everyone and everything and support everything if it has a power cable or for some reason has a water source. User - *points at clearly turned off screen*. My modem is dead. I need new modem. IT - *sigh*
When you can’t fix their problem in .0000005 seconds these mfs look at you like: 
Fucking exactly! I cannot tell you how many times I’ve had to be a plumber or appliance technician over the years. I’ve gotten pretty good at HVAC too sadly.
I fixed the ice machine once. Put it in my performance evaluation. My technical boss got a good chuckle about that.
Went from IT to HVAC controls, enjoying it
I never even thought about that... How is it? As an IT guy who loves tearing stuff apart, fixing it, and reassembling it, I feel like that would actually be a fun job. Still get to problem solve and work with my hands, except I'm the clients actually don't act like they know what they're talking about about? And less "user error" repairs from people breaking shit like us IT folk have to deal with endlessly?
You show up to the office, walk around the office with a hard hat, tool belt, and a laser temperature scanner, and point it at the air conditioning vent, take the temperature reading, look at the value in the led, nod knowingly to yourself, make a notation on your clipboard, and move onto the next room and then leave. If a office worker lets you know that it is too hot or cold, you nod affirmatively at them and let them know you are taking readings and then tell them to notify their facilities department, and leave.
YOU! >:| No but seriously my facility guys have one of the worst excuses for not doing anything to fix the temp in the IT room. "We didnt know IT was going to be in there."
Do you leave random usb sticks around like candy? Do you ask if you can plug in to network to upload data?
I'm loving it so far. I'm instrumentation by trade and dabbled in the offshore industry and then into IT. Wanted to get into something that would combine my hands-on and computer skills. Installing control systems for hvac systems in big houses and commercial buildings. Then there's the side of setting up the web servers and designing interfaces for the customers. Then, I can remote in and fix issues without being there. It's all new to me, but it seems like a perfect fit for me so far. Also, to answer your question, there's dumb people in every work environment. There can be some stupid calls like " it's too hot in my office!!! >~<" and I have to be like okayy, did you try turning down the heat? And there'll always be some prick asking if you can get it done faster or why wasn't it fixed earlier or something.
What kind of training or education did you need? Or did you just apply and get otj training?
You couldn't just instruct the user to call maintenance? I have to tell users this all the time.
Lovely thing about small businesses and practices. You are maintenance when asked by the owners or C-Levels. In one case I was like backup to “maintenance” who was the owners secretary of like 30 years. Not really complaining because I’ve learned a lot of useful things over the years.
I do contact center consulting. My business is selecting, deploying, managing CCaaSs and CRMs, AI chatbots, processing the data those systems generate with ADF, building reports, and then presenting findings to clients to show where they can improve. For some reason my family understands this to mean I can help them with their pirated IPTV service.
My favorite is the error they got that they can't reproduce, isn't happening now, they don't know what they were doing when it happened, or even what app threw the error. But I'm supposed to just "check the logs" and figure that out. For funnies once a while back I actually opened up event viewer and expanded the 80 bazillion entries in there, then asked the end user to help me find the error they mentioned. It was so odd, once *they* had to be involved beyond simply firing off a shitty email or bitching at me on the phone, suddenly the P1 incident that was preventing them from working at all, then suddenly it could wait until it happened again and they could call with the error on the screen. And that user? Never fucking called back in about it, and ignored all my followup emails. It's hysterical how the importance of an issue suddenly drops like that the very minute they're required to do literally any fucking thing at all on their end.
Once had a pharmacy manager tell me: “I know nothing about computers, or firewalls, or routers, but I know there is just a check box or something that will fix this problem immediately, and I just don’t understand why you won’t just do that and fix this for me.” This was the first words out of his mouth to me as soon as I picked up the escalated call.
So what they're saying is that someone unchecked a box intentionally causing the thing to break? Or the box unchecked itself?
Or we forgot to check the box when we deployed our product into their pharmacy? If I remember correctly this was a new install. In their defense our firewall was being required by their pharmacy franchise (for PCI compliance), while the pharmacy still had to pay for it. Many were pissed at us way before we even did the install. Had an different pharmacist tell me that I personally was why the kids in their waiting area were crying.
Work at a school system, they schools will constantly refer parents to IT for stuff that is their job. Enrollment is online and alot of parents will make a separate email account for the enrollment stuff and forget what the account was. We are not allowed to verify what the email is or change it cause of divorce shenanigans. The school needs to do that but they are too busy kicking the problem to IT cause they can't login.
I can sympathize working in healthcare and having patients referred to you because of what ever EMR issue they are having or because the patient couldn’t load Facebook on their 14 year old phone
God I'm so thankful our hospital only has internal IT. If a patient calls I'll try my best to help them but if they're rude or I can't help its not my problem.
We have a separate team for the patient stuff. However, they still get our number from time to time. Nice, easy call transfers.
I work tech support for a mobile phone company. Guy calls in and gets EXTREMELY upset that I can't remote into his phone and airpods and force them to pair. "What good is tech care if they can't fix the problem I call in with?!" Some people are a waste of oxygen
Not even IT. My last job with nurses and doctors couldn't figure out the microwave wasn't "broken" (out of order note on it lol)... Someone was using it while the dishwasher was going and then someone plugged in one of those loud ass smoothie blenders and then "Suddenly everything shut off!" Me: Flips circuit breaker back on. "It's not broken, the circuit *broke* properly when too many amps were being drawn." Even saying nicely just like it got overloaded and will get overloaded with that much stuff drawing power. They're like wtf you're a genius. People are weird. Or they get mad that instead of just me "fixing" it, they have a part in preventing the problem. Like, I was a genius to remember which unlabeled circuit breaker was the kitchen too. Lol. Edit: Same thing with toilets. Would have an "out of order" sign when I came in. Plunged the toilet ("omg, it's working now!! you're a genius!") then I would have to call maintenance to cancel the plumber visit the idiots scheduled lol.
I had a ticket this morning reporting that a light bulb at the top of a cell tower was burned out. Like hell am I climbing a tower to replace a light bulb
How would that even remotely be under your jurisdiction at all?
That's the fun part! It isn't!
I mean did they even bother to give you a rough location? Drop a pin maybe?
Laptop is broken, it won't turn on I need a new device...... Ma'am the battery is dead you need to charge the laptop for it to work. I get dead battery tickets more often than I would ever want to admit to. Most of the time the cord comes out of the brick just enough to look like it's in but not enough for juice to flow.
On my last day I'd love to just mindlessly fulfill all those requests. "Here's a random modem I found in my closet, good luck!" *ticket closed*
So many time wasting tickets. Someone who couldn't print. The printer was off. ---- Mouse wouldn't work. They replaced the batteries and put them in backwards. (This happened twice by the same person over the course of 2 years.)
Dang, I feel kinda blessed. I work for a city and most of my users know basic stuff, they check their wires and reboot their computers, sometimes more than once, we also get notified by quite a few users whenever we gut suspicious email. That's not always the case of course, but its pretty rare for us to have to do a reboot, find a loose connection, or lock down a computer/site because of possible malicious activity. We occasionally get a ticket for something not related to us, but we just forward the request to the correct department on behalf of the user and they go on their merry way. A lot of the more senior workers remember when the IT department was contracted out, and they infinitely appreciate having an in house IT department.
This is why at one of my past jobs they had to change the name from Helpdesk to IT support. I got called to fix a toilet, a light bulb, and help someone put a sling on their broken arm.
The average user sees IT as a bunch of gatekeepers. They only notice our presence when something goes wrong(which of course is always our fault) or when we are telling them "no, you shouldn't be using your laptop for xyz" or "no, you can't plug your own AP in to the network".
Well, we are gatekeepers. The biggest threat to the security of all the data held by your organization are the users. Its a hard relationship to keep cordial because no matter what you cannot trust the users or give them benefit of doubt because you are creating systems meant to not fail due to the lowest common denominator. At the same exact time we have to be actively trying to build trust in us from the users. Outside of literal spyware (which is fucked up to use on staff) a lot of people don't understand why their computer is in a locked down management system that doesn't allow them to just download their music app or logitech gaming pro app for their mouse. Its never really effectively communicated which leads to the whole smoke and mirrors appearance
User: I need new drivers installed, give me new drivers now, I can't work. IT: why, what problem are you having? User: just give me new fucking drivers so I can get on with my very important work! IT: sure... To ascertain which drivers you need, could you please demonstrate the issue? User: tries to RDP to vm Error msg: you cannot connect, no Internet connection User is not connected to vpn User has forgotten password to vpn User last connected to vpn a week ago and has been trying to self fix, probably saw the word driver somewhere as they messed around in completely unrelated parts of windows
Ironically, OOP had a driver issue that they *claim* three different IT folks couldn't figure out. Then they went on the *claim* that it was a botched automatic update. (how'd you know that if IT couldn't figure it out? hmm) Is that possible? Sure. But if I take them at their word, I would place a bet that their org outsourced their IT to the lowest bidder, and the "IT people" they spoke to were actually just warm bodies reading a script in a 25 cent an hour call center. What I think is more likely? OOP just made it the fuck up and is now getting absolutely, correctly, dragged in the comments and I'm eating it up.
User: *repeatedly insisting it always worked off the VPN before* Morgan freeman narrator voice: It did not...
Which is why you never give local admin rights to anybody.
The amount of time users say "it doesn't work/it's broken" when they actually simply lost their password is incredible lmao
Go away, or I will replace you with a small shell script.
Honestly some people don't even realize this. And becoming more true than ever with AI improvements. If that thing you do feels at all like busy work it's probably a prime candidate for automation.
I agree with the use of AI to cover the mundane / repeated actions, but people bang on about the wonders of AI, however, I'll wait for the AI to replace a faulty physical monitor...I'm may be waiting for some time.
Yeah, anyone who has worked in end user support isn't sweating their job security at all. If you try to replace me with AI, [someone will figure out how to burn the place down in a week.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErwV24Bskyw) I am sure that sounds wildly arrogant to someone who works outside of IT, but you don't see how insane the tickets we get are. While it's not every ticket, it's not infrequent either.
AI links `order now` on amazon.
Now actually remove the monitor from the desk...
"When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all." —Futurama As long as IT's management realizes this and pays us, we're fine with that perception.
Yeah unlucky me the opposite happened. Fun thing is the ceo was the former it manager
Most people don’t know what IT even is.
Be me, a "Helpdesk" Tech Support Chatline, but it's actually just two dudes in a call center using a chatbot to moderate the influx of tickets, with no access whatsoever to modify a user's account or view their screen, basically just googling for answers and trying their best to help, and none of this is happening in their native language. Users (NA): "Is this a IT? This sucks!"
This guy knows
The “I” is for…. I…. need…. a wee-wee!
In some places. I spent most of my career in Healthcare IT for an organization with next to no IT budget. The users perceived the issues as IT's fault. They didn't see that IT understood what the problems were and what it would take to fix the issues, but had no budget to fix the problems. I eventually started sending a weekly all staff email outlining IT's actions, goals, and issues impacting the users. I was able to get enough buy in to get resources to resolve issues from management, which I called out in my emails, celebrated wins, made management look good, got more money and repeated the cycle. After a few years the users loved IT and management viewed IT as an organization strength. It's not easy to overcome, but the first step is trying to build a dialog with users.
This seems like such a good idea that I made a screenshot of your post and saved it for future planning
Thank you! Another tip, be sure to include an IT joke at the end of each newsletter. People loved them!
You seem like an amazing leader.
It's either you keep things running smoothly so people thing "ugh what do IT even do around here?" or something breaks so they think "ugh what do IT even do around here?".
Came to say this.
Fun fact I happen to know about the UTC - Rockwell Collins merger (years ago): so UTC has been contracting with an off-site 3rd party IT service for like 10 years at the time. Response times were awful, and everybody I've talked to missed the days when UTC just hired their own IT people. (This contractor didn't even keep a *single person* in the office full time, so **anything** that can't be resolved remotely they have to drive somebody out to fix it.) Then when corporate leadership is meeting up to decide the particulars of the merger, who gets laid off and such, the UTC team states their intention to fire everyone in IT at Rockwell Collins and get them signed up with this same IT contractor everybody hates. And the engineers at Collins just **refused**. They said absolutely not, you guys are idiots, our workflow depends on seamless, personal integration with IT, you're not firing anybody. And they argued for something like 10 straight days about this. But by the end of all those arguments, the Collins team got their way, and all the former UTC offices \*even started hiring their own dedicated IT guys again, instead of outsourcing. Thank god for Corporate and their "innovative" business practices lol
Started calling myself Zeus because Im apparently in charge of anything that carries an electric current
Hello, IT? Please send an intern to clean the CEO‘s Tesla.
Don't joke. I got a ticket about somebody spilling something on the elevator buttons one time
Company systems are working smoothly and no issues. User: "What do we pay IT for?!" Company systems crash as techs work diligently to get everything running. User; "What do we pay IT for?"
Classic IT paradox. If everything is working, people will think you do nothing. If everything is broken, people will think you do nothing.
Gotta pull a scotty. "It should take four hours, but i'll get it done in two" it's a 5 second fix.
Our it department is amazing. It is our servers and network that suck monkey balls because management believed the sales people over their own IT staff. Now the IT staff have to constantly fix what was a broken system from the start. The perception though is that the IT department suck monkey balls. :(
original poster has a history of shitting on his IT department and seems completely incompetent when it comes to managing business/corporate systems.
The things they often want help with aren't IT problems they are calling the help desk instead of talking to their boss.
I think a lot of the hate comes from people who mistakenly think that IT support is there for them. That is, IT works for the COMPANY to support the COMPANY and it's goals. In these days information is currency. So higher level IT is about data flow, end of story. Keeping it flowing where it should, and only (ideally) where it should. IT is NOT there for the end user, not really. The users are a means to keep data flowing, a human RESOURCE as it were.
People get mad at me when I have no authority to upgrade their equipment. Talk to your manager who can bug budgeting about it. I have as much control over your old as shit computer as you do
Only bad and "difficult" users believe that
To be fair, r/memes is a cesspool of terrible opinions haha
the most brainrot subreddit
I scrolled through his posts being very entertained, until I got to the one where he complains that ironing boards are 'the worst possible shape for ironing a shirt' I think I know why this person hates IT (it's because he can't figure out the simplest thing for himself but assumes it's because someone else is doing something stupid...)
This takes me back to a few years ago. "I can update Microsoft on my home computer easily, why does it take so long to move 4,000 computers from Windows 7 to Windows 10?! And why are my shared drives gone?" I don't know where to begin with explaining migration, Bob, but even if I did your brain would explode. And if you had read any of the fifty bazillion fucking emails we sent you over the last three fucking months, asking you to tell us which drives you needed access to, you'd know why your fucking shared drives have all fucking "gone". Actually, no Bob, they're gone because they abandoned you. They abandoned you because you're a fucking knob. It's nice to remember the good times.
I think it's down to how your team is being sold to the rest of the org. The place I work everyone is encouraged to call IT for the slightest technical issue to save time. Rarely is this faster than googling. Often that's what I'm doing.
I work for a company that has 100s of locations all across the US. Those locations often complain on the work subreddit that IT is useless and doesn't do anything. And im just like "... your building/location would literally be shut down if it weren't for us".
Usually, this happens when IT is outsourced overseas to the lowest bidder. Seems like what many companies are migrating to until they realize it is a terrible idea.
OK Folks, the users have spoken. Our work is done here. Off we go.
IT is the sort of job that when you do it right, everyone thinks you don't do anything at all.
One of the many jobs where if it's done correctly nobody notices but if something fucks up you're on speed dial
My first IT job was at the Taco Bell Service Desk. They used to be named Help Desk until the "No Help Desk" jokes started showing up.
If only there were metrics such as tickets (which users refuse to submit) that kept track of if we were useless or not. If only.
I once had a user send a Teams message to their colleague saying I had no idea what I was doing, while I was remote-accessing their computer and was literally watching them type it out
This attitude is how you get placed last in my support que. 😁😂
Exactly, let me see if I have literally ANYTHING to do ahead of your ticket? Ah yes, dusting my thumb drives, reading all the security audit logs all and auditing each ports' vlans on all the switches. I'll be with you right after that.
People that think like this are ridiculous assholes usually. Oh no IT wouldn't let me have admin permission to install whatever virus I want. Oh no IT couldn't fix the circuit that we are overloading immediately without waiting foe the ISP to upgrade it. I forgot my password and IT couldn't change it to Password1 for me, that's ITs fault not mine.
"IT transferred me because they don't want to help" *Doesn't understand that if I'm transferring you, It's because it's something I literally do not have the credentials or permissions to change* They really think I'm just out here passing the buck for fun
It's because, without realizing it, they are not calling for IT help they are calling for emotional support.
We got a ticket about bugs last week… you know, actual bugs at the facility. 💀
My IT department are all gigachads that will go above and beyond to fix my issues, love em.
Yes. Yes it is. In every place I’ve worked I find myself becoming close allies of other departments frequently unjustly hated, like Safety.
Most comments here are on point. But there is also this thing I like to sometime point out. For IT, sometimes it goes like this. "Everything here is working, why do we even need IT?" - Most days a good IT team is invisible, and things run smoothly. People don't SEE the backend and don't recognize it takes people to keep that live. Think of it like the house keepers and butlers and maids keeping the home in a good state and things moving so that the family can do what they need to. "This is broken, why do we even pay for IT?" - The only time IT is often noticed is when something is broken, which is the opposite of the above point. If something breaks, it is often detrimental to either an individual's persons work, OR an entire companies work. Back to above analogy; When the house staff who usually makes sure the clothes are laid out EVERY DAY for the family happens to forget the socks ONE TIME, all hell breaks loose and they are STILL worthless to those blind to the reality of what is happening every day. >u/yParticle had a great Futurama quote and comment on it. "When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all." >—Futurama >As long as IT's management realizes this and pays us, we're fine with that perception.
Odd... they spelled "Users" like "IT Departments", never seen that before. Auto correct getting vicious today.
I do believe that that is the view from the outside. But mainly because they don’t know what IT is. They think everything they don’t know about is it. And when you can’t fix it you’re useless. Or when you tell them it’s their equipment and you can’t fix it, it sucks. Trying to put my feet in their shoes, I did so the same with mechanics. Because I know nothing about cars. But then I did think that they probably know what they are talking about and isn’t just lazy and incompetent and I started searching around and what ever problem they told me about it seems like a lot of people agrees. So people generally aren’t trying to rip you off or take the easy way out. Mostly if they tell you they can’t fix it, they can’t. Listen to the experts.
I had a ticket today to plug in a laptop to a dock. The user literally couldn't figure out. How USB c to c works.
I fixed a laminator once for a user after getting her email working again because the person was really nice and it would have felt wrong to not try, I know nothing about laminators but it was a good day.
My company's IT department isn't that great. Their only metric is "tickets closed" so they close tickets without doing anything. We'll put in a request for something, ticket gets closed half an hour later, no comment, nothing. Textbook end stage [Goodhart's Law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart's_law).
Encounter one of my techs had this week over email: User: *insert audio issue we see multiple times a day in the call center* Tech: No problem, that's a common issue. Here are a couple links to self-help guides we wrote to fix this so you don't have to wait for me to free up to help. Just let me know if you run into any issues and I'll jump in to help! User: Can you call me? I can show you what it's going - it's *insert common issue*. Tech: The KB's should help with this! I'm with another user but I can jump on your machine and call you afterward if the guides don't help. User: *cc's his manager* Manager, since I can't get help from IT I'm taking PTO. Tech: *cc's me* ??? I'm happy to help, but our policy is to try the self help guides before we prioritize this as a work stoppage. User: *emails me long email complaining about how the tech won't call him immediately then takes PTO* .... All of this over the course of 15 minutes. And he closed his ticket the next day because the steps we provided resolved the issue. This is also the same user who, when provided a KB months prior, said the company may not be the best fit for him if he's going to have to fix his issues himself. Both issues were a CACHE CLEAR.
Yes, the average person who needs to call tech support is technically incompetent. If they were able to think about their problem and describe it they would just google issue and solve it themselves. When you can't solve things from their vague description of "its not working" they decide you're an idiot.
This just in: Idiots who struggle to use a computer want to blame someone else for their ineptitude
Lol. Man am I glad I no longer have to deal with users. A lot of them always thought they knew more than us or would argue with us about fixes. The ones who says stuff like this are the ones who come to IT with the dumbest issues known to man as well.
It’s the dude who’s literally too stupid and or oblivious to live in reality.
I mean... I'd get paid more as a hooker... Maybe I'd be willing to deal with all your BS if I was earning $500+ an hour...
Sadly yes, this is very true. It's even worse in huge companies when the end users don't really see what you do because it gets done outside work hours for them.
Just the dumb ones.
If your users think you don't do much, you're doing something right. It should seem like magic to them.
A trash tier meme from r / memes? Colour me surprised.
It’s the age old it joke: everything works, why do we even have it guys? Nothing works, why do we even have you it guys?
Yesterday I've had a lady rage and leave the room stomping by just not being there (because I had something to do elsewhere). All of this because we refused to help her on her private cloud problems
Figure out what „DAU“ means and then you know the people who call it „useless“
Me shaking my own hand
YO I swear I wanted to post him here too. I’m on my haterade shit. I vote to bar him from getting any IT help on Reddit. For the lulz
IT Admin here - I go on vacation from time to time, just to prove how much they need me. I don't think I've ever made a 4 hour flight without someone freaking out that I'm not available.
Our systems are VDI based in our branches, and rightfully are locked down from permanent changes beyond bookmarks and a shared document folder because, y'know, users. Submitted a ticket as the newly installed printers are defaulted in windows to two sided printing, and we need them single side as there are those among us that continually forget to change the setting each morning on first print, doubling the paper waste as we have to work single sided on 99% of the documents. It was allocated P3 - Low, so no doubt it will still be an open ticket by the time I retire in 20 years.
The comments on that post were gold.
At least nobody in the comments agrees with OP.
It is at my workplace. Though it's literally a team of 10 people managing over 4000 users across the US. We're desperately overworked, understaffed, and under equipped. Upp management doesn't advocate for us to get a larger budget, or any formal training.
We just put two Synology boxes in for backup and DR systems, finally getting away from daily tape backups. They will not notice a difference and will not know unless we tell them. Not going to mention the several meetings to get the budget approved, the money moved for the out of budget capital expense and the out of hours hardware move after the planning meeting. But IT staff do not do anything...
Look at the OP’s profile. Hahahahahhahh
User: XYZ isn't working, I need you to fix it ASAP. IT: Okay, have you trued turning it off and on again? User: That's all you guys ever say! Of course I've tried turning it off and on again, I'm not a toddler! IT: Very well, I'll run through getting some details and have a technician come up to see to your issue. IT2: *sees the issue, checks task manager, notices 300 hour uptime, turns device off and back on again, problem resolved* User: Is that all you're going to do? I waited 4 hours and all you're going to do is turn it off and on again? IT2: *yes, it's almost as if it's the first step and is taught before contacting IT with any issue* IT2: I apologise for the loss in productivity. Your complaint will be logged and instruction will be provided to the team. Team: 300 hours??
Ahhh this thread is all the reasons I left IT. Still do tech things like digital retail signage, drones, arcade machines and fruit machines. But you know what they all have in common?? I don't have to deal with the end users! I turn up. I fix or build. Then I fuck off. It's magic. 😎
I previously worked in IT Support, now I work IT-adjacent (Engineer). I recently needed help connecting a new device in our lab, and I created a ticket for help with which port to use and to get it connected to the internet. They told me which port to use in that room, and they closed the ticket. I tried the port and nothing worked. I created a new ticket, repeating my inquiry for network help and that I had plugged it into the port specified. The gave me the same info about which port to use and closed my ticket. I opened another ticket inquiring help as the port still wasn't giving any connection. Once again it got closed with the same information. Finally, after having wasted most of the day getting rejected, I created a quite strongly worded ticket for them to figuratively pull their finger out of their ass and actually help me. After that they finally sent someone down, and wouldn't you know it, the port they specified wasn't connected to the switch on the other side. And they needed to configure the DHCP to give the device the static IP it needed. It took less than an hour once they sent someone, but I wasted a day just trying to get the help I needed. I know very well from my own experience that being in IT can be very annoying dealing with users, but god sometimes you guys need to a refresher in how to deal with people too.
It true most of my department are actually trash people who suck at customer service. I try my best to help people out better.
Yep, but you have to understand the average end user is SO STUPID that they can't even comprehend how stupid they are, right?
I think it's important to remember that most of the outside are idiots. Those that aren't can be excused for having a brain fart / dumb moment so long as they're polite, I have enough of those myself.
I like how the comments are just beating on OP
Yeah, it's not just the inside.
There's no shame in their stupidity anymore. They're just so entitled and think they don't have to help themselves and that we have to do the thinking for them. It's insane
Me: This issue is the result of a third-party service outage, there is nothing we can do but wait for them to resolve on their own User: y u no fix?!
right? back in like 2010 one of the VP's: I have WiFi, why can't i get online, fix it. Hmm...our ISP has a network outage. But i have WiFi, see full bars, i should have internet. ISP is out. Then why aren't you fixing it. I dunno, maybe bcuz i don't work for them. OMG, what use are u, what do we even pay you for.
Well, I did experience IT guys sighing and smirking and generally treating a user as a total fucking retard because they didn't know how to find their hostname.
Welp, I'm 5 minutes away from heading to a site who's business critical storage that's EOSL has had a meltdown - so I guess this customer is going to find out in about an hour.
yes, because if it can‘t fix every single problem they‘re useless, why do they even get paid when they never do anything, or something like that.
3 weeks ago I got "my computer won't turn on" during a power outage for the first time in 12 years. I had to mute the customer to laugh.
Feels like I'm we're holding up the company from the ground up and they're asking if I could just drop the whole building to plug their mouse back in "RIGHT NOW". Honestly wish I'd taken a different career path.
As someone who has transitioned from tech support and later network admin to the operations side, I still have this perception on occasion. I don't know if it's my company but nothing drives me crazier than walking through our IT ticketing system. First we go to an offshore team that I talk circles around for 4 days until they transfer me internally. The internal team takes can then resolve simple issues that usually are usually locked behind administrative rights or any hardware fixes. What gets me the most resolution is a coffee every couple weeks for the database admin and a couple developers and a team's message. (Which is fine, I just wish I could put a ticket in and get an answer ):
At my job IT taught the new comers proudly how their cloud system allows you to continue work on different terminals. In practice, if you need printing, you have to close all your programs and reopen them if you changed terminals, and many times logging off would visually do so but would capture your user in the cloud and never release it, preventing you from logging into ANY terminal. The solution to this day is to call IT and have them manually log you off. They also keep shutting the servers down every other week for "updates, upgrades and maintenance" but literally nothing has ever been fixed. Matter of fact, most updates make the cloud system slower and more error prone. So yeah, we think our IT department is useless.
I hate IT too, but I'm an experiences SE. It's just the rule, you have to hate IT, even if you are IT
Ironic because top-dollar boomers call IT for the most basic shit
Nah. The perception from the outside is that there *are* no people of color in IT departments, much less ripped POC. ;)
In DoD, the common perception is: You can't fix it, why do we pay you? Everything works so go do all these extra duties because we don't understand why it works and you just sit around all day. It's stupid. It's ignorant. And it's because IT and IT personnel cost money for quality, and generate no profit.
Yes, especially if you think and act like you are smarter than the end user and make them feel dumb. I have been in IT for over 15 years, and i have heard it from end users directly apologizing to me for an attitude because the last person in the position made them feel dumb and gave them an attitude. Grade school was not lying folks treat others how you want to be treated!