Computer Help Desk List
(Submitted by Speed)
A few years back I worked at a help desk for gas station point of sales equipment. That’s fancy talk for cash registers. Later on we supported touch screen computers and fancy-dancy gas pumps with computer chips in them that “talked” to the store’s main computer through a binary to TCP/IP converter, and the breakdown-daily-car-wash-box. Here’s a quick list of what I couldn’t do there:
1. Not allowed to enter the building on time, must be early and on the phone at the “start time.”
2. When a mad customer says, “I’ll have your job!” not allowed to reply, “You wouldn’t like it, every asshole in the world yells at you.”
3. Not allowed to ask the boss if he’s figured out how to work Outlook yet.
4. Not allowed to ask the boss what computer certifications he has. Short answer: None.
5. Not allowed to ask the boss what experience he has in the computer field. Again, none.
6. Not allowed to place a lethargic black snake on the staircase leading down to the lower parking lot.
7. Not allowed to speak with a Hindi accent when taking calls from people with Hindi accents.
8. Not allowed to put down the error code as operator error on every single call. Must use the correct code.
9. Not allowed to ever put down software failure error code on any calls.
10. Not allowed to ever put down hardware failure error code on any calls.
11. Not allowed to ask why we have error codes for software and hardware failures if we cannot use them.
12. Must use the correct name for the car wash box and not call it the break-down-daily-box.
13. Not allowed to give out technician passwords to field techs.
14. “How in the hell did you get field technician passwords?”
15. Not allowed to show where technician passwords are posted online.
16. Not allowed to surf the net.
17. Not allowed to point out that the various tech manuals are online.
18. Not allowed to celebrate having the most time online in the entire department for the third month straight.
19. Not allowed to spend more than 30 minutes on a single call.
20. Not allowed to tell the customer that I have to hang up since it’s been 30 minutes, even though their system is still down.
21. Not allowed to forward that call to the boss once I hit 30 minutes.
22. When the boss pulls his favorite pen from his mouth – he sucks on it a lot – and says, after smelling it, “this smells like ass,” not allowed to reply, “perhaps you should stop pissing off your people.”
23. Not allowed to ass-swipe the boss’s favorite pen.
24. Not allowed to ask if I can ass-swipe his least favorite pen.
25. Not allowed to tell co-workers that I cannot be fired for five years since I was a deployed reservist.
26. Not allowed to tell co-workers that I will be fired five years and one day after I returned home.
27. Not allowed to go immediately to “warm-starting,” “re-starting,” or any other term used for turning the computer off and on until I have tried every other way of fixing it first.
28. Not allowed to say “fix” or “fixed” in text of call. “Repair” is the proper term.
29. Not allowed to say, “Aaah! Job security!” when the new software release is announced.
30. Not allowed to say, “Service packs? We don’ need no stinkin’ service packs!”
31. Not allowed to hang up Dilbert cartoons.
32. Not allowed to hang up Get Fuzzy cartoons.
33. Not allowed to hang up Pearls Before Swine cartoons.
34. Not allowed to hang up cartoons that I have penned.
35. Just stop hanging up cartoons.
36. Not allowed to listen to Hendrix on the job.
37. No music allowed. “‘’nough said.”
38. Not allowed to say, “I’m tired of the man holding me back.” Even if my coworkers laugh every time and tell me I’m too white to say that.
39. Not allowed to say, “One of these days, I’m gonna burn this place down.”
40. Not allowed to quote anything from “Office Space.”
41. Not allowed to ask the boss why they fired him from his last job.
42. Not allowed to ponder out loud about that one worker, who just happens to be married to her direct supervisor, gets raise after raise and promotion after promotion when she can’t fix anything. Oops, I mean ‘repair’ anything.
43. Not allowed to remind my boss that according to North Carolina state law, I do NOT have to work overtime. Mandatory overtime does not exist in North Carolina, and I have better things to do.
44. Not allowed to say, “If you can’t do it in 40 hours a week, you’re doing it wrong.”
45. Not allowed to say, “Instead of paying all of this overtime, why don’t you just hire more people?”
46. Not allowed to say that the boss’s last job required people to ask, “Would you like fries with that?” Even if it’s true.
47. Not allowed to say that the boss got his job only because his wife was the head of HR, even if it is true.
48. Not allowed to ask the boss what his college major was and volunteer that mine was Engineering, emphasis on Computer Science.
49. Not allowed to ask the boss where he went to college.
50. Not allowed to ask the boss how many college credits he has and volunteer that I have almost enough for my Masters.
51. Not allowed to say, “Ya think?!” when a co-worker says that the boss never went to college.
52. Not allowed to publicly call out the office snitch.
53. Not allowed to say, “Snitches get stitches,” when the snitch is nearby.
54. Not allowed to say, “Good riddance,” when the snitch gets promoted out of the department.
55. Not allowed to say, “I’ve topped out anyway, unless I get a management position,” when the boss tells me I won’t be getting a raise this year.
56. When I put in my two weeks, not allowed to remind the boss that he needs to find someone to work that Saturday, two weeks and one day after I will be leaving, especially after he begged me stay an extra day.
57. And finally, not allowed to suggest that the boss work that day and “Show us all how it’s done.”
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December 14th, 2009 at 6:03 am
29. Not allowed to say, “Aaah! Job security!” when the new software release is announced.
I lol’d. so very hard.
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December 14th, 2009 at 7:08 am
#43–According to NC state law employees can’t be charged for required drug testing, but I was charged when I took a job as substitute teacher. I talked to the school system personnel manager after I called the state Labor Department. He had talked to personnel managers of the surrounding counties and that’s how they did it. I thought about the Army saying, “Don’t ask another private.”
I took it no further because my wife and my sister had full-time jobs as teachers in the county.
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December 14th, 2009 at 10:42 am
Still LOLing very hard!
Captcha – Wc rumsey – Wc Vodka’s island brother
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December 14th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
The difficulty in any job involving technology in a corporate (or military) environment is that the tech guys are often managed by guys who know less about technology than the tech guy’s 4 year old kids.
This is a problem that will just further growing discontent between management and the people in the trenches.
There really needs to be a MBA course with an emphasis on technology. If you are going to be working in management in a tech company such a degree should be a requirement.
I’d say just promote one of the tech guy themselves to management, but that’s a bad idea. They’re by an large sociopaths. I should know, I’m one of them!
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CCO reply on December 15th, 2009 7:02 am:
I want to say that the problem will get better as technology soaks into society, but you may be right, Ihmhi.
Captcha: 107.82 geese [FM where the honkers hang out!. Hmmm, needs work.]
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Speed reply on December 17th, 2009 3:35 pm:
The boss in question had no degree, but I echo the above comments, that it’d be worse to put a techie in charge; we’re better wired to ride herd over computers.
That being said, due to his incompetence, it was one of the most fun jobs I ever had, at least once a month I literally laughed til I cried.
I don’t laugh that much at the new job, but I make 2 1/2 times more, so I’m laughing all of the way to the bank.
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December 18th, 2009 at 5:13 am
8. Not allowed to put down the error code as operator error on every single call. Must use the correct code.
But that is the correct error code 99.9% of the time.
PBKC (Problem Between Keyboard and Chair) or in the industry I work in PBSWS (Problem Between Steering Wheel and Seat)
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September 21st, 2011 at 5:26 am
#58: not allowed to write “The ID10T who just left screwed up the system again” as reason behind a call even if that’s what the clerk said.
I was that clerk. Talking about my boss, of all people. I was the one who had to fix (sorry, repair) the PoS systems at the gas station I worked at because no-one else knew what to do. But then, we were still working with the older systems, not even a barcode scanner to make things faster.
I did leave an ‘Id ten tee was here, couldn’t log in’ note on the log-in machine once, when a coworker broke it.
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January 26th, 2012 at 10:31 pm
They reason they’re called ‘managers’ is because if they could do the job, they’d be called ‘technicians’.
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June 15th, 2016 at 12:27 am
Aww no “Not allowed to use RTFM or PEBKAC in case notes?” Lucky you.
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