Folks, don't do the following to your friendly tech support folks.  Or you'll find they aren't quite so friendly.

Kat

Rules to live by for computer users from the Tech Suport
Department:

1. Don't write anything down. Ever. We can play back the
error messages from here.

2. When an I.T. person says he's coming right over, go for
coffee. It's nothing for us to remember 3,000 screen saver
passwords.

3. When you call us to have your computer moved, be sure
to leave it buried under half a ton of postcards, baby
pictures, stuffed animals, dried flowers,bowling trophies
and Popsicle art. We don't have a life, and we find it
deeply moving to catch a fleeting glimpse of yours.

4. When you call the help desk, state what you want,
not what's keeping you from getting it. We don't need to
know that you can't get into your mail because your
computer won't power on at all.

5. Don't put your phone extension in your e-mails to the
help desk. We need to keep an eye on the address book
performance.

6. When I.T. support sends you an e-mail with high
importance, delete it at once. We're just testing the
public groups.

7. When an I.T. person is eating lunch in his cube,
walk right in and spill your guts right out. We exist
only to serve.

8. When an I.T. person is having a smoke outside, ask
him a computer question. The only reason why we smoke
at all is to ferret out those clients who don't have
e-mail or a telephone line.

9. Send urgent email all in uppercase. The mail server
picks it up and flags it as a rush delivery.

10. When you call an I.T. person's direct line, press
5 to skip the bilingual greeting that says he's out of
town for a week, record your message and wait exactly
24 hours before you send an email straight to the
director because no one ever returned your call. You're
entitled to common courtesy.

11. When the photocopier doesn't work, call computer
support. There's electronics in it.

12. When you're getting a NO DIAL TONE message at home,
call computer support. We can fix your line from here.

13. When you have a dozen CGA monitors to get rid of,
call computer support. We're collectors.

14. When something's wrong with your home PC, dump it
on an I.T. person's chair with no name, no phone number
and no description of the problem. We love a puzzle.

15. If you hate your mouse, get some other pointing
device and discard the manual. We know all the key-
board accelerators.

16. When an I.T. person tells you that computer monitors
don't have cartridges in them, argue. We love a good
argument.

17. When you get a message about insufficient disk space,
delete everything in the Windows directory. It's nothing
but trouble anyway.

18. When you get a message about a hard disk controller
failure, and then you reboot and it looks okay, don't
call I.T. support. We'd much rather troubleshoot it
when it's dead as a doornail.

19. When you have an I.T. person on the phone walking
you through changing a setting, read the paper. We
don't actually mean for you to do anything; we just
love to hear ourselves talk.

20. When an I.T. person tells you that he'll be there
shortly, reply in scathing tone of voice: "And just
how many weeks do you mean by shortly?" That'll get
us going.