If you’re in school or training right now for a career in IT, there are certain things about the biz that a classroom will never teach you. If you have any military experience, you already know the rules because of the military’s rigid rank structure. If you don’t, here are the rules (in no particular order):

1. It’s never a "problem," it’s an "issue."

"Issue" always sounds less threatening than "problem," so whenever a boo-boo happens, be it on a server or some end user’s desktop somewhere, there are never any problems. Only issues. This makes the CIO happy.

The difference between problem and issue stems all the way back to blue collar and white collar. IT employees are all white collar, therefore only issues exist and never problems. Blue collar workers only have problems and not issues.

This isn’t to say problems never occur, but can only be applied in dire circumstances, such as a server catching on fire. That’s a problem.

2. If it doesn’t have an asset tag, it doesn’t exist.

Asset tags are those lovely ugly silver stickers (sometimes metal) slapped on every single piece of computer hardware in the company. They are there for inventory purposes so the bean counters in Finance are happy.

If you are sent to fix any piece of hardware that doesn’t have a tag on it, DON’T TOUCH IT. Why? Because if there’s no tag, it’s most likely true the company doesn’t own it. If you touch it, you "own it" at that point and are 100% responsible for anything that happens to that.. thing.. for the life of your tenure at the company.

In the instances where you encounter tag-less hardware, grab a phone, call your super and tell them. What usually happens is that the person who called in the issue is called back and told IT won’t support it because it has no tag. From that you just saved yourself a huge headache.

3. If there is no trouble ticket, the issue doesn’t exist.

All computer-related issues are routed to the Help Desk first. HD assigns a trouble ticket which is then assigned to you. There will be times when employees periodically try to skirt this process and go to your office directly. Always ask if there’s a trouble ticket assigned. If not, you can do one of two things:

1. Refuse service and instruct to call HD for a ticket to be assigned to you.

2. Bargain with the user for something you want. Maybe the user is the nice older lady from accounting who makes a mean lasagna. Barter your service for some lasagna. You’ll get it the next day. Good times, good times (and pounds.)

4. The CIO always comes first. Always.

The boss of your boss (of your boss) is the CIO. That position is the top crust of IT. The CIO does not care what you do or how you do it as long as you get it done. Any time the CIO personally calls upon you to do anything, that goes above anything your immediate boss said.

CIOs will typically not follow any established protocol whatsoever because they don’t have to. Trouble ticket? Not necessary. Purchase order? Not necessary. Nothing is necessary. The CIO points a finger, says "do that," you do it, no questions asked.

The best way to handle CIO requests is to begin doing what he or she said, then contact your boss while you’re in the middle of doing it. This forces your boss to let you get done whatever the CIO wanted finished before resuming your regular work.

5. Always "throw back" poorly-written trouble tickets.

Sometimes HD will hire people that have very poor written skills and send things your way that are incomprehensible. Learn quickly how to reassign them.

Protip: Don’t reassign back to the agent. Reassign back to the agent’s boss. Works wonders. Yes, you probably will catch some flak for that, however the point is that the idiot who hired the idiot will pay extra special attention and hopefully get proper tickets sent to you next time.

You will be tempted to write as a response to the ticket:

"THE CALL AGENT WHO WROTE THIS IS A NOOB AND CONTRIBUTES TO SOCIETY AS A WASTE OF SPACE. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND STUPID. REWRITE. THX."

But of course you can’t say that.

You can however say this:

"Unable to determine issue from call agent’s notes, cannot service, please rewrite."

Polite, and works.

Like what you read?

If so, please join over 28,000 people who receive our exclusive weekly newsletter and computer tips, and get FREE COPIES of 5 eBooks we created, as our gift to you for subscribing. Just enter your name and email below: