Is it really so difficult to be kind to the customer service person trying to troubleshoot your problem over the phone? I get it, everything's falling to pieces on your end, but it doesn't make any logical sense to be unsavory to the one person who can actually help you.

We all have people in our lives who make us wonder how they managed to get this far without having a single drop of technological knowledge or orientation. It is truly amazing (and slightly infuriating) that certain people can completely avoid adapting to necessary technological advancements, and still get so far in life. More often than not, those people end up becoming our bosses, which then leads us to be assigned the fantastic task of helping them navigate through the easiest tech stuff. Af…

A transplant from the sales floor thought that he could out-IT the tech team.

Like a boss

Every person who has ever worked in IT or Tech Support knows that having sharp 'people skills' is just as important as understanding computers and technology. Every day, those employees have to deal with people having technological issues, so they need to know not only how to handle the problem, but also how to handle the people with that problem. That can get incredibly tricky, as people are not at their best when they are having issues, and many simply don't want to learn when their issues ha…

Some people are worried about the prospects of AI taking over their jobs, fearing the day that their skills would become useless. Then there are people who actively try to find a way a computer would be able to do their entire job so that they would not actually have to work. But if you do manage to find a way to get an automatic program to do all your work, you better keep that information a secret, because if someone at your workplace were to find out, it might not look good for your future t…

There's something about stories of time in the military that just really tick all boxes. For one thing, you have archetypical authoritarian figures aplenty who have a very real and absolute authority over their subordinates, the kind of power that a overstepping assistant retail manager or wizened doctor's office receptionist would salivate buckets over. The thing is, in this type of environment, you're going to be ordered to do things that you don't agree with or that just plain old don't make…

It feels like the more specialized someone is at one thing, the worse they are at others, and the more educated and specialized they are, the more surprising the things they can't do will be.It's almost as if living your life with a singular drive and focus leaves you as a not-very-well-rounded individual, probably one of the reasons celebrities are being consistently picked apart in the landscape of the modern social media levels of exposure they're placed under. We're quickly reaching a point…

Being an IT (information technology) worker has many challenges. First, many of us will admit we do not know much about the technological devices we use on a daily basis, and if we were to encounter any error with one, we would be lost with what to do. IT workers have to be able to identify every single technological issue that they might encounter and even to possess a way of fixing it. Second, Not only do IT people have to deal with these tech issues, they also have to deal with people, who u…

Technology has made our jobs both easier and harder at the same time. Why? Because technology often has a mind of its own and decides to work on its own terms. It can be so frustrating when you're trying to get work done, and the internet goes out or some issue with your computer interferes with your progress. Back in the 90s, a quick kick to the side of the modem would usually fix the problem, but it's not that simple nowadays. It's also frustrating when the tech team takes an average of fiv...

"When you show up for your second interview make sure to wear an enormous obviously fake mustache."

Just because you have a degree doesn't make you smart, and that is pretty obvious when you take a close look at people who have graduated from college. Let's talk about school. A student's quick thinking saved the day when his school's computers encountered a recurring shutdown issue. The school relied on a program that reset changes after logout, requiring students to save work on the server. But a licensing issue caused the PCs to shut down after 20 minutes, deleting unsaved work and frustrat…

To work in IT, you need an elephant's skin. This person recounted their struggles as an IT admin at a tiny MSP… and it wasn't pretty. A former colleague of theirs, known for poor judgment, left behind a ticking time bomb: a client's infrastructure in shambles. The server ran an obsolete operating system, backups were faulty, and crucial data was stored on the same drive as the vulnerable OS. The client, averse to upgrades, exemplified the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality, even when p…

Instant karma is the best, especially when it involves a manager who is out to get a new hire for no reason other than ego. This story is about a new IT manager, who clashed with a paranoid facilities manager at the manufacturing company they both worked at. The IT guy knew his stuff, but the micromanager was overprotective of jobs that 'belonged' to him, and often told him to get lost. For context, the micromanager controlled a critical production machine with an outdated computer system, and…

Oftentimes, a little push is the only thing it takes to topple the facade of power presented by someone abusing it. They want you to think there's nothing you can do to circumvent their authority, but they forget that they're just managing an IT department at a medical center, and their authority really isn't all that far-reaching at all. So that one little push (or notifying their boss) is all it takes to reveal the man behind the curtain. This IT worker was responsible for issuing equipment t…

They were even given a key to the school. So should the students still be held accountable?