Working in technical support can be a tiresome experience; for those in the know about computers, issues can usually be resolved with the minimum of fuss and effort. Unfortunately there are some of us that are totally blind when it comes to computers and hence our use of technical support is extensive.



IT services usually come as 'in house' for larger companies, this means that services are usually free; meaning workers call up for the most simple of tasks just because they can. One story from an in house technical support guy was of a user who phoned stating he needed a new monitor immediately.

Usually if someone is claiming they need something new it is worth checking out. When the technical support guy got there the user simply had too many icons on his desktop and thought he needed a new monitor to create more space for them.

Those in IT service are regularly called out to visit people who have stuck the wrong thing in one of the drives. These manual elements of computers seem to befuddle people more than anything. One technical support worker told me of a story where she had to visit someone who's CD Rom drive was not working properly. After taking the back off the CPU she found that the user had tried to jam a floppy disk into the wrong drive, completely ruining the CD Rom and ensuring a replacement was needed.

That is not to say that those in IT services are always in the right. Sometimes the user, through no fault of their own has problems following the instructions of the technical support worker. A useful hint for anyone in the services industry is to find out whether the user is left or right handed. There has been countless times where I have been instructing a client for a large amount of time before realising the reason nothing is working is because they are doing everything in reverse.

Viruses seem to scare the living daylights out of computer users, there is a real fear that their computer will get one and 'fall ill'. Those in the IT services industry naturally recognise the importance of viruses but also realise that they are resolvable. Seemingly though, clients think that viruses are rather like colds and flues and can be passed on ever so easily.

IT services tell of people thinking they have a virus when they have used a different power point from the one in their house. Others think that by playing DVDs and CDs that their computer may get a virus, luckily theses people are usually well informed after a call to the technical support department.

Printers seem to cause a great deal of concern for users; the hardware component of computers seems to confuse greatly and IT services regularly receive calls on the issue. A regular question when trying to resolve printer issues is to gather if the printer is local or LAN, sadly the response is usually that 'the printer is on the desk, where does that put it?'

Other requests include users claiming that their printer is smudging their work, the technical support worker on inspection finds that the user is pulling the work out while its half printed and is then surprised when the bottom half of their work is smudged.

Overall IT services do provide a valuable service; without their help many of us would be at a loss with many problems. Some problems may seem minor but for the serious issues they resolve they are a resource that can often be seen as a godsend. Without them many of us would be stuck in a quagmire of problems that we have no idea how to fix.