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What NOT to ask IT: can you de-scale the kettle?

~ definitive league of most ridiculous IT support requests unveiled ~

May 12, 2008

From liaising with NASA to cleaning vomit off a keyboard – office IT managers are spending more time than ever before dealing with ridiculous requests from inept employees.

This is according to Sunrise, which produces IT support desk software. The company has highlighted some of the problems faced by IT managers on a daily basis in a new league table of support desk shockers, listing the most ridiculous requests received by IT departments over the last year.

“We’ve all heard the old adage ‘have you tried turning it off and turning it on again?’, but with some of these users, you can hardly blame IT for going right back to basics,” said Tom Weston, chairman at Sunrise. “As ‘Facebook generation’ graduates get established in business, you’d think that general IT skills in users would improve, but it seems the opposite is happening.”

1. Can you move the satellite?
A highly trained, senior actuarial consultant is probably used to things just being done for him, and was getting increasingly frustrated that he was losing BlackBerry reception at the same point every evening on his journey home. However, he probably pushed it a little too far when he called his IT manager, requesting that a call was made to ‘the authorities’ to ask if they could move the satellite.

2. Learner driver?
A new employee was unused to Apple Macs in the office, and was perhaps trying a little too hard when she called the IT support desk to ask why the ‘computer pedal’ by her feet wasn’t working. All became clear for the bemused IT manager when he arrived on the scene to see that the mouse had fallen on the floor over night.

3. Back to the drawing board….
A senior manager was excited with his new laptop from IT, but annoyed to get it home and find that it wasn’t working. He put in a call to the emergency IT support team, who cleverly suggested……he turned it on first.

4. Getting your hands dirty
Being called in to fix anything with a plug on it permanently frustrates IT managers. However one receptionist for a London telecoms firm really took the biscuit when she logged an IT call because the kettle needed descaling.

5. Just sick
An HR director looked sheepish as she came into the office one morning carrying her laptop in a plastic bag. When asked what the problem was, she said it wasn’t working any more, and presented it to the IT support desk, still covered in her son’s vomit.

“IT support is a skilled job, but this league table shows it’s as much about people skills and time management as technology. It’s vital that support desk staff training is managed carefully, so employees can prioritise work and manage wide-ranging issues,” continued Weston. “IT managers shouldn’t have to spend their days correcting thoughtless user error, they should be adding value to the business by making company-wide business improvements, not de-scaling the kettle and cleaning vomit from hardware.”
(521 words)

Executive quote

“We’ve all heard the old adage ‘have you tried turning it off and turning it on again?’, but with some of these users, you can hardly blame IT for going right back to basics,” said Tom Weston, chairman at Sunrise. “As ‘Facebook generation’ graduates get established in business, you’d think that general IT skills in users would improve, but it seems the opposite is happening.”

Multimedia

The Mac 'pedal'

About the company

NOTES TO EDITORS

About Sunrise Software (www.sunrisesoftware.co.uk)
Sunrise was founded in 1994 and is a leading independent provider of IT Service Management solutions.

Its customer base includes over 1,000 blue chip and public sector organisations, including names such as Anglian Water, Mothercare, Bank of New York, the NHS, QVC, Harper Collins, Rugby Football Union and Landesbank Baden Wurttemberg.

Sunrise is widely recognised for excellent service, and product innovation is key to its long-term vision. This is the strategy behind the launch, in 2003, of Sostenuto ITSM, a process driven, entirely browser based solution to complement Enterprise, its well-established client-server offering.

2007 saw the launch of Sostenuto Foundation, a browser-based solution that offers the core ITIL processes out of the box. Foundation allows customers to take a step-by-step approach to ITIL, an alternative to the 'ITIL all-in' approach available with Sostenuto ITSM.

For further information, please visit www.sunrisesoftware.co.uk.

Contact details

For further press information, please contact the team at LEWIS PR:
Email: sunrise@lewispr.com Tel: +44 (0)20 7802 2626
Web: www.lewispr.com Fax: +44 (0)20 7802 2627

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