What Makes This a Job For IT?I've worked in IT support for a number of years in various companies. One of the recurring questions is what makes this a job for IT?
This is a scenario often played out in many an IT support department. Something goes wrong and it's ITs fault or problem. Even when something goes wrong that is nothing to do with IT.
For example, earlier this week an IT support ticket was raised by a user with a single line used to describe the problem
"washing machine is not working"
Now, there are several things wrong with this statement from the user.
- Which washing machine? (There are two)
- In what way is it not working? No power? Won't start? No water? Clothes still dirty after the washing cycle?
- What has a washing machine got to do with IT anyway?
The only thing we can think of is that it has a three-pin electrical plug, so it's "like a computer".
Another case which happened at my last company was when there was a power cut. Certain directors came into the IT office demanding that we do something about the fact that the power was out, not just in our offices but the whole street. A quick call to the electrical company and we had a prerecorded message stating that "we are aware of service interruptions in your area and are working to resolve the issues. For more information please refer to our website, HTTP blah blah blah". We were then told in no uncertain terms to "fix the problem asap". Again, since when has the supply of electricity been the remit of the IT department? Since we plugged our servers into the socket.
