- Hardware and software are not 100% perfect. They are incredibly, amazingly complicated things. They error out sometimes. Sometimes they don't work as designed. Getting pissed at me because I can't redesign a shoddy piece of hardware is illogical at best. You probably should have researched your purchase a little better. Deal with it or find someone else to help you.
- You are not the only person in the world. I cannot "come down there immediately or else" and fix your problem, especially when your place of business is 40 miles away and the last three times we helped you, we practically had to sue you to get you to pay us. You can wait in line like everyone else or find someone else to help you.
- When you call me for service, yelling at me that "this damn thing is broke again!" and calling me "worthless" because I didn't arrive fast enough for you (even though I was within 90 seconds of the agreed-upon scheduled time) is not likely to endear you to me. You might as well yell at the doctor because you have cancer. Stop treating your service engineer like garbage or find someone else to help you.
- When I've pulled malware off your computer for the twelfth time, you've lost the right to blame me for your computer's "slowness". Stop doing stupid things on the internet and you'll stop getting infected.
- Take your porn DVD out of your laptop before handing it to me for service unless you're offering it to me as a tribute.
- Don't ask me "So, what was the problem?" unless you actually want to hear what the problem was. I'm not the TSA. I'm not going to say "someone was browsing porn sites", I'm going to say "you were browsing porn sites". Then I'll tell you to stop turning your computer into a virus magnet.
- If you have twelve different e-mail accounts and use three different e-mail programs to access them on four different computers, don't be surprised when I tell you I can't make them all sync with each other, with your phone, with your clock-radio, and with your toaster. I am really freaking good at my job, but come on.
- If you're not willing to take even the most basic and rudimentary steps to ensure the integrity of your data, why would you expect me to do it for you? It's YOUR laptop. I'm not going to follow you around with a thumb drive and make sure you're saving copies.
- No, I cannot make your 7-year old computer "go faster". It's time to upgrade. You could have bought two new computers for what you paid for me to come out and tell you that, you cheapskate.
- If I have a mail server that's down, affecting 2,000 users, I'm not going to drop everything and come help you figure out why you can't get to Facebook. That's called "prioritization" and your problem is WAY DOWN the list. However, feel free to grouse about my "lack of responsiveness" to my boss because I will enjoy hearing him tell you to get bent.
- While we're on the subject, you don't need to save every e-mail and sent item going back to 1997. Clean out your freaking mailbox once in awhile. Do you have any idea how long it takes to move your mailbox to a new server or database when you have that much junk in it?
- No, I will not increase your mail quota because you "don't have time to clean out your mailbox". You "don't have time" because you're lazy and it's too much like work. Do it anyway.
- No, I don't want to spend my holiday working on your migration because that's when "all the users are off so they won't be impacted". You should plan better because I would like to occasionally spend some time with my own family.
- Don't get pissed at me when you ignore the previous advice and you get a bill for holiday rates at triple-time. I warned you about the cost and I even sent you a written estimate.
- "My PC just bluescreened!" is not a Priority 1 emergency that requires a series of 3AM calls to my personal cell phone number. Go to bed. Call me in the morning during normal business hours.
- Calling me 15 minutes before the beginning of a major migration and listing all the things you forgot about is the wrong time. The migration is proceeding. You should have done your job better.
- I'm deducting extra points if you pull this crap on a holiday when I could have had a three-day weekend. Now you've screwed me out of two holidays instead of one.
- If you absolutely reply on your computer 100% to do your job (without which you cannot earn a living), stop letting your kids use it to browse the internet, play World of Warcraft, watch movies, etc. Kids are the third most destructive force in the Universe. Maybe you should have two computers: one that you use to earn your living, and one you can beat to hell with a hammer. When your kids inevitably break your "I'm using this to put food on the table" computer, don't come crying to me that you're going to be out of work for the day while I fix it. You're an idiot and you deserve to lose a day's pay.
