Helldesk Humour...

[Fazza]

15 years ago (when I worked in the 'real world') I had a technician join our team who was new to the whole IT Services profession so I started creating a list of Rules to help them - kind of like Gibbs in NCIS!  Over the years this has gone from the original dozen or so rules to 25+ and I've got plenty more of them to come...

 

I have recently published them on my Helldesk Rules blog so thought I'd share the link here in case anyone needed a little humour in their lives.  I've been working on a few tongue-in-cheek posters too which I have also put on my blog along with a humorous Acronym of the Day in the sidebar.

 

https://www.helldeskrules.com

[synaesthesia]

5 minutes ago, Fazza said:

15 years ago (when I worked in the 'real world') I had a technician join our team who was new to the whole IT Services profession so I started creating a list of Rules to help them - kind of like Gibbs in NCIS!  Over the years this has gone from the original dozen or so rules to 25+ and I've got plenty more of them to come...

 

I have recently published them on my Helldesk Rules blog so thought I'd share the link here in case anyone needed a little humour in their lives.  I've been working on a few tongue-in-cheek posters too which I have also put on my blog along with a humorous Acronym of the Day in the sidebar.

 

https://www.helldeskrules.com

Did you slap them round the back of the head for silly questions/disobedience, Gibbs style?

[Fazza]

6 minutes ago, synaesthesia said:

Did you slap them round the back of the head for silly questions/disobedience, Gibbs style?

 

Funnily enough, we had something called a LART (Local-User Attitude Realignment Tool)!  At my current place of work we affectionately call the LART a Beating Stick - our apprentice (who is now our Technician) is fully aware of said object!  😜

 

More acronyms that I used can be found in my Jargon Buster (https://www.helldeskrules.com/p/jargon-buster.html)!! 🤣🤣

[machy]

you should see if you can get the tarrot cards printed properly 

Seems like a fun game to curse someone's PC use

[6Foot2]

Many years ago now, I posted an image of our office door (for reasons)

 

The office door had a poster on it. The poster was more popular than the original topic of the post.

 

The text of the poster:

1. When you call us to have your computer moved, be sure to leave it buried under half a ton of postcards, baby pictures, stuffed animals, dried flowers, bowling trophies and children’s art.
2. Don’t ever write anything down, especially the error message that was on your screen.
3. If we ask what the last thing you did was, always respond with, “I didn’t do anything.
4. When we say we’ll be right over, immediately find a reason to leave so you won’t have to answer silly questions from us, like “What’s your screensaver password?”
5. When describing your problem, just tell us what you were ultimately trying to do. For example, just say, “I can’t get my email.” We don’t need to know that the computer won’t even turn on.
6. Feel free to ignore any email sent from us, especially those marked with high importance. You don’t really need to know about the latest virus that wiped out your neighbour’s hard drive.
7. Always send important and urgent emails in all uppercase.
8. When the copier, or anything else remotely electronic, doesn’t work, call us. Heck, if we can fix computers, we must know all about copiers too.
9. If the document you sent to the printer didn’t print, send it at least 20 more times. One of them is bound to work.
10. Don’t ever learn the proper name for anything technical. We know exactly what you mean by “my thingy blew up”.
11. Don’t waste your time using the built-in help files. We already had to learn the hard way; why should you?
12. If any of the computer cables are in your way or keep moving, be sure to route them across the top of your portable heater or set something big and heavy on them to hold them in place.
13. Never bother reading any message that pops up on your screen. Just click the X to close it or the first button your mouse gets to.
14. Don’t ever try rebooting the computer yourself. Call us immediately. Only experienced, highly trained professionals should attempt that.
15. Feel perfectly free to say things like “I don’t know anything about this computer crap.” We love hearing our area of professional expertise referred to as crap.
16. When you receive a huge movie file that’s really funny, be sure to forward it to all your friends. We have plenty of disc space and bandwidth.
17. Don’t bother bringing a radio to work; just listen to music over the internet. Like I said, we have plenty of bandwidth.
18. Don’t even think of breaking large print jobs down into smaller chunks. Somebody else might squeeze their one-page document into the queue.
19. When an I.T. person is carrying heavy equipment, worth thousands of dollars, that’s the best time to ask why your screensaver quit working.
20. Don’t bother to tell us when you move computer equipment around on your own. We certainly don’t need to keep track of those things.
21. Your computer case makes a great flat surface for sitting drinks or potted plants on.
22. Do whatever you can to cover up those ugly open-air slots in the computer and monitor.
     

[Fazza]

32 minutes ago, machy said:

you should see if you can get the tarrot cards printed properly 

Seems like a fun game to curse someone's PC use

 

Believe it or not, you can get playing card blanks on Amazon on sheets of A4 paper and you just pop them out and then you will have a full deck!  Not quite got a full deck of them yet but I have a few more ideas for future ones...

[Primus]

[Fazza]

14 minutes ago, Primus said:

 

I'm with CloudFlare as my domain name provider who have a protected DNS option, you need to make sure you put https:// etc. not just the www. part - I bet there's a setting somewhere I need to configure that the Protective DNS Service is looking for and it's not there or something.

Edited September 11, 2025 by Fazza

[Primus]

6 minutes ago, Fazza said:

 

I'm with CloudFlare as my domain name provider who have a protected DNS option, you need to make sure you put https:// etc. not just the www. part.

Yeah that's using https://www.helldeskrules.com

[6Foot2]

5 minutes ago, Primus said:

Yeah that's using https://www.helldeskrules.com

 

Perhaps this will work:

 

Link: Helldesk Rules [Internet Archive]

[Fazza]

1 minute ago, Primus said:

Yeah that's using https://www.helldeskrules.com

 

Try it without entering https:// and see if that shows it correctly.   It was OK when I was with GoDaddy but Cloudflare are two thirds cheaper!  GoDaddy do everything for you so this sort of thing doesnt happen but CloudFlare leave it up to you to sort out with only community support as that's why they are so cheap!

[Primus]

Just now, Fazza said:

 

Try it without entering https:// and see if that shows it correctly.   It was OK when I was with GoDaddy but Cloudflare are two thirds cheaper!  GoDaddy do everything for you so this sort of thing doesnt happen but CloudFlare leave it up to you to sort out with only community support as that's why they are so cheap!

It does it both just as www.helldeskrules.com and helldeskrules.com

[sideone]

I couldn't get past all the adverts.

[Fazza]

4 minutes ago, Primus said:

It does it both just as www.helldeskrules.com and helldeskrules.com

 

LOL - I've just done a quick Google and apparently the NCSC uses Cloudflare to block dodgy websites and it's CloudFlare that is my host!!

[Fazza]

1 minute ago, sideone said:

I couldn't get past all the adverts.

 

I believe you click on the chevron on any silly large ones that come up and it minimises it on a mobile device

[sideone]

I don't want to chat with an expert!

 

 

Edited September 11, 2025 by sideone
extra screenshot

[synaesthesia]

Why aren't you using an adblocker or Brave?

 

[Cat_Jam148]

 

MY EYES! 😵‍💫

 

Reminds me of the old internet ❤️

Edited September 11, 2025 by Cat_Jam148

[Davit2005]

1 hour ago, Fazza said:

15 years ago (when I worked in the 'real world') I had a technician join our team who was new to the whole IT Services profession so I started creating a list of Rules to help them - kind of like Gibbs in NCIS!  Over the years this has gone from the original dozen or so rules to 25+ and I've got plenty more of them to come...

 

I have recently published them on my Helldesk Rules blog so thought I'd share the link here in case anyone needed a little humour in their lives.  I've been working on a few tongue-in-cheek posters too which I have also put on my blog along with a humorous Acronym of the Day in the sidebar.

 

https://www.helldeskrules.com

Have you a thing for old Microsoft Icons or is that a screenshot of your desktop 🙂

Edited September 11, 2025 by Davit2005

[6Foot2]

Adding acronyms (for coming days...)

 

C.A.R.B.O.N.: Computer is Already Being Offloaded Now
C.L.O.U.D.S.H.A.D.O.W.: Corporate Lack of Understanding Despite Significant Hardware Acquired During Original Workflow
D.R.I.P.: Didn't Read It Properly
E.U.L.A.: Extremely Unclear, Lengthy Anachronism
F.I.D.I.S.: Found It, Didn't Say
F.R.E.A.K.: Funny Request, Easy Answer, Kid
F.U.N.K.: Fixed Until New Knowledge
M.U.S.H.: Management Undermining Simple Helpdesk
P.I.L.L.: Problem-Induced Loss of Lunch

 

😃

 

Another:

 

Y.O.Y.O.: You're On Your Own.

[Fazza]

17 hours ago, Davit2005 said:

Have you a thing for old Microsoft Icons or is that a screenshot of your desktop 🙂

 

  

17 hours ago, Davit2005 said:

Have you a thing for old Microsoft Icons or is that a screenshot of your desktop 🙂

 

It's designed to be retro with Windows 3.11 for Workgroups inspired logos with helpdesk related icon names, so yes!

[Fazza]

17 hours ago, sideone said:

I don't want to chat with an expert!

 

 

 

That was Googles doing based on your search history, so if it's asking you if you want to chat with an expert then you must have been searching for something on Google at some point that you did a search where that was a potential answer!

I've worked out where they were all coming from, it was Googles Auto Ad Placement that was on, which I have now turned off!!