This is a letter I should have sent today. It involved receiving work that was never mine to begin with and should have been aborted the first time it surfaced.

Hi,

Normally, I am a patient person. Some people say that I’m patient to a fault. This is a flaw, because I end up helping people over the most miniscule things, where I could easily just as well say, “No. I cannot help you.” I wouldn’t be mean about it, or even impolite. Just, “Sorry, but no”. However, today I will not be helping you, nor will I just say “no”.

When someone calls for help and one of your mongoloids raises a case, they should know how to raise this case properly. There are templates for them. I worked on the Help Desk and I updated the templates. They work. And your crew of misfits should be using them. There are few relevant reasons why they would not. You know this. I told you this when I worked on the Help Desk with you and trained you in the case monitoring so none of this would happen. Likewise in the dusty sands of time, I also pointed out that if the applications are no longer supported then users would have to seek an alternative and internal means of re-acquiring the software. We are an out-sourced company. We are not going to hunt the jungles of IT for the rare and ancient software they kept on their precious machine for five years, which is gone when they upgrade the workstation. Software stops being supported when new better software comes out. It is not our problem that the user does not take this up. You know this. I told you this when I trained you and let you know every secret of the Help Desk. Every invocation, every dark whisper and chant, the proper reagents for hardware issues, the right blessings and wards against the curses of lost data. Everything. And when this ancient software disappears from our application servers, five years ago, we do not have the means of getting it back. The tapes that would have once stored that data have gone the way of the dinosaur. Most servers do not keep their data for more than a year. You know this. Because I told you this.

Do not tell us to tell the user when all of the above has come to pass. It was one of your mongoloids faults and now they have to tell the user to find another way. Just like I said in my first two emails (you must forgive me, I guess you don’t understand empathy.), It’s not going to happen and the case should not have been raised. The Help Desk staff should have cleared their throats, wiped the drool from their chins and ask a goddamn question. And if they did, then they should have received the right answer from you.

We are not designed to talk to every client about every case that you send our way. We make judgement calls about what we receive, because we are experts. And as experts we are busy with a number of things that keep things running like clockwork in the background. And before you say it, yes, we are in an ivory tower. You are not. Get over it.

To be honest, I don’t know whether I should feel betrayed or disappointed. I did give you a good deal of training and knowledge. But somehow you seem to turn this against me. The next time one of those people who work the help desk like some flayed horse raise a case that has a mistake, we will send it back with the notes on what needs to be done. I suggest you print these comments out and put it in a box marked, “Shit I Should Already Know.”

If you have any other questions, please call me on XXX-XXX-XXX

Jack

Enterprise Storage Bastard