Whenever there’s something new in IT, by default they have to try it.
I knew it and I thought I could live with it.

Since Bill invented Vista:
Day 1: My admin googled to see how Vista Beta behaved to other IT guys
Day 2: “It’s too soon to tell, I’ll wait a little bit more to see the bugs”
Day 3: New computer
Day 4: Sysadmin is sending flowers to his wife (he is paying taxes for having a new server)
Day 5: Installing Vista
Day 6: Installing XP back – he thinks Vista has too many little useless things for desktop use (watch, calendar,… all these eating up resources)
Day 9: Installing Vista
Day 10: Installing back XP because his Creative 5.1 doesn’t make enough “quality” noise if the OS is Vista
…
Day….: Installing Vista
Day…: Installing XP
…

In today’s menu we have Vista. I wonder for how long.

For about 1 year I live in CZ. It’s not my home country and I haven’t got used to the local language (yet). When somebody is speaking Czech (to me), I’m trying to understand some basic words from my limited Czech vocabulary; as soon as I identify any sound that I think it might be a Czech word, I just make up the meaning of what the other person is trying to say (note: body language helps a lot).

With IT guys is basically the same.

Tip1: learn some basic words in order to send them your message.

Tip2: don’t worry if you do not understand wtf they are trying to tell you. Usually, their logic has no meaning for us (so don’t bother.)

Ticket. Ex.: instead of “honey, will you please take out the trash?” , simply say “there’s a severity one ticket assigned to you, due this evening. ”

On call. You can replace “honey, will you watch the kids this evening?” with “You are on call in children’s room”

Reboot. As in “we need to talk about this, please pay some attention to me”

Install updates. As in “How are you/ how have you been doing?”

Shut down. As in “no partner for discussion”

Log of. As in “honey, am I talking to myself?” (did you log off?)

You can also try File, Edit, View, Format, Tools, F1 (never use the word “help”)…if it’s there on a toolbar menu, you can definitely use it.

It’s not that any outsider could ever understand these IT guys. But a personal blog has been proved as a very good way to communicate with your sysadmin. Why take the foolish chance to discuss face to face? No, no, no… face to face discussion never gets great results. You have to do it… REMOTELY!!!