“Hi, This is Angry upstairs, it is fucking freezing up here, what’s wrong with the heating?” I enquire shiveringly of our IT support desk.
“Have you tried turning it off an on again?”
“Wha…”
“Sorry, just a little help desk humour there.”
“Right. The heating?”
“Oh yes, well it’s not strictly something we can fix, but it seems in the extreme cold the units outside freeze up, and so don’t provide any heat inside.”
He seemed to assume this was the end of our conversation. For some inexplicable reason he believed this was an acceptable resolution to my enquiry. I suddenly realised why they put IT support on a different floor and not in my line of sight.
“So when it’s cold outside, and it’s therefore at it’s most important to those of us inside, it appears to stop working?”
“Well, yes, I guess. Merry Chr…”
I hung up at this point.
I am on a mission to find the person responsible for selecting this air-conditioning / heating system, and when I do I will sit them in an ice bath at gunpoint until they go blue and shiver like a shitting dog. Or get them to fix it. One or the other.
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19 comments
<< Yakety yak
greavsie · December 20, 2007 at 8:12 am
Will you be stripped to the waist when the gun gets pointed?
Lin · December 20, 2007 at 8:51 am
I didn’t know dogs shivered when they did that.
It’s colder that that in the summer where I work when the AC get put on full blast. Wooly hat, scarf & mittens required. Brrrr
Glammer · December 20, 2007 at 9:01 am
Ahaha, I love being reminded how rubbish the corporate environment is, especially IT depts’ willingness to shirk responsibility for anything.
Keef · December 20, 2007 at 9:10 am
Come on now greavsie he won’t be stripped to the waist, he’ll be wearing a dirty white
t-shirt and no shoes, you’ve seen the film surely?
Why did you ring IT support to complain about the A/C Angry? I wouldn’t even bother to ring our internal helpdesk to ask for help with a computer problem never mind anything else.
Shambo's revenge · December 20, 2007 at 9:18 am
One guy on our IT ‘help desk’ gives you a smattering of sardonic patronisation and sarcasm in the same call.
Think yourself lucky you got a merry anything.
If you do give him the gun I’ll swap IT snuff films with you, he’s top of my list.
I’m now paranoid they’re watching…
Dr J · December 20, 2007 at 10:12 am
If it’s that cold you could get Health and Safety in to shut you down till they do something about it you know…. just a thought.
Admin comment by Mr Angry · December 20, 2007 at 11:03 am
greavsie – when you say stripped to the waist do you mean from the top down, or the bottom up?
Lin – You do not follow enough dogs around parks, clearly.
Glammer – it is more rubbish than an X Factor single.
Keef – They are my first point of call about everything. Computer broken? Check. Heating not working? Check. Out of Post-It notes? Check.
Dr J – It is OK, I am a brave soldier.
Dominic · December 20, 2007 at 11:54 am
Place where I used to work had a huge building with three massive emergency power generators. The one time there was a power cut, they immediately overloaded and shut down, plunging the site into darkness.
And of course, they couldn’t be restarted without – you guessed it – a supply of power.
Helpful, eh?
Lin · December 20, 2007 at 12:46 pm
You are quite right, I am not a stalker!
Mighty Quinn · December 20, 2007 at 1:09 pm
I had a car where the windscreen wipers used to pack in if it rained heavy! They were fine in the light stuff but as soon as it started coming down hard they would develope a mind of they’re own. Once the weather dried up they would go back to working fine!
Mighty Quinn · December 20, 2007 at 1:11 pm
Before anyone else picks up on it, I am aware there is no ‘e’ on the end of develop! unfortunately it is pre-programmed into to my numb mind to include one everytime I write it!
Cat · December 20, 2007 at 1:44 pm
I work in a huge building where they switch the heating off over the weekends, which means that Monday and Tuesday it’s absolutely perishing – polo necks ahoy. By Wednesday, it’s bearable – dresses a-go-go – and by Friday we’re virtually sitting around in bikinis.
Megan · December 20, 2007 at 1:58 pm
IT support does heating too? That explains a great deal. When I complained of my office being a balmy 87 Fahrenheit they sulked for four days and reset the entire building to 54. When I mentioned my monitor was dead to the IT people they waited a week and plonked an ancient and massive Dell box thing on my desk. Then they went on holiday for a month.
Sewmouse · December 20, 2007 at 2:47 pm
Mr. Quinn’s spelling is fine, according to this mouse, who just thought he had gone to the Dan Quayle School of Alternative Spellings.
Or that maybe it was a British thing, like all the extra U’s they put into words like Color.
CodPast · December 20, 2007 at 4:21 pm
“Extra” letters – that’d be like, coulour then eh?
Tideliar · December 20, 2007 at 6:05 pm
My lab has a fucked up AC system too. We often temperature swings from the mid-to-high 80s, plummeting to the 50s. I have a perma-cold
Jo · December 20, 2007 at 7:30 pm
“(IT) help desk humour”
= oxymoron
Boo · December 20, 2007 at 10:42 pm
Ah. They’ll be air source heat pumps then. And the condenser coil has frozen up. And that’ll be because, although your firm is paying a small fortune for maintenance, no-one’s done any for donkeys years! Nice little earner that one!
Ubermouth · January 2, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Maybe, when he accosts you next time,you could immediately butt in every third word until HE starts avoiding YOU??