Never Seen The Tech Desk
by Robert Wynne
Music: “Never Been To Spain” by Three Dog Night
© 2004

Oh I’ve never seen the tech desk
Cause I’ve always been too lazy;
But I know a lot of folks there
They call me up and drive me crazy!
My spirit’s droopy
Cause they’re so loopy
They’re our support staff
Our tech support staff

There’s not a day goes by now
They don’t call me on the phone
And they start each conversation
With “Hey, now what’s going on?”
Is there an outage?
Or some strange problem?
We can’t define it!
No we can’t define it!”

I ask them if they’ve done their homework
And what they did to troubleshoot it
They say they’re not sure what to do next
And wonder if they should reboot it?
I say “Don’t know yet
Where you ought to go yet
What is the error?
You haven’t said the error!

I studied hard to be a SysOp
Because I thought that I would like it
I didn’t know back when I started
That you also must be psychic
I do my best, still
Hoping that the rest will
Learn from repeating
But memory is so fleeting

‘Cause the next time that my phone rings
Once the problem is resolved
and it’s the same technician calling
And a new customer’s involved.
Why can’t you see it?
I can guarantee it’s
The same thing as the last one
It’s the same damn problem!

Oh I’ve never seen the tech desk
Cause I’ve always been too lazy
But I know a lot of folks there
They call me up and drive me crazy
My spirit’s droopy
Cause they’re so loopy
They’re our support staff
Our tech support staff
I’d like to state, for the record, that I adore my support desk, and they really are good at what they do. Having said that, the sorts of things that this song details are inevitable in ANY organization where someone has to support the support folks, and that’s what I do for a living.

The song is also true in the regard that I’ve never actually set foot in our call centre, as it is located in another city and I haven’t made time to go down there. I really need to correct that some day soon.