The IT factor

Ahhh IT. I love you. In every firm I've worked in, I really love you guys. You may not always have a clue and you sometimes know even less than I do but you never fail to try to help, even when your help is actually the completely wrong thing to do.

In my years, I have made numerous calls to IT and I can now place them into general categories as follows:

1. I don't know what the hell I've done to the computer but can you please fix it anyway.

2. I know how to do this but it's time-consuming and I can't be bothered so can you please do it for me.

3. I know that what I'm calling about cannot be resolved because there is no program in the world that has been designed to do what this fee earner wants it to do but can you please say that on speakerphone as she won't take it from me. (and it is usually a 'she'. I'm good but I don't actually have a magic wand that can make me edit documents in Adobe Reader for crying out loud)

4.My fee earner has buggered up the document beyond my IT capabilities and is now behaving like a child and refuses to let me near his computer and/or call you directly so I am fielding this call from my own desk where I can't actually tell you what's wrong.

5.I have downloaded so much stuff from the internet that my hard drive needs to be replaced.

Ahhh back in the land of the filing again.

Currently sitting in a different part of the office covering for the week for some secretary who has a pathological love of small plastic toys (17) and pictures of some guy stuck on a big red love heart all over the walls.

The day started badly as I was required to work the minute I sat down and didn't get to enjoy my usual one hour of coffee and internet browsing that I so desperately need to launch each working day.

And thank you, pensions partner, for not telling me that the document had to be couriered to Reading from London by 12 until an hour beforehand even though I'd been in since 9am and you knew it.