Helldesk Rules Tarot Cards - The Wizard of Config

The Wizard of Config

“Knows the settings. Shares none.”

Keeper of undocumented tweaks and legacy scripts. Speaks in riddles and YAML. Upright: mastery. Reversed: mystery.

Helldesk Rules Tarot Cards - The Juice Cleanser

The Juice Cleanser

“Flushes logs, purges guilt.”

Summoned after a major outage. Offers detox rituals like deleting audit trails and rewriting postmortems. Upright: renewal. Reversed: denial.

Helldesk Rules Tarot Cards - The Firestarter

The Firestarter

“Ignites tickets, extinguishes hope.”

Appears when someone says “It was working yesterday.” Brings chaos in the form of urgent bugs that vanish when observed. Upright: adrenaline. Reversed: burnout.

Helldesk Rules Tarot Cards - The Caffeinator

 ☕ The Caffeinator — brewed for chaos, pixelated for precision.

Helldesk Rules Tarot Cards - The Legacy System

 🧙‍♂️ The Legacy System — pixelated, floppy-disked, and mystically cursed.

Rule Number 20 - Google Is Your Friend

Google is your friend, so use him/her when you have a problem you’ve not come across before.

Any idiot can search Google (and believe me they do), but only a true IT Technician can interpret the results and instinctively know which answers will work and those that wont.

Rule Number 19 - Keep Your Nose Out Of Things That Do Not Concern You

Always keep your nose out of things that don't concern you else you risk them becoming your concern!  If you hear your colleagues discussing a ridiculous or pointless issue that you think is a waste of time and resources, just keep schtum or the helldesk incident may come your way and it will end up being your time and resources that gets wasted!

Rule Number 18 - Never miss an opportunity to wind someone up

If one of your colleagues makes a silly mistake such as reversing in to another colleagues parked car or they somehow manage to delete 3 days worth of their work and have to do it all again then make sure you email the rest of the department to make them all aware of their stupid mistakes and whenever the occasion arises, make sure you remind them of what they did!

Rule Number 17 - The Answer Is Staring You In The Face

In most cases the answer to the problem is staring you in the face as you can’t see the forest for the trees, so make sure you take a step back and take a closer look…

Rule Number 16 - Never Believe A Word An EU Says

Never believe a word an EU says unless you see it with your own eyes – just because they tell you they have turned it off and on again, doesn’t mean they have.

Don’t accuse them of lying to you (that’ll only cause you grief), instead open up a command prompt and run chkdsk/f. You can then tell the EU you are scanning the hard disk for errors, which will require the reboot that they haven’t done.

Rule Number 15 - If You Ignore A Call Long Enough You Can Close It

If you ignore a logged call on the Helldesk system long enough it will either have fixed itself or the person who logged it will have left the company – either way you can close the call.

Rule Number 14 - Only give vague timescales

Never tell a user exactly how long you think it will take to resolve their issue, as if you do sods law will come in to play and a higher priority call will come in and theirs will get pushed to the side causing you no end of grief when they call you to find out if you’ve fixed their problem yet.

Rule Number 13 - Do Not Argue With The Senior Helpdesk Operator

Helldesk Operators should never argue with the Senior Helldesk Operator as they have the power to assign all the crap calls to you.

Rule Number 12 – A Good Sense Of Humour Is Mandatory

A good sense of humour is mandatory – any IT Department worth its salt has a strange and wicked sense of humour as this is the only way you can deal with all the crap and changing demands of the other departments.

Rule Number 11 - Some Managers Think Sh!t Only Flows Downhill

Some managers think sh!t only flows downhill – WRONG!

There’s only so much crap an IT Support Helldesk Operator can take so if a user is really getting on your tits and is not listening to a word you are saying then either suggest they speak to your boss or just raise the call on your Helldesk System and assign the call to them.

Rule Number 10 - Everything Is User Error

Pretty much everything is User Error – see Appendix B for more details.

Rule Number 9 - Allways Update Your Call Logs

Always update your call logs – communication is key.

If you are updating a call you forgot to close at the time of completion and cannot remember how you resolved the call then review Appendix A for inspiration.

Rule Number 8 - Log Everything You Do On The Call Logging System

Log everything you do on the call logging system.  If it’s not logged then you haven’t been doing anything.

Rule Number 7 - Never Accept Responsibility For Your Own Mistakes

Never accept responsibility for you own mistakes when communicating to a user, always say it must have been someone else or use an excuse from Appendix A.

Rule Number 6 - People Tend To Want To Know What Was Wrong

Not being completely satisfied that you have solved all their IT related problems, people tend to want to know what was wrong even when there is not necessarily an explanation – if this happens then refer to Appendix A and give them a reason from that.

Rule Number 5 - It Is Always Someone Else's Fault

If you get blamed for something immediately pass the blame on to someone else in the department. 

They in turn will blame someone else and whoever is the last person to get the blame – then it’s their fault.   Simples!

Rule Number 4 - Never Say Yes To A Question

Never say Yes to a question in the first instance (especially if someone is asking you to do them a favour).  Always respond with more questions until you can fully ascertain if they are trying to land you in it or not.

If you feel yourself going to say yes, continue asking questions until the answer becomes no.  Only when there are no more questions and the user is still bugging you should you say yes to get rid of them.

Rule Number 3 - The User Is A Puppet For You To Do With What You Wish

When answering the Helldesk phone, the end user is your puppet to do with what you want.

Don’t let them do anything without your telling them to do it and remember a puppet is not a clever creature so make your instructions clear and simple and don’t miss a step!

Rule Number 2 - Never Admit That You Don't Know The Answer

Never ever admit to a user that you don’t know the answer to their query – make use of the mute button on the phone while they are whining on and use Google to get the answer.

Remember to un-mute every now again to make umming noises so they think you are listening to them.

Rule Number 1 - The Senior Helldesk Operator Is Always Right

The person in charge of the Helldesk is always right (and wrong if they want to be for amusement purposes).

If people choose not to listen to them then that’s their tough luck – a quick Google and some quiet mumbling under their breath and they’ll soon realise their mistake.

How To Get Your IT Department To Help You

Have you ever struggled to get your IT Department to actually help you out?  Then take a look at this Training Video to find out exactly what you need to do...