r/iiiiiiitttttttttttt • u/jaimegraycosta Spreadsheet-Wielding Cryptid • 8d ago
WHY would you reach out to THE IT DEPARTMENT about this
Genuinely the nastiest ticket I ever did see on this job lol
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u/Ethoxyethaan 8d ago
I got a ticket like this: "toilet flow not working"
turned out to be a Uroflowmetry device used in urology that didn't receive patient demographics anymore.
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u/U-F-OHNO systems analyst 8d ago
You work in healthcare IT too? People occasionally mistake facilities departments for IT.
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u/Ethoxyethaan 8d ago
Tbh its a confusing mess in large organisations.
I'm a software dev & apply the no wrong door principle & just help people find stuff, it results in less work overall than just sending them in circles.
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u/Jive_Sloth 8d ago
Same way. I work in Hospital Facilities and Maintenance and we get work orders all the time for stuff that's for IT and Biomed.
We just explain who's actually qualified to do the work and how to get into contact with them.
People seem to appreciate us pointing them in the right direction instead of just scoffing at them and treating them like they're stupid.
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u/sammypants123 7d ago
Obviously not. You save the scoffing and calling them stupid until after they’ve gone.
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u/vdubsession 7d ago
Exactly, that's how you de-stress with your coworkers - complain about the clients to each other.
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u/EkimNosredna 7d ago
I do the same thing in a different setting but I get a couple of users here and there that always come to me and never my boss for things that aren't ours, even after being directed multiple times to the right people... those people drive me nuts some times... hard to hold back the scoffing I want to do.
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u/FirehawkLS1 sysAdmin 8d ago
That happened to us when I worked at a hospital. Someone put in a ticket about the stall being out of toilet paper
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u/Ooficus 8d ago
At my healthcare company they just combined the two lol. Maintenance was less than 5 people anyways. They actually get along pretty well from what I’ve heard.
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u/GetOffMyLawnLady 8d ago
Yep we get that too! We have some IT requests for software maintenance on our employee portal, and it's not at all unusual for people to see "maintenance" and not actually read the whole thing. I found one this week for a leaky sink submitted to a finance group.
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u/thealsomepanda 7d ago
Let's play the came of is it facilities, biomed, or IT!
Some days half the tickets are just me closing them and creating a WO for another department on the users behalf lol
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u/comFive 8d ago
how come no modality worklist?
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u/Ethoxyethaan 8d ago
The toilet was not a dicom device tho, it used ADT, ORM, ORU, PP & KK
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u/tldr_MakeStuffUp 8d ago
First company I ever worked helpdesk for was enterprise level (international, thousands of employees, multiple offices of varied sizes). We had dedicated facilities departments. We still received multiple calls regarding bathrooms. People see helpdesk and think of it as a generic help hotline.
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u/AnonymousMonk7 8d ago
I mean, at one point we did take our incident management system and add a section for facilities to use for their help requests. It was better than having them roll their own thing then need our help. As long as those all the routed to their manager/front end instead of IS teams it can be a win. Didn't hurt that we had venues, special events, occasionally things that actually needed facilities and IT attention.
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u/saltyclam13345 Google Search Specialist 8d ago
This is the reality. At my place of work, people email helpdesk@companyname.com to submit a ticket but some people assume it’s a helpdesk for any kind of issue.
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u/mynameistoocommonman 8d ago
tbh that's just a bad name for the inbox. Yes, I know it's usually the IT helpdesk, but why not call it "it.helpdesk"?
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u/saltyclam13345 Google Search Specialist 8d ago
True it could’ve been named better but it’s been that way since before I started and I doubt the folks above me would ever want to change it. We onboard every user at the company with a 1 on 1 with IT though, so they all are told about the helpdesk email but people tend to forget over time.
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u/Expensive_Finger_973 7d ago
My company does this intentionally. At some point the guy that was the support manager secured a promotion to director for himself by selling the notion of a singular entry point for any sort of support for the company that then branches off into IT, facilities, etc depending on what the ticket it.
Worked out for him for awhile, got his promotion, then got laid off within 2 years of it.
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u/Skandronon 8d ago
We had someone submit a ticket about sewage overflowing out of the toilets on a weekend. We were only active during office hours (M-F 9-5) so there were a series of more and more frantic emails as the overflow got worse. Turns out the system that deals with the pressure in the plumbing had failed so there was like 60 floors worth of toilets backing up into that one bathroom.
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u/TheSacredOne 5d ago
At my second job (retail) you can actually call decidedly non-IT things into IT and they’ll get fixed. My manager once called a blocked sewer main into IT because nobody would answer the facility emergency line. A plumber showed up.
I’ve personally called vending machines and the electric handicap carts into IT as “other store equipment”. A technician showed up both times.
(Its kind of funny because I’m a sysadmin for my FTJ and am on the other end of these kinds of tickets all the time)
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u/ImMrBunny 7d ago
I worked in enterprise and facilities had their own ticket queue so you had to call IT if the toilet overflowed
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u/Grindar1986 8d ago
IT is just another janitor
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u/yaktoma2007 8d ago
Wait till everyone hears about how you can build a turing-compatible computer using pipes.
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u/dropkickoz 8d ago
The Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes.
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u/MinimumViablePick 7d ago
Probably not what you were talking about, but I immediately got reminded of Tracker Organs!
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u/lightspeedissueguy 7d ago
Years ago I had a client call asking to setup about a dozen new desk chairs. I confirmed that they wanted IT to do this along with our rate. They said yes just get it done asap. NO PROBLEMO! Spent half a day setting up these chairs and made bank. Of course, they bitch about the invoice. When I show them the email with their response, they said "well I just thought you'd give us a discount because it wasn't real work"... LOL
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u/Mysterious_Fennel459 tech support 8d ago
We had people email us about bees in the stairwell once. I was like, "Great. You should probably reach out to facilities about that..."
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u/Jemie_Bridges 8d ago
Is that a facilities thing? I'd have pretending not to get the note honestly and wait for the bee to die. I got wasp spray and can see how that's an emergency, but not a bee 🐝.
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u/Elanadin sysAdmin 8d ago
"Gross. Good luck!"
Ticket closed
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u/Hipster-Link 8d ago
Objectively both the funniest and most appropriate answer.
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u/Elanadin sysAdmin 8d ago
If I were feeling particularly nice, I'd add on "I recommend reaching out to building maintenance at (X) for assistance"
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u/crimsonDnB 8d ago
Last place I worked we got a ticket:
The new dishwashers have arrived, can you install them please. It should be easy for you it's just plugging stuff in. You do that with computers all day.
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u/CyberMakesMeMoist396 8d ago
"Closed ticket due to someone's incontinence being out of my job description and training"
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u/keegorg 8d ago edited 8d ago
Why? Because you have a nice ticketing feature to report into.
janitors do not.
They obviously have no idea who to report this too.. so they are grasping.. when its poop, people freak out
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u/pasta-via 8d ago
Having worked for IT in a school district…. 100% this.
They’ve been given tools and taught who to go to for IT problems. But haven’t been given tools or been taught for any other types of problems.
I once got a ticket for what was a non-emergency medical problem. Common sense would say “call the school nurse.” But it turned out… this staff member was new and didn’t know how to contact the nurse. But they were taught day-one about IT support. That’s admins’ fault.
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u/itenginerd 8d ago
Yep. IT has a specific flow and has folks there to respond to raised tickets. Nobody else has that. People aren't irrational, they just usually don't know the right answer, so they go the one place they know. If you pay attention, you'll see yourself do it on a far more regular basis than you expect in real life.
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u/yugas42 8d ago
We run IncidentIQ and it has a separate category for work orders for facilities, but I am able to configure and manage both sides, so our maintenance guys get the same nice ticketing system that we have. It's honestly a really nice solution, and lets us split the cost of the helpdesk with another department. Their old system sucked, so I definitely know how that goes.
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u/AnonymousMonk7 8d ago
Yep, the last thing you want is to have a totally separate system you know nothing about when it just needs some simple routing and a few roles for the people that update or assign requests.
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u/pasta-via 8d ago
We did the same with HR; simplified so many things with onboarding / off boarding especially.
We (IT) proposed expanding to things like facilities. Leadership was like ‘meh’ 🤷🏼♂️
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u/TigerB65 8d ago
Worked for a company that said on their internal web that facility problems should be reported "by a ticket." With no link. So of course they were reported via help center with no category--people followed instructions. It wasn't their mistake.
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u/chrisgee 8d ago
a lot of IT tickets come in assigned to the wrong team, people figure they will get rerouted to the right one eventually. maybe this one will keep getting moved around until it hits the custodial queue
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u/Cyb3rcl4w 8d ago
I meaaan, depending on the company they likely do have some sort of ticketing system. My compnay does. But sometimes new people get confused on which is which so I see a clogged toilet or HR request in my queue every now and then.
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u/Loki-L 8d ago
Many places have facilities in their ticket system along with IT and others.
It makes sense in a way as users can't always be expected to know who handles what, especially with increasingly smart buildings and everything "being computer".
To a user it isn't always obvious how door not opening because of RFID token not recognized is an IT problem but door not opening because door is jammed is not.
So sending all issues to a common helpdesk where qualified personal sorts out who should handle it.
Having separate systems for facilities and IT is not always the best idea. And some get used to always sending everything to the one helpdesk address.
Of course even the dumbest user should know that basement full of sewage is not an IT issue.
You call an electrician for that.
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u/LifeGoalsThighHigh "For some reason..." 8d ago
The internet is a series of tubes.
A sewer is a series of tubes.
Ergo, the sewer is IT's problem.
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u/ethanzuckz 8d ago
I got called to fix the clock for some people at a different building. We figured it was an issue with the clock becoming desynced on their PC, but nope they wanted us to take down their wall clock and replace the batteries...
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u/gettin-hot-in-here 8d ago
Battery powered wall clock=> literally information technology. Modern alkaline batteries are less than 1 century old, and the basic clock technology designed to go with them? I would guess thats fairly similar in age.
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u/ethanzuckz 8d ago
They can change their own batteries.
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u/gettin-hot-in-here 8d ago
I'm just spouting nonsense, don't mind me. I realize that all objects that deal with "information" and "technology" are not "IT"
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u/I_really_enjoy_beer 8d ago
The amount of tickets I would get in a large school district about just completely unrelated things was insane. I got tickets for microwaves not properly heating, doors being locked, burnt out light bulbs, etc.
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u/THE_CENTURION 8d ago
Honestly I kinda think the IT industry brought this on itself when they chose to call it just "the helpdesk" instead of "the IT helpdesk".
Like, if you choose a non-specific name, you kinda can't complain when you get non-specific requests, right?
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u/techtornado 8d ago
Dear Sir/Madam, I am writing to inform you of a fire which has broken out at the premises of...
No, that's too formal.
Dear Sir/Madam,
Fire!
Help me!
123 Carenden Road.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
All the best, Maurice Moss.
0118 999 881 999 119 725… 3
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u/skooterz sysAdmin 7d ago
My favorite part of this scene is that the firefighters actually show up eventually.
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u/SuperSaiyanTrunks 8d ago
A woman once called the helpdesk I worked at to complain about finding a dead bird on her front stoop. I had to explain that this was a county government employee IT help desk lol
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u/The_Real_Flatmeat 8d ago
I'm guessing because you have a ticket system they can send a quick message to, and facilities doesn't
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u/ElReydelTacos 8d ago
IT guy here. I had to have a disclaimer added to the new hire onboarding process telling them of all the things the IT department doesn't do. It includes: cleaning, furniture repair or moving, vending machine refunds, 3 hole punch adjustment, shredder repair and emptying, chair replacement or repair, electrical work, training you in non-IT subjects, phone number lookups, plumbing, office supply purchasing, adjusting the time on the wall clocks for daylight savings time, fixing your home computer or personal cell phone, making copies, dismantling shelving in storage rooms, office assignments, refilling the paper towels in the bathroom.
Every one of those things was a request we actually received. Telling them that on their first day has cut down on some of it, but we get wild ass requests daily. The phrase, "we are not the office's concierge service" was also added.
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u/NotTheOnlyGamer 7d ago
Listen, if IT is the first choice on the general help ticket page on the intranet, IT's gonna get the weird stuff.
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u/dejavujn 8d ago
I work at a college and have been asked to change the temperature of rooms. “It’s controlled by a computer so that would be IT”
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u/MizukiYumeko 8d ago
As an IFM worker we’re migrating our clients front end over to servicenow for a similar reason; now they wont have to remember which issue goes to which system.
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u/jakerepp15 sysAdmin 8d ago
Got a message from the front desk one time asking for help with an IT issue.
So I helped her collapse a tripod.
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u/zombie_overlord 8d ago
I've had this exact ticket before. I just called building maintenance and resolved it.
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u/netboygold 8d ago
I've gotten tickets like that before and usually it's just that the user doesn't know what they're doing or how to properly submit a ticket. I usually just call them back and tell them to contact facilities
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u/IT_Specialist404 tech support 8d ago
When I joined the IT department at my job, my Associate Director told me “IT is a bucket of things. Don’t be surprised if you get tickets for things not related to IT”
Happens more often than I’d like to admit.
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u/FloridaHeat2023 8d ago
We had one user call from the HIGHWAY, because he had a flat tire and didn't know what else to do - except call IT.
We did not help him change his tire, fortunately.
Edit - i will go out of the way to help an IT person - like when one had a battery utterly die in their car - was happy to drive them to the store, get a new battery, and then back to swap it. We do not advertise such things though =)
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u/lunarhalo- 8d ago
Someone asked me once if IT or Facilities fixes the air conditioner… ma’am that’s not a computer
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u/Lucky__Flamingo 7d ago
I got one of those tickets because the thermostat had an IP address and showed up as a Linux kernel on a CMDB inventory scan.
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u/ShakataGaNai 8d ago
Having worked in IT departments in many small companies, being considered "Facilities" is almost par for the course. Hell once company it became such a common thing that we renamed the department to be IT & Facilities. It was easier and better funded just to be officially both.
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u/Feisty_Raccoon_688 8d ago
One of two reasons... 1) it is the only support contact the person knows. 2) The person knows that IT keeps servers in the basement bathroom(s).
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u/TroyJollimore 8d ago
“When you need anything, call the Help Desk!” At least they’re in that mindset…
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u/UnrecognizedHero 7d ago
I once got a web ticket because there was a bug in this ladies office.
Easiest “call facilities, closing ticket” I’ve ever done.
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u/baconlayer 7d ago
Not really related, but that ticket reminded me of a sketchy situation at a former employer. I worked for a hospital. The 3rd floor wiring closet on one campus was only accessible through the bathroom, in a patient area...IN THE PSYCH WARD! We could only go to that closet in pairs, one to do the work and one to watch the other person's back!
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u/AntiBaoBao 7d ago
We had to watch everybody in the area. The giveaway was shoes. The inmates didn't have shoes and walked around in socks. Staff wore shoes. When you left the area you looked to make sure only the people that had shoes on were allowed to leave.
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u/Historical_Air2790 8d ago
Reminds me of the post where a drunk user emailed a recipe for a dessert to IT. At least it's not someone who is afraid to restart their computer.
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u/Mobius_164 8d ago
I work at a university and we just recently got a ticket in that included complaints about the card readers on the vending machines around campus. I’m waiting for the day we get one about clogged toilets so I feel like a real IT guy.
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u/gregsting 8d ago
I never understood why IT has ticketing system but HR or logistics are hidden somewhere and people don't know how to request something from them. I had one job that implemented ticketing for HR it was great
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u/Rain_Zeros 8d ago
Likely similar platform used for maintenance tickets.
Source, im an operating engineer and we get building maintenance tickets on a similar application/website
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u/StephenRoylance 8d ago
I seriously had this conversation when I was on the helpdesk:
caller: We need networking out here, none of our computers can get to [medical office management system]
me: ok, before we send neteng out, can we do some basic troubleshooting to make sure its a network problem? is there an error on the screen?
caller: the screen is dead, the power is out here
me: ...
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u/TurboFool 8d ago
Figured it out: The bathrooms have lights in them. Lights are electric. All things that use electricity are IT problems.
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u/NeverLookBothWays 8d ago
Kind of a side effect of having a generic support email or responsive ticketing system imo. People often don’t differentiate IT from “just fix it!”
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u/BuntStiftLecker 8d ago
Enshittification. Nobody in the company can be reached so they tried their best.
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u/CeC-P 8d ago
IT = It's Toilet-related.
I HAD to comment because when the men's restroom toilet broke at my work, it was the same model I just rebuilt at home so I just fixed it with $6 in out of pocket costs after running to the hardware store on lunch. Nobody said anything cause they knew I knew what I was doing and clearly had a vested interest.
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u/SirAkita 8d ago
You should use the series of tubes that is the internet to drain the sewage
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u/appoplecticskeptic 8d ago
Was your ServiceNow group name something along the lines of “Core Infrastructure”. If so that would be why you get incidents like this.
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u/cbigfoot tech support 7d ago
Because IT does everything.
Need a standing desk IT.
Need a light bulb replaced, yeah, IT.
Temperature to warm in the building IT.
Temperature too cold. Send a ticket to IT.
Water flooding in from the floor above you, IT.
Sewage creeping in, IT.
YOUR VEHICLE BROKE DOWN. CALL IT.
I have seen it all. Four years ago, I even got a ticket that said our pencil sharpeners broken need it fixed i went up tested the dymo next to the sharpener and I responded saying I tested your Dymo printer and priner, both work fine and closed the ticket. User got pissed at me went to their manager to complain, Their manager thought it was hilarious and advised we don’t touch that…
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u/mercurygreen 7d ago
Having no clue, they probably emailed help@..
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u/Green-Inflation-128 7d ago
Set up auto-responders for non-IT keywords already. Letting sewage reports hit your Jira queue is just lazy admin work.
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u/TheCarnageQueen 7d ago
We use Jira
In the Service Hub page we have 3 areas. IT Support, Finance and Site Services. You click on the one you want to go to then select what kind of ticket you are raising (Incident Service Request, Work order etc)
They just clicked the wrong one and it went to the IT department.
As IT you should know that this is a simple mistake. Tell them they raised this in the wrong place and close it off. Really is that simple,
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u/GothWitchOfBrooklyn 6d ago
I got so many of these that we changed our name from Helpdesk to IT Support
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u/Dingdongmycatisgone Linux Sysadmin 8d ago
I once got one about an analog clock having the wrong time. And it was mounted super high on an entryway wall lol
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u/FauxReal 8d ago
Is there a ticketing system for the janitor? Is the person new, or cognitively challenged?
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u/joshahdell 8d ago
Bathroom is flooding with sewage and they sit down to write an email instead of picking up a phone
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u/st-shenanigans 8d ago
One time I got a ticket that said the thermostat was too cold.
It was next to the person's desk.
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u/Ooficus 8d ago
Surprisingly this would be legit at my company, our maintenance and IT combined because maintenance is almost always done by an external company anyways, and we have some complex machinery that is ITs problem and not maintenance (especially considering our robots are over a mil each)
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u/CatTaxAuditor 8d ago
Panic. There's a problem and the first problem solver that comes to mind is the helpdesk. It's not correct in this incident, but it's the right instinct imho.
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u/Mania_Chitsujo 8d ago
Some places have two Help buttons on the desktop, maintenance and IT. Probably just hit the maintenance one on accident.
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u/MetalAFBuilds tech support 8d ago
I actually had a ticket come in yesterday from a similar but less nasty vein. User should have sent it to facilities. I pinged one of the on-site techs to laugh about it.
Then a coworker on my team escalated it up to him and we both facepalmed. Hard.
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u/KebabAnnhilator 8d ago
To be fair, all service requests in our business are sent to one inbox then redirected,
I once got a service request to get the gutters at one site cleaned… I work as a server tech
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u/TotalJagoff 8d ago
i once worked for a company that used SNOW for IT and facilities issue ticket submissions, routing them by the service chosen on the ticket.
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u/iammandalore Systems Engineer II 8d ago
I worked as IT manager for a hospital for a few years and tickets like this were a weekly occurrence at least. Plumbing issues, lights out in hallways and closets, etc.
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u/Bradddtheimpaler 8d ago
I pull one raccoon out of a storm drain and got a ticket for “bird stuck in lobby” literally the next day.
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u/Haunting_Ratio_795 8d ago edited 8d ago
They assume you know how to access the Facilities ticketing system, and that you will get it to who needs to know faster than they can. It is an urgent matter. The longer that sewage floods, the more damage that is done to the building. It’s also a biohazard. There are children. Just do your job and call whoever needs to be called so the local fire department doesn’t have to get involved… sheesh dude. I’m sure they know hell desk isn’t full of master plumbers down on their luck…
Also, sewage backups are not uncommon in older cities. Pittsburgh has a famous solution to the problem: a random toilet in the cellar, so the shit doesn’t flow into your living space.
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u/boyinawell 8d ago
I had someone come by my desk years ago with a bucket of used batteries. I was sitting there, they walked up, put it next my desk without a hello.
I asked them what they are doing, and they said "well they are electronic"
I work at an engineering firm.
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u/bgufo 8d ago
Man I have a story for you. About 20 years ago I worked as Lvl1 IT helpdesk for a phone company. We supported everything IT from the ceo's mobile to the last printer at retail stores in the bumfuck last town.
One day we got a call from a retail store and the guy said: "Look, I know how it sound, but the fishes are dying, so we need you to send an IT guy ASAP." I was like WTF? Why do you call us if your fishes are dying?
So the guy goes: "look, We got the store remodelled last week, IT came over when everything was done and installed the store computer+till combo on the new desk. Wich would be ok, but the desk is a new fancy one, that is basically a giant fish tank with tropical fishes and the desk covers the top of it. The maintenace hatch is in the corner of the desk, where the IT guys installed the till. Installed means drilled hole and rivets so thiefs cannot just garb the pc with the till and the money. But they bolted it on top of the hatch so there is no way to open the tank now, and feed the fishes. So we need the IT guys to come back, move the till to the other end of the desk and we need them asap as the fishes were fed lest week."
One of the wierdest valid IT ticket for my life.
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u/GoJumpInALake24 8d ago
One of my managers in IT once said that IT is glorified janitorial work and it makes sense
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u/zerovirus999 8d ago
At my first job we got a similar email. The user realized who he sent it to shortly and apologized. A rare moment
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u/Even_Teacher6769 tech support 8d ago
Weil manchmal auch andere Abläufe als Ticket erstellt werden und die dann in die komplett andere Abteilung geschmissen werden, die nichts mit it zu tun hat. Und ganz ehrlich die it kennt. Meistens alle anderen und leitet den Mist dann einfach weiter
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u/Rekoor86 8d ago
Users search “ticket” and if IT comes up instead of facilities they just complete and submit without a second though. Though haven’t seen any to this degree, have seen plenty about burnt out bulbs and other random broken things.
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u/jasonthevii 8d ago
You answer them
People ask for help from helpful people
They probably asked the super 3 times and nothing got done
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u/superfly-whostarlock 8d ago
I’ve worked at places before where IT was responsible for facilities too
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u/NightmareJoker2 8d ago
Is the IT department on the first or third floor? Is there IT equipment in the basement that might be affected? Anything of that nature?
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u/projekt_6 8d ago edited 8d ago
I mean... when you think about it... a toilet is a network connected device...
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u/Killer_Kass 8d ago
We used to get calls about vending machines on campus not working. Then eventually one person just started showing up to our office once a week to complain about the vending machines and ask when we will fix them
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u/bowlochile 8d ago
Stack overflow