The only thing more broken than the hardware… is the info James gives you.
Monday – Vague and Vaguely Threatening
Drew had just sat down when James exploded out of his office with a stack of printouts.
“WE’VE GOT TICKETS! TICKETS FOR DAYS! LOOK ALIVE, TEAM!”
Everyone flinched.
Yusuf muttered, “Did he print them? Who prints tickets?”
Minh put on his headphones.
Josh stretched like he was about to enter a hackathon.
Frank didn’t move. He was already fixing something just by staring at it.
James slapped a ticket down on Drew’s desk.
Client: Peterson Welding
Issue: “Internet slow. Fix.”
Notes: “Might be the thing with the thing.”
Inner Thought (Drew): Okay. So… nothing.
Josh, naturally, volunteered.
“Don’t worry, I got this. I’ll just refresh their firewall rules and reroute some DNS traffic.”
“Just go look at it first,” Drew said, already knowing he wouldn’t.
Tuesday – Surprise! It’s a Full Server Migration
Josh returned from Peterson Welding… smiling.
Drew braced for impact.
Josh: “Okay, so… their internet was fine. But they mentioned their server’s old, so I told them we could migrate it to cloud next week.”
Drew froze. “You what?”
“They said you’d know what that means.”
Drew called Peterson’s office.
“Oh yes, your tech said you’d be doing a full migration by Friday. Can’t wait!”
Drew slowly turned back to Josh.
“Did the words ‘scope creep’ mean anything to you?”
Josh shrugged. “It wasn’t in the ticket.”
Wednesday – The Case of the Missing Monitor (and Context)
James handed Minh a ticket with one word:
Issue: “Broken.”
No client name. No device. No nothing. Just “Broken.”
Minh said nothing. He stood, walked to the server rack, pulled a monitor from the spare stash, and left.
Twenty minutes later he was back. Monitor gone. No words spoken.
James poked his head in. “HEY—WHATEVER MINH JUST DID? CLIENT LOVED IT. THEY CALLED YOU A WIZARD, DREW.”
Drew didn’t correct him. He just gave Minh a slow nod.
Minh nodded back.
Respect.
Thursday – Yusuf Makes a Trade
James handed Yusuf a ticket.
Client: Mel’s Bakery
Issue: “Can’t print invoices”
Note: “She might need toner? Or a whole new printer? Or possibly a goat?”
Yusuf loaded his kit and grabbed two refurbished machines “just in case.”
Two hours later, he came back with a loaf of sourdough, a USB cable, and no printer.
James: “WHERE’S THE PRINTER?”
Yusuf: “She didn’t need one. She needed a driver. And lunch.”
James: “Did you invoice her?”
Yusuf: “She gave me bread. We’re even.”
James looked like he wanted to argue but bit into the loaf and said, “Okay, this is fair.”
Friday – Frank’s Ticket, Frank’s Rules
James handed Frank a handwritten note.
“Client said they ‘lost the cloud.’ Fix ASAP.”
Frank looked at the paper.
Looked at James.
Tore the ticket in half.
Left.
An hour later, he emailed:
“They were logged out of OneDrive.”
James: “SOMEHOW, FRANK SOLVED IT WITH A GLARE AND A CABLE.”
Meanwhile in Mike’s Office
Mike stepped out mid-Friday. Everyone went quiet.
He looked at Drew.
“Do I… hear someone yelling about the cloud again?”
Drew handed him a cup of coffee. “Just a usual week.”
Mike nodded. “You’re the only one who hasn’t sent me 12 emails about printer toner.”
From down the hall:
“GUYS! A CLIENT JUST EMAILED ‘HELP US OUR COMPUTER IS SAD.’”
Mike turned back into his office and slammed the door.
Epilogue – The Summary of Chaos
- Josh was banned from using the phrase “I told them we’d handle it.”
- Minh was promoted unofficially to “guy who just handles things.”
- Yusuf received three more loaves of bread.
- Frank now officially ignores James and only reads ticket titles.
- James added “Client Communication Specialist” to his email signature.
- Drew started a new Slack channel called “#ItWasntInTheTicket.”
Because it never is.