"Power Users"
Firstly lets kill the term power users. I hate it basically because it means nothing. I have the honour of working in a relatively small IT department and am involved in all levels of support to our employees and customers. I recieved a call earlier in the month that started with the words "I'm what you people would call a Power User". What he meant by that was that he was upper management and knew the difference between the mouse on his desktop and the one hiding under the stairs at his house (Him having a rolled up paper and a mouse trap gave him power user rights there).
Anyway, what this all comes down too is how much common sense the helpdesk guys have that you're dealing with. I had an experience with a Dell Server with an internal tape drive. The thing was completely dead. Power was getting to it and it wasn't visible in the BIOS or the OS. I explained this to the helldesk techie who asked me to run a diagnostic tool on the drive. This of course was impossible as the drive wasn't available. This I explained politely and requested that he send a new dive out which he then explained to me was impossible until I ran the diagnostics on the drive (as his script had advised). After about 15 mins of this I actually exploded! Once I'd pulled myself together I demanded I sdpeak to his manager who apologied for the Helldesk moron and sent me a new drive. This was just a case of a guy who had no clue what he was talking about doing a job he shouldn't be doing. I've since had issues with other devices where the Helpdesk tech has completely ignored his script after listening to my problem and sorted the issue in a rational way.
When interviewing for helpdesk staff common sense should be the order of the day for recruiters. Give the applicant a square peg and round hole. See what happens. Anyone that tries to force it through should be shot. (Probably 25% of current Helldeskers out there).
Biting the hand that feeds IT
