The Master sent Jack to a friend of his at a neighboring blacksmith’s shop, who was having trouble with his network.  The Master said, “Jack, go to my friend’s shop and use this checklist to analyze his network.  Then, report back to me.”

Jack talked with the blacksmith, who said his system was running slow.  Jack found a virus on the blacksmith’s PC and said, “I can fix this right away.”

To which the blacksmith said, “Please fix it. That would be great!”

Jack had problems cleaning the virus. In fact, he found 7 more on the blacksmith’s PC, plus found it had infected the other PCs on the network.  He also found the server hadn’t backed up in 2 months, their email was blacklisted and the internet was going up and down.

Over a week later, 3 hard drives, a new router and many blacklist denials, Jack was still working on the fixes.  The blacksmith called the Master and said, “Jack told me he would have our problem fixed over a week ago, and our bills are piling up!  What happened?”  The Master was getting a migraine.

Lesson to Learn:  No Surprises

If you'd like to receive a full copy of the book, Zen and the Art of IT Support, contact Jonathan Garber (Master of Disaster) at (954) 920-9604.