It would be my catch-phrase

Sometimes, I really wish I could abruptly terminate certain conversations with certain people just by uttering the phrase "Well then. You're an idiot." Optionally, I would follow that up with a "Have a nice day," or a "Come see me when you've fixed that."

One of the things that is never on the list of the IT guy's job duties is "free tech support for users' personal problems". Often times, it's pretty minor, and I don't really mind helping out the nice guys when they ask me if I think that upgrading to Windows XP would be a good thing for them.

Then you have the takers. They take and they take and they really just expect you to always be there to talk them down from any problem. I do not feel the need to mention that they are always suits. I've gotten a phone call from Florida because a user on a weekend vacation wanted me to help her get internet access from her hotel room.

What the fuck?

Lemme get out my magic wand.

I bring this up because yesterday a user comes up to my desk and starts waxing philosophical about this new router he bought. Long story short, he couldn't be bothered to read the documentation. He gestures with his hands how big it was: about eighteen inches thick. I sincerely doubt it. He wants help on getting it working as a network address translation device for his DSL connection. Specifically, he wants my help on it.

For free, of course. I'm the computer guy. It's no problem, right? I do this kind of thing for money, so I should obviously jump at an opportunity to do it for free.

Now, I don't mind that this poor bastard can't get his router running. This is the same person who mistook the shift key for his space bar on his keyboard once. And yet, he wastes a good six or seven minutes of time at work, where I could be working, describing his problem with an incredibly copious amount of "y'know"'s, "and dut-da-duh"'s, and "blah blah blah"s. (Important tech talkin' tip: the computer guy always knows exactly what you mean. You should never have to speak clearly or describe your situation in detail.) And, as I've said, he does this all after explicitly telling me that his mystery router has a user manual and documentation on CD and he can't fucking be bothered to read any of it.

"Well then. You're an idiot."