IT Help Desk Nightmares: The Worst Rat’s Nests of All Time

It’s easy for the average computer user to procrastinate when it comes to cord management. After all, when you get a new peripheral device, you want to start playing with it immediately, right? There will be plenty of time later to sort out the tangle of cables cascading down the back of the desk.

However, if you have worked an IT help desk for any length of time, you probably know first hand that investing some time in cable management now can have a huge payoff later, by preventing workers from having to navigate something that looks like steampunk spaghetti as executed by drunken chimpanzees. After all, that one elusive ethernet cable can cause a company to lose thousands of dollars in productivity while tech workers try to locate and fix it.

Equally as important as physical cable management is documentation of your cable management system. When cable management is uniform throughout an operation, the savings in time and headaches can be significant. Take the time to do it right the first time, and you will be grateful when you’re called in at 2 a.m. to take care of a hardware problem and don’t have to spend an hour figuring out which cable leads where.

Here are some stunning examples of what not to do when it comes to cable management.

1. Doors? Who needs doors?

This is only acceptable if you work in an office full of dwarves, who won’t accidentally walk through the cable.

2. Don’t do drugs, especially if you work in IT.

True story: this was found during a raid on an Australian cannabis farm.

3. It’s like the Blue Man Group, only with cables.

And just about as easy to understand.

4. On the positive side, black is considered “slimming.”

The sign is the best part about this picture.

5. The work request says to start by disconnecting the long white wire.

“If in doubt, just disconnect them all.”

6. The day the machines become self-aware.

See, this is why we need to be more careful with Artificial Intelligence.

7. Tonight on A&E: “When Multitasking Goes Too Far”

On the plus side, nobody ever bothers Jason in his new office.

There’s no question that running an IT department can be unpredictable, but you can keep things as organized as possible by choosing IT help desk software with efficient ticketing systems, self-service portals, and automatic knowledge base capturing. And if you choose cloud-based web help desk software, you’ll need less hardware, and will spend less time unraveling cable management nightmares like the ones pictured above.

Do you have any disastrous cable management photos to share? Feel free to share them with us below, if you can get past the flashbacks and panic attacks triggered from the photos above.