Hyper!

(gah, the last one was me... my computer signed me off of LJ when I had to reboot the darn thing a half dozen times)

Academic.

dedicated.

I don't think they get enough irate users when this sort of thing happens, so there's a bit of lack of accountability

If the IT dept is setup like most irate users only serve to antagonize helpdesk staff not actually get things resolved any faster on the backend. A huge surge of calls can occasionally get someone annoyed enough to pick up a phone and yell at someone to get things done faster, but it would need to be a huge surge and it would have to be tech fixable instead of sysadmin fixable. In my experiences if it's only fixable by a sysadmin no amount of yelling on the front end will get him to move faster and the sysadmin is either on top of his stuff and still cares enough to try to resolve it asap or he's jaded and won't be moved faster by a level 1 responder. Techs can be pushed and prodded by an adept helpdesk agent into re-prioritization.

Again this depends heavily on the way things are setup at your Uni, but the above represents my experiences from working at a college IT helpdesk.

Ouch. Looks like you have some of the good kind of sysadmins, but it also looks like the Univ. has them over the provebial barrel. Having the supported base directly appeal to the administration is a dire sign when fiscal matters are at hand. Good luck to your IT dept hopefully this tactic will result in some needed funds. And a more immediate good luck to resolving the campus wide issue, those suck.

Polymath

cranky

:)

I was in reference to horid students

case in point, I still can't spell worth a damn

Generous.

Quixotic

Aaaaaa...tchi!

Oh, it wasn't meant as a comment. Sniff. I just have a cold.

entropic

logical