Or suddenly, as is the latest, and without warning, a small screen will open at the bottom of your screen and you'll lose immediate control over your mouse as if the old poltergeist himself had taken over your station. This is when they remote control your settings and stuff. It's hilarious.

Or, you get into a situation as happened to a colleague of mine a week ago. She got an official notification that they were busy putting a 'patch' on her PC, and that it would shut down in 6 minutes. So she saved, and took a break. After 10 minutes, she found her PC was still up and running, but before she could get confused, she received another notification that they'll shut her down in 6 minutes. Don't believe it, 3 hours later it was still the same procedure. Until around 9 minutes after their last 6-minute warning eeaauuwww, down closed her CPU (Central Processing Unit), and she lost all her work.

But there's no fighting it, Network Administrators, aka as Server Geeks, are here to stay, and it'll help the cause to get under the keyboards of these 'beings' who have the power to make or break your working day.

Network Administrators are people too!
I found the insight and tips on what kind of people network administrators are on a dinkum website called networkadministrators.com a while ago:

If your Network Administrator (NA) seems distant, and don't they just, realise they're private beings that interact best in Internet chat rooms and e-mail rather then on a more personal level. Just give your NA some space and he or she might come to you on their own.

Often, your NA will be working on several issues at once, and the section of their brain that is responsible for pleasantries is pre-occupied with running the network, all the servers, the workstations, website, mail servers, SQL server, hubs, switches, routers, and the backing up of mission critical data.

They are also very selfish with their free time, days off and vacations. A lot of managers don't understand this and are often confused by the unwillingness of a NA to repair co-worker's home computers on the weekends...

NAs are trained in a language different than the one you were taught to use in your communications, liberal arts class, or that MBA. NAs speak in acronyms and only use the 0 and 1s in numbers. If you are having trouble understanding your NA, just ask him or her to explain what they are talking about. NAs are always willing to explain terms. Although, be prepared to feel stupid.

If you feel your NA won't address you by your title, and doesn't seem to respect you, sadly, your NA doesn't respect you. Many managers believe themselves to be on a higher level than a computer genius. If you can't correctly programme your home VCR to stop flashing 12:00 every time your power goes out, then how can you really expect your NA to respect you?

Say your NA did something bad, and you want to punish him. The website advises: Don't. 30 years of psychological research has shown that punishing your NA will have severe long-term effects on how and when the government audits your company. Don't jump to conclusions because in most cases you don't know what the hell you are talking about. And don't leave your banking account or ID number on your computer.

And now, another lesson straight from the horse's mouth.

Guidelines for working with tech support: