"Turn it off and turn it on again!"

We were sitting in the staff room debating (as one does when we should all be doing something else) famous sayings and the ones we particularly liked.

We struggled through a few phrases, and (inevitably) argued a bit about exactly what was said, and by whom, and gradually the debate was petering out.

My contribution was a bit obvious, “Life, don’t talk to me about life” by Douglas Adams. No one was impressed.

Since we all teach, Francis Bacon’s “Knowledge is power” was known to most of us, but equally most of us didn’t know the source. With Wordsworth we avoided the daffs and instead got “The good die first” (with the modern variant, “The Beatles are dying in the wrong order).

After that the humour went up. “I've had a wonderful evening . . . but this wasn't it,” from Groucho Marx, was well received and of course (since we were in school).

Then David from maths said, “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing,” and that’s when it happened. Both Suzie and the young lady who teaches chemistry (whose name I can’t remember) said, “that’s the problem with IT”.

I asked what they meant. “I’m supposed to be using IT each day, and I do, but when it goes on the blink, I haven’t got a clue,” said Sally.

“So what do you do?” I asked.

“I do what I just did when it didn’t work before, in case it works next time.”

“Doing something, seeing it doesn’t work, and then doing it again’, - Einstein’s definition of insanity” said the smart Alec who claims to be in the English department (although I have serious doubts).

 “Then we’re all insane,” said Suzie. “That’s what we all do with IT. Until we give up and wait for the techie to come out.”

“Education, education, education – Tony Blair” said the chemistry lady. Sally told her we’d stopped doing quotes and were doing IT.

“What we need is an IT technician who comes in and fixes stuff at a regular time each week, to fix things,” said David.

“And can you get one who has one of those cappuccino mobile wagons too. The staff room coffee is officially toxic. Eight members of staff passed away last week,” said the smart Alec.

“And they can sell sandwiches as they go round,” said the chemistry lady. “Chicken and bacon – with just a hint of lettuce.”

“Sounds fair enough,” I said. “I'll ask the school office to find us a firm that fixes IT, sells cappuccino and does sandwiches at the same time.”

“And they have to be in before break,” said David, “otherwise its no good.”

“Would you like me to tend your bruises and fractures as you leave the office?” Sally asked me in a most kindly manner. I told it that was an offer worth considering.

- We don’t do cappuccino and sandwiches, but we do come and fix IT systems each week. Call us on 0845 450 1068

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