“While you’re here…”
In just 2 minutes, no less than three people uttered the words “while you’re here” to me one day last week. I’ve decided I’m going to have it inscribed on my tombstone.
Possible prefixed with the phrase “Just one more thing”…
5 responses to ““While you’re here…””
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The Angry Technician 
Both phrases kill me a little bit inside each time I hear them.
I say this sometimes to IT staff at my college (I’m a systems librarian) – I’m sorry! It’s meant with good intentions and always used to preface a request that didn’t seem worth logging on the helpdesk in itself.
From your point of view would you rather have helpdesk calls opened for each thing so you at least knew what you were in for when you turned up, or some other approach? (this is a genuine question…)
Generally I prefer anything bar the most trivial issues to be logged. For anything trivial, an email is preferred, but I actually don’t mind being nabbed that much – except when it’s blatantly obvious they’ve been saving their questions up!
This is the exact reason I usually (jokingly I might add) say “lets start at no and work from there” to any request given to me while passing in a corridor/randomly in a room.
Although if it is a ‘quick fix’ then it usually gets done straight away…
“It’s not urgent but…”