IT Support in a large environment.

I wanted to jot down a few guiding principles, that have worked (I think) well for me. They work in the environment I'm in (Large FE college), very few 'special' users.

• Provide simple services. The question's not "what'll it do?", but "how well can I support it?". If it can do everything brilliantly, but it's broken often enough that it's not used, you lost. There are exceptions. Keep them limited.
• Monitor everything that matters up the wazoo. Don't wait for your users to tell you it's broke. They won't. They'd rather carve it on a siberian rock than tell you about it. And by the time someone does overcome their disdain for you and let you know there's a problem, it's been going on for ages, and you lost. There are exceptions. They are your friends.
• Recognise, and hammer into your colleagues when they forget, that your users, by and large, don't care about computers. They're not interested. They use the computer 'cos they've been told to. For work at least. And all they want to do is their job. And this is as it should be. When you wash your face, should you care about the details of water supply? No. All you want is water that's not brown. If you expect users to be interested in anything outside their job, you lost.
• Automate everything that's feasible. Once a script is right, it's right, and it will be tomorrow. If you're relying on users or tech support people to do task J the same today as they did yesterday, you lost.
• Document your recovery procedures. The last time you want to be trying to think is when it's all gone to hell and the phone's on fire. That's when you want to be following instructions blindly. If you're having to think what to do under pressure, you lost. I lose pretty often here. But it's worth trying.