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So I just moved into my new office at work. I am the IT Admin for a chain of Lumber Yards in the Black Hills region. My office used to be in the absolute back of the building, right next to the server. The only people who walked into my office were truly lost and I had to help them back to the main store area. Now I am right up front where people can see me.

Today my boss comes in and looks at my bare walls and asks if I could add some of myself to the room and make it look more inviting. I have friends and family, but being the typical computer guy, I don't have any physical pictures or posters of them. My walls at home are decorated with anime wall scrolls and cobwebs.

So what I am looking for is ideas on stuff to hang on my walls, or set on my file cabinets. I would like really geeky/nerdy type stuff that is suitable for a workplace environment. My boss really liked the only thing I brought from home, my Complaint Department grenade, shown below. I tried doing a search for IT Admin reference posters and the like and turned up nothing. Something like a Windows XP/7 shortcut key poster, or ASCII table.

Any ideas?

Check out ThinkGeek. They've got plenty of cool office toys and posters.

At least one of these:



And maybe a poster of the Power Puff Girls...

This should have a title "IT Admin - A Days Hard Work!"

You're living the dream man!

Can't offer you much. I just realised when I went digging but most of my stuff's NSFW
Anyway, attached a rar with a few posters and comics from what was lying on my desktop and in my SFW folder. Maybe you'll get a laugh or two even if you can't use them. Hopefully you haven't seen them all.

Found one of the coolest IT Admin posters ever:

http://sonic840.deviantart.com/art/Computer-hardware-poster-1-7-111402099

You mean you can have an office that's NOT right next to all the server equipment? That's a bizarre concept...I think I would feel out of place without the humming of switches/servers and the occasional battery backup failure beep here and there

You get little plastic tubs of Skittles, they are very welcoming in my experience, in fact any sweets can help people relax, diffuse irritated loggers, and keep your own blood sugar at the recommended level for an IT guy (which is about 5 mars bars).

Thing is, I'll bet you were happy, stuck way at the back, left to get on with it. There's nothing worse than being an approachable IT guy, because people will approach you. Sounds miserible, but when you get 100-odd people relying on you for IT support both in work and at home, well it gets to be a pain in the ass. The thing is, you can't even really accept any sort of thanks for it - say someone brings a laptop for you to look at, spend 30 minutes on it and get it working. Probably saved them $100 easily, they might want to give you something back - but you can't, because then your profitting externally while being paid by your employer. Now I don't refuse bottles of whiskey and vodka, that would be rude - but I always have that conversation with them. ''Really guys I'm not being humble - I'm trying to keep my bloody job!''

If you must be at the front, then I suggest having sweets laying around, if you have kids or nephews, have them draw some pictures for your office - nothing is more friendly than a kids drawing. For posters on your wall, just go for something that looks cool, doesn't have to have anything to do with IT. I used to have a cool photograph of an oil rig at night, and a rice paddy... See if you can get some good posters, get them framed or buy framed ones, but you don't need reminding that you work in IT, it's better to have something nice to look at. Maybe some Esher artwork is an idea - they give a good impression, they kinda represent thoughtful intelligence, people will find them interesting, and that's what I would go for personally.
I guess it depends on how you are percieved at work... sounds like you actually have a pretty decent boss, I'm sure a few token ornaments and some posters will keep him happy. Avoid having pictures of family unless they are rediculously cute, as people just make fun of them behind your back - in my experience .

That's going to end up on a T-shirt, I just know it

I would something like this up

Amen to that! I was very (over) generous with my time at my old job. I remember one time when I probably fixed at-least 7 or 8 computers with various issues over the span of a month. Keep in mind this was in the midst of a massive move of all our equipment to an off site data center, and on top of that we were migrating from a MS 2003 to 2008 R2 environment, so I was already at wits end. I always made a point to bring their computer home and work on it on my own time, however I never asked for much money(if any) because the problems were easily solved, even though I easily saved them loads of money had they brought it to a repair shop.

I specifically remember fixing one computer by doing a fresh install of Windows(After informing the person all the usual, did you make backups, you'll lose all your files, programs, etc.). Of course any IT guy has probably done a reformat/install of windows more times then they can count, and could probably do it in their sleep. Its a routine procedure, and aside from some weird disk errors, pretty much nothing can go wrong.

So this person comes into my office a month later and informs me their screen is no longer working, and that it must be my fault since I worked on it. Apparently their "computer savy" friend told them that re-installing windows stresses the hard drive thus caused the screen to go out, somehow . Naturally, It was all I could do not to laugh in this persons face. I told them, kindly of course, that their friend was misinformed, and that I would be glad to look at their screen, but THIS time I would be charging. They didn't take to that well and said that I would be hearing from them again. Must have gotton a second opinion from a more informed friend, becuase I haven't heard from them since

Now, I do not fix anyone's stuff at work, its unfortunate but the workplace is already a minefield, no need to over stress yourself and potentially create more chaos then their already is.

So, the best course of action is to humor your boss and put up some stuff to flair up your office, but still make yourself as unwelcoming a presence as possible. Otherwise, people can and WILL take advantage of you.