Can you identify with this?: Employee A has a computer problem, Employee B comes to help. Collectively both employees burn an hour trying to solve this problem with no resolution. Now the business is out two labor-hours plus overhead and still a consultant will have to be called. While waiting hours or days for the consultant to respond, the workstation is out of service which creates a bottlneck in the office.

This just makes no sense. Pure labor hours wasted, inflated overhead. Someone needs to pick up the phone and call a professional. Stop all the time wasting. Aside from cutting through the waste and the problem itself, there's a great likelihood that you'll also gain insight into other situations just waiting to blow up in your face.

Perhaps the malfunction in question is related to a virus that is going to eventually steal all your client information and e-mail itself to some guy in a basement in Bulgaria. Perhaps your systems are sorely underpowered or outdated. What's more costly: losing the trust of your customers, clients or patients -or- paying a knowledgeable consultant a few hours to avert disaster? It just probably will pay to bite the bullet before it bites you.

Over the course of days and weeks a properly running, professionally maintained computerized office will eliminate downtime. Repairs and upgrades should be made by someone responding quickly to your needs. The amount of memory, storage space (hard drive) and security should be brought up to standard before something happens.