The scale

Find your level.

Five of them. They run from nothing is wrong, which is the most expensive one, to everything is wrong, which is the one people actually ring about. You will know yours within about four seconds.

Not sure which?

Describe the symptom rather than the cause. Working out the cause is the job you are paying for.

Low

Nothing is wrong

Everything works. It has worked for years. There is no reason to call anybody, and that is exactly why this is the most expensive level on the scale — it is the only one where the bill is still optional.

What is quietly true at Low:

The backup light is green and nobody has ever restored a file from it. A backup nobody has restored from is not a backup, it is a rumour with a progress bar. The domain renews automatically to a card that expired in 2023. Four people can log in as admin and two of them left. Everyone knows the Wi-Fi password, including the man who did the flooring in 2021.

None of this is urgent. That is its entire trick.

What I do: Test the backup by restoring a file while you watch. Close the logins of people who left. Password manager everyone will actually use, two-factor on the accounts that matter. Write down what is plugged into what, who pays for it and when it renews.
Response: Booked around you. There is no hurry, which is the point of doing it now.

Moderate

Something is annoying

Work is happening, but stupidly. There is a workaround and everybody knows it, which means it has been promoted to a process.

The new laptop was set up the way the box came rather than the way you work. The printer is reachable from three desks and nobody can explain the pattern. Wi-Fi dies at the back of the shop and in the yard entirely. Files live in three places and the real one is whichever was opened most recently. Someone is emailing spreadsheets to themselves as a version control system.

Nobody is going to ring about any of this, because it is only ten minutes a day. It is only ten minutes a day for six people for two years.

What I do: Set machines up properly, migrate the old one without losing the folder that actually mattered, sort out Wi-Fi that reaches the yard, get files into one place, put your domain and email in your own account with the records set so nobody can send mail pretending to be you.
Response: Usually within the week, scheduled so nothing goes down while you are trading.

High

One person cannot work

Somebody is sitting at a desk unable to do their job while everyone around them is fine. That combination is worse than a full outage, because it looks survivable from the outside and it is nobody’s emergency but theirs.

A laptop takes four minutes to boot and someone has started making coffee to cover it. One account cannot get email and the others can. The shared drive stopped existing on a Tuesday, for one person.

This is the level where a business tends to wait, and waiting is the expensive choice.

What I do: Diagnose it properly rather than reinstalling until the symptom moves. Remote first if that gets you working sooner, on site the same day where it does not.
Response: Same or next business day. Tell me who is stuck and since when.

Extreme

Nobody can work

The business has stopped. Email is down for everyone, or the internet is gone, or the server that everything depends on will not come back, or you cannot take payments and there is a queue.

You are losing money by the hour and there is nothing clever to say about it.

What I do: Get you trading again first and understand it properly second. Sometimes that means a temporary arrangement that is inelegant and works, and I will tell you plainly which one you are getting.
Response: Immediately, including evenings and weekends. Put it in the first line of the message.

Critical

Ransomware, breach, or data loss

A machine is showing a ransom note, or money has moved that you did not authorise, or customer data is somewhere it should not be, or something is deleted that was not backed up.

No part of this page is a joke from here down.

If that is where you are, do these four things now, in this order:

1. Unplug the affected machine from the network. Wired cable out, Wi-Fi off. Leave it switched on — shutting it down can destroy evidence and sometimes the keys.
2. Do not pay anything yet, and do not reply to whoever contacted you.
3. From a different machine, change the password on your email and your bank, and turn on two-factor.
4. Write down what you saw and when. Photograph the screen with your phone.

Then contact me, or anyone competent who can start today. Speed matters more than who you pick.

What I do: Contain it, work out what was reached, restore from something known clean, and tell you honestly what I cannot determine. If it is beyond me — and some of these are — I say so immediately and help you find the right people rather than learning on your outage.
Reporting: If personal information was exposed, BC and federal privacy rules may require you to report it. I will tell you what I know and where the line is, but I am not a lawyer and you should treat this as a prompt to get one.
Response: Immediately, any hour.

Off the scale

Things I do not do.

Custom software, marketing campaigns, and enterprise networks that already have an IT department — you would be paying me to learn on your money.

I also do not sell hardware at a markup. You buy the equipment directly, in your name, at the price anyone else pays.

If what you need sits outside this, say so anyway. I would rather point you at the right person than take the work and be mediocre at it.

Describe the symptom.
I’ll find the cause.

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