Sometimes it takes a crisis to make you realise your mistake, especially those times when it's a crisis that could have been easily avoided. I recently started my own business and, like most modern offices, there were a lot of computers around, all networked in a way I don't really understand.

Due to the fact that I don't have a huge knowledge of computers, I made sure that when I hired my staff, I chose a few people that had a lot of computing experience so that someone would be able to take care of them in the event that something went wrong. Unfortunately, not knowing a huge amount about computers, I didn't really know what I was looking for when I read the CVs. It turns out that being good with photo editing software and streaming video sites doesn't necessarily mean you know how to fix a network crash. When this actually happened, I realised my mistake: I thought I'd be able to keep my computers working well by hiring staff with computing knowledge, thus saving me from the need to retain an IT services company; how wrong I was.

I walked into my office a short while ago to find that my staff were doing even less work than usual. When I asked what was wrong, I was told that the computers weren't working properly. With a room full of people who had experience in graphic design, video editing and would spend all their pay on gadgets, I felt that whatever the problem was, they should be able to fix it. A couple of them had a look, but couldn't, and finally one of my employees suggested I call in an IT services company.

It was at this point that I realised my mistake so I had a look on a search engine on one of my employees' phones, found a business which offered IT services in my area and made a call to them. They provided a very comprehensive range of services, from offering to help over the phone to sending out an engineer. Since no one really knew what they were looking at with the server, we decided to ask them to send out an engineer, he arrived quickly and within an hour or so we were all up and running again.

After realising my mistake, I decided to retain the IT services company to take care of our computers; it's all well and good having an office full of people who know how to use a computer, but it's much better to have access to someone who knows how to fix one if the worst happens.