Appropriate Channels

I was migrating a program from one PC to another and learned I needed to turn on ftp on one of the computers.  I didn’t know how we did that at my workplace so I asked my boss who to ask:

Boss: You should contact the head of server support.  But you can’t just call him.  You have to call the helpdesk have them tell you that they don’t know how to do it and then contact him.
Me: Can I just call him and say that the helpdesk wasn’t, well, helpful?
Boss: No, he’ll ask for the ticket number.
Me: Ah, so I need to show him the bruises on my head before he’ll believe me that I’ve been banging my head against the wall?
Boss:  That’s probably the best explanation of our tech support system I’ve ever heard.