Re: Sounds all too familiar
"and still complains about “the time a little shit in IT broke her top of the range PC, and blames me for her perpetual mistrust of techies.”
Telling users head-on that they caused a problem through their own idiocy rarely ends well. And their moaning will always hold more sway with their own colleagues than anything you might come up with.
So smile - be nice as pie to their face - fix the problem with a gullible look on your face - maybe even give them a plausible get out of jail free excuse to tell their colleagues so they don't feel like they've been made to look like a fool ("hmm - greasy residue - you see that sometimes...")
Then pop the hard plain truth in writing to whoever matters afterwards.