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Are You Annoying?
cweditor writes "This Computerworld article looks at some habits of people in general and IT pros in particular that can drive co-workers crazy."
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The article basically says "IT people can be annoying, and it can endanger your personal or work relationships. Never fear though, anything you do may or may not be annoying depending on who you talk to, so, for the sake of your job and your life, damit, stop being annoying!"
Whats so special about annoying IT people? arent there plenty of annoying people in any given profession?
The difference is that you don't approach your users - they approach you. If they are unapproachable by you because they are annoying, there's no loss. If you are unapproachable because you're an annoying prick, they will just suffer through whatever problems they have and you won't have a purpose for continued existence.
Plus, you are paid to deal with annoying users. IT salaries are high for a reason, and it has nothing to do with being the button-monkeys most of them are.
It may be annoying to my end users when I attempt to explain things to them and they don't understand the terms I'm using.
But it's annoying to me when they insist on being ignorant about the tools that they need to do their jobs, and that I'm paid to maintain. A tiny bit of effort on their part would pay huge dividends.
Why is is that people think being ignorant of how a computer works is something to be so damned _proud_ of? Nobody says "I'm car-illiterate" with a little chuckle after they wrap a sedan around a tree, but users who accidentally destroy their computers somehow think it's IT's fault.
--saint
IT has its own annoying quirks. Langer says some IT people label users as neophytes and then blame them for any difficulties. "The user insists their e-mail doesn't work, and the IT person says, 'My e-mail works perfectly,' and assumes the user is the problem. Users really find this annoying," he says.
Ha! Here's how that typical scenario goes...
USER: My e-mail doesn't work.
IT: What's wrong?
USER: I can't send e-mail. E-Mail doesn't work. The system must be down.
IT: None of the other 1700 employees have had any problems at all today with their e-mail. Can you be more specific about what your problem is?
USER: It doesn't work for me.
IT: Did the computer give you any error message?
USER: I think so but I wasn't paying attention.
IT: You realize that when something goes wrong on the computer, it tells you what went wrong? That message helps us know what the problem is?
USER: Yes, but e-mail doesn't work.
The examples the article mentions really aren't specific to the IT field. Any field that requires a higher degree of knowledge has speciliazed jargon and inside humor. Guess what.. people annoy people. Amazing! Techs annoy end users. End users annoy techs. Chinese people annoy the English. Mac users annoy Windows users. Muslims annoy Christians.
That annoyance is usually the fault of the annoyed because he or she is frustrated because they don't understand. Sure, there are things you can do to not be condescending towards people, but thats more a life skill that everybody should have for everyday life.
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
It's not what you say, it's how you say it.
This is annoying:
"Well, my email is working, so it must be a problem on your end."
This is not:
"Hmm, let me check our mail server - well, everything seems OK there, let's see if the problem is on your computer."
Two ways of saying the same thing, one is antagonistic, the other is constructive.
That's what social skills are all about - learning to communicate effectively.
I know it's fun to be smug about this, but this is a serious problem amongst programming teams.
Two teams that I have worked in now seem to hold the belief the the size of one's penis is proportional to the amount of stuff you know - technical or otherwise. Yes, even if it's never going to be relevant to the job at hand, and certainly if it can be used to make someone else feel inferior.
I deal with this every day and now I dread coming into work. However, I doubt that relocating will solve the problem, just suspend it for a while as most programmers seem to be very shy to the new person.
I think what the funniest thing is, however, is that when you do it back to them - to see how they'll react, they get just as mad as I would. They simply have no concept of the damage they do - I mean, none of us are perfect and I'm sure I have done it a few times myself, but I work hard to make sure I don't come off like an ass, even when I want to.
My manager of course, fosters this kind of communication - he thinks (I was told this directly) it creates a more productive environment. In my experience, it disallusions me and makes me want to work less, take more vacation/sick days to get out of work, and generally feel unwelcome everytime I step into the office.
What do I do? I'm a lead programmer at one of the top 50 e-commerce websites in the world. I think I can hold my own and then some when it comes to doing my job, that's never been the problem. IOW, I'm not a marketing guy who's technologically illiterate.
This attitude pushes talent away (we've had several talented interviewees not interested in our team after they interviewed), and productivity will only increase when the people with the problem are either excised or learn how to effectively communicate with their teammates.
-----------
USER: My e-mail doesn't work.
IT: What's wrong?
USER: I can't send e-mail. E-Mail doesn't work. The system must be down.
IT: I don't think the system is down. Let me see. Hmm, I can send mail. I wonder why you can't.
USER: It doesn't work for me.
IT: Did the computer give you any error message?
USER: I think so but I wasn't paying attention.
IT: Ok, let me come look at it. Maybe something is wrong with your account.
-----------
You're supposed to have an attitude of wanting to help, not proving it's not your fault. Jeez, no wonder people hate IT users, with responses like that.
-Dan
How about because using a computer is more complex than driving car?
This is the exact lack of perspective in IT people that I wrote about in another post. Just because you understand what a "command prompt" is doesn't mean everyone else does. But the majority of us knows how to push a gas pedal and steer a wheel.
Computers, unlike cars, constantly have problems that require checking the internal hardware or software configurations. Do you know how to refit your car's exhaust manifold? If cars were as flaky as computers, wouldn't you feel annoyed at the anti-social, nerdy car mechanics whose lives are spent arguing over car model brands as though they're religions, and taking time out of their oh-so-busy schedules of bitching to each other in order to fix your incessant problems?
Yeah...perspective is good.
That's not an article. It's an advertisement for a book.
Always going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse.
Now, the help desk people generally do not have the personal or company resources to adjust the processes to accommodate the available humans. However, there are many people in every organization who do have these resources, and yet do nothing. They sit at their expensive desks jacking off and shopping instead of finding creative solutions to quality and user interface issues. They blame the wage slaves and customers for not precisely following their half assed implementation of a process. They waste company resources by making expensive wage slave replacement a part of the process. I have seen both sides of this, so I am not talking from theory.
So, if you see a problem, and cannot fix it yourself, document the problem, think of a solution, and don't just blame the people calling you.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
The article says that IT people should improve their communication skills in order to communicate more effectively with other people.
BUT! There is an underlying assumption that the IT person's communication skills are sub-standard.
What if it is the OTHER person's skill that is sub-standard. Well, the easy solution is to say that if the IT person was an even BETTER communicator, then s/he could compensate for the failings of the other person.
From the article: "If I'm dealing with a [nonintuitive] person, I need to put things in concrete language. This person doesn't want abstractions."
Now, the REAL PROBLEM is that it is MUCH MORE DIFFICULT to develop expert skills than it is to develop average skills.
So it will ALWAYS be easier to blame the IT people for not having excellent communication skills than it is to realize that LOTS of people have POOR communication skills (and they're not all in IT).
Again, that quote from the article...
The person you are talking to understands ONE approach and is UNWILLING to work at grasping a different approach...
So YOU have to be able to handle BOTH (or more?) approaches, re-phrase the material in either (any?) format and be able to determine WHICH approach the other person is locked into BEFORE you annoy him/her by repeating your material.
Wouldn't it be so much easier for the other person to come up to an average level of understanding of abstract concepts?
Rather than the IT person becoming an expert in BOTH concrete and abstract forms of communication?
As an IT person, I find a few of the complainers annoying. Take, for example, Ellen Gottesdiener's statement that business people have a right to change their minds. Yes, they do, and I don't mind that. Change is a fact of life. What I find highly annoying, though, is that those same business people refuse to acknowledge that they changed their minds. They change their minds, don't bother to tell me they have or what the new decision is, then squawk when I'm still working based on the old decisions and then squawk more when I tell them the changes will take more time because I've got to go back and re-do work that's already done.
Another is Gerry McCartney. Certainly often there's no one right answer. The problem is, usually IT doesn't get the luxury of budget and schedule to cover every possible answer. At that point it's supposed to be the business people's responsibility to decide which answer they want to go with, so IT can get on with the job of implementing it. It's horribly annoying when they won't do that, or even indicate priorities so IT can work on the most important (to the business people) stuff first.
The final annoyance is when business people expect me to respect them but they refuse to respect me in return. I was hired to solve technical problems. The business people were hired to solve business problems. If you've got business constraints on the acceptable solutions, don't come to me asking only for the technical solution and then whine when my answer isn't the one you have to have. If there's constraints, tell me what they are so I can factor them in. And be prepared if I have to tell you that there aren't any solutions to your problem that'll actually work that also meet the constraints (real-world example: you want a vehicle with 3750 cubic feet (25x15x10) and 80,000 pounds of cargo capacity, under the constraint that it has to fit into a compact-car parking space). If there's non-technical factors that dictate the solution then don't bother asking me, and don't blame me if the dicatated solution doesn't work.
I hate when people misuse frequently used words too. I'm ok if someone misuses a word that's not part of common human discourse, but "irony", but the concept and the word, ought to be well understood by everyone who, say, graduated high school. I give people points for getting kinda close, though, like if they use it when they mean sarcastic or sardonic. That's kinda close. I once heard someone use it when they just meant "funny" (as in, "Did you see America's Funnient Home Videos last night? This guy got hit in the nuts! It was so ironic I shot Big Gulp through my nose!"). That was really annoying, especially considering that person was college educated. I felt like having him savor the iron-y taste in his mouth after I busted open his lip.
Part of the problem with irony is that it sometimes lurks just below the surface. The poor maligned soul that inadvertantly started this thread-bash may have actually detected irony in this situation and been referencing it, leaving us readers to discover it.
SO: Say my purpose is to reduce the overall amount of annoyance in the world. I write an article, the aim of which is to do that. But my intended purpose is at odds with what actually happens; the article itself is annoying, everyone who reads it gets annoyed, and the article actually increases the amount of annoyance in the world as a direct result of my own inability to practice what I'm preaching in the article itself.
Isn't it ironic? Doncha think? A little tooOOOoo ironic?
(I can't believe I'm actually inviting mod-downs by going back to Alanis Morrissette. I really thought I was better than that.)
sev
but have you considered the following argument: shut up.