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The 5 Users You'd Meet in Hell
cweditor writes "The Know-It-All. The Finger-Pointer. The Whiz Kid. "Just as a zookeeper cares for his monkeys one way and his rhinos another (we kid — sort of), so too should IT tailor its responses to fit the individual styles of its end users," according to this Computerworld "rogue's gallery of users (and one angel)".
Includes advice on how to best deal with the most common types of users, without having to run screaming into the night. Expect sometime soon to also see reader feedback offering other ideas (and, oh, perhaps some disagreement with the article's)."
I once had to help a user because she had accidentally rearranged the icons on her desktop and didn't know how to do her job. She had meticulously documented her job as follows:
Step 1: Click the third icon from the top in the second column [...]
Etc....
Have you tried switching it off and on again?
which is totally what she said
when I refuse to restart my computer as a "solution" to unrelated problem
There is strong irony in the IT worker complaining about the know-it-all.
t
1) the mad bcc cya artists, who propagate more messages than the worst spammers on earth
2) all of the millions of people that don't RTFM or help screens before lifting the phone and calling tech support; yes, the manuals and help screens suck, so did your chemistry book.
3) people that experiment with key configuration settings. Go ahead, click that DHCP button.
4) the well-intentioned, yet clueless. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
5) fanboi bigots; these weak ego'd miscreants are so insecure that the mere mention of a competing technology will drive them into brutal defensive postures. Their reactions remind me of our current political upheaval
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
The brother in law!!! It's the worse one, because he is all 5 worst users in the same person!
- The BOFH is waiting to greet them.
My humor is probably your flamebait
No, not just enlist their help with other users and throttle their access, actually listen to what they have to say and ask why they do things that don't align with policy.
What if you fit the general category of "whiz kid," but you know your limits? I understand that I'm capable of learning things with a decent amount of exposure, and I'm more than willing to learn on my own time. But when asked (or told) to perform at the edge of my limits, I make everyone involved well aware that they're pushing the limits of what I know. So where does that leave me?
The other day I was in a colleague's office. She's relatively new here. The network was awfully slow, and she wanted to edit a file. Emacs was taking a long time to come up, so we told her to just use vi. The file turned out not to need editing, so we told her it should work and left the room. I faintly heard her say "Wait, how do I get out of here" as I walked away. I almost went back, but didn't...
7th graders (13 year olds) are the users who will be welcoming me into hell
success often occurs in private, failure in full view
the ex-wife...
I'm not sure that many sysadmins could ever qualify to make it to heaven. Don't we all end up at some point disqualifying ourselves by turning into BOFH?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I prefer using the LART!
Luser Attitude Readjustment Tool: http://devpit.org/jargon/html/L/LART.html
I nearly got fired by a Ms. Entitlement Finger-Pointer. Personal secretary for the president of an unnamed fortune 500 company has the president's Active Directory password, and ended up locking the account. This is where I got the "do you know who I am, I am the SECRETARY of mr. So and So. I was just a phone support operator. After a little bit of screaming and accusation, I figure out what the problem is and unlock the account. A week later, she locks the account again, conveniently right before the weekend. Next, I get an angry phone call from the president himself, demanding to know why his account is locked, because HE IS THE PRESIDENT, and is trying to get ready for an important meeting. I end up in a conference call with the secretary, who proceeds to tell the president that I've "done this to her before." Now we've established the finger-pointing. She'd successfully established my guilt as the baseline of the "discussion", and it was downhill after that. After that point, the writing was on the wall, and I got out of there after a few months. Basically, I ended up on the "list" and was not going to get off.
These people can ruin your job. I'm just glad that I was a lowly operator, it would really suck if I'd have had a good job there and this happened.
Just treat them with a little respect but make sure they know that there are rules. It's hard to have people listen to what you say if they think "well we're friends, he'll let it slide" but they'll become defiant if you're the complete prick IT guy.
I've found that being respectful but firm with all users they understand what they can and cannot do. If I treat management different than the cube grunts the management become the Mr. Elitist.
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
The article is, unsurprisingly, written from the typical asshat IT support person point of view. The article doesn't list the user who actually does know a lot more than the clueless freshly-minted IT support guy. As opposed to the "Mr. Know-It-All" who thinks he's an engineer, there are those of us who actually are engineers who are hobbled by Mr. Know-Nothing IT guys who operate blindly. I always laugh at the IT guy who does superstitious things like closing the Explorer window and re-opening a new one so he can navigate somewhere! Or tries the exact same operation four times, thinking it will work the fourth time! Every time some idiotic security application is "pushed" onto all desktops and fucks up my ability to update development software, some IT moron asks "well what did you change?" I remember a dimwit who claimed I needed a new computer because he couldn't figure out how get an encryption certificate working in Outlook. I kid you not, I got a new computer out of it.
I was the Twentysomething Whiz Kid when I was, er, in my twenties. Then I went to grad school, and got a grasp on just how much there was left to learn. I've learned some humility, but even so, the computers at one of my jobs are so-so, and an absolute catastrophe at the other. The difference is that now I have an MSI, so I can articulate why they're a catastrophe.
What if I do the same thing, and I do get different results?
There always seems to be one user in the office who looks at technology as if it were spawned by demons. They use it, because it is required of their job, but they distrust it, and if something they click on takes 5 ms longer than normal, there must be something wrong. They pine for the day of the typewriter and carbon paper, and hate it when anything is updated/upgraded/replaced, because they don't want to have to learn anything new.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
The Rogue Complainer:
That's the one who is willing to "live with their problem" and use it as a "get out of jail free" card when the opportunity arises. Typically, they seek out the know-it-all or whizkid to help them get by, but the first time they miss a deadline; it's in your lap and it's a red flag issue.
I mean, this sort of stuff is HelpDesk 101 around here. Are we ahead of the curve, or is the author just searching for something to write about?
The worst user is a combination of the know-it-all, the know-nothing, and the entitled all rolled into one ungodly package. Yesterday morning i'm driving into work, and my blackberry gives the annoying *BLEEDEEP* of direct connect.
A little background: we have a DVR on our network that is accessible with a web-browser via *BARF* this nasty ActiveX control. It only works on IE, and only works if you're running as an admin (or with local admin privs)...wtf is wrong with developers?! WRITE FILES TO ~! THATS WHAT IT IS FOR! DO NOT CACHE THINGS IN C:\WIndows\System32\!
anyway, this guy NEEDS to be able to watch the DVR...(he is a senior manager). Now, we are also running a proxy server for all outbound HTTP connections. NOtice I said *OUTBOUND*. The firewall blocks all other outbound port 80 connections...meaning you HAVE to use the proxy.
so:
him: "Hey you, its $firstname $lastname hows your morning!?" (let me interject here that after i tell him to go each menu and wait for an OKAY from him....he responds not by saying "okay", but by reading me the menu....the ENTIRE menu")internet options->connections->lan_settings. Is the box for proxy checked?"
him: "No"
me: "check it"
him: "Okay...theres MSN, now let me try the VIDEO...yeah, there it is....see yeah i needed the internet"...
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
this same guy will come into my office and demand that i come over and help him import cds into itunes, or install an updated version of flash so that he can watch videos on elfme.com....when i tell him that i'm busy with something, or that I haven't had time to do it today but its "on the list"...he laughs and sarcastically says "wow, you are just so buys all the time? work sure is stackin' up huh!?"
Guys like that are the reason most admins are alcoholics.
how do i deal with a user like THAT?
NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
A subspecies of the finger pointer is the flustered user. As soon as a problem comes up, his blood pressure soars, his heartbeat accelerates, he sweats glands go into overdrive, and his brain shuts down. Generally the cause of his problems are pretty obvious - all it takes is a little clear thinking.
I find dealing with them pretty easy. First you must treat the user. Get him to relax, have a cup of coffee, and explain the problem. He'll usually figure out the solution on his own as he does this. Otherwise get him out of your office so you can spend 5 minutes in peace solving the problem.
Long term, encourage him to have a work associate look at his problems before calling support. He probably won't do it, but it's worth a shot.
They now need to list the three Tech-Support people you would find there. For example there is the guy who doesn't know much English and doesn't have a clue what your problem is (as you hear the page flipping in the background). Then you get the tech-support person that even though you know the problem, they won't give you the solution you need. (I was on the phone for about 3 hours telling this guy that I needed a new motherboard for my laptop that a new power cord wasn't going to work.) and then the person who only knows Windows/Mac/Linux and refuses to even give hardware support if you are running something other then the almighty Windows/Mac/Linux even though the problem has everything to do with the hardware and if you were even running some OS written in assembly it still would have the problem.
There is no "disagree" moderation, and troll, flamebait and overrated are not valid substitutes
...the dreaded 'family member'
In some cases, like my dad, it's not so bad, he pays attention to the explanation of whats wrong and is usually pretty good about dealing with problems he's seen before so I rarely have to fix the same problem twice, plus he's as good at fixing cars as I am with computers and I'm *rubbish* with cars so that results in a pretty fair exchange of skills.
Other members of my family are *much* more irritating and would think nothing of calling me up at 3am because they have a paper due in at 9am that they left to the last minute and couldn't figure out why their printer wouldn't work (for reference: because the dizzy bint had unplugged it to charge up her MP3 player).
The really shocking thing is that several of my techie friends seem to have it even worse than me with their family!
In a corporate environment the worst I face on a day to day basis are those I classify as 'know just enough to be dangerous' - its a combination of a modicum of ability with computers combined with just the right level of arrogance that they know more than I do that leads to all sorts of problems.
Day to day though it's pretty easy - the place I work is only 300 or so people, which is small enough to build reasonably personal relationships with the various staff, so I generally know the best approach to deal with whomever is having a problem - up to and including who can I get away with calling a dumbfuck to their face, and which ones I should save to have a laugh about back at the pen ;)
Academic Programmers: A Spotter's Guide. :)
Oldie goodie.
Hmmm, that kind of assumes God is not a BOFH.
If he is, the current BOFH's (or at least the ones effective at it) would revert back to PFY's in Heaven.
In his cubicle, he has a stuffed [...] Linux penguin mascot. And he's highly likely to be a gamer
;)
10 points for whoever can spot the huge flaw in this quote!
I write bullshit
Bless their black little hearts, and Microsoft for keeping me on the gravy train... But a very simple solution to all.
- One large 2x4, say about 5' long.
- Five or six nails, roughly 4"
- One large hammer
Instructions:
1) Choose which end of the 2x4 will be your "top" and "bottom" (no, not THAT type of "top" and "Bottom" you filthy minded little buggers!).
2) Toward the top end of 2x4, drive the nails completely through, so that one and has a lovely little array of nail points sticking out.
3) Hold the hammer in your right hand, toss the 2x4 out the window, find offending user, and smack them about the head with the hammer.
Problem solved, and quite a bit of fun and simple yet effective stress reduction.
Guess I'd fall close the the know-it-all category. Personally I'd like to see a list of the IT classes. Towards the top of the list would be the
Cookie Cutter
All users everywhere should have the same setup and run the same programs. The engineer working on software/hardware design has no need to use anything more/less that the receptionist at the front desk. Any "rogue" programs will quickly be blamed on why the computer is crashing. Even if they haven't been run in months.
The Tester
Any problem must be fully tested and proven before any action is taken. Of course its the users responsibility to do the testing. Having a crash/blue screen. Run tests for 5 days and take detailed notes on when it happens. The users project/schedules don't matter. If tests aren't sufficient or notes don't detail every last action help is denied.
The Swiper
Have a problem? The swiper is more very willing to help. They will take your laptop promising to return it within hours. Days later you still haven't gotten it back and you can't find the swiper anywhere. (note, yelling swiper no swiping doesn't seem to help).
One should not theorize before one has data. -Sherlock Holmes-
The article seems to me to read like a fairly tale: always be passive and engage your users is a gentle manner.
How about some advice on handling the difficult situations. Such as:
Sorry, I can't spend any more time explaining what those configuration options on the Advanced screen mean -- frankly, you aren't prepared to handle them. I have other folks needing support (sometimes paying more than you are). When you find a task that you are unable to perform, contact me again.
You know, you're being abusive. You're allowed to curse at the computer all you want, but I have to cut you off until you learn to communicate with a human being.
I'm sorry, customer, your problems with the system are significant enough that we're going to return your money and ask that you not contact us again.
is it because I behave like a BOFH in front of incompetent users? :-)
How is it possible that slashdot knows this?
Georges
Atari rules... ermm... ruled.
Even worse are sysadmins who think that every other tech in the company are Know-It-Alls that must be contained at all costs. At a previous job, I was tasked with installing a rather expensive server application. It was one of those nightmare jobs with a huge spaghetti-coded shell script installer. You know the kind: works great once it's running, but you better have things exactly right before running ./install.sh.
Anyway, one of its requirements was an empty Oracle database and an account with permissions to create the tables it would be using. Now, I'm sure our DBA was a pretty clever guy, and I understand that he had an important job, but he was a complete ass about giving me that empty database. After all, only a Trained DBA is qualified to know how your schema should be designed; never mind that we were buying the app and didn't have a lot of say over how it was set up. Since he and I reported to different bosses, it finally took a request travelling up to the VP level and back down (plus some not so veiled threats of a beating) to finally get the ability to install the application we'd paid about $50K for. Oh, and the installer ran perfectly the first time. You could actually hear his teeth grind as it completed without so much as a warning.
I'm sure in his mind I was a pesky Know-It-All who wanted nothing more than to make his life difficult. He probably complained to his friends about the thorn in his side at the office who wanted - can you believe it! - free reign over a corner of his beloved Oracle.
The moral is that sometimes the people "beneath" you really do know what they're doing if you can bring yourself to give them a chance.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Our company would be viewed as evil by some in the IT or the consulting industry. We sell ourselves as "the CEO's consultant." We openly admit that we're working to better the interests of the person in charge of the company, or the ownership, and not necessarily end users. We believe that by making a company more efficient, the employees will profit as the company does. Our 10 year anniversary is this week, and our world has changed greatly in terms of how we're viewed by the "common" employee.
First of all, if we have bad users, we're the first to highlight them in our quarterly and yearly billing breakdowns. The users who are surly, obnoxious, and complain the most are usually the ones who get the biggest chunk of the maintenance budget. Their name is usually at the top, and each user is also compared to the company average. Many CEOs and owners love our breakdowns, and look forward to them each quarter.
Secondly, the hard workers in an organization also appreciate our reports, which we request to be open if the company's policy allows it (about half do). They know who the jerks and deadbeats (Finger-pointer and Mr. Entitlement) are, and they're happy to be "below average" in terms of company burden. It is also those users/employees who like us the most because we give them extra-special attention when they really do have emergencies. The guy who cries wolf all the time is still served well, but most quickly learn that they'll be singled out at their next review -- "Why do you need so much support?"
The finger-pointer loses power under this system. When it is obvious that the finger should point to them (and that's what the report clearly shows) they have little in the way of demanding a change in consultant or operations. Most finger-pointers we've dealt with have been the first to leave or be fired, based on the clarity that we show to the owners to see who is bringing down efficiency. Since we've taken over some telephone system operations, we also generate a report that shows the delay in responding to voice mails (a skewed report in some ways, because we don't use a weight-system for people who get way more voice mails than average), and it's usually the finger pointer and Mr. Entitlement who ignore the voice mails significantly more than average.
The Whiz-Kid is usually a good person to have for us, as we are open to changes in our system. If the Whiz-Kid gives us a recommendation, we'll include it in our summary of recommendations, and give them the credit. If that recommendation is accepted, and it works, more power to the Whiz-Kid, maybe he should go off on his own and consult. If the recommendation fails, it's also his responsibility. But here's the good part: the Whiz-Kid doesn't have the time to take over our work, so it's not competition for us. Owners should know if they have a talented worker, but they should also be aware that the talented worker should do what his job description says he should do, or he should be moved to a different department. About 20% of our customers have attempted to hire in-house staff, but their costs go up, not down, and the service seems to get worse. Currently, we work with no business with an in-house IT guy (even one customer who generates over $100m a year in income).
The Know-It-All is not a problem for us, because every invoice we produce references industry recommendations or knowledge base articles as to why we do it. If the Know-It-All calls us out in a meeting (or otherwise), all we have to do is say "Maybe we missed something, can you point us to two industry experts who recommend that action?" So far, maybe 5% of Know-It-All complaints have led us to making changes, but 95% of them fail miserably. And no, slashdot is not a great place to grab links to recommendations, because it also usually has replies from other "experts" who recommend against the same idea.
The Know-Nothing is our worst user, and maybe the only bad one. Because some WANT to know more, but don't have the aptitude, it seems part
It's surprising how many people are like this. I encounter people this clueless on a weekly basis.
Me: "Right-click on your program shortcut and go to Properties..."
User: "What?"
Me: "The shortcut to the program."
User: "What?"
Me: "However you normally open the program."
User: "Ok, the program's open."
Me: "No, just right-click on that icon."
User: "So close the program?"
Me: "Yes"
User: "It says, 'are you sure you want to exit.' Click ok?"
Me: "Yes."
User: "It says, 'An error was encountered.' Click Send?"
Me: "No, click Do Not Send."
User: "OK, so go into the program?"
Me: "No, right-click on the shortcut."
User: "What?"
And then there are the people who actually do know more than the support person tending their needs - and I am surprised the article doesn't address these folks. There is the tacit assumption here that the support guy is always more knowledgeable than the user. This is frequently not the case. I would really appreciate it if support staff could recognize that I actually do know what I am talking about and cut through all the crap.
This article is fairly content-free. For all the categories, the answer seems to be "let the users bend you over backwards". Nothing useful.
The users who think their cluelessness is the fault of a "virus" in the machine.
The worst thing about these people is they all have a know-it-all friend/relation who'll came over at the weekend and install his pirate copy of Windows/Norton on the machine to "fix" it.
Now Windows won't validate and Norton, well, it's Norton...
Now the only way out is to reformat.
No sig today...
I've done helpdesk and desktop support for several years mostly in academia, and dealt with all 5 archtypes, but all are managable if you have buy-in from management.
.JPG is to generic of a filter since there are legit .JPG files on the server and they can't just wax them all. Also, I know management is just going to say "just increase the quota and we'll ask her to 'stop' (even though they never will because they've got every screensaver, desktop toy, 50GB of ripped CDs, their iPod and a personally owned off-brand PDA/Smartphone you're expected to just "configure out of the box" while they drop it on the desk and disappear for 30 minutes leaving you no account information and just don't get it.)
With the novice, you've got management hiring people in clerical positions that should have never gotten past the civil service exam. If you can't use Microsoft Word (or whatever productivity applications the institution uses), you shouldn't be hired if that is a significant job responsibility. Period.
With the "entitlement" king, you've got to have management that can say "Look, $EMPLOYEEE, your work is important but we've got 1 geek for every 200 employees, and there is a a 2-day SLA on this kind of work that IT has negotiated with upper management. You've known this for years, so if you're calling to get Excel installed the day the budget proposal is due, not only are you not doing your job proactively, you're completely out of line by asking IT to violate practices designed to keep the entire company running smoothly." Not only that, you have to have managers that understand that yes, even though you are a VP, your blackberry not working shouldn't be tasked higher than multiple users down due to a failed server.
With the thinks-they-know everything, you need a manager that trusts that IT truly knows best, so when he goes to his boss and says I need $SOFTWARE, (goes for the Whiz Kid too), and IT has already said "NO, $REASON", there needs to be an implicit level of trust that IT has a good reason. I've seen departments go out and buy Norton AV because their "ad hoc computer guy" said they should, even though McAfee was site licensed. In another case $PROFESSOR buys an unsupported scanner with grant money, and now IT is implicitly expected to support it because it is to be used in "university-blessed research." Not that IT is always in line, but management has to know that IT is stretched really thin and even if the rank-and-file geek installing $SOFTWARE says no, if there is a bona-fide business necessity for a software product, IT management should be on board.
This is especially true in academia where almost any IT best-practice can be thrawted by "academic freedom" (even though I love the doctrine, it is abused ad infinitum). MySpace.com choking down 95% of the campus bandwidth "Can't block it or QoS it, because academic freedom."
If I may, let me add one, the "I keep 20GB of baby pictures on the network because I can't go 30 seconds without looking at my kids and even though IT has told me to knock it off." -- I know they won't do anything because
Don't even get me started on "musical offices", the "I need my whole office packed up because I'm moving into the branch office today" with no previous warning, only to move back 2 weeks later because "Oh, I'm just filling in for someone and I know where everything is at on this computer." Its almost enough to make a poor geek weep.
Forgive my spelling from time to time. I'm often posting during short breaks.
Maybe we should talk about which ring of hell (either Dante's version of Inferno or if you prefer, Niven & Pournelle's updated version) they all belong in.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Sounds like this person hasn't read anything on BOFH. Your not supposed top call the helpdesk.
You can tell them no. Explain to them that you do that sort of thing for a living and it's not something you care to do without compensation. The only reason your family treats you like a doormat is because you seem to let them walk all over you.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Forget the help desk ... I oversee network operations for a mid sized hosting center, and I get direct phone calls from people who think that they're too important for the help desk. They have no business making direct calls to anyone other than the help desk, but they do anyway. It's very difficult for me not to tell them to die in a car fire.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
What about the user, that requires you stand their after you have fixed their machine, while they open all their programs and files to MAKE SURE that EVERYTHING works... sigh...
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Emo Philips
Absolutely. My wife is terrible when things go wrong.
Her computer is running slow.. it's *my* problems and don't *dare* go to work without fixing it, even if I'm late. She's forgotten her mysql password (again, FFS) and it's *my* problem to fix *immediately* even if it's 2am and I'm already in bed.
God help me if she ever deletes anything.. not only is that my problem I get hell for it for days because I didn't have the ability to wave a magic wand and recover it.
"I is an engineer!" admins
Sysadmins and wire runners who think one becomes an engineer simply by changing his title to "engineer." This makes for great fun when Systems Engineers (systems integration, production, platform, environmental testing, component, etc. engineers, usually mechanical but also electrical) look for Sys Eng jobs and the search engine keeps returning Sysadmin jobs that were mislabeled by morons who wanted a better title without the schooling. And no, getting an MSCE does not make you an engineer.
I-never-heard-of-that-problem-so-it's-impossible admins
We had network tools and browsers that would lock up for minutes at a time, all the time. I reported it again and again and was told it was impossible. I guess I was hallucinating for 300 seconds at a time repeatedly throughout a the day. Months later I mentioned it to an underling and within 2 minutes he changed DNS settings and everything worked perfectly. To the same admin, I asked him to either stop forcing my desktop to sync with their server's clock, or to set their clock to be at least 15 minutes withing the actual time, preferably withing one or two minutes. I was told that it was impossible to sync desktop clocks to remote computers and I was confused. I volunteered to demonstrate it by changing my clock and then waiting a few minutes for it to be changed back to the wrong time, but he was not interested, because it was impossible. That was 5 years ago and the clocks are still off, but only by 4 or so minutes now, not the 17 or 23 or whatever annoying number it was. I also asked why 50% of my hard drive was "reserved" and was told it was impossible, or I didn't know what virtual memory was (40GB of swap?). I caught him once and showed him, and he shrugged and wandered off.
Slaves-to-super-secret-policy admins
Briefly I moved in to (and later back out of) another building in the same company with different admins who had to follow corporate policy. That policy forced us, a computer security company, to use IE. An obsolete version of IE. And we were not allowed to install or change anything, no matter how minor. Our homepage was locked to a link that had been broken for over a year and we couldn't even hit "stop" - we had to let it time out before we could use the browser. I once requested a laptop for a 2 week business trip. I told them I needed admin privs so I could install a compiler. They said ok, gave me the laptop, and I was on my way. Once I landed on the other side of the country I tried to install the compiler and found I had no privileges. I called and asked wtf, and they told me they don't give admin privs. They had no explanation as to why they waited until I carried that boat anchor cross country before telling me.
That's an IT problem, not a user problem. It should NOT give passwords to active directory, even to the company president. In a fortune 500, that's for the head of IT's off-site safe. No, not the safe with the mission-critical backups; the SMALL, discrete, more secure safe. The head of IT should also have been shielding you from that kind of BS, via laying down his own law at board level.
After being in IT for over a decade the stories pile up. The University Grad student who tried to plug the Mouse into the electrical socket behind her. The corporate Executive who started a fire in her office becuase she piled up papers and shoe boxes around the CRT monitor. The Librarian who threatened to sue the company because of spyware porn popping up on her computer since she missed typed ebayyyy. But in all if I had to think about all the support jobs I've ever done and the one person I'd never want to support again it would have been a good friend of mine who went through computers like ham sandwiches. One laptop was chewed by her laptops and she had a two hour agreement on if I was a computer expert how come I couldn't fix it! But when it comes down to it computers are like clothing for most people, you put it on, wear it out, through it in the laundry, and it comes back to you almost new. But US IT guys are the Laundry. Just wish we'd find some loose change once in a while.
I was also an admin once. I had a psycho user who would scream and yell and sputter and lose it over minor issues. He completely freaked out because his docs were "gone." I did a search, and there they were in "My Documents." I looked around some more, and he had the usual "My Documents" folder in the usual place, and another folder on the desktop also called "My Documents" and also on the desktop he had a shortcut to a "D:\My Documents." How he had done this I wasn't sure, but it was all my fault.
Then we had the guy who complained of a slow computer. He had about 30 icons on his taskbar, about 8 of them screen saver programs and who knows what else. I suggested deleting all of them and he balked. I suggested deleting one or more and he balked. Then I started to leave and he asked me if I was going to do anything or not.
But my FAVORITE story: my ex's dad called completely irate. He wanted us to drive 200 miles to his house on a work night and fix his computer. His daughter was crying, his wife locked herself in the bedroom, and he was in a rage because they did something and now he couldn't print AND his landline didn't work. (Needless to say, I had fixed this computer numerous times only to find 400 pieces of spyware and 15 screensavers and 86 viruses on my next visit) Well, my ex explained that we didn't want to do 8 hours of driving that night so he should call the phone company to fix his landline and we'd see about his computer on the weekend.
2 days later, a guy from AT&T shows up, unplugs the printer's USB cable from the phone jack and leaves.
Is when you're that whiz-kid and you actually do know more than the guy at the IT help desk. It's like those situations where you call the ISP because your cable modem is not receiving a signal and they want you to fart around rebooting Windows and mucking with DHCP until they finally admit that the problem is 'with the signal'. I can understand that those people need a procedure to step through but sometimes you need to go from step 1 to step 10 immediately when certain conditions are present.
It's pretty rare to "solve" a problem in Linux or OSX with a reboot.
Of course, one of my work boxes is a windows box, and I regularly have to give it the three-fingered solute. The other four boxes under my desk, not so much.
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in being one of the "good" help desk callers. I've worked one before. It wasn't fun. And I try to help them out with all the information that I can give them. So I'm booting my machine, and I get an error message? Copy the text of the error message into the help desk ticket. Try rebooting - does it recur? Let them know that on the ticket as well.
Thanks to my (apparent) usefulness, I've been given access to some of the less dangerous tools that they run to resolve common problems (like, for instance, Lotus Notes closing, but not closing its database connection).
It may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away.
--Scott Adams
1) The Know-It-All: Suck it up and deal with it.
2) The Know-Nothing: Suck it up and deal with it.
3) Mr. Entitlement: Suck it up and deal with it.
4) The Finger-Pointer: Suck it up and deal with it.
5) The Twentysomething Whiz Kid: Suck it up and deal with it.
The Dream User: Keep dreaming.
=Smidge=
That arrogant twat off TV. You see them everywhere now ... all conforming and looking the same. Sad.
I hear ya and sympathize. Just be glad you don't work for a certain accounting firm where booting your laptop takes literally 10-20 minutes due to necessary but poorly implemented security measures and other crappy software.
(Re)booting sucks...
Whenever her proprietary software does something unexpected she gets flustered and turns to me for the immediate solution. Most of the time I have to respond that I really don't know how this software works so I don't know why it's giving you that meaningless error or acting in that strange way. This is not acceptable you see because I do 'computer stuff' for a living (I'm a Java developer atm) and I'm 'supposed to know how this stuff works'. Sometimes she is seriously convinced I'm just not telling her how to fix it to be mean.
Then there were the days when she stored an important thesis for graduate school on a floppy disk and only on a floppy disk. Despite my repeated warnings that this was a terribly bad idea it didn't click until the floppy drive failed and she went into a mental breakdown over it. Luckily I was able to use data recovery software to extract the text back out of the Word document. *sigh* Now I've got her on board with backups at least.
I run Portable Firefox instead of the PoS IE6 IT makes us use.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
The list is pretty good and I can say without a doubt I've dealt with all five users. Right now, the main culprits at my job are the Know-Nothings (the majority) and the Know-It-All (fortunately, very few). Of the two, the worst have to be the Know-Nothings who tell you they know nothing and are proud of it.
:)
"I don't know nothin about stupid compters and dont' want to. Just fix it."
"Not a problem. It's fixed now. In the future, don't press the shiny red button."
"Ok"
One week later. . .
"My computer's acting up."
Interestingly, our CEO admits he is not computer literate but at the same time gets out your way when you need to fix something. He's glad you're there and does exactly what you tell him to do. He listens to what the problem is and how you're going to fix it. He describes exactly what error he is getting and what he did. He's almost a dream user.
The second issue deals with me personally. As others have said, and as the article alluded to, we in IT, despite what we may think, don't know all the answers. I once said in an interview, "I don't let my ego get in the way of learning something new."
As a corollary, at work my motto is, "When I know, I'll tell you. When I don't, I'll find out."
Similar to what was said in the article, people call me directly or ask for me by name because they know I'll fix their issue and won't make them feel like an idiot. Unless they deserve it.
Maybe it's just me, but once people know that when I come to fix their problem it gets fixed, their attitude changes from grumpy to happy. They even tell me that (other co-worker name) was there and they're still having problems and are glad to see me.
Now if only the numnuts doing the interviews wouldn't lie to my face about a position being open I'd be able to impose, er, facilitate this same Mr Fix-It attitude on those I would be managing.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
I learned the hard way that using military alphabet abbreviations over the phone just confuses most folks who aren't current/ex military or pilots. You end up having to say "A as in Alpha" instead otherwise they can't cope. It's even worse if they are a foreign national whose English language skills aren't so strong.
Of course most folks here can't deal with metric either so I shouldn't be surprised. (yes I'm an American slamming other Americans on this topic) There are a lot of things people could do to make their lives easier that they don't bother to learn. Sad but true.
1. Never talk to IT.
If you can't solve it yourself, work around it. (if necessary, get a new job and just leave the problem behind)
Calling IT will just slow things down, while they spend time looking down at you and demonstrating how FSCKING USELESS that shiny MSCE that got them their job is.
This article just validated the rule.
...can be replaced by a script roughly the length of the documentation (not including comments.)
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
If I ask someone what they do for a living and they say waiter, I'm not going to ask them to go get me a beer. You don't ask a mechanic to come out and take a quick look at your car if you are hanging out, why would you expect anything different from someone in another profession?
http://greenobyl.com/ please.... think of the children!!
Ahahahaha... Now granted I'd hang up on anyone who called me for tech support at 3am, but you're nuts if you think you can just flat out refuse to help a family member with a technical problem. I'd rather install Windows ME on a '386 with a flaky hard drive than deal with the nuclear war that would ensue if I ever did that.
I do phone tech support for Adobe products. I deal with every single one of those users every single day. the funny thing is that the worst users to deal with are the IT guys from other companies. They typically take advice the worst. The next in line are the public users who think that they are technically savvy and are really not. Oh, they are a joy to talk to. people who know nothing are easier to deal with I find because they just want me to show them the way and generally trust me implicitly. Otherwise it is tech calls as usual.
If you've defined your computer support positions as being responsible for being experts at every piece of software your run and to spend their time helping people with all the problems with them then sure. However the problem with that is you are likely to need a very large staff to accomplish anything, and have to pay a fair bit to get them trained in everything.
Usually IT positions seem to be more responsible for the larger picture, making sure the systems and network operate correctly. Past that, a lot starts to go to the users. This is how it is going to be if you want to have a few of people who are responsible for 20 servers and 500 desktops. If they have to spend all their time acting as trainers, they won't be able to do their real jobs. If you want them to just be systems support, you are going to have to make it the responsibility of the users to learn the software they use.
Also, depending on the environment, it may not even be realistic. I work for an engineering department at a university and as such we have a lot of specialized engineering apps. The extent that we support those apps is to make sure they are installed correctly, that they run and that in the cases where such a thing exists, we can run an example project. That's it. We aren't experts in the software and indeed there's nobody in the department who's an expert with all of it. You'd need several master's degrees and probably a few PhDs as well to have the requisite knowledge for that. So we can make sure that the installation is right, we can make sure it is getting a license, we can make sure there's nothing on the system interfering with it, but we can't help you fix your broken project.
Likewise, it is not unreasonable to ask people to read basic messages on the screen. If the computer comes up with an error like "Error, there was an error," yes it is time to call the computer people. However if it says "Printer is out of paper," you should be able to read that one and figure it out yourself. Computers often try to be helpful, and it isn't unreasonable to ask someone to know a bit about the device they are operating. Much like I am not going to chide you for not knowing how to replace a broken alternator in your car, but I do expect that you should understand that when the fuel gauge goes to E you need to put more gas in, without asking a mechanic.
The know-it-all: Isn't that big a deal because usually they are quick to point out how much they know making it easy to anticipate common know-it-all roadblocks like getting tied up on a task for 10 minutes because they disagree with you. Many people who seem to be know-it-alls are actually putting up a defense shield because of insecurity. Don't make it worse by also being a know-it-all.
The know nothing: This is a pretty large portion of the population, so if you can't handle supporting most people then you need to either work on it or consider a career change. Attitude makes a big difference. Please keep in mind that these people often feel vulnerable when calling for support so showing extra consideration goes a long way. Don't patronize people or be a jerk or surprise, people will treat you like a jerk.
Mr. Entitlement: This is a bit sexist. It should be Mr. or Mrs. entitlement since I feel there are just as many women in a position of power who have this attitude. Treat these people the same way you do any jerk. Suck it up and just deal with it whimp. Sometimes if you are really really nice and act like they don't phase you it really makes these people agitated which can be entertaining. Keep in mind that a lot of times people just get pissed of at the situation or because someone else is pissed at them or whatever so you can't go wrong with just being nice and dealing with the issue.
The finger pointer: As long as you have experience dodging bullets then this should not be an issue. In a corporation there tends to be a lot of these and fewer people actually being productive so it helps to have experience working for a big evil global mega corporation with poor efficiency.
The twentysomething whiz kid: The most important thing is not to get carried away by these people because they can often be very confident and persuasive and lead you in the completely wrong direction. Call control is very important.
One really tough one I think they really left out was what I call the keyboard commando. A lot of times people just can't resist pressing buttons and clicking stuff. It is like they just can't help themselves from like going off on their own little adventures and trying things. Many times though I have found that the reason why people do this is because they are either insecure and want to fix the problem themselves or they just want to have you around to blame when they break something but otherwise don't even need you or care what you have to say.
I don't have a dream user because I don't dream of users.
One of my professors in college (Hi Prof Pierroule, if you read this!) called that sort "voodoo users": they have no idea whatsoever what they're doing, no amount of training actually gets them to understand the computer, and they have merely memorized (or written down) a series of exact steps and they know that if they perform the magical steps, the magical process occurs and they get the desired output... but if anything goes even the slightest bit wrong with any of those steps, they fail completely.
My experience with many such people leads me to believe that voodoo users have a mindset that effectively prevents them from learning how computers work: I think in some cases they're so convinced that they can't learn it that they prevent themselves from doing so even if they otherwise could, and in some cases they don't have the sort of brain processes that allow a person to systematize knowledge about how one part of one thing works to understand how other parts or other things work, so memorizing instructions is all they can do.
I usually make them lavish documentation with lots and lots of color screenshots. (Yes, I've had users that failed because the document was b&w and the screen was color and they couldn't match the two in their heads. This also means the document has to be created with the default system colors, and I have to ensure that their workstation is set to the default system colors.) And over-simplistic language. (You can't say "click 'ok'" and expect them to figure out that there's an on-screen button labeled 'ok' that they're supposed to click with the mouse: you have to say "using the mouse, move the pointer so that it is on the on-screen 'button' labeled 'ok'. [picture of it here] Press the left mouse button and release it.")
For the know-it-all, if you have to, their suggestion of blindsiding them with jargon isn't a bad one, but face it, that may not work. What you really want to do here is tell them that if they can't follow the rules, they are officially cut off from IT. That means potentially cutting them off even from things like the fileserver, which they need to do their job, but absolutely cutting them off from help if things go wrong.
Of course, for that approach, you do kind of need management to be on your side, but I think you could make a good case to management that this kind of policy is a good thing -- at least you're not firing them, right?
I would suggest locking down their computer, and yeah, do that, too. But they may actually know enough to be dangerous, meaning you may not be able to sufficiently lock them down.
For the know-nothing, train them, as much as you possibly can, to be independent. Prime example: my mother. I taught her right-click, and all but lied to her by telling her she couldn't screw anything up. (Really, most of the time, you get an "Are you sure?" dialog if you're about to.) She's now entirely self-sufficient, and only every few months does she have a problem that she actually needs me for. She may be slow, but she's never completely stuck.
If they can't or won't learn, get them fired if you possibly can. If you can't, maybe you want to look for a job. That ties right into Mr. Entitlement -- most people don't consider it their job to know anything about their computers. Even though they need a computer to get their job done, they consider everything to be the IT person's job. If at all possible, slap these people with a message from even higher up to stop eating up IT resources.
Alternatively, get them a mildly sophisticated intern and/or secretary -- something like the know-it-all in terms of knowledge, but not arrogance.
Finger-pointer: Ignore them. Explain (once) that you didn't do anything to their stuff, but really, if they're going to continue to accuse you of things, it's not worth your time to correct them.
If you have to help them, selectively ignore them -- don't respond to any accusatory remarks, just fix the problem and be on your way.
Whiz kid: Well, first of all, he knows more than whoever wrote that article -- if you want non-GPL'd stuff to link to your library, use an LGPL library.
More importantly, try, as much as you can, to get this kid within the rules. That may mean changing some of the rules, too, if there's a good reason for it. And if at all possible, suggest that they take over IT for their own machine, as well as all the responsibility that entails. If they "own" their own machine to an extent, they probably won't be inclined to wreak havok on the rest of your network. And they probably can handle its IT needs, so it's less work for you.
But whatever you do, don't make an enemy of him. Not because he's so fearsome an enemy, but because if you win, you'll be crushing a very good thing.
If you are a whiz kid, well, you could come work for us, we treat our whiz kids well... But seriously, get to know IT, and stay within the rules. If they like you, they might bend some things for you -- which means those are things you don't have to worry about being caught doing.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
It told my neighbor I knew nothing about macs but she had switched isps and needed her settings changed. So I worked out how to change the dial up settings in the control panel bit (just dialing up from the obvious icon on the desktop bar works but does not save your settings) and changing entourage's email settings was much the same as on windows.
Then I got stuck. I had some stuff on a cdrom for her. I searched every inch of the front of the pc tower and couldn't find an eject button or any real indication of a cdrom at all. I searched the finder and control panel but could not find one or an eject command anywhere. I searched the help and google but found nothing helpful. Then after about five minutes of this I finally spotted the eject looking button on the keyboard and low and behold the cdrom appeared from behind a flap. Grr did I feel dumb. Its things like this that drive users up the wall. If I had not guessed that key symbol meant eject I'd have been sunk.
Now if I could just find out why every ten minutes it makes a funny sound, like a siren going bong or clang or something...
Your coworkers are disposable.
Your family isn't.
Those family members can and will hold a
grudge and may find some way to make your life
miserable for being "such a jerk". You can't just
decided to "turn in your notice" and go search
monster.com for another family.
Every many at least once in his life needs
to tell at least boss "take this job and shove it"
over some matter of principle.
You can't really do that with kin.
You might have a coworker for 5 or 10
years if you're really lucky. Family will
be lingering around for 50 or 80.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
If you can't get me an ftp client in under a week you can't complain about me using OSS when I feel like it. If you don't know what an ftp client is (I have had run ins with "IT staff" like this), then get the fuck out of my office. Yes, I'll fuck up once in a while, but that's because I'm actually getting shit done. It's hard to fuck up when all you know how to do is hit restart.
Ultimately, I think IT support can be about building relationships with people, albeit small relationships.
As a financial planner I have to learn how to be a partner with people, relate to them, and get them to trust me with their money. Helping different types of people is most often about showing them what is in it for them (why should they care), and helping shore up their insecurities. The know it all and whiz kid could be Analytic types who just didn't get enough hugs as a kid (or something) and are insecure. So, trying to out-do them and show them how they are inferior is a BAD idea. However, working as a partner with them, acting like someone who is on their side to offer suggestions, now *that* will get you much farther, in my experience, and you'll also have a person who begins to trust you and who will be loyal over time.
That's just one personality type I've encountered, there are others of course.
I know it's a stretch for the metaphor between IT and running a client-based practice, but I thought this might prove useful. Mod me down if it's just a bunch of pie-in-the-sky guff, though.
-
I support a couple of web applications I developed, don't get too many calls, but the ones I remember most are:
Caller: I can't get into the site.
Me: Do you have an account to log in with?
Caller: Huh?
Me: Ok, click 'Create Account', you'll see a form to fill out with your information. Fill it out to make an account.
Caller: Ok (typing noises heard over phone)
(long pause... no typing noises... getting really long...)
Me: Are you done?
Caller: Do you want me to press that 'Submit form' button?
and a different caller -
Me: You need to create a password for your account. It should have a lower-case letter, an uppercase letter, and a digit.
Caller: You mean the number kind of digit?
Me: (suppressing urge to say, "No, cut off a finger and mail it to me!")
The fact that he thinks these jerks are going to "return the favor" might explain why he's been stuck working helpdesk for over 20 fucking years.
My dad was always having trouble understanding what I would tell him was wrong, or what to do to fix it. Eventually I gave him one simple solution, which was easy for him to understand and do, which he does all the time, now: stay away from all computers!
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Isn't that the one in the short skirt and the V-neck sweater?
Back in hell ... I mean back in my years on the hell-pdesk, we had one phrase that summed things up perfectly
"Users are Losers"
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
It depends, how much you are willing to pay wether it is tech-supports work to hold you hand or wether it isn't.
Car anology time. If you hail a cab, you pay enough that you shouldn't have to care even about the most basic things of operating a car like speed limits or fuel. If you rent a car, you pay slightly less, but you are supposed to know the road laws and put in your own gas, although you should be able to count on it to have a full tank when you first got it.
Lease a car and you pay even less, but know you got to remind youselve about oil levels as well, buy the car and you are even cheaper but you know need to maintain the car yourselve and if you turn it into to the garage because it makes a funny sound, you can expect the garage to charge you for discovery time.
The same works in IT. Tech support is often also responsible for basic maintenance, that is, just because a guy is from tech support doesn't mean he has nothing else to do then answer questions. Even if he is, how many people is he servicing?
Are you (or your company) willing to actually PAY for the amount of handholding you require?I once had the luxury of having a REAL secretary, just for me. I was considered so expensive that the company was willing to pay someone fulltime (and secretaries don't come cheap) to do all the non-tech tasks for me. You would be amazed at how this is different from having a office worker who you can ask things.
For instance, he took care (yeah male) by himself of things like keeping my office supplied, you don't know how luxurious it is to have someone who keeps the printer working for you until you got to order your own catridges again. My time was precious, precious enough to warrent the costs of hiring an extra person to make sure I spend my hours on my task and not supporting myself.
The biggest problem I see with tech support is often simply down to budget, you seem to have 100 dollar questions but are only willing to spend 10. Sorry, but you ain't gonna get what you want unless you are willing to spend.
If I was willing to do support (not on your life) I could easily arrange it for you to have the pefect IT setup where you would never have to read a manual or do a patch or wait arround for tech support to come around. Mind you, it would cost you.
IBM is famous for its excellent support, you got a problem, they come, 24/7 year around, but be prepared for some screaming for accounts when you actually use that support.
I have used them a few times when I was confronted with managers who don't understand a problem unless it comes with a huge price tag, and they are excellent, but the price per hour came to about 500 euro's per hour, all to say that the server was fine, the problem was in the software, just as I had been saying all along.
Tech support can only deliver what you are willing to pay for, and while I do not know you, I find it fairly easy to assume that you are unwilling to pay for it.
Don't expect a doorman to hail you a cab at a motel.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Garage mechanics and nurses. If you think about it, they work in the same field. They let you do your job and understand "repairman's syndrome" i.e., that something that won't work fixes itself when the repair guy shows up.
I am sometimes an IT manager.
I find that most of the problem users are also finger pointers. It's rare that I encounter one of the other problem users who isn't also a finger pointer. Usually they'll call my boss, whoever that is, and try to get me fired. This is why I won't even consider an IT job unless I've discussed it thoroughly with my potential new boss and they've made it plain that they will back me up. The finger pointer then usually tries calling my boss's boss. I therefore insist on having enough of a relationship with *that* person that they know me enough to call me and have a friendly discussion about what really happened, rather than flying into a rage as the finger pointer wants them to.
I've found that attempting to mollify finger pointers is generally a bad idea: they'll get pissed off anyway, either now or later, and go to management and tell whatever kind of outrageous stories they think are necessary to get rid of me (or my staff), even if it means lying outright. (And I don't mean the kind of "they're too ignorant of computers to tell the difference" lies, I mean things like claiming I said a bunch of sexist stuff that I would never say.)
So, my new method of dealing with finger pointers is "take no prisoners." If something goes wrong and they say "what did you do?" they get a detailed lecture about not jumping to conclusions before analysis. They try to blame something on me and it's their fault, and they get a lecture about exactly what they did wrong and they get told that if they insist on blaming me or my staff for their errors we will withdraw service from them, including their network connection, and they can figure out how to do their job without a computer. (And I mean it - I've done it.) If they claim that they're suffering because me or my staff is slow in responding to them, all work for that user halts while I contact the help desk and get them to retrieve the records to demonstrate our reasonable response times for that user, and then I insist on receiving an apology before I can continue work.
I then go back to my desk and fire off a very polite email to their boss and mine about their poor behavior and its negative effect on my staff's morale. Since my boss always knows from experience that I am a professional and would never make shit up, when my email and the inevitable one from the finger pointer come in, I am the one who is believed.
The other consequence of this is that I insist that my staff have no more contact with finger pointers than absolutely necessary. If a finger pointer calls the help desk, the help desk notes what they have to say, tells them they'll get a call back, and then routes the complaint to me, and I handle it personally, calling in other IT people to assist me (not them) as necessary. This means that sometimes they have to wait for me to become available to work on their problem for them. If they complain to me about it, or my staff, they are told that because they've had difficulties in the past they have been placed in a special service category in which they are always taken care of by the top IT people (the managers) to ensure that they receive the best possible quality of service. If they complain to upper management about it, upper management will ask me, and I'll tell them the real reason - that they're not allowed to deal with lower level IT people because they can't be trusted not to tell lies and try to get my people fired, while I have the clout to stand up to them.
It has happened that management has decided to fire a finger pointer after they told nasty lies about me came to light. (The specific user accused me of making a pass at her and then discriminating against her for being a lesbian. HR called me about this, and I merely informed them that I'm gay. The discussion was over and I was off the hook.) And yes, management did back me when I withdrew all services from a user because of their nasty behavior - the user was fired, on the basis that they had such behavior problems they couldn't get along w
I had a customer who started reading his registration number, and the strangest example I have ever heard was used:
"E as in Everyman"
I've been tempted to use this on occasion.
Interesting analysis of end users.
What kind of support techs are there?
(1) The Whiz-Kid - just scraped by in college, but reached Level Google in every game during those 4 1/2 years. Builds PC's in (inevitibly his) spare time. Has never touched a mainframe in his life and doesn't really understand it, and therefore, looks down on it. Knows every upcoming Intel processor code name, but can't write code, else they would be in "real" IT. How to handle? Empathy. Tell them they are amazing, and let them add that secured printer driver to your system and reboot.
(2) I'm New Here. Usually female, males will try to BS through it. Will have to check back with someone else on everything. How to handle? Empathy. Show patience. Be tolerant. Followup with an email to their boss thanking them if they didn't royally screw up. They are your friends for life.
(3) Whatever. The private sector civil servant. Doesn't know, doesn't care, just get the job done and move on. How to handle? Empathy. Tell them they are very busy and you appreciate their time. Won't help move them any faster, but there is a 1% lower chance they'll totally bork your system.
Interesting, how empathy is the correct response in every situation. There's a life lesson in there, young Jedi.
On me: I joined a Fortune 25 company as an executive, and have since risen in the executive ranks. I actually am entitled to nearly anything. But I never, ever take that tack. I personally throw out a few questions to see what category they fall into and deal appropriately. Occasionally the newer ones (who haven't heard the rumors) will decide to do what TFA says, dive deep and bury the user (me) in tech talk. It hasn't worked even once. I may have a title, but I write code at home for fun. It's a kind of malicious fun to see them retreat to Executive Support with their wanna-be tech tails between their legs.
Except for my father, who is a professional sysadmin, so if he calls me for computer help there's a darn good reason and the conversation will be short because he'll actually understand what I'm saying and I won't have to waste a lot of time trying to explain how to click a button on the screen.
Yes, I get along fine with my family. Perhaps you should try standing up to yours.
There are two (and only two) kinds of users:
1. Those who never call. (And do not need handling.)
2. Those who call.
Here's the manual on how to deal with those that call: The Bastard Operator from Hell
Show no mercy.
Anyway, he calls up and does not speak very good English, so a Webex session is necessary. Due to the language barrier, an email must be sent with the link to the Webex session so that he can connect the most efficient way. This is where things start to break down.
The customer is logged into the machine I want to administer, but because I sent him an email, he RDPs to his own workstation to click the link. When the desktop is finally shared, we are looking at his desktop, so I say... "Could we connect to the system that is experiencing the problem" MISTAKE!!! The customer then RDPs back to the system he is physically logged into.
As many of you know, this opens up a wormhole in the time space continuum, and causes an "echo" effect, opening remote session after remote session after remote session, until eventually the server (Production) crashes.
To avoid this, of course... the user "bounces" the server, KILLING THE ENTIRE WEBEX...
So we wait, in silence, while the server comes back up. We have been on the call now an hour, and have nothing to say to one another; mute is your friend at this point, as you are questioning your entire IT future.
The server comes back online, and you specifically ask him to open up Outlook Web Access from the server in question, but this turns sour very quickly. Finally you are repeating the web address 15 times, before giving the session number 18 times, and you are IN!!!
Now for the problem... which has mysteriously disappeared after a reboot.
ARRRRRRRRRGH!!!
He will be in hell, I know it. He will be there with his virtual production environment, and a red phone that dials my number every 15 minutes.
I personally Like my list better.
It makes me feel like I fought off true villany.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
What's the worst that could happen? Mom would kick you out of her basement? Trust me, that's a good thing.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Not a single reference to a LART. Sounds like bad advice to me.
BTW, IT *is* Hell. Hope I cleared that up.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
There is a new assistant at the company who at the time of this incident hadn't even made it through her thirty day probation period. She had managed to piss off all three of the other guys in my department by claiming to be a know it all and basically telling them how to do their jobs. Despite that I went into my first encounter with her with a semi-open mind. I was there to deal with some slowness problems that she was having with her computer (she was trying to insert 20 megabyte uncompressed graphic files into her Word document from a file server on the opposite side of a 3mb MPLS circuit.) While I was there diagnosing that problem, she started into me with her, "I need a flat screen." diatribe. I won't bore you with all the details of the multi-week long ordeal, but the conversation involved the lines. "My brother works in IT and he says I need a flat screen. My dad has been developing computers for years." She claimed that she had been working with flat screen monitors for "ten years" at which point I expressed my suprise and shared with her that I had done some market research on flat panels when they were just about to be introduced widely into the market... in 1997. That really flustered her and she mumbled something about how her dad had always been into really advanced computer stuff and that she had been "using computers for fifteen years." Now I'm 29, and she looked younger than me so I was kind of flabergasted and asked, "Wow, that's a long time. How old ARE you?" She got really defensive at that point and told me, "My age doesn't have anything to do with what you are here to fix." to which I replied, "Neither does your "need" for a flat screen monitor."
During the same conversation I was looking at her computer and I realized that she had both anti-spyware software on there and Symantec corporate edition which also does spyware scanning. I uninstalled the anti-spyware program (it was old and should have been uninstalled long ago. The guy who usually handles the workstations had obviously missed that). She of course needed to know why so I explained to her how when multiple programs try to access a file at the same time to scan it, they can often spike the CPU utilization as they fight to get a lock on the file. She then tried to tell me how she doesn't "scan files" and so obviously that wasn't her problem. I had to explain to her how the programs automatically scan the files any time she opens or saves them and her eyes started to glaze over before she retorted, "You don't have to dumb things down for me. I understand how computers work." I wanted to grab the bitch by the shirt and yell at her, "Then why the fuck are you asking me so many god damn innane questions then?!?!" Some how I resisted the urge.
I'm not sure what is worse, some of these anecdotes or the fact that some of you consider an IT job that responds to these things for a living a "career". Go back to school people.
Because at home I am my own workstation administrator
.doc attachments, because that departments don't
1. An up-to-date (as of last Sunday morning) Debian testing AMD64 environment
(and none of this stupid, last century's 32-bit stuff).
2. Decent compilers. Gcc/Gfortran 4.3.0 are far enough into Stage 3 development
(see at gcc.gnu.org) to use them, safely.
3. A 60 Gbyte hard disk, instead of a 2 Gbyte home partition (think of the
backups !)
4. A working internet connection (it might not be as fast as at work, when it's
working, but at least it doesn't mysteriously "fail").
5. No firewalls - repeat after me - no firewalls, and hence no stupid company
policy concerning what's allowable "to the outside".
6. No anti-virus deamons running on your system "because you might insert a
floppy or a USB stick containing a virus"
7. No colleagues who sent me
know (and aren't frugal enough with Google) to figure out, my home e-mail
address.
8. No bans on e-mails containing PDF attachments "because Acrobat Reader on
Windows has a security vulnerability".
I probably could go on to 10, like the commandments.
The term is MCSE (Mouse Clicking Systems Engineer), but you are correct. To be avoided and/or circumvented.
To be fair, tech support can also be clueless. I recently had a conversation with my ISP that went like this:
ISP: Now,you're using Windows, eh?
Me: No.
ISP: Oh, so you've got a Mac, eh?
Me: No. [pause] Linux.
ISP: Oh, we don't support Macs.
(Actually, the guy did in the end solve my problem, which was in the router.)
I'd say it puts him in the category of "user who needs to be validated as a good person." (S)He knew that fell into "dream user" category, but felt the need to be told so by others anyway.
One thing that a lot of help desk staff fail to do is try to empathize with the user. In the case of the know-nothing type user, the IT person wants to explain what happened so the user doesn't make the same mistake again. It won't work. The user doesn't know anything. So the IT person says, "This happened because you did this when you were supposed to do that. If you do this three times, the setting gets changed and you can't do that anymore. I've reset it now. Don't do this again, just do that from now on." The user is left feeling like a scolded schoolchild and they inevitably resent it. Next time they have a problem, they're even less likely to call you until it's completely FUBAR.
Instead, try this one: "It's not you. The interface is stupid. You looked for the setting you wanted in Preferences, but actually there aren't any useful settings in Preferences. You need to go to the menu called Document Properties. I don't know why they designed it that way." Watch the little light switch on in their eyes. Just a little basic empathy -- acknowledge that the user may be forced to use a program that doesn't seem logical to the way they do things -- and you may find that some of the people whom you had categorized as idiots have actually just been browbeaten into believing they "don't know computers." As with schoolchildren, let them know that it's OK to make mistakes and they'll start to learn.
Breakfast served all day!
(1) Be Mr. Know-it-all. Help-desk time allocation does not permit help desk people to spend long hours gnawing on some troublesome issue -- or even to spend fifteen minutes searching the knowledge base. Don't pressure your help desk representative to find a solution for you if it is not obvious; you will only make him or her miss the set monthly quota of tickets solved. Solve your problems yourself, then send the solution to the help desk for future reference.
(2) Know nothing. Be deaf, blind and stupid, whenever appropriate. The managers of support organizations are always eager to lighten their own budget by transferring work to the people they are supposed to support; it makes them look good and the costs of this neat operation are invisible in the budget. It may be in everybody's best interest that you are too stupid to connect a cable.
(3) Be entitled. Fact of life: Nobody below the rank of vice-president really gets quick, responsive IT support. There is never enough support to give everybody a fair share. Always make the highest-ranked person in the room put in the support call. Bosses are routinely put in Cc: on every request to the help desk because of the widely held belief that this speeds up service. However, remember that pulling rank is like buying expensive cars: If you need to ask, you can't afford it.
(4) Point fingers. It is very important to point fingers from time to time, but do it wisely. If people didn't point fingers at ridiculously cumbersome policies and unproductive tools, company policy would still require the use of Roman numerals for all official calculations. Of course you can't trust these new-fangled Saracen numbers -- and what does this 'zero' mean, anyway?
(5) Whiz, but whiz discreetly. Remember that professional IT support organizations are nearly always set up to maintain, not to develop. If you need to create some new software system, you'll do it considerably faster, cheaper, and better if you don't involve IT at all. At the very least it will save you five hours a week that you would otherwise spent in meetings with them.
I think this is fair, but watch out!
I work for an apartment complex, and we have to literally treat everyone the same. If some jerkoff calls and says "Yeah, do I have a package? I live in the building right next to the office.", I have to give them the same answer as the person who calls and says, "Why hello! Could you check if I received a package? I live in the building a half mile uphill from the office."
So what answer do they both get? "I don't know, you'll have to come down and ask me."
Fuck that. It sucks. It makes MOST of our customers angry at us because we have to cater to the lowest common denominator because of the Equal Housing Act. I can't be nice to the nice residents, and an asshole to the dickbag ones because the dickbag might have some as-of-yet undefined disability (long story short, in order to avoid being sued, if a doctor says they have a disability, they do, even if it's a Doctor of Chiropractic telling us he has a brain tumor.)!
Amen. I tell this to my friends as well. I'll soon be getting some beer, and maybe a nice dinner from a girl I have done a few bike rides with b/c she needs some help.
All rolled into one. That's our usual. It's our fault they don't know what they're doing, because it's setup WRONG and they're Dr/Board Member/etc....
It's our fault the DOS era program they insist on using for XXX won't play nice, because WE set it up WRONG for them.
It's our fault the tech on site didn't setup the voicemail for their phone/install the camera that they didn't leave/or install the "nice printer" they brought from home.
Add in micro-manager PHB's that want emails sent to all network teams if a network device misses 1 ping & then say how wonderful it will be when they can install a camera in EVERY network closet....
(postal anyone?)
I'll add one more user type to the mix - the Technically Declined. Some people are "not technically inclined" which is a nice way of saying they don't know how to operate a computer. However, the Technically Declined are literally completely incapable of learning how to operate a computer on a basic level. I'm not talking about people who are resistant to change or technology. I'm not talking about people who just haven't been trained. I'm talking about people who are literally completely unable to figure out basic technology no matter how hard they try. They're missing the gears in their brain that can comprehend these things.
Currently I'm working with a project manager that couldn't understand "multi-select" in a form. I explained the whole "click and drag to select multiple items" bit two him. Three times. In a row. The last time I drew it on paper. This was in a meeting with the two of us while waiting on a third person. Who he also asked again. This person literally drew it out the same way I had just done. Even pointed out how the PM could "go practice in Excel". I'm pretty sure this guy's getting shitcanned next year when we have the budget to hire someone new to replace him.
Another guy I worked with was a "programmer" who couldn't set up a DSN entry in Windows. So I showed him. About ten times over the course of several months. Every single time he "wrote it down". The last few times I had him do it. Not that it mattered. This was one of those deals where because he was there when they started the company and "worked hard" (i.e., because he's so slow and hasn't been able to learn much he works late nights) they kept him around.
This is more than just forgetfulness or technology phobia - this is a simple inability to learn. We never want to admit this. We don't want to admit that some people don't have the capacity to figure out technological tasks. We want to say things like "oh, well they haven't had the training" or something like that, which is true sometimes. But sometimes, people just simply cannot learn. They're not cut out for this kind of work.
One more quick type: the one-trick pony. Like the woman I know who takes dozens of hours entering data into Excel from other sources, when a quick automation of some sort (or even just some practice) would cut that time down to 10%. But she can pivot table like a motherfucker. Pivot tables are her hammer and every single problem is a nail.
Schnapple
The article clearly states that you want to be friends with the 20 somthing cool kid. It does give 1 positive person.
It also explains the long delay in logging off.
After many years in IT, I've stopped tolerating over the top security crap like you've related. Years ago I would have just put up with it. Now? if someone pulled a stunt like that with the laptop I'd carted across the country, I'd just reformat it and install my compiler anyway.
Reminds me of a few years back when I was a contract project manager for a company that had their desktops locked down so tightly you couldn't even change the default colours in Windows. I had a new programmer assigned to my team and a few minutes after being assigned his workstation, he came back to me and indicated that he couldn't work because he couldn't change his desktop. Seemed far fetched until he told me he was colour blind: he could not read the screen. You would think it would have been simple to get an exception made so he could alter his own desktop to be useable. Nope. It took 2 weeks and a great deal of disbelief and arrogance on the part of the network admins. Finally, what it took was a letter in writing to the chief of operations from my new guy threatening a lawsuit under the Americans With Disabilities Act. That got action. Fast.
Sometimes I think Scott Adams was right with his Dilbert strip character - the one who's chief of information security. "Our goal is that nobody can use anything" or something like that.
Have you ever met one of those women who is about the size of a baby elephant and as ham-fisted as a bulldozer, but is convinced she is a petite flower and does everything oh-so-delicately and always dresses in floral dresses with lace trim to prove it and will fly into a screaming rage the moment anything happens that might contradict her vision of herself?
I worked with a woman like that once. She was a consultant for my company, and I was IT director. She refused the model of laptop I had deployed for the rest of the consultants, and insisted that it was much too heavy and much too big and she couldn't possibly carry it or use it. The boss, being an idiot, told me I had to go along with her whim. So, at her insistence I bought for her what was at the time a top-of-the-line Compaq laptop, very small and lightweight. Then I found out why she wanted that model: it would fit in her purse. She insisted on having a laptop no less than four times the cost of the model everyone else used, because she was unwilling to carry a bag for it that didn't match her dress.
She went off for her first business trip with this expensive toy, and came back and it was broken. Oh, I thought, it must be defective. So I sent it in for repair. Meanwhile, she had to go on another trip, and refused to accept the loaner laptop that I kept on hand for consultants whose laptops broke, she demanded I had to buy another tiny one for her. I went to the boss, he decided that he'd like a tiny one too and was willing to pay for it, so he said I should buy another tiny one and give it to her and when her first one comes back from repair, he'll take that. Okay, fine. I got a new one, gave it to her, and she went off on her trip.
The laptop's manufacturer called to tell me that the problem was user damage due to rough handling, and detailed to me exactly what was wrong, and charged $300 for the repair. (Basically, she'd slammed it around while it was turned on, which ruined the hard drive.)
She came back with the new laptop and the screen was shattered. She can't imagine how that happened, she's so careful with it. I sent it in for repair. She again refused the loaner laptop, which was much more rugged. This time she went straight to the boss and demanded that she couldn't possibly work for us without the tiny laptop, and she was apparently very lucrative for the company, so the boss agreed... but he did decide that maybe possibly the problem is that things are banging into it in her purse, so he told me to get another tiny laptop and a padded case for the tiny laptop so she could put the case on it in her purse, and she agreed to live with this - probably because it allowed her to blame the contents of her purse rather than her overly meaty hands.
At this point, the tiny laptops, which were new and in high demand, were not available - they were sold out. I could only get a lower model which had the same form factor but a smaller hard disk, less memory, a slower processor, and a b&w screen. (Yes, this is long enough ago that they still made b&w laptops.) That being all I could get, I ordered it. Consultant lady threw a fit - actually flew into a screaming rage at me when she saw that the screen was black and white. She couldn't have that! Her clients might think she's inferior! I explained that there was absolutely nothing I could do about it because I couldn't get my hands on another one of the color model, and she'd just have to live with it until one of the others came back from repair, and suggested that she tell the clients that her regular laptop was in the shop and this was a loaner. So she stormed off to the boss, who somehow calmed her down, but told me to call the manufacturer to make them rush one of the color laptops back to us. (Yeah right, like that's going to work.)
Consultant lady went off with the b&w tiny laptop, and miraculously it survived a brief business trip of about two days. When she came back, she asked me to her office to discuss software she w
I learned a long time ago how to deal with Finger Pointers and it is easily done in a way that disarms the situation.
I used to do phone support at Sykes Enterprises Inc. at their Klamath Falls location and worked on the Packard Bell Premier Support account. You know, crappy computer with an 8 hour wait on their free but toll call to Utah line, or my $35 per call / per issue 800 number?
Most people were pissy when they called and because of the way support was setup, they were finger pointers.
The solution: Ask them if they really wanted to complain or if they wanted to get their problem fixed. Deep down they might be really pissed but this redirected them to becoming part of the solution and disarmed them.
Yes, there were some who were still upset but if they wanted to yell I wouldn't tolerate it and would redirect them to the proper channel. That is the second tool, if they don't want to work within the system, send them to the boss. Most of the IT people I know still have people further up the food chain to pass to when it comes to dealing with someone who really likes being the victim, but when you say either you can complain about it or fix it, if they choose to still complain you won't fix much anyway.
Are you kidding? Are you high? At the end of the day, family is all you have. You can lose your house, your car, your shiny new laptop, etc., and you still have your family. They have (believe it or not) skills that you don't and can reciprocate their expertise for yours. For *free*. Why? because they're the ones who care about you. That is, if you haven't alienated them by being a dick and saying no to fixing their computer.
That's the mercenary reason that I figure based on your post would appeal to you.
My reason is simpler: I love my family and would do anything for them.
HTH
Hope you don't need your family to ever do you any favors
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Y'know, I don't often advocate domestic violence, but... ;)
In all seriousness, you need to have a talk with her, and as salesperson-ish as it sounds, manage her expectations. You need to her to realize when things are her fault, and when you sacrifice to take care of them. If she doesn't realize that she's putting you in a hard place with her requests, or even worse, doesn't care, then you have some serious problems with your relationship.
When they told me, across the USA, in a voice mail, that I could not have admin privs I replied "I guess the only way I can do my work is to format the box and borrow an OS and start over. Let me know if that's incorrect" knowing that it takes them hours to set up a laptop AND I would be breaking license rules. I figured the admin would cave in finally and let me work. Instead, he just whined back in a voice mail about how he would rather I not do that.
Well, it turned out that the work I was sent over to do was already done, and they wanted me to do something completely different, and I never even needed the laptop.
FTA:
Pretty much every hack IT guy I've ever known, and it seems there are 8 of these guys for every 10.If there's a quid pro quo involved, like the OP trading computer help for car help with his dad, that's great. If you're expected to be on call 24/7 to the point where your dumb sister can't even be bothered to check if everything is plugged in before waking you at 3am(again like the OP), well that's not ok. Like you said, they're family, and they should care about him. If they actually did care about him, they'd make damn well sure they had a serious problem before waking him at 3am. But she didn't, and so she doesn't, and thus she deserves no help at all.
I have no problem helping anyone with their problems. Computer or not, family or not. Just, you know, be considerate about it.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Is there really any particular reason why The Twentysomething Whiz Kid's unauthorised software is more likely to be open-source than proprietary, or is Ms DiCarlo's comment simply the "open source will hurt your business" flamebait it appears to be?
Aunt: Every time I plug in my digital camera, my computer has this problem, and then the screen is funny, and then I can't seem to find my pictures, and then the camera gets full and runs out of battery, so I have to click it, and then I am not sure if I need this thingie I saw for it online!
Me: Huh, that's strange... sounds like your camera's not loaded with the proper drivers. Unfortunately, they're all so different, I don't really know what to tell you... Sorry....
Then everyone goes away happy-ish -- not satisfied, but happy. Of course, any idiot could just download the appropriate drivers. But that causes a whole slew of problems -- them annoying you, and you wasting your time trying to diagnose simple problems. When you just say "NO!!" they get angry, and persist in asking you anyway. This way, they eventually figure that you don't really know anything about computers anyway, and just stop asking. Everyone wins!
-----[0_o]-----
We are not amused.
I'm actually a second-year college student, and therefore usually fall somewhere between the "Know-It-All" and "Twentysomething Whiz Kid" categories.
In my defense, most of my family is computer illiterate. The incompetence of my high school's IT department and their terrible computer classes (VB6 and some class that just taught Microsoft Office) didn't exactly force me to be modest either.
There's a reason the competent IT folk send the idiots to deal with you, its because you are difficult to deal with.
Your post personifies the "Mr Entitlement" stereotype with one exception, you don't think of yourself as "Mr Entitlement" rather you think of your job as more important than anyone else's (especially mine, to which I take umbrage). I do get this a lot from developers that aren't used to working in a corporate environment and/or think they are so highly skilled that the rules don't apply to them. I refer to these people as "Mr Superiority" (reference to the complex of the same name).
We put that security software on there for a reason, part of a superiority complex is the fact that you very rarely consider the consequences of your actions especially for other people, that security software is just to protect you, its to protect everyone and no-one is exempt. Protecting everyone in the entire organisation from Malware, Viruses, Data loss and Malicious persons is my job (as a support tech/admin) and it is just as important if not more important than the whimsical needs of a single developer.
This being said, I will do everything within my power to help someone work but sometimes I will say NO and that NO is final. This is the point were "mr superiority" gets up on their high horse and starts blathering on about their deadlines, the importance of their work and how the company will fall over if they don't get a doughnut or some such. This frankly is offensive and why we sent the tech we don't like (mr incompetent) to deal with you because as an admin we know exactly how the company can fail and 99.9% of the time it doesn't revolve around a Dev not getting everything they want. The competent admins have better things to do then deal with the whims of a single developer.
Now not every Dev is like this, in my experience its about 1 in 3, the other two are great to work with. They know that the rules apply to everyone, don't look down their nose at support (we like to be respected as well). The good devs have requests too but will ask instead of demand and if there request is cant be fulfilled they don't whine about being told NO. Very rarely do I leave someone in a situation where they cant work. Apologies to all the good Dev's out there, as a Support Tech/Network Admin the parent post made me a wee bit incensed.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
[Begin Nit Pick]
While I own no stuffed logo of any sort (I despise and abhor "fun fur" as the diseased miasma of petrochemical crime-against-the-environment that real fur would never be) I am The Wiz Kid (note: no h in wiz, whiz is urine or alteration, "wiz" in this use is short for wizard) but all grown up.
The flaw in that statement is that you mistake "gamer" for "computer gamer". I am a long time gamer (back into the seventies) but I rarely use my computer to play computer games. The fact that these "console gamers" and "computer gamers" have complicated the life of the true "gamer" is a sad state of affairs indeed. If I ask someone if they are a gamer, and they say yes, but then don't know anything about any kind of game or game theory beyond how to cheat at Counter Strike, well it just gets my goat.
So linux person being gamer is highly likely. It is also likely, in decreasing order of probability, that they could be a "console gamer" or a "computer gamer" as well.
So... um... there! 8-)
[End Nit Pick]
P.S. if you don't know the difference between rearranging a deck and performing "a fair shuffle", if you don't know "fair dice" from "biased dice", if you cannot tell action from narrative, or if you have ever "gotten the cheat codes" before you started "the game", then you are not any kind of gamer.
P.P.S. Yes, this is _mostly_ tongue-in-cheek...
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
Which I take to mean, use a proxy website to circumvent company websurfing policies enforced by a blacklist on the proxy server. I would think the sensible response to detecting such usage would be to add that website to the blacklist, no? (At the very least he's on notice that you know what he's up to, and puts him to the inconvenience of having to find another one to get his porn.) Or are most IT departments clueless about how to handle such a minimally knowledgeable user? And what about informing his management about his misuse of the company network?
And the brethren went away edified.
There's a reason the competent IT folk send the idiots to deal with you, its because you are difficult to deal with.
Your company must be the single company on the planet that even has competent IT folk. My experience is they do not exist. I am easy to deal with if you are not a complete moron. When you show up at my desk and display your absolute stupidity, have to call your "guru back at central" who tries the same inane stupid shit and the "expert" comes out, and finally because your Computer Learning Center degree doesn't take you past how to re-install windows, you determine I need a new machine, my point is proven. I do not act superior to help desk people, because I realize I'm at their mercy. The fact is developers MUST have the ability to install software updates (I do chip design, so it's not a matter of just having some C++ compiler). I do not want a bunch of freeware crap extras on my machine. I just want my tools to be up-to-date. The developer-wannabe who washed out of Programming 101 has to flex his IT power and it is LAUGHABLE.
I'm sure, the more I dig through the comments, the more stories like this I'll see.
I'm not actually my company's IT person. I've done that work in the past but I do other things now. Nevertheless, I do much of the non-admin-privilege assisting for our company, because our actual IT staff is one person for 45 of us -- and she doesn't need to be bothered with anyone's inability to find a function in MS Word.
So we moved from one floor of our building to another, and I was going around helping everyone get their PCs hooked up and running again. And not one, not two, but three different employees came to me, panicky, because they couldn't make their computers "work right."
None of those systems had the power cord plugged into the wall. "Well, HERE'S your problem..." *facepalm*
You will find that the competent IT people are not Developer-wanabe's. If you have this negative impression of support people you will never hope to find a good one. I give Dev's admin permissions on their own machines but this ends at their own machines (and if they abuse the privilege like permanently disabling security software) so I wont open a massive hole in the firewall for them, this is in line with company policy. Admins get torn to sheds if they don't enforce IT policy so its really a case of "don't shoot the messenger" if you have a problem with policy take it up with the policy writers. CIO in my experience rarely like taking attitude.
Whist I have some dev training (a bit of Java and C++) I am by no means a Developer nor do I want to be, I'm a Network Administrator and enjoy what I do, even if I have to suffer the odd problem user.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Respect is not something given, it is earned...
My thoughts exactly. They have not earned my respect because they show up and demonstrate their total lack of understanding of computers. I do work at a huge aerospace company, so it is full of a lot of freeloading braindeads, so perhaps the "good" IT people work at small companies. Congrats that you enjoy your IT job; all the IT people I've met are washed-up engineer-wannabes or Computer Learning Center grads, who can never be located, answer their phone, or their pager (and not just calls from me). Perhaps you find developers ("problem users") who want holes in firewalls and such, but I just want admin privileges (solely for software updates) that don't disappear everytime some IT "expert" sends down another push update to every desktop.
Areospace company, something tells me the "no admin privileges" is forced on IT form above. There are idiots in tech support, heck there are idiots in every job.My advice is if you want to avoid idiots get to know the IT dept, that way you will know who to avoid and who to befriend. IT admins will never hesitate to help someone they like. The hard working IT guy is always snowed under so you may need to go looking for him, just look for the biggest problem and he will be at the centre fixing it.
The firewall hole in question wasn't just one or two ports. The person wanted a range of 10,000 opened so he could share his desktop with the rest of the Dev team through an external provider so he could better work from home (as in not come in to work at all, this guy was a dev team leader as well). The conversation ended with him going well I'm going to talk to my boss and get my own Internet connection for my team, needless to say nothing came of it. Not that I have a problem with teleworking but I'm not going to compromise everyone's security to do it. Like I said, every job has its idiots, I just think it's a bit unfair to be lumping this stereotype onto Admins and tech support.
For the most part I leave Dev's to their own devices as much as I can (I'm not a dev so I don't pretend to fully understand what they are doing) Dev's can be the easiest people in the world to support (as most of them have a clue how stuff works) but personality disorders don't discriminate by vocation so Devs can be problem users too (Problem users mostly belong to management).
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Well, that'd lead them to think you monetize everything, which tends to give a bad impression of you, plus it's not a very good example for your (or your family members') children either.
My personal solution is just to say "I use Linux, sorry", since anyone smart enough to use Linux (or to know when the problem isn't software-related) is probably smart enough not to be a PITA when I give him/her tech support.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
I'm not positive, and no offense intended, but I believe that the effect you're referring to is more likely Triboluminescence caused by the shearing of the adhesives crystalline structure as the tape is removed.
It works really well on old and dry cloth medical tape, which conducts no electricity whatsoever.
I found an old cardboard box that I used some on, and a Big Blue/Green Glow appeared as the tape was slowly peeled off. I could see it in the room light, and stopped and turned off the lights and it was quite interesting to watch.
Duct tape does this also.
It's the same effect as quickly chewing several peppermint lifesavers in the dark with ones mouth open.
If it don't GO... chrome it. ~ Frank Banks
Having some experience in IT development I'd think that the best feedback we get is from people who're smart, demanding, and difficult to get along with. One of the end users was generally so rude I suspect him of having Tourette's, but when he reported a fault, it was a fault. One can try to keep their bad attitude under control but not by ignoring what they're saying.
I worked for an outfit that made the mistake of signing a loosely worded multi year fixed price contract with an IT provider (we weren't very large) to maintain and administer our systems. Their incentives to make money were to lock down the system totally (the less that could change, the less that could go wrong) to the point where we couldn't even change the default dictionary settings in work, let alone access a USB drive, a c:\ drive, or install software. Our CEO was a moron - we were just "whiners" and the outside contractor was right because "they were the experts". I am not a systems expert, but I knew enough to maintain my own system (prior to this contractor, my use of IT support was pretty close to zero), but I knew how to do my job and I was good at it. With the new system nothing non-standard could be done - including me building the financial models etc that I was good at, and that our customers loved the results of. I stuck it for longer than I should have, because I loved the job itself and the people I worked with.
After six months of battering my head against a brick wall and having endless flame wars and shouting matches with the IT morons, I let it be known I had had enough in the market place. Within a couple of weeks I had two good job offers, and now have a great job paying 35% more, where the IT support is great and I can just get on with the stuff I am good at. If I want something non-standard for me or for the staff I now have working for me then, providing my reasons are sound, it just arrives and is installed. In fact, rather than the protracted justifications I used to have to try and argue before, they normally don't even want to hear a reason now "You are paid well to get the job done, and if you say you need something, then you need it". I don't abuse the trust my new employer shows. As for the place I used to work, most of the good staff have walked, and they have had to restructure and have lost about 2/3 of the headcount they had when I was there. The CEO is still there though, and as far as I am aware the same IT firm still has the support contract.
Postscript - I found out by chance that the same IT provider was one of two preferred bidders for a large contract with my new employer. Took great pleasure in exacting payback by recounting my "war stories" about them to the head of our IT. I doubt they have any idea why their expensively prepared pitch meant that they got all the way to being a preferred bidder, then suddenly fell out of the process for no apparent reason.
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
I once had someone come in one day (my boss, he has a degree in computer science... from 20 years ago) and tell me how SMB does locking, it just so happened that I had been reading that exact code in samba the night before hand dealing with locking. This was right about 3.0.22, I think... or whenever they were getting rid of the spin locks. I couldn't help myself, I blurted out, "no, it caches the file locally; that's why you can get faster than wire speeds in benchmarks. You have to wait for someone else to try to access the file, and you'll release the lock and flush your buffer.", to which he replied with his favorite saying, "...I'm not so sure about that". I started to pull up the source code, but every time I do that he waves his hand and has something else to do.
Posting AC for obvious reasons. I'm not afraid my boss will read slashdot, but some day when I graduate, I'd like to get a real job and I don't need this showing up if a prospective employer were to google me or check out my slashdot post :)
My personal favourites -
1) The Selectively Deaf - they half listen to what you ask them to do, get you continually repeat everything, and then invariably end up pressing the wrong thing. Which is your fault because they claim you didn't tell them properly.
2) The Hard of Thinking - the people who even with the most explicit instruction still can't follow what you're telling them. I've had users completely fail to find the 'Start' button, the menu bar or even where the '\' key is, and not forgetting the woman who was employed in an *admin* position who didn't know how to make text bold in Word. You can tell them until you're blue in the face but they'll just never get it. These are the kind of people who get employed so companies can be seen to be an equal opportunity employer...
3) The Try it Once-rs - They try and do something once, and if it doesn't work first time out, they call the helpdesk rather than trying a second time. The amount of times I've had people call up claiming their email doesn't work when the problem is that they've tried it once and spelt their password wong is truely staggering.
My wife's a teacher too, and she has (mostly) scorn for No Child Left Behind. She's been known to call the law No Child's Behind Left. The one good thing that she says has come of it is that schools *do* test now across the boards, which at least gives them some metrics for how a whole school population is doing.
That aside, one excellent illustration of how broken the law is would be my wife's previous school, a middle school. It was the best in the district in terms of student advancement -- i.e. how much they left with versus what they came in with. She had kids coming in at 6th grade with a 2nd or 3rd grade reading level, leaving the year on at least a 5th grade level. This was partly cleaning up from disastrously misguided elementary school ideas in California, things like taking whole language too far. (The concept was partly to accept any spelling a child provides without criticism, in order not to damage their fragile egos. While okay at the very beginning of literacy work, as it can be more important to simply ensure that they're getting the idea [and I employed this successfully myself much later in life when starting to learn to read Japanese], it's really not a good idea to continue much past the early stages, or kids wind up unable to spell at all -- which becomes a problem when they try to use the dictionary, among other things.)
Anyway, part of NCLB dictates that for a school to maintain funding, it must show test score improvement for each grade level every year. The problem is that this ignores the simple fact that the kids in each grade are different kids every year. So my wife's school had 6th graders testing in the mid 90-percentile when NCLB came out. Rather than tracking those same kids to see that they tested better the following year, NCLB dictated that the *incoming 6th graders* had to test better than last year's. Now, my wife's school was in California, and like most any public school, they couldn't dictate who they'd accept. So one year they happened to get a crop of more functional students; the next, they had more barely literate non-English-speaking migrant worker kids, and wouldn't you know it, their test scores were lower. But rather than tracking how each crop of kids progressed, NCLB only looked at how the school itself tested for the same grade level year to year, and demands ongoing improvement or penalties kick in. This is fundamentally flawed on the face of it, as anyone with a modicum of mathematical understanding should be able to figure out that things can only improve so far before you're at 100% and no more improvement is possible.
Anyway, long story short, my wife's previous school went from being the best in the district to being on NCLB probation, complete with effective veteran teachers being cut and funding levels dropping, despite a track record of consistently bringing kids up to speed in time for high school -- all because each year's incoming kids were different than the ones from the year before.
Meh.
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Another thing, if I'm supposed to install my own updates and installs, then why do you IT guys take my ability to install iTunes away, all the while expecting me to install *your* software for you? Which is it going to be? Am I a buffoon operator that shouldn't be allowed to put iTunes on my computer, or am I a tech guru that is expected to do all the IT stuff myself? We finger-pointers have a hard time accepting this, and you IT guys can't have it both ways.
And yes, this rant stems from a real scenario.
Ah the "knows just enough to be dangerous..." that was my mom. she had learned to format, and suddenly became the tech support for family and friends. Till one day she called me, in a bit of a panic. She had been to an aunts, an aunt I hate. despise is probably a better word. She had win2000. My mother had never reinstalled anything other than XP. so she had been insanely lucky as far as drivers go. 2000 on the ohter hand, no drivers, at all. and the computer couldn't be upgraded to XP. No driver Cd's to be had. and I certainly wasn't fixing it. she stopped doing it after that.