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Dealing With an IT Bully
jammag writes "'"You are an idiot." That was how I was greeted on an already gloomy, rainy Monday morning.' Eric Spiegel offer his a first-hand account of dealing with a tech world geek-gone-bad and presents some ideas for coping. 'These bullies are quick to aggressively divert blame for any problem back to someone else, because they couldn't possibly be responsible. Some are passive aggressive, where they will subtly lay blame behind your back. Others enjoy getting in your face and being as confrontational as possible.'" What experiences have others had that defied all logic and possibly made you want to start looking for rifles and bell towers?
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Dealing a with slashdot article grammar?
Me: My Cable is Out. ... Pause as I assume this is the point where I'll get a scheduled service call...
Broadstripe: Sure enough it looks like there are several places in Seattle experiencing some outages. Crews are out. Is there anything else I can help you with.
Me: Yes. My Cable is out and I'm pretty sure that it's mostly unrelated to those outages. It's been out for a month. It was out yesterday. It was out the week before that. A cable guy came out to turn on my neighbor's cable... and the same day when I got home from work my internet was down.
Broadstripe: If the cable is out across parts of Seattle how can you conclude that your problem is unrelated.
Me: Because I assume that most of Seattle hasn't been without cable for a MONTH.
Broadstripe: We can send someone out between 9am and 6pm on Monday.
(Yeah sure I'll just take a day off from work to wait for the cable guy. Thanks but no thanks.)
A War on Stupidity will be as effective as the War on Drugs. You can't combat something that grows naturally.
True story.
I like to settle these things professionally...by challenging them to a fist fight. I even let them choose the fighting ground.
I created a temp directory on the root of my group's file server, which so pissed off the server admin that word started to get around about what I'd done (almost as bad as not putting the new cover sheet on a TPS report, I guess). I swear she gave me the evil eye for the next 8 months.
"The IT department is like a box of chocolates... there are a lot of nuts, and you can never get what you want." -- My coworker
Klingon programs don't timeshare, they battle for supremacy.
If that doesn't work, you could always try the "Daddy's got your nose" game. That gets 'em every time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Burns,_Your_Company's_Computer_Guy
I do not typically use "You are an idiot" as a greeting. I prefer to use that phrase as a goodbye.
Frankly, when I see a ticket come into the helpdesk system (which I used to run before I started doing interesting things) which says, "My email is broken" and all tickets are submitted to our helpdesk via email, then yes - the user IS an idiot.
When we get tickets that say, "There are arrows in the porter" when the person (a manager, no less!) is trying to say "There are errors in portal" then yes, the user IS an idiot.
Rather than complaining that overworked and beleaguered helpdesk folks are rude, why don't you try not being a fucking moron for once?
But this is slashdot. A slashdoter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber!
Who's got time to RTFA? I'm too busy supporting the idiots in my company. :D
You, sir, are an idiot.
;)
Can't let the people down, now can we.
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
You and me both, man.
darrell
Because it's my company's storage space and "you" signed a document when "you" got hired outlining, in detail, the acceptable use policy.
The real question is why didn't I have "you" summarily terminated as well.
I like when people use the written form to tell me "Your an idiot". It opens all kinds of doors for me to creatively respond.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Good point, I forgot about that article
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Well-well look. I already told you: I deal with the god damn customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills; I am good at dealing with people. Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?
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I think you've confused monkeys with idiots.
Man, I love monkeys.
-Peter
That is indeed unprofessional - who drinks Sauvignon Blanc on the job? Unless of course it is your job to wine and dine clients... but still, on the computer? That's just wierd
You, sir, are an idiot.
;)
Can't let the people down, now can we.
moron... obviously, you are just a shill for [republicans|democrats], completely dedicated to [closed source|open source] software to the exclusion of all facts, maniacally intolerant because of your blind devotion to [environmentalism|christianity], unable to see that your ridiculous faith in [capitalism|socialism] is the ruin of all humanity, therefor making you a [jack booted fascist nazi|klan member|islamofascist traitor].
This is my sig.
Best solution for the "your an idiot" wielding jerk.
Go to any open terminal and try to log in as him 4 times. do this throughout the day randomly. you'll keep locking out his account and giving him utter hell trying to get anything done.
I'm the master Domain admin so I'll simply reduce privileges, accidently set the expire on the account to 15 minutes before lunch or a meeting, or I'll simply slightly unplug their cube's patch cable in the network closet on that floor. But if you dont have admin rights to the domain, simply trying to log in as them a few times will lock it nice and easy. also unplugging their keyboard slightly when you walk by their empty cube is a great thing to do as well.
the best thing I have EVER seen done was that someone packing taped a slice of bologna under his chair. in 3 days he stunk to high hell and could not find the source of the smell.
Dont get mad, get even. Nothing is sweeter than annoying them silently.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Incite others, [maybe-yes]. But those that got the bomb dropped on them? They ain't doing much in this plane anymore...
cuz I sure could've used this about thirteen years ago.
-- haaz.
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You could, of course, have reminded him that he's a drummer.
My favorite: a couple co-workers wrote a dos background program that prevented a user from typing the word "go". Normally that wouldn't be a problem, but the targeted coworker had written a complex batch script that compiled the source and loaded it on his dev machine named -- go.bat. It was pretty funny to watch. The g key works, the o key works but typing g then o was impossible. they also wrote a program that caused icons to flee from the mouse. That was just as fun, but easier to figure out the cause.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
How dare you make light of the Charles Whitman incident. A lot of innocent people died that day, and the country was scarred forever. I hope you get anally-raped with a broken champagne bottle.
No it has the opposite effect of making the target more resoulte. Take Robin Williams advice and drop frogs and lizards if you want to scare the shit out of people
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Sounds like he needs to get laid. Get the number for the cheapest escort you can find, preferably young looking, get her to burst into his office, let him have 30 minutes of bliss (He will probably only need 1, but not sure you can get allocated 1 minute time slot). When she leaves and he walks back out later and thinks noone is the wiser, approach him and whisper, "Man can't believe you are banging the boss's daughter - if he finds out you are history."
Yeah, but if the neocons can be persuaded to start a war on stupidity, they'll not only bring the troops home to fight, but they'll be shooting a big chunk of their own supporters in the process. Just a thought :)
Hi Simon,
Good to see you're well.
Just thought I'd remind you that it's bad form to advise the lusers how to turn into a PFY or worse, a BOFH - we wouldn't want to have to break out the cattle prod again now, would we ?