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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?
Seriously, most people are so afraid of being confronted directly, just flat out say they are wrong and they are attempting to divert the blame and to get out of my face.
Keep eye contact but just say what everyone already knows but are too afraid.
Society really has taught us to be wimps in that aspect lately, everyone is frightened of any sort of confrontation. Pick your battles but honestly call him a duck, or more likely an idiot.
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
A War on Stupidity will be as effective as the War on Drugs. You can't combat something that grows naturally.
I like to settle these things professionally...by challenging them to a fist fight. I even let them choose the fighting ground.
I mean, isn't that just ASKING for problems?
I'd have preferred early Monday morning so EVERYONE would be awake and on-the-job if/when problems arose.
Maybe you missed the second page... I'll quote the first paragraph for you:
Granted, there was much pressure from top management to get this release out by Friday and thus documentation and any internal training were pushed aside. That being said, it turned out a major bug was in the new release and the on-call support engineer had run a baseline test, but couldnâ(TM)t put the results in context with the new reality introduced by this new bug. His only recourse was to escalate, and do it quickly.
So:
From the details given, I'd like to know what you expected Eric to do differently. Management pressed for the release, even though they knew the support staff wasn't ready. When an issue happened, the support staff tried to follow process to document the issue, couldn't, and followed a proper escalation process.
I've been lucky enough to not have had these kinds of situations... but then again, I've also been on-call when my software upgrades have gone in AND had a good working relationship with the operations staff. When the few problems happened, they were able to call and get a quick and friendly resolution to the problem without all the name-calling. Almost like we had a system in place........
OCO is Loco
Whether you are an idiot or not, it is wise to take note that calling other people "idiot" is not a productive thing to do. Just avoid trusting an idiot to do things that requires brains, and you'll be better off.
Stop the brainwash
When person A calls person B an idiot, it doesn't indicate that person B is an idiot. It does indicate that person A berates people.
If that doesn't work, you could always try the "Daddy's got your nose" game. That gets 'em every time.
I do not typically use "You are an idiot" as a greeting. I prefer to use that phrase as a goodbye.
Having been in similar positions, I have unfortunately had to develop strategies for dealing with such situations.
1) If you must have a meeting with someone you know acts like that and talks like that, always bring witnesses. That way there will be someone to testify "oh my god, we made a simple request and he started swearing like a sailor!" to HR later, and he won't be able to tell lies about what you said. An audio recorder works too, but you can get in trouble if you don't make it clear that you have it and are using it, and if you do make it clear they usually won't meet with you and will try to make you look like the unreasonable one. Most people will ignore a coworker you brought along without explanation, and if they do ask for an explanation, you can just say "oh, I thought they might be involved later so I want them to hear the details."
2) Try to avoid phone calls with the person. If they call you, tell them you're busy and will get back to them right away, and then send them email. (If you have no better excuse, tell them you really have to go to the bathroom. Anything to get them off the phone.) If you have a phone call, even if it seems cordial, you never know what they might claim you said after the fact. If you must have a call with them, try to make it a conference call so you can have a witness, or invite someone into your office and put the call on speaker so the witness can hear it.
3) If you are having a phone call or meeting with them, if they become belligerent, swear at you, or use inappropriately insulting or hostile language, immediately tell them you will be pleased to communicate with them again in the future when they feel more able to control themselves, and then immediately depart or hang up without further comment. Take any witnesses with you.
4) After any unavoidable phone calls, immediately email them a summary of your understanding of the call. That way if they want to make claims about the call later, you can produce the email and say "I sent you call notes to prevent misunderstandings, and you didn't disagree with the notes, so if you failed to understand, that's not my problem."
5) Whenever possible, transact communications with the problem person by email. If they send you any emails in which they are hostile or directly and unequivocally insult you, immediately forward those emails to the person's boss and to HR with a request to know if this is the sort of language or remark that the company feels is appropriate business communication, and state clearly that it is difficult to do your job when reasonable requests are met with hostility and refusal to provide answers. If they actually physically threaten you in email, print it out and walk it directly to HR and insist that you want the police to be called.
6) Never delete any email except spam. You might need it later.
7) Never let any direct accusations about your competence that the person makes to your manager or to others pass unaddressed. Use courteous (no swearing) but blunt language to make clear that the accusation is completely false, provide copies of emails and other backup evidence as necessary, and be very clear that you are upset and insulted.
Unfortunately, people in the computer industry frequently have to deal with hostile users and occasionally hostile incompetent techs. (The competent ones rarely have anything to be hostile about.) I've had to deal with many. By remaining calm, restricting communications to email or channels where there are witnesses, and refusing to accept any BS, I've been able to get most of them terminated, and in the remaining cases I, like the author, felt it was best to move on because obviously the company was run by a pack of idiots.
"Because, only the stupid would use the drugs, and hopefully remove themselves from the gene pool."
I hate to break it to you, but EVERY human is a drug user... see our brains are basically a chemical/electrical processing unit, everything you do is motivated and controlled by brain chemistry, even if you have never done a "drug" (even smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol or coffee) you still have these chemicals racing around, influencing your decisions and regulating your body.
When you are hungry it's because of a chemical that regulates energy, when you feel happy it is because of a chemical that induces these feelings, same with sex, exercise, basically everything, even fear.
To feel superior because you don't use an outside chemical to trick the brain into making yourself feel a different way is quite elitist, why is that any better than running on a treadmill for 30 minutes to get runner's high? Or wanting to have sex because it makes you feel good? Or eating ice cream?
All of these actions are ultimately motivated by the pleasure/high/"emotion" you have learned as a trained response to those actions. In fact without these pleasure inducing chemicals we would be in a constant state of pain all the time...
So we are all addicted to these chemicals.. we are all motivated by the need to placate the brain's desire for these chemicals.
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I had an experience in one of my jobs, and it was with a co-worker/subordinate:
So here it was, me as the head of the IT department for a Navy command, and the only military officer in the shop; everyone else was a civilian contractor.
After a couple of years, I was feeling very comfortable: Things were getting done, 90% of the users were happy, and I could answer most questions and problems within 30 minutes of the subject coming up, if not right away.
Then things started going down hill. People were getting frustrated, required maintenance wasn't being done, and the head contractor had screwed up and corrupted the entire mail system (had to spend a whole weekend getting it back.)
As time went on, things got worse, and I could never figure out how or why. I started getting acid reflux, couldn't sleep, and was wondering why it all seemed to go to hell.
It all came to a head when, after a particularly thorough chewing out by an unhappy user, one of the techs came and told me that the managing contractor (she of the corrupt email) had been going around behind my back telling everyone how screwed up I was and how everything was going to hell because I didn't know my ass from a hole in the ground.
(To be fair, she was under a lot of pressure; the company she was working for was planning on firing/"downsizing" to save money, and our 5 person shop was seen as a potential target. Unfortunately, she decided to push her own importance by cutting down me. Definitely passive-aggressive.)
Anyways, after checking out the sordid tale (just to make sure what I was being told was true), I went home, had a beer, talked to my wife, and then called my boss: Since you can fire the contractor, fire me. I explained that this conflict was hurting the command, and
Either way, I wasn't going to take this crap any more. (And yes, I did try to talk to the higher-ups about this, but all they could do was shrug and say "Sorry, we can't get rid of her.")
Boy, within 30 seconds of getting to work the next morning, everyone had heard about it! At least to me, most people were supportive, and said, "About time!" By mid-morning, the manager in question asked to talk to me privately, and started crying about humiliating this was. She also mentioned that she could get fired if this got back to corporate. All I said was that I couldn't help it; we couldn't seem to work together, and gave my reasons above.
Well, to make a long story short (I know...too late), the Wing commander called me in, chewed me out for not working out this problem myself (and probably rightfully so...), and then said to get my a$$ back to the job because no one else can do it. I said, "Aye-aye, sir!" and went back to work.
Things got better in the shop for a good while; I volunteered for a 6-month duty during the war, and when I got back, it didn't matter because I was getting out very soon.
Moral of the story: I don't know--you tell me if it makes any sense.
Never confuse movement with action. --Hemingway