How Do IT Guys Get Respect and Not Become BOFHs?

An anonymous reader writes "I work for a small software company (around 60 people) as the sole IT guy. It's my first time in a position like this and after about 1.5 years I'm starting to get a bit burned out. I try to be friendly, helpful, and responsive and I get no respect whatsoever. Users tend to be flat-out rude when they have a problem, violate our pretty liberal policies constantly, and expect complex projects to be finished immediately upon requesting them. My knee-jerk reaction is to be a bastard, although I've avoided it up to this point. It's getting harder. For those of you who have been doing this a lot longer, how do you get a reasonable level of respect from your users while not being a jerk?"

Comments

Be firm..

[Anonymous Coward]

Be firm, but don't be a jerk. Be reasonable, and honest - justify and explain. In writing if it helps. Just don't promise more than you can deliver, and be explicitly clear about the complexity of solutions.

Re:Be firm..

[Sfing_ter]

Please do not lie to the lad. Even after he has done ALL OF THAT, it will:
a) still be his fault email doesn't work and
b) no they didn't make any changes to ANY settings
c) still be his fault the computers don't work right

People fear what they do not understand, yes there will be that one person in 50 who actually gets it and can actually do things but they are only there to keep you going. I have seen the very best natured, good hearted individual turn into a BOFH, contributor to Work or Spoon, and all around terse individual - when he is working. He is fine when he is off work. It took 2 years for that to happen and I actually didn't think it would... but alas, intelligent people will only suffer fools for so long...

Re:Be firm..

[Martian_Kyo]

I agree, use reason and e-mails (to avoid he said she said situations) and quote other people as much as you can. If priorities are a problem ask your boss.
If your boss doesn't want to be bothered all the time , establish a procedure which he/she will approve which will describe how your priorities are handled. Be simple with it. Use First in first out system, unless the request is critical and may endanger the system. If people complain why aren't you doing something about their problem, quote the procedure.
IT people are supposed to have very strong sense of logic, use that.

It wont be easy, especially in smaller companies where nepotism is usually very prevalent.

Good luck!

Re:Be firm..

[ikono]

Problem is, it takes a sense of logic to appreciate a sense of logic. Most of the people referring to IT do not have that sense. They justify their demands by reasoning that

"oh, those IT fuckers are too damn lazy. They say they have a thousand open tickets, but they really only have 2 or 3."

Or

"They are too lazy to address those tickets fast enough."

Or maybe they just fall back on the old standby

"MY request more important than those others. do mine first."

There is only so much one can take before their logic circuits get overloaded, and they default to the Jackass Mentality.

Re:Be firm..

[Anonymous Coward]

Have lunch together with your colleagues, instead of eating a sandwich at your desk.
That makes you seem more like a human than a utility.

Re:Be firm..

[St.Creed]

Here's my advice.

• 1) Prioritize. Make a list of the things you need to fix and fix them in the order of priority. If someone has a new issue, slap a priority on it based on some rules and put it on the list at the spot it should be. If someone wants to change priorities, have them talk to the people who own the priority issues above them.
• 2) Make sure you have management backup. If your boss does not back you up *firmly* this whole exercise is pointless anyway, better get out and find a new job.
• 3) Don't touch machines you have no need to fix. Where I worked, reliability and uptime went up to 99.999% because we banned the admins from touching the critical environments unless the software engineers who had designed said environments okayed it. Patches and virus definitions were always tested on a standby machine with the exact same configuration. Virtual Servers are your friend.

I'm not sure if you ever heard of ITIL - if you haven't get a hold of the ITIL Foundation book and read it. It's a collection of best practices for service management and delivery and you really sound like you need to implement a few of those.

Re:Be firm..

[dkleinsc]

This is really the key right there: For most people, someone they know personally that fixes their problems is friendly and helpful. Someone they don't know personally that fixes their problems gets about the same level of respect and attention as their plumber.

The other related techniques are:
1. Learn to speak in their language, rather than speaking your language. If they call it a "whizbang", call it a "whizbang" when you're around them, even if they're wrong. At the very least, avoid computer-speak as much as possible.
2. Use their name. If you see them, say "good morning/afternoon, Bob" or something similar.
3. When you fix a problem that they can fix, you can tell them something like "next time this happens, you can try ...". Obviously, don't tell them anything that could make things worse, but learning how to clean out a mouseball or check the plugs might prevent you from getting called in and at the very least will give them something to do that feels useful while you fix the problem.

Remember than when someone contacts IT, they've gone from feeling like a capable adult to feeling like a stupid helpless child. Part of what you have to do is convince them they're a capable adult as you're fixing the problem.

Re:Be firm..

[Skye16]

The interesting thing to keep in mind is that your users are often operating under deadlines. Deadlines they could have made if the liberal policies currently in effect were not in effect, and as such, you are seen as an impediment.

It's short sightedness on their part, probably coupled with poor planning on either their or a superior's part, but the stress they feel is still there, and it usually manifests itself in said rudeness, skirting of said polices, etc.

For example, our IT department decided to implement a much more comprehensive firewall than before. It had the unintended side effect of blocking eclipse plugin downloads (which apparently usually operate with an SSL certificate, which is currently being hijacked by our organization's "security solution", and so refuses to work).

I could either a: wait the 3 days (made even worse by not knowing, at the time, it would take 3 days or 3 months) and do zero work, costing my project a few hundred / low thousands of dollars in lost labor in the process, or b: figure out how to get around it. Being a nerd yourself, which would you submit to? Especially if you have a deliverable 5 days out, and you don't really fancy the idea of working 18 hour days just to make up for the lost 3 days in the short term?

As soon as I had access to the tools I needed, when I truly needed them, I stopped skirting the system. I'm not there to be a jerk and I'm not trying to make IT's job miserable. But I am (I hope understandably) irritated when IT institutes something new like this, without fully testing it with a pilot program, without noting the majority of these gaps in expected service in advance, and without notifying any of the programs operating within the official infrastructure in advance (some of our programs have their own segregated intranets for their development, and so don't really have this problem - mostly because they have zero connectivity to anything outside themselves).

So keep in mind - what seems to be a perfectly reasonable policy to you (and, in fact, it is), is going to cause some people some (in their mind) unnecessary stress as they try to meet their own deadlines. This doesn't give them the right to be an ass to you, but it may help if you put their behavior in context. The subtleties between being genuinely stressed and upset and being a rude jerk for the sake of being a rude jerk are sometimes lost.

Re:Be firm..

[Anonymous Coward]

Have lunch together with your colleagues, instead of eating a sandwich at your desk.
That makes you seem more like a human than a utility.

I would argue that having lunch with colleagues (clients, users) encourages more "Hey, such and such is wrong with my computer, maybe you can come take a look at it, we're friends, right?" jumping the queue. Probably not a big deal in a smaller company, but where I work there are 600 users in the shared cafeteria, and our IT people can't even stand in line to pay for food without getting hassled with computer questions. It's a pretty one-sided friendship to maintain.

Re:Be firm..

[Anonymous Coward]

...we all tend to be loaners at work...which in turn cause them to...Make friends start your own crew(??)...will definitely be you public relation representative...make you feel more excepted...Never ever with draw yourself or isolate your self from the rest...about you but and can't talk...

Also, it helps to always use proper spelling and grammar in all your correspondence with customers. This gives them a false (but comforting) impression that you are intelligent enough to deal with their problems.

Re:Be firm..

[NateTech]

Get going on the goals... how you get there isn't important, but stop waiting for your boss or someone else to do it for you. Want to work in aerospace, lay out a plan and go do it. If it means you pay for school, fine. If the slacker boss decides you're worth keeping around for a while and will pay for it, fine. But it's your life. Live it while you have it. Screw waiting around for him though.

You don't have to quit, although it MAY be one means to your end. Use your analytical powers to figure out more than one path to your goal and then go DO one, if that one doesn't pan out, try ANOTHER one. The vast majority of fulfilled successful people just DON'T GIVE UP and keep going toward what they want. Bad boss, good job, bad job, whatever... just circumstances. The goal is the driving force, not the circumstances.

Your boss sounds like a serious loser, but he's a paycheck for now, and someone you may remember someday later as the "worst boss ever", but be smarter than him and work toward your goals.

As far as the singing... in one sentence you say you want to work in aerospace, and in the next few paragraphs you daydream about switching careers. Make a decision. Singing can continue to be a hobby and bring you well-rounded joy as you work through your aerospace goal.

You DO know what to do, you just need to go force yourself to make those things happen or change tactics smartly until you get where you're going. When you get in the car to go somewhere, you don't worry about HOW you drive the car, you think about the path to get there, you take detours around the potholes or construction other people are doing in your path, whatever... if this guy has to be the asshole who won't shut up in the passenger seat, fine... just ignore him and drive.

Your life, your happiness... if you play by your rules. He's figured you out... you'll sit and stew and do work for him while you try to figure out how he messes with you. Even if it's completely unconscious, he gets something from you -- are you getting where you want to go with him? If he's crippling your ability to get where you want to go... only you know that.

Think action verbs... go, be, do. Let him do whatever he wants... it doesn't matter. You're sitting in the car, parked, listening to him and trying to see if he'll give you a driving lesson. Put the car in Drive and hit the gas. He wants to get out of your car/life... let him out at the next convenient stopping point.

I also am not going to take any time to clean this up -- got other things to do. But, figured you might need a push. Get going. Pick a destination and head that direction. Flat tire, get out and change it. Need gas, make some money and re-fuel the car. You get the idea.

Patience!

[KenCrandall]

Unfortunately, IT is viewed a lot like the phones by most users. It's "invisible" when it does work, and is only a priority to them when it doesn't work (or they need something!)

I've found that the best way to make people happy is to effectively communicate with them -- especially when it comes to deadlines. Now I'm not saying to sandbag :-) but if you can over-deliver some things and/or get them done earlier than promised, then you set an expectation of success and partnership with your user base. As difficult as it is, sometimes, you MUST remain non-cranky or bitchy, or you will get stereotyped as the "grumpy IT guy" faster than you can think.

If it's really burning you out after only 1 1/2 years, then you should really look at (a) your workload (b) your choice of career and (c) your work/life balance.

Re:Patience!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want respect you're in the wrong job. Be firm, fair and friendly but don't look for love.
Be responsive and always close the circle by telling the user what you have done for him.
Tell people what their priority is and be prepared to negotiate. Remember every time you have to do more validates your free time when things are slack.
A special request today is business-as-usual tomorrow. You are only as good as your last result.

Re:Patience!

[uvajed_ekil]

If it's really burning you out after only 1 1/2 years, then you should really look at (a) your workload (b) your choice of career and (c) your work/life balance.

These are things to consider, but it may just be a bad company. Usually it seems that folks who don't fit well within a certain company are the types of folks who don't fit well with ANY company, but sometimes it is not them. For example, the HR department at a company a friend worked for was especially inept, and kept hiring unqualified morons who did nothing but start trouble and create a bad atmosphere in the workplace. My friend has worked for two other companies in the same field that were completely tolerable, and I'm sure it was not just him. Maybe it's time to look for a new employer and move on to greener pastures? Giving a good honest effort and trying to be happy only goes so far, and one person should not feel obligated to tolerate or try to fix a company of 60 employees. Basically, say screw them, and go somewhere else.

Re:Patience!

[techno-vampire]

I'm on the edge of adopting world class BOFHdom in self-defense.

Go for it! And always remember, the most BOFHly thing you can do is give some luser exactly what he asked for, knowing he'll regret it. (e.g., he demands you install a search bar for him, so you give him Bonzai Buddy.)

Teach them!

[xous]

Hi,

You need to to develop policies for handling requests and have your manager back them. You also need to make sure the employees know about these policies and understand them. You might want to see if your manager will sponsor a QA half-day with some free food so you and your users can get to know each other and understand their requirements and what you can and can't do for them.

If employee's aren't complying with these policies politely explain it to them and CC it to their manager. If they do it again reference the original email and explain the problem to the manager and remind them that you have reported this kind of activity before.

If someone asks you to skip then ahead in the queue or go against company ask them to submit the request in writing to your manager.

If you streamline the process that fits your policies and make sure they see that following the rules is faster they will be more inclined to do it.

If you can't get your manager to back you on this your SOL and should be looking for a new job.

There is a difference between being a BOFH and following company policy.

These changes will not make them respect you as these people are likely assholes to begin with and should be treated as such. I don't do favors for people that can't be bothered to show a little common courtesy and they don't end up very high on my TODO list.

Re:Teach them!

[binaryspiral]

I agree - establish a process. It may seem counter productive - but if the grunts can come and pull you off a project, then something is broken.

Establish a ticketing system - Request Tracker comes to mind. If someone is having a problem, send it to the "help desk" instead of interrupting you from completing your tasks. This gives you the opportunity to do a few things:

1. Prioritize your workload. - The spam message the receptionist got last week and decided to mention today isn't worth interrupting your server build to review.

2. Display your queue at any given time to everyone so expectations can be honestly set. - Three servers are behind on patches, email storage is critical, and your database server has some issue with backups causing the transaction logs to fill. Yes, I know your DVD drive is broken - it's on my list, see?

3. Document a history of problem systems, processes, or people. - The web server is in serious need of retirement. Every time sales sends out their monthly newsletter, the traffic spikes cause a huge queue in storage and runs out of memory. And, yes, the CEO calls me directly every Monday when his Blackberry radio is automatically disabled because he let his battery die - and can't remember how to turn it on.

Document, track, and justify getting some help keeping the office humming.
 

You don't ...

[MartinSchou]

They treat you like crap because they can get away with it - that simple.

If the general behavior around your office is as you say, start keeping a clipboard with their project requests on it. They want something done, they get put on the list, and make sure they see that they're on the bottom of that list. Add a column to indicate estimated time required.

Essentially they're treating you like the janitor. They think everything's as simple as unclogging the toilet or getting more toilet paper. And your attitude seems to reinforce their perception of this.

You seem to show them that your time is worthless and that your job could be done by a trained monkey - why would you expect them to treat you differently?

Re:You don't ...

[phoebe]

Essentially they're treating you like the janitor. They think everything's as simple as unclogging the toilet or getting more toilet paper. And your attitude seems to reinforce their perception of this.

You seem to show them that your time is worthless and that your job could be done by a trained monkey - why would you expect them to treat you differently?

Being an IT person is being a computer janitor. If you are doing the job properly you are simply unclogging the tubes or restocking printer paper. Every machine should be imaged and locked down with something like Microsoft SteadyState, when a user has a problem it's either a reboot, re-image, or a hardware replacement.

The problem might stem from merging IS and IT jobs into the same position with no distinction being made. IS projects should be handled in a more formal manner than re-stocking a printer but because defining such an interaction is widely open to interpretation it has been taken to the users advantage. You need to take ownership of that interaction and make it clear the difference between such projects and cleaning the tubes.

Re:You don't ...

[kombipom]

It's this attitude that really pisses off technical users. Not everyone in a company can work with a locked down PC with nothing but bloody Office(TM) on it. Some of us do more that write letters and powerpoint presentations. And no, I don't know what software I'm going to need for the lifetime of my PC when it's supplied, and I can't afford to wait 3 weeks to get each piece of software I want to install approved because it's not on your list. If I install something and it doesn't work you have every right to say "Not an approved app I can't do anything" but don't stop me from spending 5 mins of company time downloading and installing a free app to save a crapload of paperwork (and work for the IT department). If I install unlicensed software sack me, if I bring the network to it's knees name and shame me but don't cut me off at the knees so that your job is easier.

There are many hats...

[bol]

In technology there are a lot of roles, software developers, system administrators, network administrators, project managers with technology backgrounds, etc etc etc. You sound like you might be "your company's computer guy" also known as a workstation administrator. There are as many varied roles in the workplace as there are people. Make sure not to lump it all together.

In any career there are hurdles and IT is no exception. It's important to see the path ahead of you as difficult as it may be. Most people enter into IT with a passion for computers and technology. They want to learn more, they want to be able to build bigger and better infrastructure and to knock down all obstacles in their way. You need to find your niche. Some people are software development gurus and some people understand the intricate details that bind systems together. Do you spent your evenings learning new technology and figuring out the latest and greatest?

Try not to take things personally with dealing with others. It's important not to consider anybody just a "user." You have customers. Your customers want service and it's your job to provide that service to them. Most people in IT are very standoffish, anti-social and overly opinionated. It takes awhile to adapt and adjust to actually interfacing with people. The most important attribute of any employee is communication and nobody succeeds in a vacuum. Treat your customers well and you'll get respect in return. Itâ(TM)s fine to have a preference and its fine to have opinions. Just make sure you temper them with objective thinking, facts, and (at least) the appearance of an open mind.

If this is your first IT role you may want to consider why you got into it in the first place. What's your goal? How do you see your future? I've been a system administrator for over 10 years and have made the transition to being a system architect. My goal is to design infrastructure for the biggest installations on the planet. What's yours?

Re:How do I get a reasonable level of respect?

[Kenja]

No, that will result in you being taken for granted and labeled a failure when you dont produce the same level of results at the same speed next time.

Use the Scotty principal. Estimate the time needed as three times what you expect, then when it takes you twice as long you're a genius for finishing it early.

Structure your business more effectively.

[nailbu]

This is a business level issue, not one specifically with your job.

I believe your best option would be to talk to your management about putting processes in place to allow you to more effectively handle your work load and communicate with the rest of the people in the office.

If the staff in the business have proper expectations set regarding how your function within the business is performed, by having procedures for both parties to follow, they'll then have to take up their issues with management, not you, as I would think should normally be the case.

Remember...

[Toonol]

Remember the other side of the equation. Users who have to sit for days doing nothing because their user accounts aren't set up right. Ridiculous security policies like being forced to change your password every month. Network configuration changes that break sofware they've been using for years. Pointless upgrades that add bloat and remove features.

It's tough being a user, seemingly toyed with by the IT guys.

Re:Remember...

[Opportunist]

Perception is everything, actually.

An example. Imagine you're going to the movies and you bought a ticket for 10 bucks. You arrive there and you notice you forgot your ticket, and no time to go back and get it. Buy another one for another 10 bucks? Hell no! You turn around, angry, and go home.

Now let's change that scenario a little. You go to the theater and as you reach into your wallet to take out the ticket, a 10 dollar bill gets pulled out as well and descends into the open manhole right next to you. You might think "fuck" for the moment, then shrug it off and go to enjoy the movie, probably you have forgotten about it before the movie even starts.

The net result is the same, you're down 10 bucks. But one is your own "stupidity", the other a freak accident that "just happens".

People don't like bad surprises, and more important, they don't like feeling stupid. If you don't tell them that the 'net is down and they are trying for half an hour before someone casually tells them "oh yeah, they took the network down, I called Bob and he told me", they are pissed. First, they feel stupid for trying and failing, then they feel stupid for not simply calling you and finally they are pissed at you for not telling them beforehand.

A coworker told me to tell them as little as possible, to keep them from thinking we don't know our job because our system "might" break down every other day. My policy is the other way around. Yes, I cry wolf a lot of times. 9 out of 10 times, the warning can safely be ignored (those are the 9 times where I say "shouldn't have some impact, but just might..."). But it serves some valuable purposes. First and foremost, my coworkers (and my boss, who is likewise quite computer illiterate) see that I do some work, I'm not just sitting in my ivory tower office surfing for porn all day. Second, they feel informed and they feel they are in control of things because I do offer rescheduling if it collides with someone's important project (it's no biggie to do an update an hour later if someone has a deadline DAMN JUST NOW). And finally, they feel that I "feel their pain", that I don't just push updates randomly, to maximize the annoyance, but that those updates serve them, not me.

Of course, it depends on the kind of person you're dealing with. In my experience, you have to deal with a few kinds of people:

First, the computer interested person. He does know a bit about IT, and he feels appreciated and taken serious if you hand him information. We have one of this kind, and he was considered "difficult" because he got quite pissed with the disinformation policy that existed before I came. He's quite happy that I'm in charge now, he feels informed, he feels his concerns are taken serious, he feels his input is appreciated instead of considered a "pest". You can easily win these people over by simply telling what you're doing.

Then there's the opposite, the "don't wanna know, just wanna work" person. He doesn't care what's in his machine, he learned to push these buttons in that order to do what he wants, and he's happy with it. With him, your goal is to keep everything as it is and reassure him that the update will not change anything for him. Keep him in his steady state universe and he's happy.

Then there's the panic guy. He goes ballistic every time something "breaks" unexpectedly. They mellow out a fair lot when they know in advance that something might break. And they are very happy every time you give a warning and then nothing bad happens. With them, just warning of possible hicckups in the system makes your life a lot easier.

People want to be informed. And people talk with each other. Gossip is almost mandatory in my company, and groupthink plays a huge role. You have to win over the loudmouths and your life will be a lot easier, simply because they will keep telling everyone how perfectly you handle all the disasters your predecessors couldn't, even if you're doing essentially the same quality of work they did.

All because they get to see it a lot differently.

Where's your ticket?

[moxitek]

After doing this type of work for a while, I've found that the best way to keep my sanity while keeping users happy was to implement rigorous policy regarding how and when users ask for help. It sounds like your outfit may be too small to have a dedicated "helpdesk" or front line support, but I would suggest at least setting up a helpdesk system or Sharepoint portal that is self service to allow users to send in issues.

This allows you to maintain visiblity into your workload, so you can show why something isn't getting done after the fifth time Joe User asks the status, plus is an easy sell to your management with the argument that it allows you to effectively prioritize without users in your face all day asking why such and such isn't done or that this or that is the most important thing in the world at the moment.

The best thing about a policy like this is that you can easily deflect to people that are rude or in your face. "Did you put in a ticket?" "Sorry, I'm super busy and I can't effectively prioritize this request until you submit it." "Oh, your an asshole and want to know the status every five minutes? Check the portal." Getting enforcment on this is your biggest battle. If you can't win that, then take your experience, dedication and hard work and start shopping around. There's no reason to be burnt out because of the user population if you can help it.

Can't get no respect!

[zugmeister]

One thing to keep in mind is that in their eyes you are on par with the plumber. Nobody really wants to call the plumber or have him around, OTOH you really need one when the fecal matter hits the rotary air impeller. When they give you attitude they are probably angry / frustrated at their machine / server / the situation and not necessarily you specifically. If they're being really uptight when you walk in the door remind them that you've had the last 15 seconds to fix it and you're on their side.
Depending on the political situation you may be able to interject something into a company meeting explaining what's going on and get people to consider your side.
All in all, remember to keep calm and be sure this is really the right thing for you to be doing. Maybe it's time for you to make a change?

Talk to your manager.

[subreality]

Have a frank discussion with your manager. Explain what your problems are. If he has a spine at all, he'll set reasonable expectations of you, and stand up to other managers who're complaining, thus isolating you from this BS and letting you do your job.

If you don't have a manager who can do this, you need to talk to the higher-ups about remedying this situation (which should be doable in a company that size), by either moving you under a competent manager, hiring one, and optionally firing the nonmanager who you currently report to. If that problem can't be fixed, you will soon have to choose between your sanity and your job. Protip: Choose sanity.

You also obviously need more people. If there are legitimate projects that are waiting because they're low priority in your deep stack, then it's a pretty easy case to make. I've been a single IT guy in a 60 person software company, and it's simply not sustainable long-term.

Be honest. Are you the problem?

[dmomo]

Be professional
Be confident in your expertise
Don't over explain the issue if there's no need to
Don't talk down to them
Don't assume just because they don't know how to fix something that they are lazy or stupid
Don't play that "give them exactly what they asked for to the letter". Be a human.
If you honestly have too much work, let it be known to your managers. Make sure your not slacking off if you do this.
Shower

If you do all of these things and they are still "unappreciative"

1) Are you sure it's not you? Are you warranting it? Or, are you being over sensitive.

2) Maybe you work for a shitty group of people. Most places I've worked, our IT people have gotten respect. I've seen a few who didn't, and honestly, I think it was their condescending attitude and/or blame delagation that made others combative.

3) Find a new field of work. Maybe this isn't what you're cut out for. Employees are your customers and you have issues with them. Get out of the service industry.

unpopular answer

[nine-times]

I have an answer that's probably not going to be too popular around these parts, but I'm going to give it anyway: Learn to be political.

There's not a particular technique or trick. You're going to have to learn about the culture of the company you are, and observe who is getting treated decently and getting respect. Get in with one or more of those people, and that connection will help you. Learn what the "popular kids" have in common and make it your own. Experiment and learn how to complain productively, how to get what you want, how to persuade those who disagree with you, and how to defend yourself against attacks. It's strategy. It's war. It's the way of the weasel.

Now I'm not advocating that you actually lie, cheat, or do a bad job. Just understand that success takes more than doing a good job. Political savvy is a valid skill of its own.

I did IT for a software company

[Alpha830RulZ]

It sucked. Software developers think they understand information systems and network admin better than you do, and they really don't. They're (hopefully) smart, well paid, probably arrogant, and often actually can do your job. That is, if they could be bothered with the administrivia that is necessary to do IT right, which they can't.

You won't get respect easily at a SW company in IT. If you aren't generally first tier skillz, hyper productive, and fun to be around, your life is just going to suck.

I would seek work at a non SW company. Non computer folk are much more appreciative.

Re:I did IT for a software company

[jonaskoelker]

I would seek work at a non SW company. Non[-]computer folk are much more appreciative.

I would venture a guess here, but first my background (so you can flame it to death :D): I'm a CS/crypto student, having interned as a developer, shared office with the local sysadmin, but never sysadmin'ed myself.

Computer folk (well duh) understand computer better. That means you can probably writer terser documentation. It also means they understand the difference between understanding networking and knowing the local network topology.

If they have just a tiny bit of humility, they'll accept that even though they could fix their computer problems if they had all the IT knowledge, it's more efficient for IT to spend on it so they can get back to coding.

They probably also understand that it's a non-trivial job, and even though they can install Apache on their home box and play with it they don't know what it really takes to run a corporate website.

They'll probably also do stupid things less often, so you can spend less time removing malware, changing wallpaper settings for them (there's a true story close to this...), etc.

You won't get a standing ovation for power cycling the printer. But on the other hand, you also won't get "Why did you break the printer?!? I'm on a deadline, you inconsiderate clod!!"

Completely unrelated: how do doctors with different specializations feel when they treat each other?

Re:Try the slow down method

[Marful]

LOL @ Rush first...


I do estimating at my work (and also a little IT) and we used to have a system for "rush quotes" that people could submit. Over the course of a month, it turned out that every quote was a rush quote, which made the system pointless.

So, I'd be wary of instituting something with a "rush" system...

BR

Re:Huh?

[TheBig1]

IT != Software Development.

Re:Huh?

[sanosuke001]

I went to school for CS and while I was in school, I had a student sys admin job in one of the colleges on campus. Once in a while I'd run into some odd problem but most of it was easy. Now, the really tough jobs are the ones I come up with on my own computer.

You're right, anyone who actually knows anything about computers will only have problems that make no sense at all. Ignorant users are easy, savvy users are a nightmare....

Re:Fuck em

[DNS-and-BIND]

Something I find totally irritating is that a +5 Informative comment can't just stand on its own mountain of awesome, but some geek has to jump in and bask in its reflected glory, pointing out all the things that made the comment awesome (which were already obvious to the casual observer, Sherlock).

Re:Try the slow down method

[phantomfive]

I point it out directly, matter of factly. "That's not a very nice thing to say," or "that's not very respectful." Honestly, and not angrily. Then I wait. Awkward silence.........for them. In most cases they will get a goofy grin and say, "yeah" or something and then we are friends again. In some cases they storm out angrily, but that's their fault (what are they going to say, "he told me it wasn't a nice thing to say!!" is going to make HIM look bad, because you were just trying to help out), and suddenly there's less work for you.

If this doesn't work, it's probably because you're not respecting other people enough. Expect respect from everyone, but respect everyone as well (even if they don't deserve it).

Two-way street

[Kirby]

The same way anyone else gets respect. Actually get to know your coworkers, make sure that they know you understand their concerns and needs (and it helps if it's true), be someone who isn't just the weird guy in the server room that nobody ever talks to.

Don't consider getting to know your coworkers to be 'politics'. That's an anti-pattern.

It's not a cure-all, but if at least some people start thinking of you as a human with a name, and actually trust you, it helps a lot.

And also, return the favor. They're not just users violating policies and expecting miracles - they're stressed out people with demanding jobs that need support. If you don't respect them, it's _blindingly obvious_ and they will respond in kind.

Not everyone's personality is suited to this approach, but a little bit of empathy goes a long ways.

Re:Don't avoid it!

[renegadesx]

I personally quit and leave. I moved around form job to job after getting treated like a piece of garbage... and the funny thing is why IT staff never sticks around at those places.

In the long run they wil lcome to realise that their place is a hostile working environment and managment will force their hand for staff to change their approach.

Eventually you find a nice one, but if you got the skills, you dont need to put up with that (and if its a small firm you could likely be making more elsewhere)

Also

[Sycraft-fu]

Don't say no. Seriously, don't tell users "No you can't do that, no you can't have that." Instead, explain to them what they have to do and/or what has to happen for them to get it.

For example suppose a user wants admin on their desktop and it is against company policy. Tell them it is against policy, and ask them if you can help them with what they need. If they say "I don't want your help, I want admin," then tell them "Well ok, but to do that you'll have to get a policy exception, here's the process for doing that." Now the process may be "Ask the big boss who is going to say no," that's fine. Just let them know what they need to do to get what they want. If it is something they can't or won't do, well then no problem. If they can, well then also no problem.

The reason is it makes you not the bad guy. You aren't telling them "No this is impossible," which they figure is bullshit, you are telling them "This is possibly, but only if preconditions are met." It really does make a difference. Also makes a difference if you have to defend yourself to someone higher up. If you said no, maybe the higher up gets you in trouble for that. If you said "Here's what you have to do," and the person didn't do it, when you explain that to the higher up they'll more likely ask the person "Why didn't you do what he said?"

Also you never know, even if you think the conditions won't be met, maybe they are. Maybe it was more possible than you thought. Like say a user says "I need 50TB of storage on the central NAS." There's not that kind of space, you've got 10GB per user and that's all. Well you go and find out what it would cost to add 50TB to it. Say with the disks, shelf, backup tapes and drives and such it is $200,000. You then tell them "Ok to get that you'll need to get a requisition for $200,000 for us to buy the necessary hardware." Week later they show up with all the necessary stuff. Turns out their project is real important and the funds are there for stuff like that, even though you didn't think so.

This falls in with the same sort of thing the GP talked about like skipping them to the top. Whatever the process is for that, tell them what they have to do. "Ok we can do that, however for that exception to be made a vice president or higher needs to send a written request to the IT manager. Once he has it, he'll have me move you to the top." Or whatever is applicable to your company. It makes you not the asshole, covers your ass and so on.

Now this doesn't deal with all cases. Some people are just pricks and will always be so, they figure you have to jump at their every word. However many people are just stressed and taking it out on you. If you show them that you are willing to work with them, that can really help. It makes a big psychological difference to many people when they feel like they are empowered and they have control. When you tell them "Yes, but..." followed with the things they need to do, it is back on them, they are in control. When you tell them "No," you are being a jerk and taking control from their perspective.

Re:Also

[Sobrique]

No. The answer is to give a realistic perspective on what's possible and what's not. In IT almost anything is _possible_ it's just some stuff is infeasibly expensive, or overly time consuming. That's the major reason why not every user gets admin rights - because the time and effort involved in keeping everything shiny increases greatly in that situation. Or why not every user gets the 500Tb of storage they think they deserve. But none the less, it's not _impossible_ to do these things - it just requires more resources.
By pointing out that that's the limiting factor in their request, you're left being a reasonable 'not-bofh', they leave content - because it's not your fault that they cannot have a shinything - and sometimes you do actually get the new resources you said you needed, when it's important enough. We work on a charging basis for storage - we assume a certain amount per user, and charge (their department) above and beyond that. We therefore don't end up in cockslapping matches with the user, we let them (and their manager) decide how important it is to them to have more disk storage than everyone else - and if it's important enough for them to cover our additional cost in installing, owning, running it, then... well, why should we care?

Re:How do I get a reasonable level of respect?

[Jane Q. Public]

I used to work for a consulting engineering firm, which "loaned" experts from one office to another depending on what projects an office was working on. But it seemed that the time for completion always expanded. So somebody came up with the (joke) concept of (we'll call it) "corporate time". It worked like this: take the time that the corporation originally estimated you would be out of town for a project. Then switch to the next larger unit of time, and double it. So, for example, if you were scheduled to be out of town for a couple of days, it would turn out to be a month (4 weeks). If a week, it would be 2 months. Etc. This was often surprisingly accurate.

Re:Carrot and stick approach

[Mr. Freeman]

Intentional slowdowns while remaining professional? This is impossible as being professional means you aren't going to slow down your work because someone wasn't nice to you. Your post is more "be mean to the people that treat you mean, unless they can fire you". Which is just code for "Be an asshole to people you don't like".

If you're being professional, you shouldn't have to worry about who can have you fired.

Re:Try the slow down method

[Allicorn]

Spot on. I'm pretty sure this is a general truism of processes which allow users to declare urgency themselves.

Give users the option and every support ticket is critical, every project is urgent, every callout is an emergency, every bug is fatal.

The satisfyingly BoFH-esque response is, of course, that every coffee is critical, every smoke is urgent, every liquid lunch an emergency and every complaint about poor service... fatal.

Re:Well..

[CodeBuster]

Actually programmers tend to be fairly low maintenance for most IT departments. They build and configure their own machines, keep the patches up to date, and generally solve their own computer problems. It is the front desk people who play every flash game around, complete with worms and viruses, on standard issue IE6 and then complain when their computer is "broken" that you have to watch out for.

Re:Try the slow down method

[Johnny Mnemonic]

I'm sure you reciprocated, too. I'm sure you tipped when you needed a question answered by HR, when you needed an expense report completed I imagine you gave them 5% for 'priority service'. You probably left money on your desk for the janitorial service.

If you demanded personal money from me just so I could get you to your the job for which you are paid, you sure as hell had better not need anything from me, ever. Including a funding request for your project.

Re:Try the slow down method

[spoco2]

What a god awful method... pay for service to a service person who is already paid to do the job they are asking you to do.

Great work.

Sorry, but you sound very much like a BOFH

Re:Don't avoid it!

[mcvos]

Before quitting and leaving, you might want to tell your boss about the jerks first. Might help to make the message sink in once you do leave.

Put everything in writing

[yog]

People on the job seem to get irrationally angry when it comes to computers and networks. Some of it is justified when they are being blocked from getting their own work done, and they will absolutely take it out on you when they don't have a good explanation for why things don't work. Those stupid IT guys messed it up again. It's the department everyone loves to hate.

The professional approach is to leave your ego at the door when you clock in, and be sure to log all questions and complaints and your responses. If something escalates into a problem where your job is threatened, you can show the paper trail to your management.

If someone is constantly berating you about computer problems that really are PEBCAK, just log each and every complaint plus your response. It can become quite an amusing read after a while, and you can share it with your management. It makes the other guy look bad. Of course, your goal shouldn't be to screw the other guy, but if they are being kind of childish and vindictive, it's very useful for deflection and self-defense should you be called on the carpet later on.

Also, good communication is the key to defusing people's annoyance. When people are sitting around waiting for the network to come back up, or the departmental printer keeps not working right, or the web is really slow--if there's an explanation forthcoming quickly, people can understand that you're working like mad to fix it. When an IT department has a stand-offish attitude and refuses to answer phone calls and emails in a timely way, people will assume the worst.

Re:Put everything in writing

[alecwood]

User behaviour can be part of the problem. We've all come across users with 40 apps open whining their pc is slow. It's just not practical to give every user the latest greatest PC on the market with a super fast processor and oodles of memory - economics dictates that in business good enough is good enough.

In the world of the one man IT dept, managing expectations is perhaps the greatest skill of all.

Re:Put everything in writing

[hesiod]

It's also good to remember that it's not every company that hates the IT dept.

Absolutely! Sometimes they are downright scared of us.

Re:Well..

[StrategicIrony]

You are in a category of "good programmer"

It depends on the programming being done. Many of hte programmers I've supported were the ASP .net developers. I can't tell you how many I've had to explain why they can't simply delete DLL files from their system32 folder and can't arbitrarily install ancient versions of SQL without patching them.

Of course, these are the same people leaving giant SQL injection vulnerabilities in all of their apps (and who have a complete lack of knowledge of encryption), leading to the complete compromise of the credit card database. But that's neither here nor there.

All I'm saying is that some organizations ONLY have these types of programmers. :-)

Re:Well..

[mjwx]

Actually programmers tend to be fairly low maintenance for most IT departments.

You misspelled accounting.

Developers are the biggest bunch of over-coddled, whiny, uncooperative, selfish prats it has ever been my displeasure to provide IT services to. There are notable exceptions in my experience by they are outnumbered 5 to 1 by those developers with a superiority or god complex. They don't understand that you have to help everyone, they think the same rules that apply company wide (yes, even to we sysadmins) don't apply to them, often lack critical technical knowledge, expect you do drop everything for their little problem, constantly demand new equipment that is not required for their jobs, constantly demand that entire systems are changed for their whims (allowing crap through the firewall seems to be a favourite, I had one "senior" developer ask me to open ports 1024 to 10,000 to all IP's once), are never happy even when you do provide them with what they wanted and will complain to management within seconds of being told that their requests are unreasonable or I cant help them at that particular time.

Accounting on the other hand may have less technical knowledge but they are meticulous to the point of being anal, always take down error messages (one even takes screenshots for me), never install anything strange (most don't even have flash), are always kind and polite and understand that they are not my only priority.

Especially in recent years when even the most usless developer has been in demand, since the Recession has changed this for many but not for all as some are still looking down on IT services.

Re:Try the slow down method

[unitron]

Re: your sig-

"In free countries, how did the powerful become powerful? Have they done something you couldn't do?"

More like, stuff my conscience wouldn't let me do.

Re:Don't avoid it!

[RogueyWon]

I've seen a couple of IT careers ruined by this attitude. In one case, getting fired was just the start of the guy's problems.

The BOFH stories are funny. Simon Travaglia writes well and manages to put out clever little satirical stories on a regular basis. He provides an ongoing wry commentary on the state of IT practices in business. He has also, albeit unintentionally, through his cultural influence in the IT world, been the driving force behind more sackings than I care to imagine.

The point that often gets lost is that his stories are fiction.

Yes, fiction.

The unpleasant fact is that in the real world, sysadmins are not generally omnipotent technical gods able to manipulate entire companies at will and escape the consequences of their actions. Nor are management always incompetent drones who will believe anything they're told provided you use big enough words to confuse them. The stereotypes may be comforting, but they're largely not true.

As I say, I've seen two cases of people getting sacked for directly BOFH-inspired behaviour. One was a guy I shared a house with for a while around 2000 or so, after graduating. He used to regale us with his own "BOFH" stories (though most of them were petty and unfunny). After just over a year, we got home one evening to find he'd been fired. He'd sent out e-mails from his boss's boss's account, designed to promote his own reputation in his company. This had, of course, gotten back to his management chain. My housemate was actually furious because he was convinced that the allegations against him couldn't be "proved". He freely admitted to us he'd done it. But it couldn't be proved, he cried. Honest. The world just wasn't supposed to work this way. He never actually went as far as trying to claim unfair dismissal. I think reality finally managed to penetrate his skull.

The second guy I saw fired I didn't know so well - rather I saw it at a distance across the organisation where I was working (in 2002). Again, he was a sysadmin (albeit one of several - this is a big organisation). He'd picked up a grudge against a non-technical member of staff and had done the classic BOFH trick of filling their file storage space with naughty pictures then reporting that he'd found them there. In BOFH land, the target would swiftly escorted off the premesis while the BOFH celebrates down at the pub. Of course, in the real world, of course, the victim protested his innocence. The employer follows proper channels and investigates. An external auditor works out exactly what's happened. The sysadmin in question is sacked. And reported to the police. And sued by his intended victim.

So yes, read the BOFH, enjoy the stories. But don't, for a moment, think they highlight an appropriate way to behave in the real world.

Re:Carrot and stick approach

[Aceticon]

First one point:
- There are many people out there which will intentionally be rude, aggressive and obnoxious towards others as a way to obtain speedier service - they are usually in management and sales. This disrupts the normal work flow of the company, causing negative side-effects (which are mostly felt by other than the rude ones) which are larger in size than the positive outcomes they themselves get from this behavior. The overall count is that it's good for them but bad for the company.
- Any discussion about how to counteract said behavior must take in account that you are trying to eliminate an individual behavior which has an overall negative effect on the company's efficiency and thus it's bottom line. As such, the range of actions your can take while still being "professional" is a lot larger than "if you're just doing it because you're pissed-off".
- More generally, office politics ARE part of everybody's work spec (even if not a written part) so you better learn how to deal with it instead of cowering behind the "if I do not behave as a cold logical robot with no concern for my well being and future in this company then I'm being unprofessional" theory.

That said, arbitrary slowing down you work (as in: you're free now but you just throw it into your in-tray and wait 2h) would be unprofessional.

However, weighting in the behavior of the person having the problem when prioritizing your work is also professional, simply because the rude and aggressive types also tend to be the less cooperative when it comes to solving their problems - the exact same problem can be sorted out much faster when the other side cooperates.

It's the long term approach to making your job efficient: for any two problems which would otherwise have equal priority, you solve the faster to solve first then the other one - so you fix what is more important to fix and in overall your response is faster, which saves the company money. That it happens that the uncooperative people (which usually are the rude and obnoxious ones) also cause that, by nature of their own uncooperative behavior, their problems are slower to solve, it's only a problem of them, not you.

To remain utterly professional, you must do your best to distinguish between the truly uncooperative types and the cooperative but momentarily really stressed types: those with a long history of rudeness and obnoxious behavior can be safely tagged as uncooperative, for the other ones, it's actually a good idea to be extra calm and considerate - if a usually polite person is having so much problems that they're stressed out it's probably a good idea to pay extra attention to their problems.

Re:I Set Expectations

[selven]

Your name fits you.

Re:How do I get a reasonable level of respect?

[squizzar]

Reminds me of the rule that 90% of the work takes 90% of the time, the remaining 10% of the work takes the remaining 90% of the time.

Re:Be firm..and good

[elevtro]

I've been at it for my present company for over 4 years now. It is hard not to be a BOFH. Be good at what you do. If you are good people will respect you, unless they are an utter ass, there is no helping those people. Yes I will get stern with some of the hard headed ones. But usually after I've shown them a few times, exactly what THEY DID to cause the problem, they can fix it themselves. If after those few times you are still coming and asking for help then I might let that rudeness come out. I've only been a BOFH once, and I felt so much regret afterward that I apologized to the user and told them I was wrong for what I said. I didn't want to turn in the PHB, who are the real assholes around here.

Learn your users personalities. Learn their level of user. Then use that information when assisting them. It makes it person and real for them and they will respect you more. No matter how many times you've heard the question or been presented with the problem, the user hasn't. It's like the person at walmart being asked where the trash bags are 100 times a day. He knows, and has said it a 100 times, but when you're the 99th person asking, he might be tired of hearing that same question over and over and gets rude. But if you understand that this person hasn't been told 98 times before, those were 98 other people, and this person really doesn't know, you can keep it real every time someone asks a question that you've answered before. Patience and lots of it go a long way.

Meditate. It keeps you relaxed when even the nastiest of shit hits the fan. If you are at peace with yourself, you are at peace with all.

Lastly, work for a company with HIGH turnover so that you never have to deal with someone for more than a year. That way every user is a new user.

Just kidding about that last one.

Train your users properly.

[Scraps232]

Two words: Managing Expectations. If you do every task as fast as you can for everyone who requests it, you will train your users to expect instant gratification from you and will demand it each time. You have to train your users what to expect from you and how fast to expect it. This is done by simply by managing how fast you do things for them. Your goal will be to manage all tasks before you with time and thought put into managing what is priority and what can wait until tomorrow. The article makes it sound like you are fairly new to the job market in general and so also are probably working longer hours for less pay than a standard person in the industry. One IT person for 60 users sounds pretty dubious. Regardless of how well you manage your time I suspect you could use a helping hand. Make sure you manage your life and health first, (sleep 7 hours a day and don't skip lunch like a maniac) then prioritize tasks in a way that when someone asks you to do something, you can give them a reasonable timeframe for completion, even if it is not the same day or week. I've found people are much more comfortable waiting for their project to be complete if they can rely on the deadline being met. If you say it can be done by the end of the day, but then you don't get it done that day or the next day, you're training your users that you are unreliable and they will have to hounmd you to get their requests completed. Many an admin fall into this trap, which they set for themselves, which usually ends up eating into personal time (ie those weekday midnight sessions alone in the office). Remember you're the one in the control of the solutions you are providing, so you're ultimately responsible for getting them done correctly and done in a reasonable timeframe. When managing your time properly, if you cannot get all of your work done in a reasonable timeframe, it is also your responsibility to escalate to your boss that changes need to be made to the system. Either hiring someone to help (bosses rarely like this one) or fewer users are allowed access to you (although if you're the only one available who can replace a broken keyboard or something else very minor, they don't really have a choice.) It's summertime, time to pick up some cheap/free summer interns. Bosses love the word 'free'.

I had your job.

[DaveV1.0]

Well, maybe not your exact job, but close enough. The thing is, you seem to be confusing " friendly, helpful, and responsive" with being their bitch, and "being a bastard" with asserting yourself and your rights.

Here is what I did:

1. Determine who your boss is. I don't mean any dotted-line bosses, or your "customers". I mean the person that can fire you. If that person is not with in two levels of the CEO, you should start looking for a new job because the IT department is an after-thought.
2. Get a complete job description and an org chart.
3. Think about how your job has been for the last 1.5 years. Try to determine why you are not treated with respect. Is it a result of you not standing up for yourself or is it because your boss would over-ride you when you stood up for yourself?
4. Come up with a plan of action to correct the situation.
5. Go to your boss, explain the current conditions, and present your plan of action. If your boss is not part of the problem, he will support your plan. If your boss is part of the problem, keep looking for a new job.
6. Implement the plan or leave for a new job. If you leave explain to everyone above you why you are leaving.

As for the plan of action, consider the following:

1. You boss needs to stand behind you 100%.
2. Learn to use the word "no". If someone comes to you and wants something unreasonable, use the word. If they get upset, send them to your boss, who should ask them "What did the IT guy say?" and then he should repeat your answer to them. See #1.
3. If they are rude to you, call them on it. Tell them you there to help them, but you do not have to put up with abuse. If they persist, take their computer back to the shop and tell them you will bring it back when it is fixed. If they complain, See #1.
4. Enforce your "pretty liberal policies", to the letter. If you have input or control the policies, make them less liberal and put some teeth into the penalties. Then, apply those penalties. Oh, and it might not hurt to make an example, possibly public example, of someone who constantly violates the policies. See #1.
5. If someone comes to you with a complex project, give them a reasonable time frame for completion. If they demand it be done sooner claiming it is an emergency or that they need it done, remember that a lack of planning on their part does not constitute an emergency on yours. Explain to them that you have other projects, some more important than theirs, that are ahead of their project and their project will take time as it is complex. If they don't like it, see #1.

As you can see, this requires that your boss stand behind you and back you 100%. If not, then you are better off finding a new job. But, even if your boss will over-ride you every single time, you are better off pushing problems up the chain of command. Eventually, they will stop coming to you and start going to your boss. Then, you can turn to your boss and say "Which of these four 'important projects that have to done before everything else', do you want me to do first?" You can force your boss to set priorities and then when people come asking about their oh so important projects, you can say "My boss said I am to work on these projects in this order. Your project is number y, I am on x." and if they don't like it point them back to the boss.

If you haven't gathered yet, the objective is to either get the authority you need to assert yourself and your rights, or force everything to go through your boss and make him deal with them while you look for a new and better job.

3 Your Users

[Roxton]

1) Love your users. Be happy to help them. If you're having a bad day, either fake pleasantness or apologize for seeming "a little off" and explain with open sincerity about your bad day. If you can't create an atmosphere of good faith and empathy, you don't belong in IT.
2) Don't assume that because you can do something, it must be easy. Google searching, for example, is not easy. Don't assume that knowing how to do something really well means that that you can be effective at explaining it. If a user gets confused, blame yourself. "Sorry, I haven't found a good way to explain this." "Oh come on, you're not stupid; it's just not as intuitive as it should be. We're still in the dark ages of software."
3) Recognize that people need validation. In general, people hate having to ask for help. Acknowledge their need as reasonable. Any kind of hesitancy to help will create a sense of invalidation, which can poison your reputation forever.
4) Where reasonable, cultivate friendships with your users.
5) If the user seems incapable, your response should be ..oO(That user needs training.) Not ..oO(That user is an idiot.)
6) In policy disputes, be an advocate for the users. When you enforce policy, be clear that it is out of obligation.
7) Acknowledge that your role is to give other people the tools and environment they need to do their work.

Hope this helps.

Re:lmgtfy

[manly_15]

There's a sizeable segment of the population which simply can't search properly. Being able to synthesize a question into appropriate keywords is a difficult skill for many. Try watching a novice search Google on a variety of topics. Not only will they use poorly worded queries, but it's likely they will only go to the first hit. Many users give up if the first hit isn't what they want. Only the advanced users know about tabbed browsing and will load up a series of results to scan.

So, the reason why users don't google it in the first place is that they don't trust search (though Google has some of the highest trust levels of any search engine). What really needs to happen is that workplaces which have users online need to offer more comprehensive training on internet literacy; unfortunately, it's cheaper just to hire someone to handle all of the stupid questions instead.

Re:lmgtfy

[UncHellMatt]

I work as the lone IT person in a police department. It's remarkable how much more patient and calm one can be with lusers who are A) Armed and B) Much, much bigger than me.

That said, in this position I gained some semblance of respect from my users by doing several things many people don't "teach" you. First and foremost, I set boundaries. If someone calls me in the middle of the night (being a 24/7 "shop", that sort of thing is inevitable), and it's for something like they can't print, I tell them that I'll help them when I get in, and let them know that while I don't mind that they called me, try to keep it to emergencies. Also, I made sure that the supervisors (shift sergeants) were aware of what would count as an emergency, and we talked that over. Maybe what THEY view as an emergency I wouldn't, and vice versa. Another important thing, I go by "when in Rome". Cops are a very, very different breed of user. Most I wouldn't trust with anything more complex than an abacus and smoke signals, and even then I would want someone standing by with a fire extinguisher. So I try to keep as many processes as I can as simple as I can. In other environments I've worked, when managing a network for a software development house, it was simple: I made everything as obfuscated as possible and then had 20 pages of documentation for every 2 steps taken in a process.

OK, I kid (sorta) on that last bit. But the point is, try to style your IT work to fit the people you're dealing with.

What I'm saying is don't let people walk all over you. Demand some respect. If you come over to someone's desk to help them, and they're treating you like some drive through window fast food help, walk away, and tell their supervisor you want to be treated with a little more kindness before you'll deal with them again. You don't need to electrocute users in order to gain that respect, though it IS a more fun method.

Re:Try the slow down method

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahh, but that discriminates against the people who understand maths and refuse to play a lottery. The people that suggestion most directly benefits are the lottery operators, and lottery tax collectors, not the office staff.

And even if the office syndicate does win big (they basically won't though, the odds say so), the staff'll probably all leave the company at once as they are now financially secure, and so how does this help you or the company reach some goal? You either aren't aware of that, or you are looking to exploit in the same way as the people behind a lottery in the first place.

If you were to have a jar collecting for charity, I'd make sure the jar was for the kind of thing that corporate slaves would never normally donate towards - like Greenpeace, Amnesty International, etc.. Actually, I bet there are anti-corporate and political corruption charities around. There's some kind of irony going on when donations for that are collected though the means of "scratch my back financially, and I'll scratch yours".

Re:Wrong company to work for

[edstrasser]

Arrogant comments like "We can change our own printer toner" and "The guy who could have been a programmer/engineer but wasn't smart enough" are why being an IT admin sucks -> everyone *ASSUMES* that this is all there is to being a sysadmin. And this is certainly the attitude of those the poster is complaining about.