I agree as well. We were all pretty frustrated when our manager moved our server group to an office with our helpdesk. There had always been animosity between our groups over Helpdesk not even attempting to solve problems before passing them on to us and other such issues. We found however, after a month or two of coexisting, we began to have less of those problems and actually found opportunities to cross train the helpdesk to back us up on some issues when needed. Even more interesting, we found that the constant flow of users in and out of the helpdesk wasn't nearly as distracting as we expected. Users generally found our quirky behavior and cubicle decorations humorous and were much more pleasant to deal with when they could associate a face with the voice on the phone.
I guess my point is (apologies for rambling) it's a balance, for sure, but regular non-technical interaction with users definitely helps relations and makes an IT job easier in the long run.
Snake oil anyone?
This sounds just like the PiMag products from Nikken (http://www.enikken.com.au/info/pimag/pimag.water.optimizerII.html)
Vague techno-babble + Sheep (consumers with too much money) = One more useless product
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I agree as well. We were all pretty frustrated when our manager moved our server group to an office with our helpdesk. There had always been animosity between our groups over Helpdesk not even attempting to solve problems before passing them on to us and other such issues. We found however, after a month or two of coexisting, we began to have less of those problems and actually found opportunities to cross train the helpdesk to back us up on some issues when needed. Even more interesting, we found that the constant flow of users in and out of the helpdesk wasn't nearly as distracting as we expected. Users generally found our quirky behavior and cubicle decorations humorous and were much more pleasant to deal with when they could associate a face with the voice on the phone. I guess my point is (apologies for rambling) it's a balance, for sure, but regular non-technical interaction with users definitely helps relations and makes an IT job easier in the long run.
Snake oil anyone? This sounds just like the PiMag products from Nikken (http://www.enikken.com.au/info/pimag/pimag.water.optimizerII.html) Vague techno-babble + Sheep (consumers with too much money) = One more useless product