Do you keep your cool or go off on them? 5

[visualuser]

I know most of you out there are system admin, programmers, and so on. It seems like all the users think they can come to you and tell you what to do, like they are your boss.

Just the other day, one guy came to me and told me to reinstall some software becuase it wasn't working right and to open the case by the way and clean it out.

First off all, the user didn't tell me what the hXll was going on wit the software. Off the top of my head, I know why the software wasn't working is becuase some people love to have 3 app killing programs open all day and never reboot. Duh...get it trough your head you can't beat your pc to death and expect it to run correctly.

Does anyone think users just say and do things to make you upset. Gosh, you go to 4yr college and get a degree and then you get treated like you are the cleaning staff or something. ( don't get me wrong, I'm not making fun of cleaning staff, everyone needs them too...)
Everyone wants at least wants a little respect.

I think it's just a few people that do this, but it really makes me upset.

 

[johncurtis]

Everyone deserves and should get respect. Full stop. If people are not treating you correctly you should tell them politely but firmly that it's not acceptible. If they carry on then raise it with your boss.
This works both ways though. I understand your frustration, but statements like "Duh...get it through your head you can't beat your pc to death and expect it to run correctly" are hardly condusive to a friendly working environment.

As to keeping your cool; absolutely! Life is meant to be enjoyable so relax, do your job and make friends with all your co-workers. People will admire you for it.

John

 

[visualuser]

John,

Thanks for the reply. It's sounds like you know what I mean. I was just thinking to myself when I mad that statement. I think I'm pretty nice to people and don't really go off. I know there are other systems people in our company that totally go off on people. I think they rub off on me sometimes, but I never say really what I think to them.

Thanks! :O)

 

[Kjonnnn]

Some people treat you like dirt.

Here's my motto: YOU train people how to treat YOU.

I try to always be courteious, but there are some people that dont understand that. So i dont have a problem with your statement.

We dont have a policy of what users can load onto their computers, but if they load stuff that conflicts with company software and I gotta keep coming to fix it, I've told users... "I'm not coming up here again to fix your machine with that software on it."

Yesterday someone was bothering me because their computer was slow. It turn out to be their HOTMAIL was slow, everything else was fine. I told "Dont call me about your
hotmail account, that's not my problem."

I've had people expect me to come change the paper in their printers. My response, "You need to learn how to do this. I'll show u once, but you're on your own after that."


Now some of you may say I'm mean and unprofessional, but some people don't understand nice.

MOST times you can be nice, but sometimes u gotta be firm.

 

[visualuser]

KJonnn,

Hey, do we work for the same company? The same thing happens to me. What makes me mad, like you said our company doesn't have a policy about installing non-corporate programs and they complain all the time to me that their pc is messed up. I totally agree with you.

The bad thing is when the big people in the company are the worst at doing this and they make me look bad when things don't work and it's becuase of them putting junk on their pc. Let me go, hee hee.

 

[Ngolem]

hmmmm...I have been on both sides of the fence. I write reports for a living (Crystal Reports) so of course when the data isn't what they expect the report is wrong.

But it has been my experience that users do not complain for complaining sake. Usually there is a thread of truth to their problem..if not the whole truth...they are just taking out their frustration at not being able to do their job because of a computer problem that they don't know how to solve....I certainly experienced this when the company I worked for on contract rolled out Windows 2000 to replace Windows NT...MAN, I COULD GET NOTHING DONE for the problems that cropped up...it was very frustrating...some of it was my fault...new way of doing things...some of it wasn't... dll conflicts or whatever.

Eventually by showing a concrete examples of problems, things settled down.

I always strive to show a concrete repeatable problem when complaining of something...and I require that from someone complaining of work that I do.

That way everybody learns something... Jim Broadbent

 

[ElijahBaley]

When I started my job I went out of my way to be really nice and polite to everyone and as helpfull as possible explaining what was causing a problem as best as I could - I seem to have commanded respect and get along very well with my colegues.

However, I still get called to one of my bosses offices every so often becuse a icon hs moved or the Office shorcut bar has dissapeared - the next thing I know I am sitting in the bosses chair acting as he's secretary typing emails!!!

"r tape loading error"

 

[Kjonnnn]

Yea those "tweakers" are bad. People who know just enough about computers to be dangers.

The people who know absolutely nothing about computers are easy to work with. Its the ones that know just a little something, but think they know alot. They'll hover your shoulder telling you what the problem is and how you should fix it. I've told one guy, "well you dont need me, you can fix this." Of course their diagnosis is waaay off the mark.

I have one VP who's new laptop is about a year old. Because of his tweaking, I've reformatted it about 4 times so far.

 

[BeckahC]

Just a few true stories with some venting:

I once had someone at work moved a file to her desktop instead of creating a short-cut... she kept calling me because no one else could find the file!!! When I created shortcuts for her, she didn't like having so many on her desktop, so she created a folder of shortcuts and DELETED all the shortcuts from her desktop, then tried to re-create all of them in her new folder!!! And yet - she's a "power" user!

I too would get called upon to replace paper or ink cartrides in printers, to solve copier jams and tell them why something with a big, bright red flashing light on it and a message about being out of paper would not print, even though they printed about 50 times!

Our company now has a system in place that takes everyone's complaints and problems that they enter and then sends them to the appropriate person or group to be responded to... all of a sudden, they hear they have to enter the problem and wait a little while and that the whole thing is recorded, documented and discussed in meetings, and suddenly people are less apt to say "there's something wrong with the printer" when it's out of paper, because when the solution to that problem is recorded, it goes in as "user error" or "training issue" and their bosses hear about it from their bosses... Once people have to work and give the appropriate info in a timely manner to get help, you would be surprised how many fewer times they ask, plus the problems we get now tend to be legitimate in nature and things to really sink our teeth into!

I once had to show users that the spreadsheet (in Excel) was not having cells getting "erased" they were just opening different copies of the file on their desktop and the server, and weren't updating all of them at once!

Another time there was someone who couldn't figure out how to make something bold in Excel - so I told him to click on A1 - the man sat and stared at the computer like an alien was about to pop out of it... This is a High school graduate ladies and gentleman! You do not need to know a spreadsheet program to know how to graph, you just need to have passed all or most of HS math and graphing!!!! I had to explain how graphs work to this man! Forget about the fact that he didn't know the programs he needed to do his job - he didn't have the knowledge needed to graduate HS!!!


Thanks for the vent!!! I really needed that! There are just some times that I just wonder why I come to work in the morning - no one wakes up till the afternoon anyway!;-) BeckahC

 

[NiteLink]

Kjonnn, I agree with you. It's really a danger too at my side. The users, esp those with IT Degree, they think that they know something but the thing is they don't know the impact of what they are doing. Hence, they keep thinking that the IT dept is not working hard enough, not installing software to help them, etc...

One thing at my side is that IT is a cost centre, we cannot spend a lot of $$. Shucks. If there's a software that will not allow users to any old how install or play around with the OS, I'd be a very happy person.

I will blacklist the user (don't care what level, be it MD, Manager, whatever), and reduce all the privileges. Maybe it'll help somewhat. But then I forgo my changes of being promoted because the manager or whoever don't like me reducing their privileges. Gee... you were the one who caused the server to hang, so it's my fault now?

Fight?

What fight?

 

[jrbarnett]

My own view is that I try and behave in a way that I would like to be treated myself if the situation were reversed.
I can only really remember letting fly at somebody once when he:
a) decided that he wanted his PC upgraded from NT4 to 2000 because he wanted to connect his printer and scanner through USB rather than parallel (they worked fine in parallel mode)
b) he then decided to install Adaptec 3 CD burning software on the new 2K installation which 2K doesn't like; requiring a reinstall (having installed Roxio 5 on 2K)
and...
c) doesn't learn from b above after he installed Adaptec 3 over Roxio 5 - and wonders why it crashes, resulting in the machine needing reinstalling twice in a week.

John

 

[BeckahC]

A year and a half after my last reply I am a little bit wiser, I think:

My company has instituted a policy where anyone with a complaint or an issue has to report it through this reporting software we got. It then goes through to the people who dole out the assignments to who is qualified to "fix it". We politely take care of whatever they need, but we have the opportunity to enter the cause of the problem. I have to say I often make use of the "user error" option!;-) The IT management people then go over the stats they get from this problem reporting software and they see where there are issues of user error or inadequate training and they handle letting the users know about what they feel needs to be done about it. So us lowly programmers get credit for problem solving and for the work we do for the users and then the management handles speaking to the users' managers about what they need to do to reduce the problems that are the users' faults to begin with. It's not a perfect system, but it certainly has been a bit of a stress reducer since going into affect!

BeckahC

 

[lionelhill]

I greatly admire our IT helpdesk staff where I work. They are the embodiment of patience. I know I'm often worked up and frustrated when I turn up at their desk. Of course I am, I've just spent half an hour trying to do something that should have taken a minute. But they invariably treat me calmly and politely, even if I'm being unreasonable. I hope St Peter is keeping record of their actions, and hopefully not taking too much notice of mine.

As a user, sometimes I wish they'd treat some of the other users (not me of course!) with a little less respect. It is very frustrating having to wait while Mr Nice-Guy on the help desk explains to someone whose salary is about three times mine that if that printer says it's out of toner and the pictures are coming out grey and patchy then maybe it needs a new toner cartridge.

 

[Onyxpurr]

I just always remind myself of what my husband recants to me:

"Honey, if it wasn't for those users...you wouldn't have a job!"

<grin> Sometimes, this doesn't do the trick so I just grin, take a deep breath, and remind myself that not everyone is gifted in the ways of IT, or even has a passion for it like myself.

 

[Tarwn]

I read that and think to myself &quot;Yes, but why do so many people have to be negatively gifted towards IT&quot;

[sub]01000111 01101111 01110100 00100000 01000011 01101111 01100110 01100110 01100101 01100101 00111111[/sub]
The never-completed website:

http://www.tiernok.com/

 

[theoxyde]

Because we are all idiots who have brief spurts of genius...

Some spurt more than others.

 

[jockbir]

It is great seeing the venting.

I am supposedly the IT Manager (for most of the time the department is just me). Covering 160 user desktops, servers and software.

They wonder why I am grouchy and why I am tired.

I have started trying to say not right away and it is on my list or no and boy do they get p***ed off! Some even look like they want to spit!

Stressed out and exhausted is me but you get a manager who say, well if you were to leave only one software package would not get upgrades so what the heck. This person and her subordinates are always calling with problems on other software packages and setup. I have worked to make sure they get what they want but this is her remark!

Or you get the remark, &quot;I did not tell you to do that&quot; the that meaning being her to 10 pm or on weekends getting projects done from your immediate supervisor!

No respect! Just I want!!!!

Thanks!

 

[jtb]

2 words: ticketing system.

if you want to be able to prioritize your tasks, you need to establish a rapport with your users (or at least their managers).

set standards for both sides... that's the way the &quot;big boys&quot; do IT...

Good luck!

JTB
Senior Infrastructure Specialist
MCSE-NT4, MCP+I, MCP-W2K, CCNA, CCDA,
CTE, MCIWD, i-Net+, Network+
(MCSE-W2K in progress)

 

[shannanl]

I would let them know that you need to know what the problem is, not how to fix it. You will determine how to fix it, that is your job. Just make sure that you do the job correctly and in a timely manner. Don't let them push you around or they will get used ot it.

SHannan

 

[grande]

My best experience with a job was when worked in a research lab. They did tests and experiments on food diseases.

I had no idea what they did, and they had no idea what I did.

It was mutual ignorance that allowed us to be able to work well together, I guess.

-------------------------
Just call me Captain Awesome.