Elite Thinking 14

[Onyxpurr]

Okay, I admit the title is a little too much, but here's my question:

I was just reading an article about the IB (honors) students being a bit snobbish to the regular students at high schools. I couldn't help but compare this to IT professionals and our customers.

I must admit I've fallen into this thinking in the past before. I lose my patience, start calling my users "ID-10-Ts" and so forth. Even most (if not all) of my IT co-workers suffer from this mentality.

So my first questions, is why do we fall into this mentality in the first place?

Second, is how do we keep our patience and cool and be as respectful to out customers (behind their backs and in front of them)?

 

[carp]

1. I think we tend to get into this mindset because we DO possess skills that mere mortals often lack (although they're getting smarter as computers become more commonplace). Our customers refer to what we do as "magic" and "amazing" - who are we to dispute this (regardless of whether or not it's true)? And when you get slapped in the face with Stupid User Trick # (fill in the blank - forgot to turn on the monitor, deleted all files and now wants to know why s/he can't open a spreadsheet, etc) eight or nine times a day is it any wonder we lose patience and think they're stupid? When we get our morning Dilbert fix every day - a whole cartoon strip dedicated to showing how stupid managers and customers are - are you surprised you feel (a) superior and (b) put upon?

2. How to avoid this? Tough question! I know where I work, the IT attitude is "we're just too busy to serve you!" - and that message has been received by our customers, who (naturally enough) resent it. We DO have to keep in mind that IT is essentially a service/support function. We exist for the company, not the other way around. Without the rest of the company, it's doubtful that many IT departments would have a reason to exist. Our IT section exists to support accounting and manufacturing; to make their jobs easier. I have to remind myself every day that they are the customer and I am there to serve their needs (even the whiny, obnoxious ones!).

OK, climbing down off of my soapbox now (I guess I ought to go serve one of my customers!). Onyxpurr - you struck on a topic that has been troubling me lately too!

Elbert, CO
1011 MST

 

[Rhea737]

If you put your heart into your work, there will be times of feeling the stress and losing your patience. On the other hand, you can't do your best work without your heart in it.

I "overhear" alot of user-bashing from a few "particular" members of my department. Being in a cubicle farm, so do alot of the end users. I have heard some say, "I'm not ever going to call IT for help. I don't want to be treated with sarcasm and then called stupid".

What do you say when you hear a user say something like that? I was appalled. I tried to reassure them that not all of the department was that way, and suggested that they asked for someone in particular when they call so they can avoid the few "particular" members.

Since then, I have been extra sensitive to what I say and how my attitude appears to others. If I need to vent, I get outside for awhile. More than once, I have told my boss, "Chief, I need to take a walk!".

 

[BeckahC]

I do my best to just grin and bear it... but must admit that when I have to explain the same thing to the same person over again for the 6th time that month... I do get a bit impatient! ;-)

I have been on both "ends" in the past 10 years. I went from being a Data-Entry clerk to becomming a programmer over a few years time. I believe this softened me a bit. While I do dred calls from particular users (like the one mentioned above and similar) I do relatively keep my cool and just go over things at what seems to be the user's pace. Since I tend to work with the same people on a regular basis, I have gotten pretty used to the way to explain things that works best for them. Do I occassionally need a break? Who doesn't? So I step out, clear my head and come back ready to work on things again.

While I dislike my boss and a few people I work with, I find my users are pretty nice, they are good people and all I need to do is point them in the right direction usually and they start to get it! Many are not very computer literate, and this seems to be what slows some of them down.

I look at it this way: I may be better at what I do - SQL, ASP, etc. - than they are... but THEY are better at what they do - ie:finance, distribution, transportation, Logistics, Manufacturing, etc - than I am! So we put our heads together and help each other out!

BeckahC

 

[SQLSister]

Ok this is one of my pet peeves with IT personnel.

First, the people you think are stupid are often quite competent in their own field. They aren't stupid just unknowledgeable and/or uninterested in the same field in which you are an expert. That doesn't make you better than them; it makes you different from them. If they knew everything you know about computers there would be little or no need for your job.

Second, any person who is paid to deal with customers (which users are) has a professional obligation to treat them with respect and politeness. You don't have to like someone or you can think he's stupid, but that person should still always be treated professionally.

I get justifiably mad when I am treated with disrespect and users do too. In fact they have been known to complain to managers and get people fired for their attitudes, so it is in your own self interst to be polite to them and not patronizing or arrogant.

Rhea made a good point about cubicles too. Always remember that anything you say in a cubicle is overheard by other people. And not always only the others who share the space.

 

[carp]

Well said, Sister!

 

[SQLSister]

Thank you carp.

 

[theoxyde]

Well said, indeed.

 

[lionelhill]

Spot on. Anyway, something I find works (but makes me uncomfortable) when I'm feeling oh-so-special is to think about my house roof. It's just possible I know an awful lot of things your average roofing repair specialist doesn't. But I can't walk around masterfully on a 45-degree slope of dodgy tiles, two floors above a certain broken leg (and possibly worse) in a gale, with no hand-rail, rearranging things so they don't fall off and don't leak. Maybe he thinks I'm stupid because I can't...

(also, yes, some IT professionals know a lot more about IT than their users, as they ought. But I get nervous when I see postings here from people "on the development team" of an image analysis package, who are asking about the relationship between screen-inches and pixels. Maybe sometimes the users are the elite?)

 

[sleipnir214]

SQLSister has it spot on. There is a difference between ignorance and stupidity. But with both, there is really nothing to get riled up about. The ignorant are just untrained, so I take their questions as opportunities to take the role as teacher. The stupid really can't help it.

There is a third category, though, the willfully ignorant. We've all encountered folk in this category -- those who don't know about a subject, and who don't want to know about it. I have very little patience with this category of user.

I cannot imagine the mindset of someone who would base his livelyhood on a technology and be completely unwilling to learn even the least thing about it.

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TANSTAAFL!!

 

[CajunCenturion]

I agree with much of what has been said, especially SQLSister's comments, but there is also the other side of the coin. Perhpas it can best be described by the following conversation:

User1: The toilets are stopped up!
User2: Of course they are, the computer person was here yesterday.

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[rosieb]

There is another category of user, the "fiddler" who knows all about computers. They see a minor problem and have just enough knowledge to turn it into a really major one.

The problem is that they become the first port of call for users who are intimidated by IT Support.

Too often the "professionals" stomp in, blame the user, fix the problem while sighing heavily, and stomp off... Leaving the user feeling like a complete moron.

Even worse is when IT dismiss problems. I was once told that a support call I'd logged had been closed and classified as "user error" because "it just couldn't happen". In the end, they did recognise it as a problem, but never managed to fix it. Confirming my opinion of that particular support group.

In my view IT personnel, in whatever capacity, should see dealing with users as an opportunity to show what we can do to make their work easier, as sleipnir214 says, coach them, show them things they never knew were possible - even if it's only how to copy and paste. Above all, IT personnel must be approachable.

If IT departments want to keep their budgets, and us our jobs, we have to make users value us. (And try not to block up their toilets.)

Rosie

 

[Onyxpurr]

I'm trying to figure out why we're like this by comparing it to another service.

I mean, wouldn't the plumber just get as equally frustrated if he had to come over everyday to unplug our sink or toilet?


I agree with Rhea and SQLSister too about being overheard in cubicles. In the past two IT jobs I've held, many of our employees were frustrated with the IT guys because they overheard them talking smack about them. I think this is why I was so popular. Quite often people admitted to only calling me because I had respect for them and never made them feel 2 feet tall.

 

[BJCooperIT]

User ignorance happens in many fields. My daughter manages a fast food restaurant and my husband does building maintenance. Some "user mistakes" come from just not using one's brain in a situation where we expect them to be able to figure it out. These are the ones where we might find it difficult to refrain from a caustic comment:

Did you hear about the guy who was insistent on ordering a Whopper at his neighborhood Wendys? OK, who in the U.S. to think twice about that one? Whoppers are only available at Burger King!

"My apartment is too hot." Problem? Thermostat set on heat in 90 degree weather.

Other "user mistakes" come from bad assumptions on how things work.

"My washing machine does not work." Problem? Lid is up. This was a pampered student in her first apartment. She had never had to do laundry before. I blame her parents, not her.

"There is water in the bottom of my dishwasher." Problem? They wash dishes in the sink and place them in the dishwasher to drip dry. They never run the dishwasher to drain the water out. The dishwasher's owner was from India and had no idea what a dishwasher was. They just thought it was nice of the apartment complex to give them such fancy drying racks. Can you really blame their error? How could they possibly understand how it works if they had never seen one before?

The last category is the person who just doesn't get it and probably never will. IMHO they are the most frustrating. So the question boils down to this: How do we keep our professional demeanor when someone asks one of those type of questions? We give them the benefit of the doubt and present the answer as though they were hearing it for the first time. When asked for the 100th time about the blank monitor and discovering it is not powered on, we remind them to hit the power switch and chalk it up to experience.


[sup]Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.[/sup][sup] ~George Bernard Shaw[/sup]
Consultant/Custom Forms & PL/SQL - Oracle 8.1.7 - Windows 2000

 

[rosieb]

I've just reread this thread and most of seems to be based on the idea that users are a "problem", they are in some way ignorant, stupid or deliberately unco-operative.

Well, I've just spent a morning with the sort we all seem to have forgotten.....

She works part-time in a mid-grade admin job, and has had no formal PC training. She's taught herself how to use most of the Office applications to a really high standard. According to our Help Desk she's "OK, no trouble really".

She wants a database (actually, she originally wanted training so she could write it herself, because she'd been told "IT don't help with that kind of thing&quot.

When I arrived she produced a real specification, she'd read up on how to create a database, and had even had a good try at designing the data structure. She'd highlighted all of the little nasties and exceptions she could think of and gathered all the supporting documentation. AND, it was clear that she'd done a lot of this at home, in her own time. At a guess, she's saved me at least two days work.

To put the icing on the cake, she "wants to understand" and "wants to be involved". (She will be!!)

To me, the really sad thing was that her experience of IT personnel had led her to expect no real help. I wonder how many other potential "star users" just give up in their dealings with IT because of the way they are treated.

Rosie

 

[sleipnir214]

rosieb:
What you have described is my favorite type of user to help. They try hard to extend their knowledge; they work to understand the underlying concepts; they are usually grateful for help. That kind of user is particularly fun to deal with when you take the time to teach them things.


BJCooperIT:
You got it -- the most frustrating thing is to find that you've spent two hours trying to debug a non-existent problem that could be bypassed with 10 minute's instruction in proper operation. And one's frustration is self-inflicted -- all you would have had to do is ask the "dumb" question to verify your assumptions.



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TANSTAAFL!!

 

[conniefu]

Hi all,

The IT department in the company I work for is short of staff and the management never realizes it. So end users always complain about the quality of service. Sometimes IT staff is over stressed and it's hard to expect they can put on a smile face all the time.

Connie

 

[BJCooperIT]

You are so right sleipnir214. When I was first given a network PC instead of a standalone we were given no training. I had to learn it the hard way and I am sure there is a wealth of netwworking issues I do not grasp, however I am not stupid.

On my last contract, at a state department I had never worked for before, I was told, "Just point to the K: drive!" and I could hear that "how stupid is this one?" quality in their voice. I explained that I found no K: drive in Windows Explorer. Now the voice implied I was the dumbest user on the face of the planet and they said well just map it. Boy were they embarrassed when I asked them what drive and directory I was supposed to map to! If the answer had been complete the first time this would have been a much better experience for both of us.

Sometimes you never know if you are dealing with:
1. untrained (the world's most expensive drying rack)
2. uninformed (doesn't put the lid down on the washer)
3. confused (wants a Whopper at Wendys)
4. doesn't get it (wanting cold air from a heater)
5. rosieb's willing to work at it "dream user"

Hopefully, we as professionals, will try to train, inform, dymystify, enlighten, and encourage them all.

[sup]Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.[/sup][sup] ~George Bernard Shaw[/sup]
Consultant/Custom Forms & PL/SQL - Oracle 8.1.7 - Windows 2000

 

[mattKnight]

>What you have described is my favorite type of user to help. They try hard to extend their knowledge; they work to understand the underlying concepts; they are usually grateful for help. That kind of user is particularly fun to deal with when you take the time to teach them things.

Just to turn it on its head a little... How many IT professionals understand the users needs, frustrations etc? We expect "them" to understand how to use IT infrastructure, yet too often we have little or no insight into the work that the user does and how that relates to "our" network/program/database etc.

Yes, it is refreshing to hear of rosieb power user, but how many times have you heard of "IT don't understand us" as a mantra?

Take Care

Matt
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.

 

[SQLSister]

I agree Matt.