Too early in the morning for this $#%@

IT_Admin

Grrrr. what a way to start my day off.

I walked in my office @ 7:30am (30mins before my shift starts) Laptop bag in one hand and a hot coffee in my mouth as I try to unlock my door with my free hand.

What do I hear out of the background, a person complaining that his system time is out by 25mins. I already knew this as I told him last week to put a ticket in for this (we can't do anything without a ticket) He says loud enough for me to hear "so and so still hasn't fixed the time on my computer from last week, all he does is sit in his office all day on his laptop"

This really irked me more than usually. Maybe because it was still early or I was still trying to drink my coffee to wake up.

So after mumbling some choice words under my breath I checked my laptop incase I may have overlooked the ticket and nope, no ticket. So I've told him again to put a ticket in for it to be fixed.

I have noticed that since I have an office and 95% of my job can be remotely that other employees don't think I do anything. I've heard this before "That's the IT guy's office, he just sits there all day."

So can anyone give some advice on how to look busy? lol.

scheistermeister

Buy an old IBM Model M keyboard that clicks really loud so they can hear you typing away?

cbigbrick

Always have a VERY large IT book open with a highlighter next to it. Those O'Rielly cookbooks for Cisco, AD, scripting, etc are great. I do it all the time!!

networker050184

Take a break and walk around. As long as your not in your office they will think you are out working.

bertieb

IT_Admin wrote:

"That's the IT guy's office, he just sits there all day."

So can anyone give some advice on how to look busy? lol.

Unfortunately, a lot of non technical people haven't a clue what we actually do - As you know, they just see us typing away and clicking mouses and don't see it as productive.

Couldn't care what they think personally. If it's quiet then I'm usually playing around on a few VM's, on the TE forums or doing some research. It must look better on the screen than facebook or youtube surely?

Daniel333

Nature of the beast, blame the technician for the device failures.

This is why we IT people LOVE tickets and SLAs. We can compare our ticket times against, and number of tickets against the our SLA and generate costs for labor for the following year.

Some things I do to confront this head on.

1) Be seen. Don't RDP when you can take a 5 minute walk over to the person's desk and look them in they eye.
2) Dress better than them. If they see you slacking they will be jellous
3) Complain about your 50 hour week! Let them see that you are stressed
4) Send the occasional email out to non-IT management letting them know you are ahead or behind on your tickets. You would be surprised on how you might get sympathy or a pat on the back. Either way, they feel in the loop and will understand your work flow better.

Anymore thoughts?

Either way, $h!t is always gonna roll down hill buddy.

Pash

scheistermeister wrote:

Buy an old IBM Model M keyboard that clicks really loud so they can hear you typing away?

Genius...pure genius.

Simple answer to OP. If you are meeting helpdesk requirements (you might have SLA I guess) and your manager (which will probably be the HR manager or general office manager i am guessing) are happy with your response and work flow..........who gives a damn what those snotty users think. Just wait until they delete a file by acident and need you to retreive it from tape or something, then they will suck up you watch.

dynamik

That type of behavior seems to be fairly common, unfortunately. There was something very similar here: http://techexams.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=31843 that has some good advice and others sharing their situations.

cbigbrick

I'd also like to add the following....

Have upper management send out a “gentle” reminder next week that placing a ticket for IT support is required. This is to ensure that SLA are being met and more importantly, a knowledge base for your network is begin created because not two networks are alike.

Like it was suggested, do a walk about. When people pull you in for technical support, explain that a ticket will need to be placed first. The show users how to place a ticket in the system. Once the ticket is placed, proceed in helping them. Use a positive attitude and they will love you for it. I did this method at once placed I worked. ALL DNA SCIENCISTS!! But they loved me because I was quick and helpful.

Also realize that some people are complainers about EVERYTHING!!!

Kaminsky

Take the coffee out of your mouth and look at them squarely in the eye with a serious look on your face and ask them one of two things...

Either:

i) What's their login name.
ii) What's their network socket id.

When they ask why, just say "Oh... no reason." whilst still looking at them with no smile on your face.

Not that you ever would do anything malicious with this information of course but it soon dawns on them not to pi$$ you off ! I have used this several times and it is amazingly effective and quite easy to defend.

royal

Just come into the office with a tired look and telling them that you had such a late night and you're going to sleep in your office. And if they need help, to submit a ticket.

remyforbes777

FOip always works.
Fist Over IP

snadam

yes, it sucks sometimes. I had a member of upper management question my daily routine, like he has some authority over me

I told him that I usually tidy up the server room, keep an eye on trouble tickets, and repair anything that comes along. Then I try to get a chapter or two in from my MS books. This usually makes up my day. Since all IT projects/procurements/additions are all on hold, I am limited to what I have in front of me.

His response is "really?" so I just go "yes, I AM busy contrary to belief"

I like daniel333's post about passively displaying that you're busy to the end users. That usually shuts them up...but then again sometimes it doesn't

TechJunky

I always am creating visio documents of everything. If there is one thing I have learned, it is to DOCUMENT! So I just print a lot of visio diagrams through out the day. I also email these to the other sysadmins/VoIP team so they can have a reference guide of what I am doing here.

You would be amazed how much more "productive" you can be once you have documentation. I love doing RackMount Riser diagrams, they not only look cool, but are usually the most helpful when in a server room.

Other than that I am always typing, so it sounds like I am very productive. Weather it be typing here, or sending emails out to other team members etc. I am not on the Helpdesk side of things, but every now and again I do get asked to fix users problems here locally and if I am not busy I will open a ticket myself and then close it after I have resolved the Issue. However, most of the time I am actually doing things productive.

Oh, since you have an office I always like to shut the door, turn the music on and mess with VM. Nothing like learning on the job and getting paid for it.

My favorite music station is Rockband USA out of D.C, www.live365.com genre pop.

Anonymouse

In between taking care of tickets at my last desktop support gig I really was just sitting around and browsing the net waiting for tickets or trying to look for something to do to maybe make my job easier. The small office I worked in looked like a closet which was tucked away in a loading dock. People usually didn't come by unless they were coming in for work, going to lunch, or going home. Other than that not too many people knew where to find me so they figured I was busy all day doing whatever I do.

royal

Do what James Conrad said in the nuggets, make sure people can see your computer and keep performance monitor on. People will think you're doing something.

cacharo

This guy seems to have it down.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0k9Wv4bGr0

KGhaleon

This issue is all too common, which is one reason that working in IT can suck sometimes. Alas, there is little you can do depending on your environment.

Where I work, people RDP or remote into machines all the time, or spend 60% of their time calling via phone to resolve issues. I never do this. I walk to every ticket, even when it takes 20 minutes to get to the persons desk. I work out of a large factory-size building with lots of other buildings around it.

Since I don't remote, people always see me rushing around or talking directly with the users. People are impressed when they see me out and about. This does not work in all areas though, as places you don't frequent often will still have users that don't recognize you and tend to treat you like crap for it.

It's also a good idea to resolve tickets as quickly as you can. I often try to keep an eye on the queue where tickets are placed before they are assigned to a tech. Oftentimes if the ticket is easy enough, I'll just grab it and resolve it before anyone has time to notice.

The users are shocked when I have their problem resolved 20 minutes after they opened the ticket. Fastest time so far was 6 minutes.

Anonymouse

KGhaleon wrote:

This issue is all too common, which is one reason that working in IT can suck sometimes. Alas, there is little you can do depending on your environment.

Where I work, people RDP or remote into machines all the time, or spend 60% of their time calling via phone to resolve issues. I never do this. I walk to every ticket, even when it takes 20 minutes to get to the persons desk. I work out of a large factory-size building with lots of other buildings around it.

Since I don't remote, people always see me rushing around or talking directly with the users. People are impressed when they see me out and about. This does not work in all areas though, as places you don't frequent often will still have users that don't recognize you and tend to treat you like crap for it.

It's also a good idea to resolve tickets as quickly as you can. I often try to keep an eye on the queue where tickets are placed before they are assigned to a tech. Oftentimes if the ticket is easy enough, I'll just grab it and resolve it before anyone has time to notice.

The users are shocked when I have their problem resolved 20 minutes after they opened the ticket. Fastest time so far was 6 minutes.

For some reason I would rather walk up and talk to the user face to face. They don't seem as mean or flustered when you are physically there to resolve their issue. Whenever I covered helpdesk and couldn't resolve the issue over the phone I'd usually just toss it into my queue before anyone else can get it anyways just to give me something to do.

blargoe

A sign that says something like "Do not disturb - Critical Project in Progress" does wonders. If they don't KNOW you're working on something, they're just going to assume you're not.

I also tend to have a couple of other work areas set up in secret locations so people won't keep finding me at my desk.

neathneathneath

royal wrote:

Just come into the office with a tired look and telling them that you had such a late night and you're going to sleep in your office. And if they need help, to submit a ticket.[/quote]

what sort of systems do you have in place to deal with "tickets"

If computer-based how do people with problems report tickets, via others / helpdesk / phone.

Just looking for an efficient way of controlling workflow.

dynamik

I've heard good things about Spiceworks: http://www.spiceworks.com/

nicklauscombs

dynamik wrote:

I've heard good things about Spiceworks: http://www.spiceworks.com/

we use this at work I love it

Anonymouse

dynamik wrote:

I've heard good things about Spiceworks: http://www.spiceworks.com/

What is this? I'm afraid to click at work 'cause the URL makes me think it's a pr0n site.

networker050184

No, its not pron. Its free management software.

dynamik

Yea, but I'm sure you can modify the graphics if, you know, you'd prefer it to be spicier.

paintb4707

IT_Admin wrote:

I have noticed that since I have an office and 95% of my job can be remotely that other employees don't think I do anything. I've heard this before "That's the IT guy's office, he just sits there all day.".

That's your problem right there. I could resolve every issue remotely as well, but I haven't RDPed into an end-user's machine once. I prefer to take a walk and meet my co-workers face to face, build a relationship and get to know everyone instead of just being "the guy that sits in his office all day". Just by doing this I ended up getting to know every office employee and being a very favorable guy. I have a great work relationship with everyone, even grabbed a few drinks and some movies with the vice president of the company which further strengthens my relationship with the owner of the company.

When people see me running around all day they don't think twice that I get paid to do nothing. Even on a slow day where I do actually sit in my office all day, not once has anyone looked at me funny or made any sly remarks. I actually have the opportunity most of the time to jokingly make fun of other co-workers for not doing anything.

KGhaleon

If a users computer is down, they should open tickets using another computer. That's something I hear from users sometimes as well. They don't realize they can use ANY computer they need to, for opening a ticket. Hell, you could even have a fellow coworker open it for you.

I had a lady today who messed up her dual-monitors, and refused to open a ticket. meh. Found out that she moved her desktop machine, and a cable came loose. She bothers me multiple times a day about dumb "issues." She is the secretary of an important individual in the company, so she tries to make everything TOP PRIORITY. It's annoying, really.

Mmartin_47

scheistermeister wrote:

Buy an old IBM Model M keyboard that clicks really loud so they can hear you typing away?

Yeah I love those. My dad has a few at work but I think their for mainframe consoles? Don't know.

snadam

a lot of people has stated that instead of using RDP, just walk to the issue and address it personally. While I could see their points, I will follow the 'work smarter, not harder' approach. I think users are generally more impressed when i remote in their box instead of walking over and resolve their issues. PLUS, why should you 'work dumb-er' solely for the end-users impressions? Its not your fault you chose to work in IT, and they chose to be a number cruncher/sales guy/etc all day. Maybe I'm being cynical, but I think a good mix between the two methods (albeit depending on the situation) would be a better approach.

its been a long week can you tell?

dynamik

snadam wrote:

PLUS, why should you 'work dumb-er' solely for the end-users impressions?

...

Maybe I'm being cynical, but I think a good mix between the two methods (albeit depending on the situation) would be a better approach.

So we just walk over the for the cute ones? Sounds like a plan