Too early in the morning for this $#%@

Slowhand

First off, I feel your pain. Whiny users and snarky comments about how lazy or unproductive IT people are are just two of the many, many, many reasons why I approach my job with a certain. . . jaded attitude. (I was once written up for, and I quote "being too jaded with customers on the phone".) What I shoot for, though, is to approach my job as a professional, let the users/clients be immature and snarky, and go about my tasks as anyone in any other department would do. No one gets to catch me in the hall and say "when you have a minute. . .", be snippy at me when I don't fix the problem they way they would, or get huffy because I don't explain every deatil of what I'm doing as I do it. They need to send me an email or create a helpticket, like everyone else. Quite frankly, if you went up to a mechanic when he was on his lunchbreak or otherwise busy and said, "could drop everything you're doing and look at my engine real quick, I need my car for an appointment I need to get to", then complain that he didn't do it fast enough or you car isn't working the way you expected it to, he'd probably either laugh at you or beat you upside the face with a torque-wrench.

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."

Trust me, it works just as well with pushy users:

neathneathneath

dynamik wrote:

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

thanks - i'm trialling the software at home now

Mishra

Open source.

http://www.paglo.com/

It's like the exact same thing. I wonder if someone stole the code. ^_^

UnixGuy

I can hear your frustration.

I remember my internship, I was a tech support for a University campus.


luckily now I work for IT solutions company, and thus all my co-workers are IT Guys. But nevertheless, you will always hear remarks from Oracle guys to MS guys, and from MS guys to Sun guys...etc.



Here's my tip:

Stay up late at night chatting with your girl friend, and the next morning go to work very sleepy, and if you can come unshaven it'll be great. They'll be like "hey look at this poor over worked guy"

stupid I know, but that's how people think when they don't know what you're doing.

And those with mediocre mentality who wants to show that they're the only ones working will always attack others and accuse them of not doing anything.

neathneathneath

paintb4707 wrote:

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.

The personal touch is the best.

Get to know most of the employees and you will get on their christmas card (and christmas beer) lists - you know it makes sense. Going that extra mile earns beer / brownie points

IT_Admin

Thanks for all replies,

I actually have a few of those old IBM kb's here, should hook one up While I do agree that taking the time to walk over and resolve a problem in person does have its advantages I do believe that this should not be the norm. This is IT why walk 20mins to fix a 30sec problem when I can remote on and do it. Now maybe if I was really bored then I might for a wander. I do try and get out of my office and socialize with management & supervisors when it works out. However for socializing with ppl on the floor that is not something I really want to get in the habit of doing.

Maybe I'm just getting old and grumpy. lol. I have a 30-40mins drive from home and I have a 6month old daughter that means the world to me, so going out for drinks after work or staying out late with the guys from work is not a high priority for me, I would much rather put my hours in and at the end of the day go home to see my wife & daughter (before she goes to sleep)

I still have not received a ticket for that system time fix so his problem will stay like that until I get one. All reps are to goto their supervisor to report an issue then the supervisors can email/call into the helpdesk to report the issue.

It doesn't bother me so much that they don't know what I do, but it's the lack of respect that they have towards it that really rubs me the wrong way.

paintb4707

IT_Admin wrote:

Maybe I'm just getting old and grumpy. lol. I have a 30-40mins drive from home and I have a 6month old daughter that means the world to me, so going out for drinks after work or staying out late with the guys from work is not a high priority for me, I would much rather put my hours in and at the end of the day go home to see my wife & daughter (before she goes to sleep)

I still have not received a ticket for that system time fix so his problem will stay like that until I get one. All reps are to goto their supervisor to report an issue then the supervisors can email/call into the helpdesk to report the issue.

It doesn't bother me so much that they don't know what I do, but it's the lack of respect that they have towards it that really rubs me the wrong way.

The fact of the matter is, if you don't get out of your office every once and awhile and get to know your co-workers and build a relationship with them, you come off as the weird guy that sits in his office all day and doesn't interact with anyone... may even come off like you don't want to be bothered by anyone. I know you have SLAs and all that good stuff but remember your attitude at work is just as important, and should give you a good idea of what people probably think about you, especially your superiors.

You know the president could walk in and say "I don't like that guy, get rid of him". He doesn't care about your SLA records or anything. Not to say this kind of stuff happens all the time but it certainly does happen. That's why I feel it's important to at least socialize a little bit and get to know everyone, especially your superiors. And I don't mean brown nosing, just a good healthy conversation here and there. Not to mention, could hurt you in the future when trying to get a promotion or raise if you don't do so.

Anonymouse

snadam wrote:

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?

While I somewhat agree with you on the work smarter and not harder side I still like walking over to the persons office or cube just to add the personal touch so they will know who I am. People also tend to drop their attitude when you are working with them in person. It also helped make the day go by faster to be able to conversate with different people of different backgrounds and such.

dynamik wrote:

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

Yup always used to check the queue for tickets hot girls placed to promptly **** into my queue

snadam

Anonymouse wrote:

snadam wrote:

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?

While I somewhat agree with you on the work smarter and not harder side I still like walking over to the persons office or cube just to add the personal touch so they will know who I am. People also tend to drop their attitude when you are working with them in person.

true. Id say in general, if you can walk over there and help out in 5 minutes, that's ideal. But if I have 4 issues on my plate at once at multiple sites, im going remote in. Its give and take. My work situation is slightly skewed from the average IT Admin job at the moment...

dynamik wrote:

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

exactly....

Pash

Yeh in general visiting people at their desk is more personal and more friendly. I like chatting with the users and joking with them. If things can be done remotely and I am falling behind on stuff then yeh ill probably do it from my IT room but ill give them a call first of all etc.

People will always think what they want to think - this is a golden rule. If you surprise them one day at their desk by saying good morning xxxx have a good weekend? stuff like that, they will probably respond to you in a more friendly manner in the future. Granted my sites that I support are fairly small but i know most by first name, i know what they do in their job role etc You dont have to be a social conversation wizard, sometimes just listening to the users and humouring them is a big ++ it will gain you a lot of respect

Pash

snadam wrote:

dynamik wrote:

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

exactly....

I think the cute British/Fijian girl on second floor has heard me say "marry me" under my breath one too many times - im awaiting a visit from the police any day

Ahriakin

"Nobody knows what I do, until I don't do it anymore" - saw this on a wall plaque today and thought it summed up IT perfectly.

The problem I have with a strict ticketing policy is that eventually it gets used as a shield for laziness. Documenting is fine, but you have to 'do' first. We're seeing this right now with the company that acquired us last year, they have a larger IT dept. and a ticketing system, we have never used ticketing. We are rated much more highly by our users than theirs, one of the HR folks visited the mothership a month or so back and said they couldn't believe his IT folks actually did things when asked. I think it's not so much if you use remote tools, we do aswell, but that you do not use them or your ticket system as a an excuse to be unapproachable.

Tryntotechit

You could always take in a sledge hammer and smash his laptop. Then, you could fix it and he would be able to physically see your "work"

paintb4707

Tryntotechit wrote:

You could always take in a sledge hammer and smash his laptop. Then, you could fix it and he would be able to physically see your "work"

Or you could just crush it and say "Oh! Did you want me to fix that? Sorry you'll need to put in a ticket."