"You're a systems Administrator, you should know this"

higherho

Have you had a user that stated this to you? I got asked a question about a website address and what the URL was, I was not sure and I was trying to find it via the (external) companies search program. During my search, the user stated this to me. I was like 0_0 Seriously? I did not state anything but this has been more than once that this user has done this. Another time when a firewall policy was not coming down to her machine so I expected it locally and she stated this again and that I should know the answer faster.

I'm getting to the point to report this to management. I drop everything (migration projects, vendor calls, etc) to assist the users. This type of social protocol is not needed in this business. Luckily its only one user.

Plantwiz

Perhaps it is the manner in which you complete tasks that is causing this user some doubt in your ability? Is it nice to say? No, but we're not in kindergarten any longer and maybe the user has a point?

Should you know everything? Nope. But you should have the ability to troubleshoot and continually become more proficient at your job.

Would I tattle to a supervisor? Nope.

I'm sure you have the social skill to handle this situation. If the question about the URL was something that was company specific (i.e. internal) than perhaps it is something you should be able to answer more quickly. If the question is about an outside URL, then it would seem that you have to utilize search tools to resolve.

I wasn't there, so I cannot say, but I can say from experience (people) seem to be less tolerant of folks who hold titles to positions and they fumble around doing the task. My time is important, as is the other person's time, so if I need someone's help and they are the local 'expert' they best know how to remedy the issue quicker than I can do it myself.

If the task you were asked to assist with was not in your regular duty list, then you are only helping our a co-worker as best you can. If this is something you should know, then work on creating yourself tools or methods that allow you to seem like a magician when you have an audience.

qwertyiop

Believe it or not this is a common occurrence. I remember hearing a story from a former co-worker where a user had submitted a help ticket so he went to that users desk to see what was wrong and the user turns to him and starts telling him what to do his job so he takes a step back and tells the user to do it themself since they know so much and walks away.


On the other side of the fence, one of my old employers had leased a new copier and as part of the package they sent 2 senior analyst to set it up and train the users on its features and they couldn't figure out how to set it up let alone some of the basics of networking required to get it on the network. I (this being my first real IT job) had to teach these senior analyst what AD was and how to hook up their product to it. One didn't even know what a domain was.

higherho

Plantwiz wrote: »

Perhaps it is the manner in which you complete tasks that is causing this user some doubt in your ability? Is it nice to say? No, but we're not in kindergarten any longer and maybe the user has a point?

This user has done this in the past with previous SA's, one of those situations were "I need to know now" type of behavior and those SA's are experts (MCITP:EA's, SA, and SQL certs). At first I thought it was more of my fault and how I handle the situations but when its only 1 user but the rest really enjoy me and my work, that's when I started to think it was more her than me.

Should you know everything? Nope. But you should have the ability to troubleshoot and continually become more proficient at your job.

Correct, I showed her the way to find it and used that troubleshooting ability to find her answer. Plus this was not an internal issue but external, in which case I still assisted the user. Everyone else on the team uses this ability to find basic information were this user does not.

Would I tattle to a supervisor? Nope.

I wasn't planning on it but the user has been written up prior by her attitude and was on the users yearly report ( the user made this public to the users near the cube). Just a lot of pressure building up with upcoming audits.

I'm sure you have the social skill to handle this situation. If the question about the URL was something that was company specific (i.e. internal) than perhaps it is something you should be able to answer more quickly. If the question is about an outside URL, then it would seem that you have to utilize search tools to resolve.

Like I mentioned prior, it was external so I used and showed her how to use the search tools to find the web site.

I wasn't there, so I cannot say, but I can say from experience (people) seem to be less tolerant of folks who hold titles to positions and they fumble around doing the task. My time is important, as is the other person's time, so if I need someone's help and they are the local 'expert' they best know how to remedy the issue quicker than I can do it myself.

The user wants answers quick, when they are not their she snaps her fingers and states I should know this already. This came when I was looking through her firewall log on a previous issue. which after I finished troubleshooting the issue, the issue was solved but during the process I was getting railed.

if the task you were asked to assist with was not in your regular duty list, then you are only helping our a co-worker as best you can. If this is something you should know, then work on creating yourself tools or methods that allow you to seem like a magician when you have an audience.

I was asked to assist. The user though has a mind set that is something "I" should know because the user lacked the knowledge. Of I showed her how to find it.

spicy ahi

It happens to everyone at some point. I remember once I was working in a network shop and one of the accountants was having an issue with some application and asked if I could help him. I had some time to kill and said sure. He walked through the problem, and I quickly realized that it wasn't a technical issue; rather it was a user issue (mainly he didn't pay attention to his training and didn't know how to use the application) Of course, it's an accounting application so I have no idea what all the inputs are and what the reports are supposed to look like. Well, I jacked up one report pretty good and he gave me the infamous, "You're a computer guy, why can't you fix this?" I turned to him and said, "You're an accounting guy. Why can't YOU fix this?" Suffice it to say he wasn't happy with the exchange and went to his supervisor, which eventually worked its way back to my supervisor. Luckily my supervisor was super cool (and a former accountant to boot) so he 'fixed the glitch' for me. But he still gave me the maintain professionalism speech.

Long story short, I'd advise you to grow some thick skin because there are a lot of people who know enough to think they know what we do and are more than willing to tell you about it. It comes with the territory so I'd say if you don't enjoy it, find a back shop/data center job with little user interface because it's not a matter of if they'll say it but when. And to piggy back on what Plantwiz was saying, sometimes it pays to pay attention to other folks' jobs. If for anything else, to avoid looking like you don't know what you're doing. Because that just gives them more room to say something silly.

swild

yup. people suck.

I'm pretty lucky where I work. Most people understand how much stuff I have to take care of and I'm able to fix 80% of issues within 15 minutes, 92% same day. The rest are usually waiting on the corporate help desk to remote in and fix something I'm not authorized to do. There are always a couple people that try my patience. Usually I try to fix their issues when they aren't around. I get in an hour before everyone else just so that I can do that. If I do have to interact with them and they start getting all uppity, I take a lunch break. I just don't let it get to me. I know how good I am and no amount of money would be enough for me to be verbally berated all day.

The most important IT skill is being able to find the solution. You don't have to know how to fix it, but you do need to know where the documentation is or have the vendor on speed dial.

higherho

qwertyiop wrote: »

On the other side of the fence, one of my old employers had leased a new copier and as part of the package they sent 2 senior analyst to set it up and train the users on its features and they couldn't figure out how to set it up let alone some of the basics of networking required to get it on the network. I (this being my first real IT job) had to teach these senior analyst what AD was and how to hook up their product to it. One didn't even know what a domain was.

This is the user at least in the part were the user asks me to explain why it happens but the user does not have any knowledge of the fact or what a domain is, etc.

RouteThisWay

Plantwiz wrote: »

If this is something you should know, then work on creating yourself tools or methods that allow you to seem like a magician when you have an audience.

Adding to my book of quotes. I love that line.

the_Grinch

I always hated these types of users and if it occurs three times then I go to my direct supervisor. I don't consider it tattling, as in a business environment we are suppose to be professionals and that is not professional in the least. We deal with many systems on a daily basis and no I do not have every answer. People often forget that we are human, but it also stems from them believing that everything we do is either easy or magic. I've reported users at my last job and my management would take it to theirs. Normally, the issue was resolved and we had a pleasant working relationship.

Akaricloud

Oh I've had plenty of users like that before. They expect we can deliver the world every time they have any complicated issue.

My best advice is to not let it get to you. People like that feed off your negative reaction and having one just reinforces their behavior. Once they realize that saying stupid things like that is a waste of their breath they'll quit. At the end of the day it doesn't really matter what their opinion of you is since nobody else is going to follow their flawed logic.

Plantwiz

@higherho,

From your reply (to my inital comments along with the other reply), then is sounds like you simply need to let it go.

Easier said then done, but if you are doing all you can do. You are doing your job. Then help out when asked, and let thicker skin protect you from the negative comments. If this employee has a history of this sort of thing, it is not in your best interest to bring it up to management, they already know...so let it go, do your job and be concise and professional when dealing with this employee (as I'm sure you are with all) and as long as you have done everything in your ability range to assist, that's all you can do.

rsutton

I appreciate Plantwiz's response as they are based on things you can actually do. Instead of complaining about things you can't control, focus on what YOU can change. If you can't change it, then don't worry about it.

apr911

Unfortunately this attitude prevails throughout the IT world and it usually comes down to a combination of 2 factors:

1. Many IT issues result in a work stoppage. Which means that end-user cant get their job done. What this means to the user depends on the job role, division, management and the company.

A. For a sales person working on commission it hurts their paycheck.
B. For a payroll admin it may mean a delay in processing paychecks (and do you really want to be the one that has to tell everyone in the company that you couldnt get your job done so paychecks will be late?).
C. For someone Accounts Payable or Receivable, it may mean not being able to process a payment to/from a vendor which could result in a shipment being delayed or cancelled or operations balances dropping to critical levels
D. For someone in finance, it may mean missing a deadline that then needs to be explained to management (or even senior management)

You get the idea. Even if the user could go and work on something else while the issue is resolved, the fact remains they couldnt do what they needed when they wanted to do it and that inevitably becomes IT's problem because they need it fixed now.

2. A failure to set customer expectation and/or expectation "creep." The end-user is the customer for IT departments and many IT departments unfortunately fail to set expectations when dealing with their customer, this results in the customer defining their own expectation based on experience. Since most end users dont have a clear understanding of what is involved in solving an IT problem, they can easily end up with extremely skewed perspectives and thus expectations.

Further complicating this is the fact that even when expectations are well defined, expectations tend to creep over time and get greater as time, experience and the customer-relationship grows and many departments that started off well defining the expectation, fail to return and redefine/reiterate/reset the expectation as time goes on...

The best example of this I can give of this applies to both the well-defined and not-so-well-defined customer expectation IT department...

Take a customer problem, solve it and hand the solution back over to the customer in 15 minutes. Keep doing this and eventually the customer expects to get a solution in 15 minutes or less if the problem is perceived as less complex than previous problems. Even if the IT department defines the expectation as "a solution in 60 minutes or we'll escalate to a senior tech," eventually, after enough times of having their problem solved in 15 minutes, the end-user or customer wants to be escalated to the senior tech after 15 minutes (or sooner if the question is perceived to be easy) because in the past all their issues have been solved in 15 minutes


Ultimately though, one of my friends summed it up best after working for a MSP and dealing with customers who pay money for the support (not that internal IT isnt paid to support the user, they just usually end up as part of operations expenses/payroll as where MSP end up as a line item on an expense report somewhere):

The whole "OMFG I'm losing millions of dollars per second and I'm going to stay on the line and breathe at you while I complain and ask for status updates every 20 seconds and then I might still ask to talk to your manager if you're not also stroking my ego while using your 10+ years of technical experience to fix a problem I created because despite that experience I will still treat you like a high school minimum-wage burger flipper and it's all OK because the customer is always right" attitude has got to go.


In any event, the best recommendation I can give for your situation is to shrug it off at first. The attitude exists, the only thing you can really do is deal with it. Even if the User isnt saying it out loud it's probably what they're thinking so addressing it with management isnt going to really change anything.

If it gets worse or you just cant deal with it anymore try to address it once (and only once) with the end user in as respectful and non-aggressive/offensive means possible. Remind them that "we are part of a team and I am here to help you but when you assume I should know something or that the issue could be fixed faster, it makes it difficult for me to do my job effectively for you."

If the behavior changes, great you did what you needed to do. If not then report it to YOUR manager and only your manager. I wouldnt make a big deal of it, let your manager decide what to do with it. Something along the lines of "I just wanted to let you know user XYZ is particularly hard to do any work for as they have this opinion that as a SysAd, I should just "know" everything, Ive tried to address it with them directly but they continue to have this attitude"

Then when it happens again, mention it again "User XYZ was belligerent and demeaning again." At first, your manager may choose not to do anything with the information, especially if you are the only user reporting this behavior, in time however, the manager will need to address it especially if others in the department express the same feeling and unwillingness to do work for the end user. How your manager decides to deal with the issue may range from assigning someone else to deal with the user and limiting your direct dealings with them to having a conversation with the user's manager to address the complaints.

Either way, continue to keep your dealings with the user as professional and above board as possible. You've made your case and if a complaint is ever lodged against you by the User you've protected yourself from most if not all repercussions even if you let your professionalism slip for a moment, as long as you did not physically or verbally abuse the end user, a few pointed and terse words (no cursing) will most likely be overlooked.

the_Grinch

MSP described to a T! If I had a dollar for every mission critical failure that wasn't really a mission critical failure I would have retired 2 years ago

joehalford01

My method for dealing with this is to give the user all the details. Not just incomprehensible tech speak, but all of the details broken down as simply as they can be. Still though, all the details is key, every last facet of what could potentially be happening and why you are doing the things you are to troubleshoot. Two things will happen:

1. Their brain starts working and they give you more information about what they we're doing, now they are a partner.
2. They stop complaining and let you work on the issue, and they are less flippant in the future.

If they say they don't have time to hear all the details, than kindly tell them you don't have the time to hear them complain while you do your job. I've never had to do that though.

onesaint

Agreed. Overly simplistic mass information generally peaks interest or annoys. Either way garnishes the desired result of getting the user to lay off.

MrXpert

Usually when users behave this way they are trying to camouflage their own position. Trying to seem more important than they really are so that someone somewhere gets really impressed with them. It indicates they either don't do very much or have a low ranking job so instead single out the IT crowd when things don't go their way. By doing this they make it someone else's fault rather than their own. If they were really so busy then they wouldn't be wasting their time engaging you so much with the problem and rather they'd get on with their own work. Sadly the world is full of people like this. Local government is rife with them.

One day she'll piss of a Michael Douglas type (Falling Down) and find her goodself getting a good railing. In the meantime just grin and bear it and think to yourself she's only frustrated because she probably isn't getting any.:)

blargoe

I think every company has a user that takes this attitude toward IT to the extreme. Pure ignorance is what it is, plain and simple. I have had a few of them who seemed to embrace their reputation as one who creates conflict with IT as a badge of honor. Of course, some of these people are going to create conflict with anyone within reach.

Usually I try to just get in and out as quickly as I can while ensuring they are satisfied whatever it is that was stopping them from doing their job is no longer an issue, and ignore the comments. I can only remember having to "walk away" one time, and I abruptly ended a phone conversation one time. Both time, my manager had my back. The one guy I hung up on was a psycho... he threatened to kill one of my teammates one time.

These types of users are part of the game. Master dealing with them and you will do your career a great service.

KenC

As the IT person, you have to be professional and deal with this type of user, without losing your cool. You have to appreciate that until the problem is fixed, the user is not able to do their job. It is about mutual respect for your co-workers and has nothing to do with your job (IT). Document this users' attitude for each request (as part of the request / ticket), so you have it recorded for future reference - stick to the facts. If all the IT staff do this, all should be able to see over time exactly where the problem lies.

Having said all that...

The user wants answers quick, when they are not their she snaps her fingers and states I should know this already.

No way would I tolerate anybody snapping their fingers at me without addressing it immediately - nothing will be resolved until the user is clear on that (I still wouldn't lose my cool and one could argue it is unprofessional, but so be it, it's just not in me to allow this to happen).

FloOz

just keep your cool and take some deep breaths. you never want your emotions to get the best of you. some people are just like that and there is nothing you can do to change them

tprice5

"The customer is always right"

I always take care of my customers as fast and friendly as possible. It has been my experience that people remember you when you do a good job. Therefore, when people I have helped before expereience problems, in addition to submitting a ticket, they contact me or include my name in the ticket. This works for me because I have essentially become their contact for my entire organization. That is placing added value on myself. In my head that translates into job security. Whether that is true or not is a question for another thread.
Then again, if they realllly annoy me, then maybe their computer gets dropped into a disabled OU or their user account is locked. Whoops!

hennrizzler

higherho wrote: »

This is the user at least in the part were the user asks me to explain why it happens but the user does not have any knowledge of the fact or what a domain is, etc.

Just tell them that the flux capacitor became discombobulated and you had to re-jiggle the matrices.

In all seriousness, a lot of end users are that. End users. They don't know how it works, the don't understand how it works, they expect you as the computer guy to know everything from coding assemblies to all vendor products and how the web works. We, being in the know, know IT is a stupidly large field where people can specialise in specifics.

For most end users - just chat to them. Show them you are human. You are trying to help them. Explain what you are doing and why you are doing it. If you don't know, explain that it's not something you deal with normally or it's the first time you've encountered this type of problem - then the steps you'll be taking to resolve it. This will give them more confidence in your troubleshooting abilities and resolution approaches and stop them thinking you're supposed to fix everything now.

Transparency is key. If you behave like you know everything, they'll expect that. If you pretend you know everything, they'll spot it. If you're honest, they'll see your expertise when it's something you've done before and they'll understand that you're human when it's something you haven't.

Just remember to tell them what you are doing and what you'll be doing about it. Some people will always be the "annoying" end user - just take those ones with a grain of salt. Everyone else will know you're awesome so who cares what that one person thinks

ally_uk

This brings back memories I have had a few incidents with people like this in the past, I disagree about holding your tongue sometimes you have to put people in there place otherwise they will continue to walk all over you ok so it might not be the most professional approach but for me it has worked in the past and to put it blunt has shut people up / stopped them taking me for a ride.

Has this one old guy who thought he was superior to everyone else I was a trainee at the time working on a helpdesk and was called to assist with a problem. I was initially patient and polite and tried my best to resolve the issue. But being relativley new to the systems and being a trainee I had to escalate the call further.

To which he said " I.T are useless can you resolve this issue? "

" I'm trying my best to bearing in mind I am a trainee"

In which he replied

" Are you always this flippant with people? "

To which I replied

" Look I'm trying my best and I'm not paid enough to take your bullshit "

And walked off should of seen his face priceless

What he didn't know was I was due to start another job at a company within the next few days so I hit him back all guns blazing lol.

But hey that's just me if someone gives me a hard time or is rude to me I'm not going to sit there like a numpty and take it on the chin I will bite back and if they push me they will get a crt thrown at there head and a couple of right hooks to the chin lol i'm joking

paul78

Back in the eighties, one of the CIO's I worked for used to give data center tours and would describe the infrastructure as state of the art FM Technology. When some thing went bad the sysadmins would simply say that there was an FM technology problem. I can recall only one person ever asking what FM technology was -the marketing person that wanted to do a marketing piece on our FM Technology. If you dont know how to describe FM technology to your users, unfortunatedly' no one offers certifications on it any more but you can probably still find a short concise description on urbandictionary.com.

petedude

blargoe wrote: »

These types of users are part of the game. Master dealing with them and you will do your career a great service.

Quite true. I have also found that most of these extremely judgmental users tend to move on to other posts quickly.