No help from coworkers/depts

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I wouldn't say co-workers where unhelpful when I was starting out at a new job, but it certainly was a learning curve. Often people refer to things with acronyms, and you have to try to figure out what they were taking about, you certainly couldn't stop a meeting to ask what that means every two minutes. When I worked at the FAA, this wasn't so bad, acronyms were spelled out in all the documents, and there was a glossary at the back of every document defining what everything meant. There was also very strict document version control, change one letter in a document, that's a new document version.

Where I work now documents and procedures do a poor job of defining acronyms, and no glossary at the end of the document. There version control sucks too, there may be 10 different versions of a document all called version 2, as they are developing it to release it as the official version 3 release. Can't tell you how many meeting I've been on looking at version 2 and making comments and being told you have the wrong version, you need to find the updated on July 1st. I was never told there was a July 1st version, just bring version 2 to the meeting. Very frustrating.

yoba222

Sometimes people like to hoard knowledge; sometimes people are really just too busy to train a new worker because they're already doing more work than their pay reflects; sometimes it's the way you approach them that might be off-putting without even realizing it.

UncleB

This sounds like the age old "prove yourself" test that newbies have to undergo - you need to find a way to get your colleagues to give you the time to help you in spite of it being of no help to them in the short term.

Your approach could be:
1 - find what things they don't like doing and say to them "teach me how to do that and I'll do it for you - it will give you more time to focus on the stuff you like doing (even if that is looking up cute cat photos on the internet).
2 - get your new manager to set a performance plan for you, pointing out that you need the buy in from your co-workers to train you. The manager will then tell the team to do this and it will generally be a chore for them and you could be seen as a weakling for needing to ask the boss for help.
3 - befriend a co-worker and trade some favours (eg covering a late finish) in exchange for covering training in certain areas of work.

I know you should be treated as the new kid, given a training plan and everyone chips in to help you, but this is IT - it is full of socially maladjusted people, malcontents and the odd psychopath with a dusting of decent people here and there so don't expect the "right thing" to get done.

Your career will largely be in your own hands in the end so learn the people management skills now to get them to do what YOU want (not as in managers skills, that is a different game altogether). Think of it more as "headology" - understanding what makes people tick and then using it to turn things to the way you want.

Hmm, does that make me socially maladjusted, malcontent or a pyschopath I wonder...

E Double U

Sounds like the FNG just needs to man up

kiki162

A lot of this is gonna come down to OJT and asking where the documentation is for things. You may have to screw up a time or two for a supervisor to notice, and that might be the excuse to get an answer. Sometimes depending on the environment, you may not have much in the way of documentation on how to do things. In that event, I would work on making your own docs. Someday, when you've left that company someone new might appreciate all the work you've done.

UncleB

kiki162 wrote: »

you may not have much in the way of documentation on how to do things. In that event, I would work on making your own docs. Someday, when you've left that company someone new might appreciate all the work you've done.

This is a way to win some respect from your manager - this will give a lot of value to the next person in your position and for other staff who don't do that task very often.

I find myself making or updating about a dozen how-to guides each week, including a load for the end users (published on the intranet) and this gets major cudos for the IT dept. The "knowledge is power" minded staff rapidly find documentation becomes a performance objective of theirs as I really dislike the mentality and will sooner lose these people than be held hostage by them.

CiscoASA2202

Solid responses as always

I figured it might have been a newbie in training thing but even when asking about training they laugh and say on the job training... Also problem with figuring out certain things is you go to multiple people and there is no documentation on many engineering things and you're left with figuring everything out which I have been doing on my own just fine. The issues come when they say go ask such and such person and that person completely ignores my emails for direction, they might be busy as well however the issue is if they say go to you and you don't share the necessary knowledge that puts me in a position of failure on any future projects. I have a bunch of questions that still haven't been answered and simply asking in an email doesn't work anymore. Also one of the issues is this position is quite remote, meaning anyone of importance is living in a different state/branch office and they have the answers but are too busy.

UncleB

Sounds like you need to get your new manager to get involved and to remind the others they have a duty to get you up to speed.
The way to do this without seeming like you are a snitch is probably to do a status report on your projects, state the knowledge transfer you needed, who you approached and when then when they responded.

You need to make sure the people you are asking are aware of the significance of them not helping in the timescales, even if it isn't their project that is going to fail - this way you have made them aware of the business impact of them failing to do this part of their job.

Give your manager advance warning of deadlines coming under threat, give a suggested solution (ie ask person A to allocate 2 hours to train you on technology X) and make sure you capture + document what you learned and store it centrally (with local backups in case someone deletes it) and give your manager weekly or monthly updates on what you have added to it.

This makes it easy for the manager to make a decision - they know the impact and have a solution they can just claim as their own - then they can get back to their day job of producing endless reports for their managers.

Just a thought.

Remedymp

Sounds like a toxic environment.

CiscoASA2202

Its an odd situation for a few reasons

Took me months to get access to systems I need to work with, took even longer to sit down with an engineer and make sure I am able to login, walk through process and any additional training. The thing is once again I have a few projects which I'm sitting on since the answers to these questions no one can answer or is simply ignoring the emails and hoping what I'm working on fails? I have a list of questions which haven't been answered still and I'm forced with contacting remote engineers who are in my dept but not in my state or local branches, they are remote and I'll have to do this over the phone since they don't want to respond to emails.

Sounds like a toxic environment.

As far as this statement, I've been trying to limit what I say around here but since I was brought in I noticed some people laugh at suggestions I was bringing up in meetings etc.. mostly due to any actual quality suggestions will never be agreed to in this company and they won't do anything that changes their corporate structure. I've also done audits of certain systems on my own time, informed management some of the configs don't look compliant as we would like and basically told to shut up since we aren't worried about that etc... Compliance, security or even solid designs are nothing to worry about since someone else built it and I just need to learn their process and not change/provide tips on anything

Remedymp

@CiscoASA2202, Been there, done that.

Start looking for another job, ASAP. It never gets better, it only gets worse.

boxerboy1168

I don't play that game if they won't help out I will find out why.

UncleB

CiscoASA2202 wrote: »

I have a list of questions which haven't been answered still and I'm forced with contacting remote engineers who are in my dept but not in my state or local branches, they are remote and I'll have to do this over the phone since they don't want to respond to emails.

So use the phone. A lot of people hate email for various reasons, not least because it leaves a paper trail to catch them out.

If you have a tool that works then leverage it to do the job and don't expect your colleagues to change their ways of working.

CiscoASA2202 wrote: »

since I was brought in I noticed some people laugh at suggestions I was bringing up in meetings etc.. mostly due to any actual quality suggestions will never be agreed to in this company and they won't do anything that changes their corporate structure. I've also done audits of certain systems on my own time, informed management some of the configs don't look compliant as we would like and basically told to shut up since we aren't worried about that etc... Compliance, security or even solid designs are nothing to worry about since someone else built it and I just need to learn their process and not change/provide tips on anything

You may not see it because you are full of good intentions, but your colleagues are used to doing things their way (the right way in their eyes) and you are the noob coming in full of "best practice" book ideas, creating work for them and worse - making what they maintain look substandard.

You need to catch flies with honey and in your case you need to find ways to find ways to improve something, get input from some colleagues and make sure they get the lions share of the glory so they are more inclined to help next time.

Having said all that....

If your management has no appetite for the improvement work you are talking about then you need to seriously reconsider staying there as it will be like urinating into the wind - you won't come out of it smelling of roses...

Kinet1c

Get a new job when you can. It won't change.

bigdogz

Some time ago I worked in a situation where it would chew admins and spit them out. The problem was there was no documentation for anything.
I learned quite a bit and made my way to make changes in the organization. You have to to show ROI, or good reasons why things need to change.

Compliance may sound like an inconvenience for your fellow employees. It may take time to change their minds. Some of your customers may request that you have accreditation through ISO. If it effects their wallet, it may effect their processes.

Remedymp

Interesting article just posted by CBT here

disip

Remedymp wrote: »

Interesting article just posted by CBT here

very nice

CiscoASA2202

Remedymp wrote: »

Interesting article just posted by CBT here

While its an interesting read and I understand the points brought up I'm still going and working here. Also getting a pay bump soon and there are far more benefits to stay in the long run since the experience here will be worth it. Also whatever I "complained" about in this thread the situation has reversed and I've gotten the answers I was looking for from my team.

One of the issues is I had to reverse engineer everything and figure out most things on my own, not saying it is a bad thing but it isn't good when someone is new and you're keeping the info for yourself in hopes "they find it"

Also, the salary is really, really good

jibtech

A while ago, there was a thread about someone who was completely and utterly useless, but habitually bought lunch for everyone.

They couldn't bring themselves to fire him.

I still think there is a lesson in there somewhere. Maybe not to that extreme, but....

I also had a young lady start in our department about 4 years ago. She made a point to schedule lunch with each person in the department individually, as well as with the senior managers. Not for any specific purpose, but just to get to know them. It worked wonders for her, and is a tactic I intend to employ at my next position.