What would Techexams members do? Dealing with verbally abusive Tier2/Tier3 support

JockVSJock · October 2009

Guys, had an issue the other day and want to see how others would have handled it.

Want to give some background of where I work, without giving too much info away (never know who is reading). Work for an older company, its culture is more then 150 years old. On top of that we have a pretty diverse workforce.

The other day I was working on an issue with a remote sales user. This person has recently gotten access to a Windows Network Share. What we do is put a .bat file under their home directory, that way when they log in, the log in script maps it automatically from the .bat file.

Now this person works typically from a VPN/SSL connection and also remote desktop. Typically we have the end users log out and log back in from this and it maps automatically.

This time it didn't.

I checked the unc and it was correct. I though lets give it some time for replication.

I waited a day and called the user back. Still didn't map. I don't have permissions to that folder so I can't look at it directly, however I am able to look at the AD Group and this person is in it.

I am stumped.

I've never had an issue like this before and wasn't sure which route to go. A big reason behind this is that there isn't any mentoring going on where I work (this is going to be another post).

Now the person who manages the security on those AD groups isn't easy to deal with. Matter of fact, people go out of their way not to deal with this person, because this person is a hot head. Especially when trying to troubleshoot issues. Also not sure of this person's work/education history either.

So I had a co-worker double-check the work and that person wasn't sure either. So I wrote up an email to the security person, explaining the issue and sent it. I also cc'ed the remote sales person on the email, letting them know we are working on the issue.

Within seconds, got a response email saying, 'how is this a security issue?' Basically telling me to f**k off! He cc'ed my manager.

I go into my manager's office and see the security person has IM'ed him, however he covers it up.

I ask if he sees the email and he says yes. We start to look at the issue and he isn't sure either.

In the meantime the security person sends another email in trying to do some basic troubleshooting, which I have already done.

We call the security guy over speaker phone and try to start to work thru it. Everything we try doesn't work. My manager recommends to try calling the end user back and see if we can map to the network share from say MS Word, by going to file > open and typing in the UNC from there.

I call the sales person back and while I do that, security guy comes over to my managers office and I can here him talking in an upbeat manner, like nothing is going on.

I call user back and it does work. We are able to map to the network share from say MS Office and it isn't working from the .bat file.

I go back to my manger's office and I see the security guy going out the door and he shoots me a dirty look.

I report to my manager that what was recommended did work. Now we are both stumped. Manager recommends firing off an email to sever person explaining the issue, because that person is out of the office and seeing where we can get there.

I comment on how unprofessional the security person has acted and he said not to worry about it. I also comment on how no one wants to deal with this person and its tough to go to anyone for support, and the security person needs to be more professional. My manager said that to be sure to bring this up to the security person, however this has been said before and nothing changes.

I go back to my desk, normally I am pretty calm, and can take it. However I find myself venting to my co-workers about the interaction. I'm in a very foul mood for the rest of the day.

Want to know how other people would have done in this situation.

thanks

miller811 · October 2009

Either a time-out for the two of you and cage fight in the octogon...

Normal every day work stuff....

qwertyiop · October 2009

Cage match

veritas_libertas · October 2009

Make sure to bring a camera!

BigTone · October 2009

how is this a techexams issue?

jwedlund · October 2009

it's a techexams issue because someone mentioned a cage fight. The cage fight should be over the abyss so the loser is thrown in.

mikedisd2 · October 2009

BigTone wrote: »

how is this a techexams issue?

Check out the badge check out the gun, it's the off-topic area dude.
Where's your smiley face now huh?

veritas_libertas · October 2009

mikedisd2 wrote: »

Check out the badge check out the gun, it's the off-topic area dude.
Where's your smiley face now huh?

WoW

bgrablin · October 2009

"finish him!"

wweboy · October 2009

You spoke to your manager unless you really want to talk to the security guy face to face just let it go.

Obviously that guy has a holier than thou attitude and maybe one day upper managment will get tired of it and can him.

Just let it go I know it can be a PITA but you'e got the weekend to cool off go into work Monday and let it be a dead issue.

captobvious · October 2009

I vote cage match!

*grabs popcorn and settles in*

veritas_libertas · October 2009

captobvious wrote: »

I vote cage match!

*grabs popcorn and settles in*

Oh yeah! Bring it onnnnnnnnn!

crrussell3 · October 2009

Lets make it interesting. Put them in a Mad Max "Thunderdome" cage match!

dynamik · October 2009

Everyone has off days, but if that's the way things always are, don't waste your time trying to remedy the situation. It's never going to happen.

I'd double my study efforts and find a new job asap. I don't have the patience to deal with that type of garbage.

Hyper-Me · October 2009

dynamik wrote: »

Everyone has off days, but if that's the way things always are, don't waste your time trying to remedy the situation. It's never going to happen.

I'd double my study efforts and find a new job asap. I don't have the patience to deal with that type of garbage.

lol, you should work with me.

About 75% of the IT dept is just like the guy described above. On top of the fact most of them are clueless on their own job anyway.

veritas_libertas · October 2009

dynamik wrote: »

Everyone has off days, but if that's the way things always are, don't waste your time trying to remedy the situation. It's never going to happen.

I'd double my study efforts and find a new job asap. I don't have the patience to deal with that type of garbage.

That is what I was going to originally suggest. I have the opposite problem myself. I have great coworkers, and a wonderful supervisor. The problem is I am not learning anything new (i.e. it is boring.) I am using the job as a stepping stone, and trying to fly through my Bachelor degree, and certs as fast I can. Don't stay in a job you hate.

Forsaken_GA · October 2009

Some people are just a pain in the ass to deal with and aren't good coworkers. You went through your channels, you're covered. Just let it go, the decision about what to do about the unfriendly security dude is above your pay grade.

9MMMAC · October 2009

I think there are a couple of possible reasons: The first one being that this bozo gets REAL nervous when something that might challenge or expose his weakness comes up. He's a d**k to everybody because he just doesn't know, so he tries to keep everybody away. The other possible reason is he's a bit more advanced, but he's already working a problem, and multi-tasking makes his little train go off the tracks. So he's afraid to do anything in a parallel manner; serial only. BTW, glad to see you got the problem fixed!

Kaminsky · October 2009

Email is impersonal and you get much better responses just by picking up the phone and talking to people. If you had picked up the phone and called this guy with "I done this and that but can't figure out what to do next", chances are he would have said just fire the call over to him.

Devil's advocate here..
You can't just assume this guy knows nothing and is hiding behind a smoke screen of aggression so that nobody finds him out. Highly likely he knows a lot more about how these connections work under the hood. By sticking it in a CC'd email, that suddenly makes it formal and brings with it some threat of blame if they can't fix it. Why you thought security rather than server first would also cause an issue.

An informal call starting with "Hi I'm Jock from support are you busy? I've got a call here I'm not sure what to do with next and could use a bit of advice." You see this way, you are still owning the incident but asking for advice rather than just handing the whole thing over to him in an email and cc'ing other people on it which is like pointing the finger as far as I am concerned. He could advise that because of this and that, you should fire the call either to him or someone else. We all on the same team after all and teir2/3 were teir 1 once. You do get some that are well up themselves but typically, most senior support are quite helpfull to the junior ranks if approached in the right way.

You may have been told to fire emails off in that kind of situation but put yourself in his shoes if one of those comes in and you don't feel it is in your area to fix. You would fire an email right back denouncing their choice of escalation and, seeing as they had cc'd in others, I would cc in your chain of command too.

Also, the guy turned up at your bosses office. He could have been giving advice on how to handle these types of calls in the future. You can't just assume he turned up just to slag you off. If you are going to escalate it, you don't cc in the end user on the same email. You email them seperately.

And never be afraid to pick up the phone and ask senior support. You'll also make good contacts that way. Handle it badly and you are making your future progression in that company more difficult. Office politics have to be handled correctly.

UnixGuy · October 2009

You did the right things, and I'd act just like you did.

1. You didn't respond aggressively back. (This is the hard part..)

2. You tried to fix the issue, and you did.

3. You communicated your frustration from the "Security guy" to management in a polite way, and that's about enough from your side.

What not to do :

1. I wouldn't go and talk about the "Security guy" behind his back.

2. I will avoid interacting with him.

It's up to management to act. Your job ends when you communicated your frustration professionally to management. Do not try to "fix" the guy's attitude...it's not your job.

On a more personal side, seriously, don't give it a lot of importance. The guy is an a-hole, who cares ? the problem took more time to get fixed, who the hell cares ? management employ these people, and they're fully aware that these guys will delay work...and they're content with that..so you shouldn't take it on your shoulders. Focus on your personal growth and don't waste energy on such people.

rwwest7 · October 2009

So what ended up being the problem? Was the .bat file wrong? Could the user not access the .bat file? You left us hanging at the end.

JockVSJock · October 2009

The jury is still out.

I had to email someone on the server team who is out of the office and they will have to look at it. We aren't sure where the error is, the security side or the server side.

rwwest7 wrote: »

So what ended up being the problem? Was the .bat file wrong? Could the user not access the .bat file? You left us hanging at the end.

Turgon · October 2009

Kaminsky wrote: »

Email is impersonal and you get much better responses just by picking up the phone and talking to people. If you had picked up the phone and called this guy with "I done this and that but can't figure out what to do next", chances are he would have said just fire the call over to him.

Devil's advocate here..
You can't just assume this guy knows nothing and is hiding behind a smoke screen of aggression so that nobody finds him out. Highly likely he knows a lot more about how these connections work under the hood. By sticking it in a CC'd email, that suddenly makes it formal and brings with it some threat of blame if they can't fix it. Why you thought security rather than server first would also cause an issue.

An informal call starting with "Hi I'm Jock from support are you busy? I've got a call here I'm not sure what to do with next and could use a bit of advice." You see this way, you are still owning the incident but asking for advice rather than just handing the whole thing over to him in an email and cc'ing other people on it which is like pointing the finger as far as I am concerned. He could advise that because of this and that, you should fire the call either to him or someone else. We all on the same team after all and teir2/3 were teir 1 once. You do get some that are well up themselves but typically, most senior support are quite helpfull to the junior ranks if approached in the right way.

You may have been told to fire emails off in that kind of situation but put yourself in his shoes if one of those comes in and you don't feel it is in your area to fix. You would fire an email right back denouncing their choice of escalation and, seeing as they had cc'd in others, I would cc in your chain of command too.

Also, the guy turned up at your bosses office. He could have been giving advice on how to handle these types of calls in the future. You can't just assume he turned up just to slag you off. If you are going to escalate it, you don't cc in the end user on the same email. You email them seperately.

And never be afraid to pick up the phone and ask senior support. You'll also make good contacts that way. Handle it badly and you are making your future progression in that company more difficult. Office politics have to be handled correctly.

A lot of decent advice right there.

networker050184 · October 2009

Kaminsky wrote: »

Email is impersonal and you get much better responses just by picking up the phone and talking to people. If you had picked up the phone and called this guy with "I done this and that but can't figure out what to do next", chances are he would have said just fire the call over to him.

Devil's advocate here..
You can't just assume this guy knows nothing and is hiding behind a smoke screen of aggression so that nobody finds him out. Highly likely he knows a lot more about how these connections work under the hood. By sticking it in a CC'd email, that suddenly makes it formal and brings with it some threat of blame if they can't fix it. Why you thought security rather than server first would also cause an issue.

An informal call starting with "Hi I'm Jock from support are you busy? I've got a call here I'm not sure what to do with next and could use a bit of advice." You see this way, you are still owning the incident but asking for advice rather than just handing the whole thing over to him in an email and cc'ing other people on it which is like pointing the finger as far as I am concerned. He could advise that because of this and that, you should fire the call either to him or someone else. We all on the same team after all and teir2/3 were teir 1 once. You do get some that are well up themselves but typically, most senior support are quite helpfull to the junior ranks if approached in the right way.

You may have been told to fire emails off in that kind of situation but put yourself in his shoes if one of those comes in and you don't feel it is in your area to fix. You would fire an email right back denouncing their choice of escalation and, seeing as they had cc'd in others, I would cc in your chain of command too.

Also, the guy turned up at your bosses office. He could have been giving advice on how to handle these types of calls in the future. You can't just assume he turned up just to slag you off. If you are going to escalate it, you don't cc in the end user on the same email. You email them seperately.

And never be afraid to pick up the phone and ask senior support. You'll also make good contacts that way. Handle it badly and you are making your future progression in that company more difficult. Office politics have to be handled correctly.

Definitely what I was thinking here. I would have been a bit pissed if you would have blindly dragged me into an issue with an email that has the end user cc'ed. You should definitely give someone a heads up and a call if you are going to be bringing them in on troubleshooting an end user issue.

I'm not saying this guy handled everything perfect, but I don't think you did either.

BigTone · October 2009

BigTone wrote: »

how is this a techexams issue?

JockVsJock wrote:

'how is this a security issue?'

Did my play on the original post seriously make it over some peoples heads? Here's my smiley face again

mikej412 · October 2009

BigTone wrote: »

Did my play on the original post seriously make it over some peoples heads?

Your reputation has gone from 14 to 29 -- someone must have liked it.

Paul Boz · October 2009

It just sounds like normal work stuff to me. If the guy is always bent out of shape and others know it, don't sweat it. He's clearly not singling you out so don't take it personally. I work with a guy who is somewhat like that. No one wants to talk to him because when you do you either get an answer in a condescending tone of voice or get 30 minutes worth of dissertation on the subject. I've seen people get bent out of shape about him but I also see him treat everyone equally poorly so I don't take it personally because he's an equal-opportunity *******. Treat this guy the same and your mileage will go much further.

Pash · October 2009

Just take him out for a few beers and when he's drunk call him a ******* **** and tell him why, then he might lighten up!

But seriously, as others have said, tolerate this tool and give as good as you get (never go one above).

I wouldn't recommend directly talking to your manager and explaining you have a problem with this guy in particular (management hate conflicts), you should of mentioned you wish to make a complaint about a colleague's attitude (mentioning no names for now) and then asked how you would go about doing this, you could then of spoken to someone in HR if you really felt unhappy with his treatment towards you.

miller811 · October 2009

Paul Boz wrote: »

I work with a guy who is somewhat like that. No one wants to talk to him because when you do you either get an answer in a condescending tone of voice or get 30 minutes worth of dissertation on the subject. I've seen people get bent out of shape about him but I also see him treat everyone equally poorly so I don't take it personally because he's an equal-opportunity *******. Treat this guy the same and your mileage will go much further.

I can't believe you are publicly outing Dynamik, he seems so nice and helpful on this board.....

Pash · October 2009

miller811 wrote: »

I can't believe you are publicly outing Dynamik, he seems so nice and helpful on this board.....

Hahahahaha, well executed. Rep for you miller!

rwwest7 · October 2009

JockVSJock wrote: »

The jury is still out.

I had to email someone on the server team who is out of the office and they will have to look at it. We aren't sure where the error is, the security side or the server side.

It's things like this that make me really appreciate working somewhere that I have access to everything. It would drive me crazy having to wait until the server team got back to work in order to troubleshoot a problem. It would take you 10 seconds to verify the .bat file yourself.

What would Techexams members do? Dealing with verbally abusive Tier2/Tier3 support

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