A continuation of my clash with a bunch of users...

Soo.... As some of you remember, I posted a thread about my first clash with some users as a part of my new Systems Admin job. It appeared that the problem was resolved when I left work that day (I gave them plenty of opportunities to check the printing). Restarting the print spooler allowed them to print fine for about 15 minutes and then it started being slow again. So today I came in from the three day weekend and I hear that not only can't the second floor print but neither can the VPs on the 5th floor. The senior engineers determined that it wasn't a network/vmware issue so I figured the only thing I hadn't checked was the printer driver. Well, the three printers with this slow printing problem were all using this same driver so since this seemed to be the only common thing, I suggested we change it from the universal driver to the vendors actual driver for that model. First thing out of the IT Support managers mouth is "I don't think thats it". I convince the network manager to let me move forward with this (Changing the driver). While I was testing the new driver with a user, someone restarted the print spooler service and so it began to print fine again. I was on Microsoft Lync in a 3 way chat with him and the network manager and told him that the new driver is working fine for my two test subjects. First thing out of this guys mouth is "I think the print spooler service fixed it" so I said OK, that would probably make sense since I had not made the change on the 5th floor printer. Moments later he says "its not working" so I say "OK, then I'll continue my testing". Long story short, it ended up being an issue with the printer driver and I got it sorted out. People seemed to doubt me around here suggesting that its not the issue. I had a senior engineer come up and ask me "If I was sure that just rebooting the computer isn't fixing it and that I'm coincidentally replacing the driver thinking thats fixing it". I explained that I troubleshot this issue on friday and had already done this. I really wanted to tell someone to shut the **** up today... I sure hope everyday is not like today. I mean, have some confidence in the ONE person who is willing to step up and fix the problem...

Oh, and here's another kicker... After I was discussing the remedy to this problem and how to automate this fix without touching each workstation, one of the senior guys says "can I talk to you two (the network manager and it support manager)". He pulls them away to another room so I can't be in the discussion. Not to sound paranoid but I'm thinking it was probably something negative about me.

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Comments

emerald_octane

sounds like you have incompetent managers and coworkers. But who owned/owns the process? Two or more people troubleshooting the same issue without being 100% in sync could cause more damage.

How long has this particular problem been going on? brand new?

CodeBlox

Started Friday. I came in today and NOBODY seemed to have taken ownership of it so I figured I'd continue where I left off. On friday, I had pretty much exhausted most of my resources except for the driver thing. I didn't change it then because thats a pretty big deal that would affect many users. The network manager and the senior guy are pretty good at what they do. It would be nice to keep SOME people out of the loop because all they do is make life harder. Then once I had a resolution in sight, I've got the guy pressing me to get it in place after all that. I know I should be grateful for the new position but jeeze, I really hope it's not always like this.

powerfool

Well... that's office politics. Sounds pretty bad. This is your first sysadmin gig, so I would say stick it out for a while just to get the experience. There are lots of pieces of advice folks could give, but we really aren't getting a clear picture of everyone's perspective (partly because they aren't communicating with you on this, but mainly because we are second-party).

This can happen when folks are threatened by someone coming in. I would say from the other side, make sure you aren't coming off as someone who is desperately trying to chime in on things to get your name out there, too. I have seen both sides of this and this kind of stuff can be ugly. We had a guy join our team that moved from out of state (several states away)... he was extremely eager to jump into discussions (we are a team of 18 engineers) and he was talking just about every time anyone else talked. He didn't fit in and he knew it. He said that his [foreign] wife wanted to move back to the state that they were in and he quit (said that she would potentially leave him and take his kids out of the country) within a month. It very well could have been true, but I highly doubt it... he had egg on his face and was trying to exit somewhat gracefully. He ended up essentially working for free for that month because he spent a moving bonus that required him to stay for a year... so his entire paycheck was taken to cover it.

Anyhow, I am not sure what the best advice is. Find someone that isn't on the $h1+list and have this person as a mentor. You need someone to run a little interference for you... this kind of stuff shouldn't be going on so early on. I have been there, but it was a smaller team. I had a boss that started calling me as soon as they hired me to help with troubleshooting even though I was still working my current job... they weren't paying me or anything. I should have started looking right then. He was a micro-managing control freak and we ended up having a falling out over a firmware update on some Sharp multifunction units at remote locations. I told him it was the firmware, as a newer one was working fine. I had to deal with different local vendors to load the firmware and it was finally all scheduled to be fixed. Well, he was convinced it was a firewall issue (since they were remote over VPN). He wanted me to postpone having the firmware updated and troubleshoot the firewalls... anyhow, the firmware got updated and everything else fixed... he was peeved... I called him out on it, flat out, because I had enough of this kind of crap. I told him he was mad because he didn't get the opportunity to see if the firewall would have fixed the issue, despite the firmware being the root issue. His face got as red as a tomato. I came to that job because it was supporting a larger environment than I was already supporting; I was doing EVERYTHING at the previous environment, and I was doing a great job... the job ended up being a step back, in practical terms, but looked better on my resume at the end of the day. I didn't get to have any input on solutions that we implemented... he picked everything and said I just had to deal with it. So, we were at a cross roads. I began looking for another job and eventually found one. Larger environment, again, but back into being the SME that was consulted with by management on evaluating and making decisions on solutions.

I don't know if any of that helps... but hopefully there is some value for you in it.

Best wishes.

Plantwiz

It really sounds like you may want to take a step back and consider that others may not see what value you bring just yet.

However, if you are young or the new guy/gal and simply implementing 'fixes' or testing stuff without consulting more senior members of the team, you will be fighting a losing battle.

It is not about kissing arse, but more about explaining your thought process against a system that was up-and-running prior to your existence there, that you may need to 'sell' others on the idea that you will not break their toys.

I would bet you are eager and really want to see things working and have the confidence to fix the problem. However, unless you were hired to replace incompetent senior staff, you will need some time to cut your teeth and show the team you 'get' their way and are willing to work with them rather than look for ways to show then up.

Try to step back and look at the larger picture. Find something good about each day rather than think they are all against you.

Ivanjam

CodeBlox - those people indeed do sound like a bunch of "users"...

YFZblu

Sounds like sort of a hostile environment - Typically that type of attitude traces directly to the top. Based on what I know of you here you'll be just fine, the experience and title alone are basically worth the hassle.

Ismaeljrp

Is there some sort of chain of command where you can handle issues without taking it up to higher ranking co-workers?
At what level does that type of issue reside? I think that whoever is in charge at that level should make the decision on what to do, if something goes wrong, then report to higher ups, if not, problem solved, higher ups are oblivious to the issue, and the ones that took care of the issue are proven even more reliable.

I donno what it's really like in the IT workforce, I'm still a student, but I am a former Marine and Squad Leader. I only went to higher, whenever my rank didn't qualify me for certain info or authority. Everything else, I kept at the lowest level possible, never needed micromanagement.

networker050184

People usually do not take kindly to new guys coming in and trying to implement solutions that more senior members do not agree with. Just try to lay out your arguments in a professional manner with some kind of fact to back them up, don't just present it as a guess. If you are right a couple times you will gain their trust and before you know it they will be coming to you for input rather than scoffing at you. You have to earn your stripes as they say.

jibbajabba

I usually use email as a weapon.

When I am new and I think I know what the issue is then I usually communicate the issue to the "other guys".

If am not allowed to do these things .. I write the steps I'd take down and send it through .
If I can just dig in and fix .. I write down what I have done and when.

And usually write comments like "I am not sure I am allowed to implement these things without cross-checking with you guys, but this is what I'd do <blabla>" .. and so on.
Or "Just for you to know what happened and so you are getting the full picture .. Friday I did xyz trying to resolve 123, when I left the office the state was blabla, on Monday I did wibble wibble which fixed the issue".

SteveLord

networker050184 wrote: »

People usually do not take kindly to new guys coming in and trying to implement solutions that more senior members do not agree with.

Or if you're the first IT person they've ever had. Everyone can be so use to doing things the old way, the easy way and worst of all......the unsecured way.

the_Grinch

Gotta agree with networker050184, you are earning your stripes. I will say you appear to have handled it well and couple more fixes will probably cement you to the group. At my last job it took we a few months before they started to listen and knew that I actually knew what I was talking about. Hang in there, Rome wasn't built in a day!

shodown

+1 on earn your stripes.

Roll with the punches, and do what your told, till you have enough investment to let them hear you out.

With that said, something you said in your other post that was key was "you can't leave until its fixed". If I read it correctly that didnt' come from your management, but from the people you were assisting. That should be stopped dead in its tracks. That is one of the few situations that me being a Team Lead or in management that I would be seriously pissed off if overheard that or one of my people came and told me that.. If someone ever directs my people without my blessing we have a serious problem. Your management or Sr Engineers should be backing you up if someone every speaks to you like that. When I heard that I took your side of the story, a lot of IT people just complain sometime, but with language like that, I can tell your behind enemy lines,lol. Good Luck, be calm and respectful at all times. Maybe even buy a few nice shirts and slacks, keep your appearance up incase higher up's get involved. Perception is everything and if you look like a professional in all aspects appearance, speaking and writing and performance that may buy you the political capitol to keep them off your back.

discount81

It takes time to earn peoples trust, in a role I did I was a system administrator for a separate site the corporate IT manager was a hard line about security, and paranoid I might go and screw something up.

He wouldn't give me domain admin rights for about 2 months until he trusted me, and even then made it frustrating to do my job, I had to report nearly everything I did to him before doing it.
Adding a new workstation, call me and I will add it to the domain first.
Adding a new security group, call me
etc

Eventually after about 6 months he trusted me and just let me do my job.

powerfool

There is a difference between earning your stripes and dealing with this level of politics right off the bat. I would have to imagine, that in a reasonable organization, someone would take you aside and give you the run of how things really work. I have found that when dealing with situations like this, right off the bat, you are dealing with rather insecure people and that isn't good in the long run. You may be able to ride it out and gain their trust, which is going to be the only way you will find success... It is definitely a good "growth" opportunity. My boss tells me that being able to deal with difficult customers makes a good consultant... I have found that my reward, however, is that I am the one that gets the next difficult customer... which is a let down.

CodeBlox

Thing is, the VP of technology was pressing us on this issue, and HARD. No was resolution in sight until I suggested that the one thing in common between these printers was the one thing not tinkered with yet and what do you know... It fixed the problem all together and not a peep out anyone about it today. I just hope the next time wont be like this. It was a little discouraging at first but I just wanted the problem resolved.

lantech

This may have put you on the radar of the VP of Technology. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing is yet to be seen.

Hope things get better for you. Just be professional about things and hopefully things will work themselves out.

networker050184

CodeBlox wrote: »

Thing is, the VP of technology was pressing us on this issue, and HARD. No was resolution in sight until I suggested that the one thing in common between these printers was the one thing not tinkered with yet and what do you know... It fixed the problem all together and not a peep out anyone about it today. I just hope the next time wont be like this. It was a little discouraging at first but I just wanted the problem resolved.

How did you suggest this? That is a huge part of how you will be received and trusted by your coworkers. Did you simply make a guess at it or did you bring factual information to the table showing how the driver could in fact cause this issue? When making a change you should always have hard info to back up your plan. Not just a 'this might fix it' which often leads to even more problems. A quick fix isn't always necessarily the best fix. You may have gotten it right this time, but the seniors have probably been around the block and burned by quick fixes before.

it_consultant

When dealing with network printing speed, the driver is the first thing I look at. I am not sure if there is anything technical to this except that my experience tells me that often one of the derivatives (Universal, PCL, etc) of the driver will perform better than another. It sounds like they were afraid that changing the driver would cause each PC which connected to the share to initiate a driver download - which can happen. Without proper notification to the users, this could be a pain.

A lot of IT people, quite frankly, are irritable, egotistical, and protectionist. Some new guy just showed them up and surely they aren't happy about it. If you are the type that will have trouble dealing with that (like me) until you have the gravitas under your belt of experience, then I suggest you consult, otherwise you have to play this stupid game of egos. I have made my career (up until this point) doing tasks more quickly and just as competently as people who have been in the industry for years. Believe me, this has not always made me popular with IT staff.

RouteMyPacket

Man this is a toughy, I generally listen when starting but if I do interject it will be from a standpoint of me making them sound good, stroking their ego.

i.e. Hmmm! Have you found some inconsistencies between the working and non working printer? Drivers the same? Firmware etc?

Hard to explain but I phrase it to where I am basically coming across like "I'm sure you've already looked here, what did you find?" but I am like that with almost everyone generally. You don't want to ever come across as a know it all (I hate those types) so I make a point to phrase my thoughts accordingly.

Basic troubleshooting of two devices, one working and one not would be to find any inconsistency between the two devices. Start at layer 1 (cables, jet direct card etc) and work your way up the chain.

Oh and a piece of advice, remember that nearly 85% of IT "Pros" are absolutely worthless hacks that somehow landed their job (and I feel I am being generous, and no I am not joking). With that said, keep doing what you do and always provide information to the team regardless if they use it or not, you are doing it to cover yourself in the event any issue arises. It's not hard to stand out in the crowd IMO.

CodeBlox

networker050184 wrote: »

How did you suggest this? That is a huge part of how you will be received and trusted by your coworkers. Did you simply make a guess at it or did you bring factual information to the table showing how the driver could in fact cause this issue? When making a change you should always have hard info to back up your plan. Not just a 'this might fix it' which often leads to even more problems. A quick fix isn't always necessarily the best fix. You may have gotten it right this time, but the seniors have probably been around the block and burned by quick fixes before.

I told them that this started friday and that long story short restarting the print spooler service appeared to fix it when it just masked the problem for a few minutes. I wasn't aware of other departments with printing issues (which was the case) so when I found out, I asked "which printers are having this problem?". I then checked on the server and noticed that all of them were using the same driver. So then I said, "well, one thing in common between all these printers is that they use the same driver. How about I download the driver from the vendor and change it?". I was given the OK, got it done and that took care of it. Mind you, I saw this exact issue come up at my last job but in that case it was because somebody installed the wrong driver to begin with. The symptom was still exactly the same though.

loxleynew

I'm in a similar job here. Ive been here about 3 months and every idea I give gets shot down because "I'm the new guy" and no one trusts me. The way I see it is if you hired me to do a job let me do it provided I can provide comments as to why i'm doing something. I think you may be headed straight to the sh1t list like I am. Now they will all have their guard up when you suggest improvements or solutions. I find mostly this attitude comes from them being self conscious of their work and not wanting people to prove them wrong.

I would suggest lay low and do the cr@p work for a few months then look for a new job. Eventually one of them will try to get you in deep trouble with the VP if you prove them wrong on something more substantial.

CodeBlox

Thing is, the experience is really great that I'm getting so I'll have to tough it out. Today they assigned me a project to configure a router by myself for a remote branch!! Really exciting.

MickQ

It seems like they're softening up to you with a new noose to hang you with

Seriously though, I agree with what Plantwiz and Networker said. You are the new guy, and you have to fit in. It's not going to be easy for the first month in this environment (at least).

Some pointers:
1. Engineers are sensitive to any changes in the environment - especially from not-yet-proven-their-stuff-to-me sources (e.g. new guy).
2. Email and CC are your new best friend. Email the IT support manager, network manager, and whoever else is involved in any changes you're planning on making. Outline your troubleshooting so far (no-one can later come back and deny knowledge), your conclusions and your plans. They then have their chance to object.
3. Rollback plan. Rollback plan, have a rollback plan. While you're at it, have a rollback plan in place and emailed to those other people.
4. "You can't leave until its fixed" desires a response of "I must consult with the elders". Substitute system/network/DBA/etc. for elders.
5. Deep breaths. You're new and until you've proven yourself with more instances of this saga, you need to eat lots of humble pie or the political monster will eat you up and spit you out before you can say "experience for my CV/resume".
6. Smile. It's very disarming. Also, the witty banter technique (when executed properly) given to most users is great for breaking ice, and generating a good name.

undomiel

Something else to keep in mind is that if memory serves you were promoted from the help desk. I don't know if your help desk has a reputation or not but most places I've worked at the help desk has a reputation and it generally is not a good one. So that may be another obstacle in the path to trust with your coworkers. Just shrug it off and keep learning and keep improving those interpersonal skills.

WiseWun

Probably has to do with age and pride. How old are you if you don't mind me asking? I myself have a baby face and because of this, my solutions was sometimes doubted in the past. Stick it through if you want to gain the experience but if the environment is not healthy, I would advise you to start looking.

CodeBlox

I'm 23

WiseWun

CodeBlox wrote: »

I'm 23

That explains it! A few years ago, I joined an MSP and this older gentlemen who was a lower tier didn't like the fact that I was getting paid more (he had good relationship with the payroll lady) The senior managers knew he was very unprofessional so I didn't even bother. Just recently he sent me an invitation on LinkedIn! The universe tends to unfold as it should.

kurosaki00

why are there 3 ppl working on one same problem?
Lets begin there
This is a printer problem, there is no way 3 ppl are needed for such thing
if a company is putting 3 top tier resources to work in a problem like this, something is wrong

If its your job, you do your job. If you cant do it, it escalates, as simple as that.
If they dont have basic SOPs for something like this...

MickQ

Maybe it was really a "PC load letter" error.

Kreken

CodeBlox, each story has two sides. By listening just to your side of the story, I am inclined to think it is a lack of proper communication on your part. Why? Because you described a day from my life from several years ago. I, too, shifted the blame on the office politics and incompetent co-workers. I felt everybody was wrong, I was right and my solution is the best. Even while that is the case, you have to properly present it to the senior members of your team. Always be respectful and make sure your explanation is as cohesive and factual as possible.

Recently, I was on the receiving end of a situation similar to yours and it is not a pleasant experience for both parties. You also have to realize that even a small drop creates a ripple and your small change might cause other issues which you didn't anticipate.

A couple of years ago, I spoke to my COO and expressed a desire to move up to a management position. I didn't realize how poor my communication skills were until he started working with me to improve them. Even though, I am much better now, I am still in awe at his ability to explain the most complex design to an audience of any technical level.

The point I am trying to convey, if you will shift the blame onto others, you will not improve. Technical knowledge can only get you so far. If you can, find a minute and talk to your management. Ask them how they got to the point where they are and you will see that all their stories have one thing in common - they were able to express their ideas clearly.