Question for IT professionals

Learn to say NO!!

Produce online help guides and simple tutorials, so when you say no you can redirect the question.

 

The problem with saying no is that the people who you say no to will likely complain to their bosses (and to your boss). Nothing travels faster than bad news...

In my opinion, right now jobs aren't quite as easy to find. What jobs are out there don't typically pay well and there are lots of unemployed people willing to do what it takes to get the regular pay check. While I don't believe that you should bend over backwards to try to make everyone happy, I think you still need to choose your battles. If someone has a simple question, try to help them as best as you can. If they've got a complex question try to point towards a suitable training resource. And if questions are coming in non-stop, document the questions, their frequency, and the people asking them, and forward this information to your boss or training department. If there's a serious training deficiency then it's prudent to let others know so they can address it...

 

What is your official job hat? If your job is the IT guy, then part of the job is dealing with idiots who ask the same questions twenty bajillion times before lunch. I recently spent 20 minutes explaining to someone who had encrypted their hard drive why we couldn't backup the hard drive after the computer died.

Me: The hard drive is encrypted so that if you take it out of the computer you can't get data.

Him: Just copy the hard drive and get the files that way.

Me: That won't work. You encrypted it.

Him: I don't understand why you can't copy the files off it. I encrypted it so other people can't get the files, not us.

Me: Right. It's encrypted. The 256-bit encryption is doing it's job here. It's keeping us out of files.

Him: Can't you just crack it?

Me: If I could crack it, anyone could crack it and it would be worthless encryption.

Him: Yes, but you're a computer tech. You should be able to copy it and get the files.

Me: **Looks for arsenic I can drink**

Now, if you're not the official guy, I would point out, diplomatically of course, that you have showed them this in the past and have failed to explain it adequately. This is no doubt because you're not qualified to explain IT stuff. They should consider hiring a professional IT person or an IT consultant.

 

As far as software training goes, I've always held true an axiom I learned back in my IT Human Design and Interaction class:

"Most computer and software manuals are written at an 8th grade level for easier understanding" Translation: KISS.

I can't count the number of times I've written a manual, guide, FAQ, etc. - I keep three things in mind when doing so.

1. I try to include as many pictures as possible, with graphics indicating buttons to be pressed, landmarks to look for, etc. - b/c too many people cannot read worth a crap, but can easily follow a picture (or 20).
2. I try to account for many common mistakes, with warnings, colored text, etc. admonishing the reader to pay attention lest the process go awry.
3. I always, always, ALWAYS keep the language as simplistic as possible.

Here's a good example of my work: http://androidforums.com/bionic-all...ings-root-guide-updated-11-1-11-a.html#manual (click show)

IIRC tehsusenoh and I wrote that together, but the bulk of it, especially the pics, is mine. It still draws its share of questions, but far fewer because people can easily compare the pic to their screen and see if they are doing it right or not.

 

The types of issues you describe unfortunately aren't uncommon. In my last job (a director level position), I was frequently finding myself in meetings having to explain to others that "some of their requirements cannot be handled in a cost effective manner". In a world of finite budgets, most I.T. departments simply don't have the manpower or resources to do everything for everyone. Saying no, in and of itself, tends to be problematic which is why having defined standards (approved by Senior Management) are essential. Without standards in place you find yourself living inside an untenable moving target.

One of my team's many responsibilities was to create and maintain standards regarding our installed base of products and services. If things fell outside of that standard we'd require others to justify their need and to provide funding approval from Senior Management. That way other senior managers would share in the financial burden of implementing one-off solutions.

 

I never say no. I'm a big believer in the "give a man a fish and he can feed his family for a day, give the man a means to fish and he can feed his family for a lifetime"

Now although people should be able to do basic office functions, training should be arranged by the department and its not my job to train.... if someone asks, I'll help. I will often do this remotely and explain what I am doing whilst they are watching. I will sometimes back it up with an e-mail for reference or explaining why something happens.

I.have found this to be quite effective.

It's also worth noting that although it may not specifically be your responsibility, IT is a non income generating, expensive service to support the business (whether out sourced or not). The it role is to.ensure business functions operate as efficiently as possible and sometimes refusing to do something can have a negative effect on the business

 

Lately I'm finding more of my headaches are dealing with bosses asking for things that are unreasonable and co-workers either being lazy and making me cover for them or doing ridiculously stupid, half-assed work that I have to fix later on.

 

Such is life. The lazy ones will get found out eventually, though.

As for the bosses - well, until *they're* bosses figure out what is happening, not much you can do about it....

 

Try being a call center employee - particularly one that does tech support. You'll have a whole new respect for those ppl next time you need to call someone...well, the intelligent ones, anyway lol.

 

Tell me about it. I did the same Tier I and II for IBM Global Services, Radiant Systems, and a few others, including a well known ISP.

I wore out the mute button on 3 phones!

 

I tend to save it up for after a call to be honest. Although the cisco 7942 I was using with a headset once didn't hang up quite as quickly as it needed to, if you get my drift

 

Used to work in a call center. One time I thought I was muted and I wasn't. Lady called back and wanted to talk to my supervisor. The guy she got pretended he was my supervisor and said that he would "deal with me". She was happy.

 

hahah awesome.

 

It was likely the fault of the monochrome display!

 

I learned early on to have a phone with an indicator light for when it was muted and when it was not

 

Its a good lesson you only need teaching once

 

wow.. so many inboxes
you poor guy Tx having to put up with all that

 

I had a similar situation at one of my clients. I went with an old-school, extremely effective solution. I created an account on the domain and called it scheduling or rooms or whatever. I gave it an extremely complex password that was like 27 letters so it's practically hack proof. I created calendars under that account and shared them with everyone. Voila. If I need to change someone's permissions on a calendar, I can easily do that. If they need another calendar for some other use, it's easy to do. Everyone can see the schedules for the rooms and you can easily audit who is making changes to them as well.