Dear User... I Sometimes Do Other Things

Dear User,

I understand it can be frustrating when you have an issue and don't get a resolution right away. Guess what? It's also mega-frustrating when you assume that I have zero issues to deal with besides yours. Especially when your issue is of your own making and I have a backlogged pile of about three projects and twenty other issues that need seeing to.

First of all, I'm kind of amazed that you managed to forget how to do a thing that you've done, bare minimum, twice a year, for the past 20-plus years. Especially when you last did it just one month ago. You pull up a single record in a screen, change the dates, save and that's it. And forgive me if I'm extra-amazed that you managed to totally forget how to do this while attempting to train another user how to do this in your absence. Yes. That's right. You were sitting down with a fellow user to show them how it's done, and suddenly, you are unsure how to do the thing. You have no idea how this thing works. You didn't once take down a note, screenshot, or even, prior to sitting down with your trainee, whip out that brand new iPhone I know you have and take a picture of the screen? Apparently not.

So excuse me for kind of losing my mind with you on the phone because 1) You suddenly have no idea how to do a thing you've done on a regular basis since I was in middle school. We all have our off days and moments of "I can't believe I did that!", but this leads me to the second point... 2) You never once took notes on this very important thing that can hold up billing statements being sent out to students. Yet I'm supposed to drop everything and figure it out for you because it is, emphasis yours, VERY IMPORTANT. If it's so important, you think maybe you should write the steps and the values that never change down somewhere? Like maybe in case we all get hit by buses or something? Or in case my head actually does explode one of these days and I'm not around to figure it out for you? Or, God forbid, I actually take a day off and fail to notify the entire campus so they can cease forgetting how to do very important things in my absence? 3) You seem to expect that I should know how to do your job when you don't know how to do your job. Up to and including what is a policy question, not a computer question. If you don't know what your policy is, why would I know? Why should I know?
 Amazingly enough, I also have some other stuff to do. I'm trying to do about three IT jobs alone, because this college thinks just saying "lean and mean" enough means one employee can magically do the work of four. Because that extends to the other offices, not just IT, I'm in high demand. This is to say nothing of the project I've been attempting to work on, with zero success, for the last two weeks because people will not freaking leave me alone for ten minutes straight.

On occasion, I have to do things that do not include "hawking my email inbox constantly on the off chance that you have sent me another email message about this issue that I thought I had already resolved after a set of three highlighted screenshots and a fifteen minute phone conversation to explain what I already explained in writing". So, no, don't be so sure I'm already looking at your message when you phone me after I fail to respond fast enough for your liking. And please don't give me the "very important" line again, that is doing you no favors. The other five people breathing down my neck think their things are very important too.

And then I feel bad because I'm frustrated and sound frustrated.

And this, people, is one of the reasons why I run.

P.S. I figured out the one thing that needed to be changed on the screen somehow, despite the user's insistence that she had "tried everything", and the day was saved, at least until the next time someone forgets their own policy and decides it's my job to know their job even thought they have no clue how to do my job. Or theirs.

Have You Tried Posting To Facebook About It?

I will never completely understand human nature. Particularly the bit of it that drives supposedly intelligent, well-educated employees of an institution of higher learning to totally avoid three completely convenient and well-advertised modes of communication available for conveying their problem directly to the highly trained professionals available on site who are actually paid to solve it.  Plus, there's the only marginally less convenient but additional option of "get your behind up out of your chair, walk across the beautiful and compact campus in the fresh air and sunshine to the office building which houses said professionals and have some probably pleasant face to face interaction.

But somehow, this is way too much trouble. Yet, somehow, they've got the time, motivation and bandwidth to get on the internet and "Vaguebook" about having an issue of some sort.

I have a revolutionary idea. If  you have an issue with the setup of a lab machine, maybe try notifying the department responsible for setting up the lab machine in something other than the most roundabout way possible?

From the Brilliant IT Crowd Gif Tumblr

One Does Not Simply Walk Into Mordor

That goes triple on a Friday.

I work in higher education. I work in IT in higher education. Now, I've been at the institution that employs me for 14 years now, so obviously I usually enjoy what I do and have developed Stockholm Syndrome strong emotional attachments to many of the fine people I work with. People don't go into IT because they like saying "no" or because they hate making people happy by making their lives easier or giving them what they need to do their jobs or making technology work minor miracles. People definitely don't go into IT areas that involve "customer service" because they're misanthropic or anti-social, despite the stereotypes. We all have personalities fully intact in our department and can hold a conversation like a real, live human being. I've also only rarely fantasized about strangling people and there are many enjoyable and highly hilarious opportunities for venting with other overworked, understaffed brothers (and one sister) in arms. 

What I'm trying to say is, "We like helping you, users, but for the love of all that is holy, people, you are not the only person on campus with a need, and there are only eight of us, and some of us occasionally like eating, sleeping, going home and other recreational activities that do not involve hovering expectantly in case you decide that, I, personally, have a thing to be done for you. So do lots of other people. Get in line. We occasionally even go outside in order to work on someone's computer or have a meeting with someone. Do not bank on us sitting right next to the phone to pick up your call or assume we have less than four hundred other messages in our Inboxes."

But even 14 years on, I still comically rant with major amusement at how many people will wait until 2:50 P.M. on a Friday, during one of the busiest times of the year, only to directly email/call one person in the department, vaguely describing a thing that gets run for them once a year, all puzzled that they didn't get the person they originally directly called at the last minute because he's done this crazy thing called "Taking his well-deserved and hard-earned Floating Holiday before the college takes it back". And act equally puzzled that you don't immediately know which report out of the many hundreds of reports lying about the place is the one that they refer to as something along the lines of "you know that list I get once a year with the mailboxes on it?" might be.

And then when you ask when they need it, they answer, "I was hoping to get it this afternoon."

This afternoon. The afternoon of which there are two hours left? That one?

So, because you actually like doing things for people, you promise to look, but ask that they do what they should have done in the first place, put in a helpdesk request. The helpdesk where their request would have had a better chance of being noticed and assigned to someone who is actually on campus if it's so darned urgent. When you find it, you go to see them and they are nowhere to be found, despite "hoping to get it this afternoon". They still haven't put in that helpdesk call that you asked them to put in. And since you're trying to actually prove with real, live statistics that you are, as you have always been, not equipped with enough bodies to handle all of these "hoping to get it this afternoon"s, you end up having to put in the helpdesk call on their behalf as well.

 

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I am occasionally tempted to just keep running some mornings before work.