Mergers suck
Posted by ProgrammerChoice7737@reddit | talesfromtechsupport | View on Reddit | 30 comments
The only thing that sucks more than hiring a bad user is inheriting them as a package deal.
Recently brought on a couple dozen people solid 80% of them are the "oh we're techies" type but they don't understand any concept past Win XP and Office 2003.
Latest engagement was with the head of this group. He wanted help setting up his VM. We have an old template that includes instructions for both the physical phones we dont use anymore and the new softphone. The softphone steps are numbered and the physical phone steps are lettered.
Request came in from user
"Hey how do we check VM on these new numbers?"
-Whatever that was covered in the 1 hour 1-1 training but thats fine people forget [send tutorial]
"This makes no sense can I just have a physical phone?"
-We no longer have any physical phone systems outside of the speakers for meeting rooms. Can you explain further when you dial XXXX what happens?
[replies with screen shot of logged out softphone]
- You need to login to your softphone if you have forgotten how here is the tutorial
[sends login tutorial]
"I cant forget what I was never shown"
- Im sorry we did do a training when you started on this but I understand we do throw a lot of information very fast its no problem. The tutorial will get you where you need to go.
[he messages my boss saying Im making fun of him and lying about the training]
Convo w/ boss:
"Hey XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX what is going on with XXXXXXXXXXXXX?"
-He isnt understanding the softphone and is getting defensive
[provides screenshots of the chat]
"Oh, thats very different to the conversation I just had. Do you have record of the training call?"
-Sure do
[sends logs of call time, length, and subject line for invite]
"Ok looks good"
Convo w/ boss and XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Hello XXXXXXXXXXXXX, XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX has provided me with the logs showing the training took place and even went 20 minutes over the allotted time. At this point we believe sufficient time has been spent in 1-1 training for this service. If you need further help with signing in please refer to the provided tutorials or to our knowledge base articles located (URL).
Final - havent heard from him in weeks.
Liquid_Hate_Train@reddit
A manager who’s got your back and puts users in their place do hard they actually stop bothering you?
Unicorn whisperer……
Also that user is absolutely just storing up trouble because they now won’t talk to IT about any of their problems because ‘they’re condescending’ I bet.
renok_archnmy@reddit
Was going to chime in, that user is a silent time bomb. Something expensive will go wrong and they’ll point right at IT, “they refused to help me!”
IraqiWalker@reddit
That's why God invented logs, and audit trails..
I've had a user like that, and she was an executive assistant to the COO. Her complaint email had everyone at the C-level CC'd.
We hit the reply all with the logs showing she hadn't contacted us in 2 months, and thar the last time she did, we resolved things promptly, and showed her how to prevent it from happening.
She never pulled a stunt like that in 2 years now.
NotYourNanny@reddit
I had a manager like that. He'd move broken point of sale gear to the register they hardly ever use, not tell me about it, then, two days before a long (and insanely busy) holiday weekend when he needed that register, complain to my boss that I hadn't fixed it.
I wanted to name the new trouble ticket system I set up after him, but that would have been . . . impolitic. Instead, having distributed the new policy regarding the (mandatory) use of that system, the next time he tried that, my boss checked the trouble tickets, and told him, "I don't see a ticket on it, so it wasn't important." (Knowing, as did the manager, that 100% of the grief of being short a register on such a busy weekend would be his, and his alone.)
Being one of the smarter (if lazier) managers, it only took one lesson.
Ha-Funny-Boy@reddit
I worked for an incompetent manager at a large hospital in Los Angeles. One of the things he had to do was attend attend a meeting about "Late Charges" to patient accounts. IT was being blamed every month and he could not figure a way to dispute it. He said he was tired of getting blamed (he knew we processed charges within 24 hours of receipt, but could not figure a way to prove it.) and in the future I was to attend the meetings.
I knew the charges were batched and entered in a log with a batch number. I also knew that number was in each transaction processed. I asked the programming team if that number could be included on the report of late charges. It took about an hour to make the program change to include that batch number in the report.
I then wrote a memo accepting the assignment of attending the meetings. I also told him in the memo what I had had added to the report and would take that along with the batch log which would show when we received the charge. I thought it would take just one or two times to show the client departments were the ones submitting the charges late, some time 2-3 months late and that would be the end of IT getting the blame.
He changed his mind and I never attended those meeting . He did and I suspect what I predicted came about.
I said he was incompetent. He would do things like that all the time and not be able to figure out how to solve the problem. There were many other things like that which he could not see an easy solution. I lasted about 18 months there before I asked him to fire me. Yes, I asked him to fire me so I would get unemployment and a fairly nice severance.
matthewt@reddit
Sufficiently intelligent laziness is perfectly acceptable; arranging things so that the way I want things done is also less effort overall and making sure to demonstrate that to them works nicely.
People who're industrious but dumb are far trickier to deal with.
NotYourNanny@reddit
I agree. That's been my entire philosophy at work for many years. The trick is to find the laziest way to actually get the job done. Because half-assing it only makes more work later. Generally, far more work that doing it right in the first place.
Worst for me is the ones who believe they know more than they do. If they tell me it's broken, it takes x amount of work to fix it. If they try to fix it themselves first, it takes several times x amount of work to undo their fix first. (But I have a special designation of "unnecessary expense" - my time gets billed at the same rate as our main system vendor, $260/hour last I checked - that gets deducted directly, dollar for dollar, from the store's bonus pool. I've only used it once. I've only need to use it once.)
matthewt@reddit
Yeah, that's definitely my least favourite sort of dumb.
At least the lazy but dumb version of that doesn't tend to involve them trying to fix it themselves.
renok_archnmy@reddit
God isn’t real. Humans invented logs when they realized they needed a history of changes during a system’s operation.
Regardless, the presence and “rightness” of a log does not mean they will not try. It also doesn’t mean the outcome will be the same as your experience. Given enough political pull internally, anyone can have higher ups disregard logs.
IraqiWalker@reddit
Bro, it's a joke, you don't have to take it this hard.
I haven't had that happen in 8 years of doing this, but sure, whatever.
renok_archnmy@reddit
You are fortunate to work in a place that values the work being done over managements political games. For the last 6 years I’ve been technical and a working manager in a technical area at a highly political company. They would absolutely ignore the logs and point to their own “logs.” About 5 years ago they ordered email retention reduced and refused to allow a manager to get restored backups to “prove a point” as they put it - much like your log example but they wouldn’t allow it.
Now most of us Bc a personal email if it’s something high tension and not containing confidential information.
blademaster2005@reddit
That is a terrible work environment. Please seek better employment elsewhere as soon as possible. You deserve better than a toxic shit hole.
NotYourNanny@reddit
Depends on the higher ups. Doesn't happen where I work. I work for smart people who have little tolerance for not getting the job done.
ProgrammerChoice7737@reddit (OP)
Thats perfectly fine with us. Had a user never tell us anything was wrong and just whine to her dept the technology was why she was late meeting deadlines. After months her manager came to us and asked why we didnt fix these issues. We showed we were never told and she was fired.
Chakkoty@reddit
Oh, I LIKE your company. So efficient, so ruthlessly efficient.
Geminii27@reddit
This is why recordings and emails are kept. When the user blows up, it's "Here's the only time you ever called IT, let's play it for everyone listening, why haven't you reported all these other problems you claim you've been having for months/years?"
joppedi_72@reddit
I second that. Had a finance user at a branch in another country complain that the "crap of a shit" [sic] new cloudsystem had deleted his oh so important files.
I pulled a report from the audit log for all file actions for the folder that had contained the files in question, turned out the user himself have had "sticky finger" on the touchpad of his laptop and accidently drag and drop moved the files to another folder. I replied with the report and told him where he could find his files, making damn sure all managers he cc'd in the original complaint were cc'd in the reply.
HMS_Slartibartfast@reddit
Just turned over a brick cleverly disguised as a laptop for disposal. Dell D620. It has the "Designed for XP" sticker on it. Support for XP ended over 10 years ago...
Schrojo18@reddit
We still have a D830 for some specific equipment
hireme703@reddit
Statcrew?
Schrojo18@reddit
?
SeanBZA@reddit
Sell on Ebay......
3zxcv@reddit
No joke, it WOULD sell. The D620 is highly regarded in the homelabber and retro communities...
HMS_Slartibartfast@reddit
I think they are putting it in a museum... 😁😁😁
Dumbname25644@reddit
You have good boss. My management team would have just made me do another training session for them.
ProgrammerChoice7737@reddit (OP)
Best job Ive ever had. Management at every level is on the same page about culture. Youre expected to be an expert at your job and own your work. When you need someone else youre expected to be respectful and listen as they are the experts in their job and their work.
3zxcv@reddit
Occupational Nirvana. I'd choose that over free caffeine.
creegro@reddit
I once made some very detailed and short instructions on how to log into a VPN for a client, so people could connect to the hospital and retrieve information only available to that location.
It was a great thing I made, 1 page of you printed it up, could be viewed in color or b/w, no more than 12 easy to follow steps. First open a browser and go to simplewebsite, or click the link in the PDF (which I tested thoroughly), then install the program if it's not there, enter in this address, put in your username and password that you were given from "specific email address" and you're connected.
I thought most people never had an issue with it, turned out 90% of people had problems. Well please tell me, where are you getting stuck? Possibly at the install section? The ip address? No? You're getting stuck at step 1???? You can't just CLICK THE LINK OR ENTER IN THE ADDRESS?!
and these are normally remote users who get instructions remotely and rarely see things done in person, so they should be good for reading a simple page of instructions....
Photodan24@reddit
The closer a user is to middle management, the more likely they are to lie their butts off complaining about you.
Friendly_Island_9911@reddit
That's because he can't log in.