I’m too entitled or stupid to learn how to do this, so just do it for me instead
Posted by 98PercentChimp@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 127 comments
How do you deal with users like this? Like, I want to help but some people can’t seem to differentiate between support and servant. Even more frustrating when it’s upper management/C-suite since you can’t really tell them no.
I don’t mind teaching someone something once. But not multiple times. And not something that is basic that anyone who uses a computer regularly for their job should know how to do (like how to restart or shut down their computer instead of flipping the switch on the power bar).
TrippTrappTrinn@reddit
As a sysadmin I am at least one level removed from that kind of users. This is more a L1 issue
bbbbbthatsfivebees@reddit
Yup, this is why we have service desk.
I do occasionally have to take these calls when all of service desk is busy, but it's infrequent enough to where I don't actually mind it. It's maybe one call every few days, but even then it's usually something simple like a printer driver install or a password reset.
Dabnician@reddit
oh the small side of SMB system admin is the service desk and usually the only person working service desk, i've been working system admin going on 27 years and i STILL interact with service desk/end users on a daily basis.
bbbbbthatsfivebees@reddit
I interact with end users on a near daily basis as well, but it's for issues that have been escalated to me so it's more of an "I'll call them" type of situation rather than picking up calls as they come in.
TeddyRoo_v_Gods@reddit
Same, and I just had to show someone how to select a tray on a printer today. It never ends unless you are a govie or siloed to hell and back.
mysafehobbyspace@reddit
Honestly, you basically can’t avoid this in support level work. My answer was always: open a ticket, it’ll be prioritized according to the order and priority in which it was received.
If I got the exact same questions over and over again, I’d just write up a little paragraph, with pictures, or even do a video, that I could send them via chat. We tried a knowledge portal with that kind info on it, but they’d still just chat us to ask. Sometimes you just have to meet them where they’re at.
TraditionalTackle1@reddit
I have 200 sales people in my office and most of them are like this. One girl magically causes her monitors to stop displaying then I have to run to her office to fix them. One of them was literally turned off. This job is gonna drive me to drink more than I already do.
Neither-Nebula5000@reddit
Maybe that girl likes you, haha.
aes_gcm@reddit
The old leave-behind trick, but with monitors.
wiffleballtony_@reddit
"I like your glasses"
"I'm afraid they're not for sale"
TraditionalTackle1@reddit
She’s annoying as hell so probably lol
Mayki8513@reddit
just drop a "I oughtta charge you a sandwich or something for how often i'm over here"
worked for me 😅 (took several sandwiches before I realized she wasn't just going along with the joke but still 😅)
boondoggie42@reddit
"Hey man, you were hired to be the race car driver, I'm just your mechanic."
Absolute_Bob@reddit
"I'm not s computer person"
-person whose job involves using a computer for 7+ hours a day
NaturalIdiocy@reddit
"I wish we went back to using paper and pen like when I learned"
It's been 40 years Bob, no one has done that in 40 years.
TheKingOfSpite@reddit
Fucking hive mind, I've used this analogy before
Majik_Sheff@reddit
I'm just here to fix the pipes.
fizzlefist@reddit
“Listen, Doc, I just work in Central Sterile prepping the tools. You’re the one who needs to learn how to weird them.”
zon5string@reddit
What a fantastic analogy. Stealing!
Ive_seen_things_that@reddit
I like this. I'm 100% gonna use it.
Avro_Wilde@reddit
If it's within you job description, do it with a smile. It's job security and if you have a good reputation with you user community, you'll be considered valuable.
Ive_seen_things_that@reddit
"I'm not good at computers"
Sir, you are a knowledge worker who's job is to sit at a computer terminal all day. You better learn how to use a computer.
SuperQue@reddit
It was a cute excuse in the '90s. But today if you are 66 years old, nearing retirement, you were 35 years old when Windows 95 came out.
You've had enough time to figure something out.
Back in the late '90s the head accountant at one of my first jobs was well past retirement age. She was able to handle our UNIX systems and Windows just fine.
Mindestiny@reddit
Oh it's swinging back around in the other direction. The number of late millennial and younger staff members I've seen who don't know how to do anything other than check Facebook on their phone is staggering. Everything's been "appified" and nobody know how to do anything that isn't spoonfed to them with Playskool My First User Interface
kamomil@reddit
If it's a niche software for a small industry, it may not have the best user interface. Because it doesn't have any competition, the makers have no motivation to improve it.
Mindestiny@reddit
I mean, we're not talking about an industrial machinery controller designed in the 80s, we're talking about basic computing - what's a folder? Whats a window? How do I save files? What's an internet browser?
The knowledge floor for general computing has gotten extremely low.
kamomil@reddit
If I could explain wifi to my 80-year-old dad, then you can explain file systems to younger people. You have to break it down into terms they understand
Mindestiny@reddit
That's not the point. The point is this is basic knowledge that's critical to working in an office environment. They quantifiably don't have the skills to do the work they were hired to do, it's not ITs job to rectify their skill gaps.
kamomil@reddit
Society is changing. If the workers don't have the skills, then tell management to train them.
I mean boomers didn't have computer skills either. It's just a narrow demographic who programmed their own computers at home.
GremlinNZ@reddit
Yeup, all mobiles and tablets for the entering the workforce age. Struggling to use a PC.
Show them they can have two emails open at once? Mind blown!
Ruevein@reddit
had to argue with a user in their early 30's (my age) that outlook wasn't broken because they set a meeting for 1 pm but the recipient's calendar showed the meeting at 4pm.
yeah, the recipient was in a time zone 3 hours ahead, obviously the meeting would show up like that. if you wanted ot meet with them at 1pm do the math, or change the time zone on the meeting.
thehuntzman@reddit
To be fair that's not a technical problem. That's just garden variety stupidity.
Zedilt@reddit
I have had a long discussions with a department head about outlook meeting cancellations, and why we can't force the calendars of external users to automatically remove meetings she cancels.
AcornAnomaly@reddit
Oooh, a similar one was one of my most frustrating calls while on a service desk.
Guy understood perfectly that Outlook translated times across time zones.
But he came up to one point where he wanted to set up a meeting at a specific time in a different time zone, because he was going to be traveling to a different city when taking that meeting, and he didn't understand why Outlook wasn't doing the translation for him.
i.e. he was setting the meeting time as 1PM in Chicago time(his home time zone), when he wanted it as 1PM Arizona time, and he wondered why it was showing up as 11AM for his colleague that was in Arizona time. He expected the computer to just psychically know that he was traveling that day, and when he said "1PM", he meant in Arizona time, just that once. He didn't understand why he had to either choose the corresponding Chicago time, or explicitly set the time zone.
iamLisppy@reddit
Any new hire that says “im a Mac user” I already can forsee the future with them. It isnt a good one.
Impossible_IT@reddit
Reading this, Etchosketch came to mind for some reason. lol
daschande@reddit
I used to teach IT to high school juniors and seniors. The first 2 months was nothing but "how to computer 101". Things like you have to turn on the computer AND the monitor, you can't just do one. The difference between left click and right click and why you have to use the correct button. How to do a google search, CLICK on a link, and READ the web page, you can't just rely on google AI. How to reset your forgotten password in Gmail; just because I'm your teacher doesn't mean that I work for Google.
These weren't topics I just covered once and moved on quickly; it took multiple class periods with repeated labs and infinitely-repeated instructions on how to push both power buttons. Yes, I'm serious. The most difficult one was trying to break their addiction to AI; if google didn't tell them that the answer was C right at the top of the page, they had ZERO idea of what to do after that!
Needless to say, virtually no one could pass the A+ exam after 2 years of 3-hour classes every weekday. My KPIs were NOT pretty!
uptimefordays@reddit
In a past job, I had a 98 year old user doing 40 hour weeks and THE ONLY piece of technology she struggled with was the multi function printer, which in fairness, I didn't know how to use either! I was a neteng not a printer engineer.
braytag@reddit
Dude printer don't count.... they arr litteral "hellspawns".
SuperQue@reddit
Funny enough, one of the things I did to help out the old accountant was to migrate printing from a green-bar band printer to a laser MFP copier.
While the font was slightly smaller (green-bar paper was slightly bigger than letter/legal), the contrast of laser printing was vastly better for readability. Especially when the band printer ribbon was reaching end of life.
I customized an enscript filter with just the right fractional font sizes to maximize the column and row size.
Simpler times.
uptimefordays@reddit
Sometimes I miss the simpler times!
egoalter@reddit
I agree to a very large degree that "you should know" basic stuff like that. HOWEVER, there's a small, but not insignificant, part of the population here in US, who's never owned a computer and never worked with one when/if they worked. I have family members like that, who are lost on a touch-screen let alone knowing how to close a window.
So to you point, it's a choice that was made. And we need to start considering if that choice should have consequences. Regardless, you can still learn at 66.
Miklonario@reddit
Here is the context for expecting at least a cursory familiarity with the concept of a computer, though
Arudinne@reddit
What's a computer?
Arudinne@reddit
It's possible to learn if you're willing.
My Grandmother never learned how to operate anything other than a cordless phone and a TV remote control before she passed, and she struggled with TV because the cable company changed the UI every few years for no reason.
dlongwing@reddit
"Keep it down, you wouldn't want your boss to hear you say that. Computers are like, half your job."
Weaponize their incompetence right back at them.
BrainWaveCC@reddit
"And I'm only good at fixing them."
TheTreeSentinel@reddit
I have a sales guy who calls me for support 2-3x a week to help him either print something or copy a file to a thumb drive. He's retiring in a few months so I'm not even going to put effort into trying to get him to do it on his own.
smilNwave@reddit
Send guides stop wasting your time, scribes, custom screenshots etc
SicMundus33@reddit
But where is the line between a technical support person and a learning and development person. I don't mind helping people from time to time but I'm not getting paid extra to do their job for them.
smilNwave@reddit
Facts!! I once realized a programmer had syntax errors and finally stopped helping. Ended up telling him, this is your wheel house, visual studio is working as it should your code is the problem…he was the lead dev at a major finance company lol
TheKingOfSpite@reddit
Honestly I'm trying to pivot out of IT
Sure having knowledge that most people don't have is a great way to earn money, but a great way to make it mean nothing to you is to work around fucking retards
Polyolygon@reddit
“My mailbox is full. HELP!”
Maxplode@reddit
Make a snarky comment like "HR should do a better job at vetting people who say they can use a computer".
The users I hate the most are those that are so dumb that they just think everybody else is stupid. Not worth your energy, honestly
Spare_Reply2960@reddit
Just wait until Microsoft retires Publisher in October :D
N1kBr0@reddit
I once got a call where user asked me to print out jpegs attached to an email🤦♀️. I offered to show the necessary steps(computer literacy 101 basically) but they were like no, just print them for me thanks byeeee
The_Koplin@reddit
Warning, long post with a bit of story:
Process:
My process is simple, I make it painful in ways they can't imagine, their time! For one, I refuse to touch the keyboard, I won't show them a thing, I will EXPLAIN in agonizingly slow laborious monotone that is right out of a movie. "Bueller.... Bueller....?"
I tell them to take notes since I wont be able to 'show' them again any time soon due to 'workload' and that the notes they take is so they understand the process and to be sure to ask any questions to ensure the process is captured fully.
Basically if the user is trying to make things 'fast' by being lazy and offloading. I refuse to fall for the trap, rather I make the cost of their time so overwhelming that they give up or do so only once. I don't argue, I don't wine. I don't get angry, I don't do anything other then a very slow methodical button by button, click vs right click talk about how to do the task. Should the person dare ask a question (again I encourage them to do so), I make sure to describe things in brutal detail, with history, version changes and the like. I will ask them to be sure to include that in their notes. Not unhelpful, OVERLY helpful in that malicious compliance sort of way. After all the goal they had was to expedite their task by offloading. I make sure that path is the least desirable.
Want the IT guy in your office again for 2 hours while trying to scan a document to email because you refuse to use the button marked "scan to email" on the device. OK hope you had a good lunch.
Story section:
I have had staff swear at me - cool, reported to HR for aggressive, unprofessional behavior.
I have had staff walk away from me. I get up and leave and I don't return calls or messages from them for at least 24-48 hours. As well as document the encounter. IF I do respond, it's brief and "Sorry don't have a lot of time to respond, can you provide a 'detailed' explanation about the issue so I can review and assist when I have more time." Then if they respond again, I ask for more detail, or reply with a wall of text that even AI summaries are multiple pages (like this post, sorry). I have one user that when he hears me pickup the phone, he just hangs up. He knows I am going to ask "what ticket number are you referring to?" and he never opens tickets.
I have had staff call my boss to complain - I simply ask what policy or process was I not 'helpful' or compliant in?
My boss supports me, it's nice to have a boss that understands. He has used my documentation about the 'problem' people to force managers to deal with bad staff who treat IT support people worse then anything. I refuse to allow anyone to treat me or my coworkers poorly. There is one manager that raised this up to the big boss and tried to do so by blindsiding my boss in meeting about something else. My boss replied "You treated everyone else on the IT team poorly and they don't want to deal with you, Mr. Koplin is the only one willing to help and now you are complaining about it here. This is how things are going to change, you can only deal with me (referring to the IT director) and only when I have time"... The dude was shutdown in the middle of his complaint by my boss because I had clear documentation about every interaction and the fault was the dude kept trying to get away with shadow IT and violate policy. He had manipulated one of our Jr. staff with low self esteem issues into doing things against policy. Rather then fight that. I just waited for him to get complacent. Knowing he would just ignore any IT direction. Then when the opportunity came up, data going back years was delete during system maintenance. He reached out to my boss, and then sent an email with clearly AI based instructions on how to 'restore' the data.... Yep the dude tried to tell me how to do my job, not ask for help.. SO I pulled up the email from 2024 that explained backing up that particular system was his responblity and no IT backups exist of his data.
Then there is a gal in our dental office that tried to just get anyone to do things like scan for her. Tickets about "Scanner doesn't work" and then would just walk away and expect her work to be scanned in. Nope, I don't play that game. I bring 'examples' and test with them to validate the system, then get up and ask her to show me the issue. It's fun to sit there and watch the struggle as they now have to 'show' the problem and wouldn't you know it, the system works. I asked her to show me again, and again, just to be sure it was 'working' so that way it was not a fluke or a one off. I sat there watching this woman scan in 20+ pages, one by one, attach to a patient chart and then move on... A box that I know had been sitting there weeks, done in a hour or so as I just politely encouraged her to try again. This was for two reasons. One she is a pain to everyone, and two once she clearly demonstrated multiple successful scans. There was nothing she could come up with about IT equipment not working. When she opened a ticket about the scanner again a few days later, her boss and my boss had a nice long talk about where job duties and expectations land.
IF its a validated 'pebkac' then I become their worst 'helpful' nightmare, and burn at least 4x the effort then if they just learned to do it right.
Each person is a little different, but the result is the same, they choose a path of less resistance and it's usualy to learn the task and not ask for 'help' again.
TLDR: I make the process a punishment in their time. I get paid either way, I don't care how long it takes them, but I will not do it for them. (as you can see by the length of this post, sorry)
DonFazool@reddit
This is not the function of a sysadmin. Hire a desktop support person.
zoidao401@reddit
Also not the function of desktop support.
This is a job for IT trainers and, failing that, performance management.
DonFazool@reddit
lol what? Thats exactly what DTS is for. I didn’t do 35 years of IT to be the go to person when someone needs a new battery for their mouse. That’s the juniors job.
zoidao401@reddit
No, desktop supports job (in an organisation where it is a separate role from help desk) is to take escalations from help desk or do any of the work that requires them to be physically with the user/the user's hardware.
They're not IT trainers.
Saying it's not desktop support's job is not saying it's a sys admin's job, it's not an IT job at all.
AlexG2490@reddit
That’s not what we’re talking about. Helpdesk should absolutely have to fetch users new equipment. They should not have to save files in network locations for users or make Pivot Tables in Excel for them because they don’t know how to do a basic function of their job.
DonFazool@reddit
Semantics. The point is a sysadmin administers systems - not people. Thats the role of Helpdesk or DTS
MetalEnthusiast83@reddit
Yeah but it’s not a help desk tech’s responsibility to teach users how to do their jobs.
Valdaraak@reddit
If somebody needs a battery for their mouse, that's the user's responsibility.
At least it is here. We don't switch out batteries in mice. We'll tell them where they can find batteries though (it's not in the IT office).
Zedilt@reddit
Batteries, stationery and anything regarding electrical power is facility, not IT.
exedore6@reddit
Or finally, if the person is in fact so useful that it's not worth it for the company for them to do these basic things, a personal assistant. They could also feed them and wipe their butt if needed.
DogThatGoesBook@reddit
We did, it doesn’t help as they just fling the poop upwards at semi-random background teams until it eventually sticks.
PM_Me_UR-FLASHLIGHT@reddit
That would be nice.
redditduhlikeyeah@reddit
Remember when this was about sysadmins and not tech support.
Pisnaz@reddit
Thankfully I am able to just walk away and ignore them. They can complain to their boss, their bosses boss and their bosses bosses boss but they all know who I am and one or more would be liable to call that person out for wasting my time with that BS. It is either respect or fear, I curse and get loud a lot.
Hell I might even get praise and an apology if I avoid calling them a moron, or worse, and resist the urge to erase them. I work in a unique environment and some of these folks and I can go back almost 4 decades.
theBananagodX@reddit
My buddy used tell users, “I need two hands to do my job. If I have to hold your hand while you do your job, then I can’t do my job.” Brutal.
Frisnfruitig@reddit
This is pretty much the entire reason I wanted to get out of my first IT job. No way in hell will I be in direct contact with users again.
redyellowblue5031@reddit
You want to pay my salary to show you how to do something trivial? More than once?
Go right ahead.
Ruevein@reddit
Once got an email:
User: "Hey, how do i do X in adobe?"
So i called the user. showed them how to do it on their system and they got their project done.
15 minutes later my boss called
"User is complaining they asked you to do something and instead you called them and showed them how to do it instead."
You just can't win.
SlapcoFudd@reddit
The users are users, but wtf kinda boss is that?
grepsockpuppet@reddit
diabolical
Arudinne@reddit
Lesson of the day: Teach a man to fish and he will complain to your boss that you didn't give him a fish.
chesser45@reddit
Buy them a Copilot license!
dlongwing@reddit
I've got tons of personal snark for this, but here's my real world answer:
We're helped along by supportive management all the way up to the C-suite, but if your managers are idiots (as many are), then your best defense is to lean on loss-of-productivity within the department and "honest questions" about the minimum floor of experience needed for a person in their role.
BoltActionRifleman@reddit
My favorite is after telling people to restart, and telling them the exact steps on how to do it, they instead click on shut down. A minute later I’ll ask them “Did you get logged back in?” “No, the screen is still black” “Did you click on restart or shut down?” “I don’t remember, I think it was shut down though”.
I can’t even begin to comprehend why these people get hired.
Secret_Account07@reddit
Best career advice- kill em with kindness
Soft skills gets you far. If leadership likes you and you have a good attribute? Gold
I used to be this way, unfortunately I can’t deal with this stupidity anymore. Don’t be like me though
CharcoalGreyWolf@reddit
I make step-by-step instructional lists with screenshots if necessary. Better yet if you can make it a PDF you can send as an email.
This gives someone an easy reference “when you’re not around”.
Sure-Passion2224@reddit
My mother in law had her 90th birthday last Friday and is learning her way around Lubuntu. She does the occasional web browser, and streams her Sunday service, but she likes that it performs better than the Windows 10 installation it replaced.
Ok_Winner_3037@reddit
Just do it. Its not their job to know. Its yours. Plug that network cable back in and make fun of them behind closed doors.
smilNwave@reddit
Terrible advice
Ok_Winner_3037@reddit
Its peak girl
Splask@reddit
Why cant you tell C-suite no? If its against policy it's a no. I had to tell a VP no today. You know what happened? Policy won. No hard feelings between anyone. Different solution found.
GX_EN@reddit
I haven't done end user support stuff in well over 20 years, but some things stick in my mind.
One of them was a moronic marketing twit who called into our desktop support team because she couldn't connect to wifi. When asked to first bounce the wifi router, the answer given was "it's my neighbor's wifi".
OK, then. This call is over.
The best of all though was when I worked at a very large pharma company. We had the laptops and desktops set up to synch "My Documents" to the users' home directories when at the office. If they worked at home not on VPN, etc.. it would synch when they came in.
Anyway, this one guy was complaining that his synch never finished and it was causing problems, etc..
Turned out he had multiple gigs of porn in a folder in My Documents that was synching to his home directory. I'm not a rat, so I didn't say anything, I just deleted it all and gave his laptop back to him. Funny he never said anything. :)
Acceptable_Mood_7590@reddit
Move up the ladder mate. Get to L3, no dealing with end users. Otherwise Rage rooms at least once a month.
idontknowlikeapuma@reddit
I have worked for startups. Tech startups.
We had a sales director. The CEO hit me up to help him with just a damn spreadsheet. The dude just needed to add a nee tabbed sheet and rename it. Easy peasy, you would think.
No, this kunt/karen demanded I come on site to “fix the issue in person, probably one you caused”. He refused all attempts at remote support. Whatever, I’ll go in.
So I head into the office, the dork is fucking off in the break area, so I just create the new tab and name it for him.
I sit at my desk until I see this fuck walk back into the office on the camera. I follow right in and show him what I had done.
He demands I show him. So I walk him through the process, and he says, “that seems really easy; why didn’t you just do that over the phone.”
“Because you called me stupid.”
“Yeah, you are! It took you to waste company money to show me something you could have just told me over the phone!”
Oh snap. Dude doesn’t realize I record all professional interactions. I am a call center; I record fucking everything to CYA. And guess who just simply walked into the CEO’s office while the HR director was there.
Boom. Turns out, they had already been building a case to fire him.
I got told to go home and take the rest of the day off after I forwarded my files. Damn, that blew up in his face.
And everyone applauded!!! /joking, just something I like to add anytime there was a ridiculous win.
Addendum: ran into the guy at a truck stop, and he went on and on about how he was the victim of the company.
And I just had to pokerface. “
kiddj1@reddit
I used to say I know how to fix a computer, not use one.
Greerio@reddit
My boss specifically asked me to stop responding to tickets so fast unless it’s an actual emergency. Let them solve some of their own issues.
KaijinSurohm@reddit
It depends on their repetition.
If the same person calls in and complains, asking for you to do it. Teach them first
-Make sure what you're teaching them is actually under your scope of your job. The last thing you want to do is teach them something that's outside your scope, as anything that goes wrong you will be liable for
Make sure you document the hell out of it in your ticketing system.
If they call in again, repeat the process, and request that they take notes (politely) and make an in-depth detail in your ticket system again.
If they do it again, politely reach out to their manager (and cc yours to play it safe), to let them know that they have an employee who keeps calling in for the exact same issue multiple times, and you're looping them in out of professional help to see if they can step in to see where the problem is they're having that's causing them to have a repeated issue.
This makes you look less like you're frustrated with the waste of your time, and more like you're just going above and beyond for customer service excellence to make sure they are getting taken care of.
While in reality, you're telling their manager to get better employees.
If it's a C-level, all you can do is talk to your direct manager about the repeated C-Level calls, and follow your manager's advice.
It could range anywhere from "Suck it up and deal with it" to "I've got you" and then they can actually escalate up. C-Levels may be at the top of the food chain, but they're not immune to showing incompetence and losing their position for wasting company time and resources.
ThreadParticipant@reddit
deliberately ignorant is how I call it...
realgone2@reddit
I just dealt with this today. Teacher kept saying she couldn't login to this program. The teach and myself have been dealing with her since yesterday morning. It's a very common program that all teachers use every day. Finally figured out she was going to the parent's login and not the one for staff. I just finished emailing her principal. I told him that she needs better training and asked him how does someone that supposedly has to use this everyday for their job not know which login to use. I'm awaiting his reply.
volster@reddit
While remaining professional and cheerful, I just make using me as their personal I.T bitch boy more of a pain in the ass than doing it themselves
User files a ticket about wanting to set and unset outlook out of office?
Reply In the first instance with a kb link - make them clarify that they wanted me to do it for them
..... Then reply asking them to confirm the dates it should be set and unset
.... Then ask them what message they would like to have and when the urgent contact should be if applicable
..... Then once they've finally confirmed all that, send them the appointment time booker for me to remote onto their pc
.... They're not there at the appointed time? "oh dear, I'm afraid I've moved on to other tickets so we'll have to pencil it in again" [repeat until remoted onto their pc with them present]
..... Then when all is said and done they get to watch me move their mouse and click the same button they should have clicked with 30 seconds worth of effort if they'd just read the Instructions rather than the repeated game of telephone
Once the penny drops that you're just going to take the same approach to any attempt to farm out their busywork or turn you into their assistant, they quickly stop trying it on. 🤷♂️
ChabotJ@reddit
My last job if someone was a frequent caller for the same issues that was between my boss, their boss, and HR. Wasting the service desk's time on the same issue because you refuse to learn is wasting company money.
Flabbergasted98@reddit
"allright, I can walk you through this, but you're going to drive. Grab the mouse."
" can't you just do it"
Since computers drive our business there are certain skills and techniques that we expect all staff to learn. If you've forgotten I'm always happy to walk you though it, but you have to do it. I'm the engineer, you're the pilot.
Tasks we expect staff to learn for themselves are things like resetting their password, restarting their computers, and most in app skills (like setting up email forwarding, email rules, spreadhseet formulas and the like.
I can make sure reddit is working for you, but ou have to learn how to use the upvotes.
hkusp45css@reddit
We say "no" after the second time and loop in their boss.
I will not allow these users to monopolize the time of my highly trained technical service people because they don't want to think.
It was AWFUL when I first got here. The very MOMENT I was able to start training the users, that's what we did. Every ticket closure required a training component if the tech had to do something the user could have done.
It took nearly 2 years, but the tickets we get, now, are about 95 percent stuff they CAN'T fix.
Extra-Organization-6@reddit
the c-suite case is the worst because you CAN'T teach them. they decided decades ago that figuring out software is beneath them and that's not changing.
what's worked for me is the 'documentation trap': write up the 5-step how-to, send it with 'let me know if any step isn't clear so i can improve the doc.' 80% of the time they'll just do it themselves because asking a clarifying question means admitting they didn't read. for the other 20% at least you have a reusable doc for the next time they ask the same thing.
for the truly basic stuff (restart, attach a file, unhide a column) DonFazool's right -- it's helpdesk territory, not sysadmin. if you don't have a helpdesk layer and you're fielding those calls, that's a staffing conversation with your boss.
KalistoCA@reddit
I have someone on my sysadmin team like this
Claims all these azure certs can do no things
Just do it for me .. age 22
DiscardStu@reddit
Last school I was at had an extremely entitled school administrator who would constantly have her assistant call for help. "She needs help with this, or that isn't working as expected, send someone immediately."
Someone from the IT department would show up to see what problem her royal pain in the ass was having and wouldn't you know it, she was always on the phone or in a meeting and too busy to see us. Her assistant would tell us to have a seat and she'll be with us shortly. Uh, no. Standing instruction was if she's not ready for the help when the urgent call is placed, IT team member was to leave and suggest they open a ticket or call back when it was a more convenient time.
This is the same person who decided to change the orientation of a ceiling mounted projector 180 degrees. She got up on a chair, spun it around and proceeded to break the HDMI connected off in the projector. She then threw a fit because it didn't work after that. Well, duh.
miteycasey@reddit
Write a document and refer them to the document.
wtf_com@reddit
Just weaponized incompetence at the corporate level. Just accept and move on.
ChapterBooks@reddit
What sucks is I don’t really have a choice as the single IT guy. My day consists of ONLY computer illiterate people that make x6 than me. Yet I somehow control all the functions of their world down to signing on their own PC for them.
“I’m locked out idk what happened”
Well Betty I watched you smash the space bar 5 times cause you were upset it wasn’t moving fast enough.
OffensiveOdor@reddit
😂😂😂
daschande@reddit
I had an email today from a sales manager. They called in the customer service line frantic because she needed IT support NOW!!!! So CS gives them my email.
Someone took a screenshot of 5 rows of an excel sheet that was printed and scanned. She needed that in "some kind of editable document like excel or google sheets." This is CRITICAL! NUMBER ONE PRIORITY! ASAP THANKS!
...I sent it through an OCR website and emailed it back in 5 minutes. I later realized that she was too damn lazy to type 5 lines in an excel sheet herself. Lesson learned.
Best_Alternative349@reddit
"I'm afraid this is an issue for the service desk"
98PercentChimp@reddit (OP)
We are a two person IT department. We are the service desk, unfortunately.
shimoheihei2@reddit
This is how I've learned to handle people. Basically you reply in a positive way but that requires something extra from them: "Sure, I can work on that for you. I'll just need you to provide A, B and C for me to get started." This really is all you need to do. The vast, vast majority of people love to ask others to do stuff but can't be bothered to do any follow through. Most of these people, if you ask even token work from them in order to help them, suddenly their original request becomes far less urgent.
F7xWr@reddit
Just use the ticket system.
sorderon@reddit
There isn't any hope they are the venus fly trap of IT. For years and years I told someone that their email is slow, because it is a cheap domain, with a cheap email, attached to a FREE gmail account that only checks that account every 30 mins. I tell them EVERY fking TIME they moan about authentication emails to use the gmail account for that instead. Nope. They never do. There is nothing that can fix this mindset and these people are a trap - I told her I cannot put up with her any longer and just walked.
Altruistic-Map5605@reddit
Tell them to talk to their manager and explain how they are unable to fulfill the duties they were hired to perform and have them email me for approval.
thomasafine@reddit
This depends entirely on how your job and their job are defined. In our environment users don't even have the privileges needed to restart or shutdown. And users are VERY strongly discouraged from resorting to the power button. But in every environment where I've worked, there have always been problematic users, and every now and then those users have sufficient authority that, regardless of paper definitions of your job and theirs, they still win. It is what it is. As with every job, find a way to leave your work stuff behind and go home and enjoy life.
MBILC@reddit
Follow up after showing them, an email with screenshots and what ever else in it, then ever time they ask again "re-forward" the same email, so they can see the last time it was sent also..
ncc74656m@reddit
We've had issues like this in the past, but the issue here is management. Yours and theirs. If either side is comfortable with users behaving this way, then you will inherently end up with this level of behavior, unless one side is empowered to put their foot down.
TheGenericUser0815@reddit
What really helps is "I can help you and I'm going to, but not now (because there's some really impactful shit I need to do first)". Many of those computer-analphabetical issues solve themselves by time and the coworker at next desk.
trullaDE@reddit
I don't mind explaining something multiple times. In fact, I like the challenge of finding the right way, the right analogy, the right example, to explain something, so the other just gets it.
And most people aren't stupid around computers. They're probably just scared, and been ridiculed and talked down to and treated like idiots one too many times.
CPAtech@reddit
Tickets for "show me how to do that thing you just showed me last week" get the lowest possible priority. Eventually users get tired of waiting for you to do the thing again and actually pay attention when you show them.
AppIdentityGuy@reddit
Try working in really large corporates who have platinum support teams to aide end abet their sense of entitlement
ncc74656m@reddit
At least in that kind of environment you know what you're getting with the job, and hopefully the money to boot.
Honolulu-Blues@reddit
"Even more frustrating when it’s upper management/C-suite since you can’t really tell them no."
I love telling them no. I'm not a slave.
Demented_CEO@reddit
You're working a customer service job. It helps to realize that. If you're spending far too much time on handholding users, tell your manager that it's taking time out of your other tasks.
Caedro@reddit
Another way to look at it is if they were baseline competent, they wouldn’t need you.
hurkwurk@reddit
What is "99% of our service desk calls" Alex
heisenbergerwcheese@reddit
If you cant tell them know, you just gotta suck it up buttercup and do it... others, send them to their management and say they need help with this kindergarten level process