Our IT guy is an unresponsive jerk(askamanager.org)
askamanager.org
Our IT guy is an unresponsive jerk
http://www.askamanager.org/2016/07/our-it-guy-is-an-unresponsive-jerk.html
13 comments
"but if IT is under-staffed, this guy has work that needs his direct, uninterrupted attention - and people wonder why he might be a jerk or dismissive ?"
From where we are and the evidence given in the post, we can't distinguish between "legitimately a jerk" and "overstressed by interruptions and lacking the emotional bandwidth to deal with people". And, you know, there's even the possibility that he's dealing with the IT requests completely professionally, and that's being interpreted as being a jerk, because IT interactions seem to be somehow particularly prone to that sort of thing. (Probably the problems of getting an engineering, technically-focused person dealing with more people with very different social interaction protocols.)
From where we are and the evidence given in the post, we can't distinguish between "legitimately a jerk" and "overstressed by interruptions and lacking the emotional bandwidth to deal with people". And, you know, there's even the possibility that he's dealing with the IT requests completely professionally, and that's being interpreted as being a jerk, because IT interactions seem to be somehow particularly prone to that sort of thing. (Probably the problems of getting an engineering, technically-focused person dealing with more people with very different social interaction protocols.)
If he lacks the emotional bandwidth to deal with people, I'd say he hasn't earned that "IT professional" title he wants people to use.
The response from Ask a Manager seems to be in agreement with you:
> Your company is relying on the same person to do high-concentration projects and to provide help desk support — when those are two very different roles with conflicting needs.
> Your company is relying on the same person to do high-concentration projects and to provide help desk support — when those are two very different roles with conflicting needs.
[deleted]
sometimes the eye roll isnt directed at the person asking the question, but instead more of a "ive answered this question 10 times this week, if i could pull everyones attention for 5 minutes, no one would ever need to ask it again."
but instead employees refuse to read all-employees emails from IT, and upper management does not choose to schedule time for all hands training/meetings. in this scenario the eye roll is directed towards management for not fixing the training issue at a higher level in the company. a once a month hour long training session might fix hundreds of hours of helpdesk backlog. but that would cost money because people wouldnt be working.
or maybe the eye roll is directed at the employee who deleted the bulk-email solution, unread, that was sent out hours,days,weeks,months before they asked the question.
but instead employees refuse to read all-employees emails from IT, and upper management does not choose to schedule time for all hands training/meetings. in this scenario the eye roll is directed towards management for not fixing the training issue at a higher level in the company. a once a month hour long training session might fix hundreds of hours of helpdesk backlog. but that would cost money because people wouldnt be working.
or maybe the eye roll is directed at the employee who deleted the bulk-email solution, unread, that was sent out hours,days,weeks,months before they asked the question.
I've been in situations like this. Being a "jerk" is a defense mechanism. If you are approachable then everyone brings their technical problems (personal and professional) to you. If you are unapproachable you stand a chance of actually getting 10 minutes of uninterrupted time.
I've been there too, I get it. I'm trying to roll out a new company-wide backup platform and people come by my desk because Candy Crush isn't working on their personal iPad.
Non-technical people have a very strong tendency to treat their co-workers in I.T. as their personal tech support, and managers outside of I.T. don't understand why you can't just make the developer/sysadmin/network engineer/dba/whatever do all the BS helpdesk work at the same time.
Non-technical people have a very strong tendency to treat their co-workers in I.T. as their personal tech support, and managers outside of I.T. don't understand why you can't just make the developer/sysadmin/network engineer/dba/whatever do all the BS helpdesk work at the same time.
> Being a "jerk" is a defense mechanism.
Being an uncommunicative jerk is considered a more forgivable trait than actually pushing back on the work put on your plate.
In my first job ever, I spent about six months helping anyone who came by my desk for help. As it would turn out, my manager completely hated the fact that I did that because it looked like he couldn't keep me at 100% utilization.
He was much happier after I grew a neckbeard, long hair and turned into someone who'd bite the head off any QE who came by my desk with random questions.
More than a decade later, way out in open-source, I have gone back to being nicer & calmer - because nobody knows your hairstyle on the internet.
Being an uncommunicative jerk is considered a more forgivable trait than actually pushing back on the work put on your plate.
In my first job ever, I spent about six months helping anyone who came by my desk for help. As it would turn out, my manager completely hated the fact that I did that because it looked like he couldn't keep me at 100% utilization.
He was much happier after I grew a neckbeard, long hair and turned into someone who'd bite the head off any QE who came by my desk with random questions.
More than a decade later, way out in open-source, I have gone back to being nicer & calmer - because nobody knows your hairstyle on the internet.
It probably seems strange to people without that level of workload, but yeah-- I've seen people have to do this.
It's like that whole trope of "don't fix the copier, then everyone will constantly come to you to fix the copier".
It's like that whole trope of "don't fix the copier, then everyone will constantly come to you to fix the copier".
While the guy might well be a jerk and rude it is also very likely he is stressed and overworked. Sounds like the company needs a junior sysadmin to handle the help desk.
Also sounds like this guy is more of a technical specialist/project manager/possibly devops and not just "the IT guy".
Also sounds like this guy is more of a technical specialist/project manager/possibly devops and not just "the IT guy".
Exactly! "overstressed" seems to me like a much more frequent reason of a misbehaviour at workplace than "a jerk".
And, as you say, one needs an suitable inclination to work with people too.
Edit: some companies have rotating days of desk-support for such personnel, but for that, one needs to have at least 2 of them.
And, as you say, one needs an suitable inclination to work with people too.
Edit: some companies have rotating days of desk-support for such personnel, but for that, one needs to have at least 2 of them.
At [redacted] we had a rotating help desk system for a while. It was pretty awful for everyone (those on the rotor and those needing support) as you quickly lose your edge at quickly fixing common issues. If you do it for one day a month (as we did) they it is just a pain in the ass as for one day a month you are expected to be able to fix weird MS Office errors or printer problems. It is always better to pay a little more and have a single person dedicated to handling such issues. There is no shortage of people wanting to get a foot in the door at low level tech support so it isn't going to blow the budget out of the water. In my experience it is actually the opposite as you end up wasting money on getting people to cover a position and they are never as effective as a dedicated person who will come across common issues and be able to resolve them much faster.
Dealing with individual personalities is a reality of the workplace, but obviously there are limits. It sounds like duties and responsibilities need to be more clearly defined one way or the other. If "help desk" is part of his clearly defined role, then he needs to do a better job. If its not, they need to find a better way of addressing the "help desk" need.
It might be part of his role but it sounds like he is expected to do much more than handle broken computers and such. Perhaps he is partly at fault for not raising this with his manager but it is also his managers responsibility to be aware of how much work he is doing in all areas of his positions responsibilities. Given the limited (and one sided) information we have and going by my personal experiences of small companies I would put my money on him being overworked and expected to "do it all" because "how hard is running antivirus to fix a problem".
I'm trying to figure out which professions it is acceptable to say [JOB] Guy?
I don't think it's all derogatory – it just highlights the fact that there's exactly one person for that job in the organization. I could, for example, imagine a cook being called 'our Creme Brulee Guy' if it's his speciality.
Or that character in 'How I met your mother' who had a suit guy, a Yankees ticket guy, a flower guy and – if new needs arise – a guy guy.
Or that character in 'How I met your mother' who had a suit guy, a Yankees ticket guy, a flower guy and – if new needs arise – a guy guy.
I think its pretty derogatory and unprofessional. See how far Brain Guy goes in an organization with one psychologist. I would imagine a "rebuke" and a remembrance of the word "Doctor" would occur.
"How I Met Your Mother" was a comedy, and that what a [JOB] Guy title makes the person.
"How I Met Your Mother" was a comedy, and that what a [JOB] Guy title makes the person.
And, this is different from most IT support people how??? :-)
Seriously. The guy's over-worked. Get him some help.
Seriously. The guy's over-worked. Get him some help.
This is the same site that made the rounds with "I fired someone for going to their graduation" last week. I can't help but suspect this is going to become quite baity, quite quickly.
I can't help but wonder if this isn't about the author misinterpreting the job of the "IT Guy." If he insists that the title is "Systems Administrator" or "IT Professional" rather than "IT Guy," maybe that's because help desk stuff specifically isn't his job, and the non-technical writer here doesn't understand the distinction. It would certainly explain both his overworked state and his reaction to being asked questions.
The bigger issue is that this place sounds like it has insufficient or otherwise incompetent management, which will inevitably create issues like this downstream. I'd bet that if you looked in other departments at this company, you'd find similar role confusion/dysfunction.
Someone doing big IT projects cannot be expected to also do desktop support at the same time (and shouldn't become the de facto support person simply because they have technical knowledge).
Someone doing big IT projects cannot be expected to also do desktop support at the same time (and shouldn't become the de facto support person simply because they have technical knowledge).
I made the mistake of reading the comments section. I can't fathom how people take such pride in their lack of knowing how computers work. Sure, there are things I don't know, but I don't think I'd ever take pride in that ignorance.
Well, if its any consolation, just be happy you're not a mathematician. Or an English Lit grad.
Interdepartmental warfare is epidemic at large companies, but it happens at small ones too.
If your employees can push the power switch they become documented as responsible for pushing the power switch and if something bad happens you can always push the blame onto the IT guy for not pushing the power switch for them, and as long as the IT guy isn't one of your direct reports you just "won" that round of office politics. Learned weakness is passive aggressive and very popular and effective as a weapon. A dry cleaner would never tolerate a customer demanding they shouldn't have to know how to zip up their pants or a plumber would never tolerate a customer demanding the plumber flush the toilet for them because they don't understand these pipey things. But IT guys are not known for their social skills and now every problem is their problem because only IT guys should have to know the technical details of putting paper in the printer. Resulting in the IT guy is the only person in the company responsible for the tax documents not being filed on time, or that lost big sale, because due to bad social skills the buck stops with IT instead of passing it like all the other departments do. (and edited to add that getting rid of a scapegoat, like "that bad IT guy" isn't magically going to get the tax forms sent by the deadline, picking a new scapegoat isn't going to fix anything)
There's a side dish of LMFGTFY. Seriously, you're an adult who got themselves dressed and fed and drove to work, you goof off on facebook four hours per workday, you can handle using google. It's just a primate dominance ritual to force you to google something for me. No different than me demanding you wash my car or shine my shoes. Its even worse when its not work related.
There is a difference between responsibilities and skills. An IT guy is responsible for keeping the wifi access point operational and secure. He's got a responsibility. He's not a bucket of skills waiting to be sloshed on anyone too lazy to plug in a power cord. The company made a huge mistake of hiring unskilled employees. If you want to use a centerless grinding machine on a factory floor to earn a profit, you hire machinists who have a clue about centerless grinding machines or you fail and go out of business. You don't yell at the only guy on the floor who knows what he's doing because he's a convenient low caste individual to blame or mumble about how people should be nicer because not everyone knows how to skillfully operate centerless grinder machines so its all somehow the fault of the one guy who knows. Learn or GTFO. If you want to use computers you hire staff who know computers or you go out of business because a competitor is more competent. All activity across all lines of business is a tightrope between applying your skills (which you better have else prepare to suffer or GTFO voluntarily or otherwise) vs respecting someone else area of responsibility, this is not an IT thing or a finance thing or a shipping thing this is a universal balance problem for all business activity. Management is 100% responsible for their mistake although it MIGHT be justified if there are extenuating circumstances. In that case expect complaints about general employee IT incompetence to be blown off by mgmt. "We hired you because you're great at Y, yes we know you're completely inadequate at X despite X being required to do your job, and every time you get involved with X its frustrating for everyone involved, everyone, I assure you, and nothing is going to change as long as you keep high performing in Y and carefully avoid any training or learning about X".
If your employees can push the power switch they become documented as responsible for pushing the power switch and if something bad happens you can always push the blame onto the IT guy for not pushing the power switch for them, and as long as the IT guy isn't one of your direct reports you just "won" that round of office politics. Learned weakness is passive aggressive and very popular and effective as a weapon. A dry cleaner would never tolerate a customer demanding they shouldn't have to know how to zip up their pants or a plumber would never tolerate a customer demanding the plumber flush the toilet for them because they don't understand these pipey things. But IT guys are not known for their social skills and now every problem is their problem because only IT guys should have to know the technical details of putting paper in the printer. Resulting in the IT guy is the only person in the company responsible for the tax documents not being filed on time, or that lost big sale, because due to bad social skills the buck stops with IT instead of passing it like all the other departments do. (and edited to add that getting rid of a scapegoat, like "that bad IT guy" isn't magically going to get the tax forms sent by the deadline, picking a new scapegoat isn't going to fix anything)
There's a side dish of LMFGTFY. Seriously, you're an adult who got themselves dressed and fed and drove to work, you goof off on facebook four hours per workday, you can handle using google. It's just a primate dominance ritual to force you to google something for me. No different than me demanding you wash my car or shine my shoes. Its even worse when its not work related.
There is a difference between responsibilities and skills. An IT guy is responsible for keeping the wifi access point operational and secure. He's got a responsibility. He's not a bucket of skills waiting to be sloshed on anyone too lazy to plug in a power cord. The company made a huge mistake of hiring unskilled employees. If you want to use a centerless grinding machine on a factory floor to earn a profit, you hire machinists who have a clue about centerless grinding machines or you fail and go out of business. You don't yell at the only guy on the floor who knows what he's doing because he's a convenient low caste individual to blame or mumble about how people should be nicer because not everyone knows how to skillfully operate centerless grinder machines so its all somehow the fault of the one guy who knows. Learn or GTFO. If you want to use computers you hire staff who know computers or you go out of business because a competitor is more competent. All activity across all lines of business is a tightrope between applying your skills (which you better have else prepare to suffer or GTFO voluntarily or otherwise) vs respecting someone else area of responsibility, this is not an IT thing or a finance thing or a shipping thing this is a universal balance problem for all business activity. Management is 100% responsible for their mistake although it MIGHT be justified if there are extenuating circumstances. In that case expect complaints about general employee IT incompetence to be blown off by mgmt. "We hired you because you're great at Y, yes we know you're completely inadequate at X despite X being required to do your job, and every time you get involved with X its frustrating for everyone involved, everyone, I assure you, and nothing is going to change as long as you keep high performing in Y and carefully avoid any training or learning about X".
"I haven't considered the terrible situation this person has been put in, and I'm all out of ideas!"
Let's maybe not throw around terms like 'terrible situation' for someone being ask to fix a printer here or there. Even amongst the #firstwordproblems it just seems to lack the je-ne-sais-quoi of real tragedies.
The terrible situation is the implicit "IT Guy" having to do actual sysadmin work and being interrupted with the "hey fix this printer".
Also, being asked to fix a printer is pretty frustrating, because at best someone either is using past knowledge, or using google to diagnose, which is something pretty much any person could do.
Also, being asked to fix a printer is pretty frustrating, because at best someone either is using past knowledge, or using google to diagnose, which is something pretty much any person could do.
Resource management and leveling, how does it work?
Often times the accusation of jerky behavior can be one sided. To an IT person, it can be frustrating if they are dealing with the same issues from the same people over and over again.
Here is an analogy. Suppose the company had a policy of submitting your timesheet rounded to the nearest half-hour every Friday. Suppose an employee comes to HR in person unannounced on Friday with a list of hours worked every day that week, for example, 7.4, 7.6, 7.7,7.8,7.9. For each of the numbers he asks the HR person (it is a small company so they only have on HR person) what he should enter in his timesheet. The first time, the HR person might tell him the company policy and give the answers (7.5,7.5,7.5,8,8). If the person does this every week (even with slightly different numbers) is the HR person always going to be kind, smiling, and affirming? After a while, there is a high likelihood that the HR person would at least once sigh, roll their eyes, and give curt answers. Would people call the HR person a jerk for this response - after all this is part of their job?
At any company, there are people who want to do their job with the least amount of thought and effort possible. An IT person can be seen as a better Siri. Instead of thinking about a problem or even trying to look it up online, it is faster and easier for them just to dump it off to another person. These types of people can monopolize an IT person's time. Unfortunately, the IT person is often at a level where they cannot formally complain about people abusing their time. Thus, as a self-protection mechanism, they try to change the incentives. Calling the IT person with your problem will save you from having to think about it, but you will pay for it by having to undergo condescension. After a while this type of behavior can become ingrained in IT and be used against everybody, not just bad actors.
How can a company fix this? First, do not tolerate jerky behavior as that can ruin company culture. Second, have a policy in place that abuse of an IT person's time will not be tolerated. As an employee, you are required to be sufficiently knowledgeable about your tools - one of which is a computer. People abusing the IT person will have to undergo mandatory training or face disciplinary action. Have the IT person document each request and who asked for it. Review them periodically, to find people who are abusing the system. A company would not tolerate someone who always asked a coworker to write their reports because they are poor at grammar and spelling. So, they should not tolerate someone always asking IT about routine computer issues.
Doing this can remove the incentive for jerky behavior from IT as they can just quickly document the requests knowing that abuse will be dealt with by management. For your workers, they know that IT is there as a resource that is happy to help them but is not a substitute for Google. I think this would result in an overall win-win situation.
Here is an analogy. Suppose the company had a policy of submitting your timesheet rounded to the nearest half-hour every Friday. Suppose an employee comes to HR in person unannounced on Friday with a list of hours worked every day that week, for example, 7.4, 7.6, 7.7,7.8,7.9. For each of the numbers he asks the HR person (it is a small company so they only have on HR person) what he should enter in his timesheet. The first time, the HR person might tell him the company policy and give the answers (7.5,7.5,7.5,8,8). If the person does this every week (even with slightly different numbers) is the HR person always going to be kind, smiling, and affirming? After a while, there is a high likelihood that the HR person would at least once sigh, roll their eyes, and give curt answers. Would people call the HR person a jerk for this response - after all this is part of their job?
At any company, there are people who want to do their job with the least amount of thought and effort possible. An IT person can be seen as a better Siri. Instead of thinking about a problem or even trying to look it up online, it is faster and easier for them just to dump it off to another person. These types of people can monopolize an IT person's time. Unfortunately, the IT person is often at a level where they cannot formally complain about people abusing their time. Thus, as a self-protection mechanism, they try to change the incentives. Calling the IT person with your problem will save you from having to think about it, but you will pay for it by having to undergo condescension. After a while this type of behavior can become ingrained in IT and be used against everybody, not just bad actors.
How can a company fix this? First, do not tolerate jerky behavior as that can ruin company culture. Second, have a policy in place that abuse of an IT person's time will not be tolerated. As an employee, you are required to be sufficiently knowledgeable about your tools - one of which is a computer. People abusing the IT person will have to undergo mandatory training or face disciplinary action. Have the IT person document each request and who asked for it. Review them periodically, to find people who are abusing the system. A company would not tolerate someone who always asked a coworker to write their reports because they are poor at grammar and spelling. So, they should not tolerate someone always asking IT about routine computer issues.
Doing this can remove the incentive for jerky behavior from IT as they can just quickly document the requests knowing that abuse will be dealt with by management. For your workers, they know that IT is there as a resource that is happy to help them but is not a substitute for Google. I think this would result in an overall win-win situation.
and
"He is also curt and dismissive, especially with junior staff—mostly part-timers, moms with kids—who don’t have a lot of experience troubleshooting computer problems."
This is HN, so I may be stating the obvious - but if IT is under-staffed, this guy has work that needs his direct, uninterrupted attention - and people wonder why he might be a jerk or dismissive ?
People tend to forget or not know how IT works. If your a manager, you might have x employees reporting to you. So you are directly responsible for those employees and whoever you report to.
Sales? Same - you need to report to your boss and the customer. Customer Service? The customer and your boss.
But IT generally needs to report to the entire division or company. One of my last jobs, there were 2 of us in IT and the company was 500 employees. And we had our own uninterrupted work we needed to get done. And we did help desk, were off site, etc... And we had to account for any 1 of the 500 employees at any given moment needing support or a server going down or code to be written or a security camera going out, or pulling a backup cause someone clicked "delete" by accident, or etc...
I'm not saying it's acceptable to be a jerk or whatever term people what to use. I'm saying, while (random employee) might be responsible for say 10 people, IT is generally responsible for entire organizations. Slack, is to be cut, sometimes.