IT Support: Drawing the Line
I was going to start this post by saying I find myself in a unique position this morning, but sadly that isn't the case.
The situation I find myself in unfortunately happens far too often. I am aware it is probably an inherent risk of working in a "service oriented field", but it still confounds me every time it happens.
The question is, where do you draw the line between being helpful and actually doing everyone's job for them? I really like that saying "give a person a fish, they eat for a day, teach them to fish and they eat for a lifetime".
If I follow that adage, I am probably putting the burden back upon myself because if I don't do a good job teaching them to (do whatever task) then is it really their fault when they need help in the future? Let me give you two examples that happened just this morning prompting me to write this post.
Situation 1
Let me get this out of the way first thing and say that I hate web pages. Trust me, I have edited and designed my fair share of them, so that part isn't the issue. What I hate about them is no one wanting to take ownership concerning the content that gets put on them.
It is very rare (especially in public education) that you can afford a person whose sole job is to update the webpage and keep it current. More commonly, you usually get a person whose job involves many tasks, only one of which is updating the web page.
Still, I would hope that is happening frequently enough that you are familiar with the interface and how to perform basic tasks like adding a link, changing text, and uploading a picture.
This morning I had a secretary email me to tell me that the picture looks nice on the high school page and could it be added to the middle school page as well. Only one problem with that, it wasn't me that added the picture. I checked the change logs and it looks like the principal made that change. I emailed the secretary back and let her know that it wasn't me and that it looks like the principal did it.
About five minutes later, I got an email back telling me that she added the picture to the middle school page. My first instinct was to email back and say "Awesome! Would you like me to email you every time I do my job as well?".
If you don't work in the service field or IT, you will probably assume I am the biggest jerk for thinking that. If you do work in one of those fields you probably just laughed a little bit.
Of course I didn't reply with that. Learning not to reply with my first thought has been a hard habit to break in the past 15+ years working in IT. Sometimes I still fail!
Situation 2
Setting up user accounts in a school district can be pretty interesting. Admins usually need to create some form of unique system to that it is easy to identify students from each grade level. This typically means that logins are not always that intuitive for non technical people.
At the beginning of the year I have an info-graphic I share with all the staff that clearly walks through the process of how to determine what a students login would be using fun pop culture references. It never fails that I have teachers and staff emailing me constantly asking what a students login is.
Case in point, this morning I got an email saying "can I get xxxxx's email?" Already frustrated from the previous interaction in situation 1, I replied "Yes, it is the standard district format". Of course I got a reply with all kinds of excuses about why they don't know what that would be. The sad thing is, I have a feeling they didn't even try.
They could just as easily lookup the piece of information they need in our SIS (student information system) to determine the students login just as easily as I could. What they are telling me is that my time is less important than theirs so I should just look it up.
The Big Question
So that brings us to the big question: How do you deliver reasonable support with out actually doing their jobs for them? I have worked with people in the past who I thought were so inept that I figured it was just easier (and quicker for me) to do tasks for them. Eventually I realized they were actually brilliant, in that they simply acted dumb so everyone would do their job for them.
It is also easy to come across as "not caring" when you try to give people the time to figure it out for themselves. The fact is being the only IT person in a whole school district, time management is crucial. If the end users can work things out for themselves, that frees up time for me to work on bigger projects.
I realize I am probably a bit jaded having been in the industry for so long. I'd really love to hear your opinions though. I met my wife at work and she honestly thought I was a jerk when she first met me because of how I sometimes reacted to support requests. Heck she probably still thinks I am a jerk sometimes :)
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Working in the IT and/or telecom field for may years i can relate and the one thing i struggled with for many years, and to be honest still struggle with is to resist the first though that comes to mind as a reply, and all to often over the years I let it fly, not a old thing to do of course
Yeah, it is hard. I get that some people don't have the technical skills, but at least try. I will have a lot more respect for you than if you don't even attempt it. If you screw it up, no biggie, I can fix it. At least you tried.
I am the same if people gave it a go and messed it up that didnt bother me at all I respected that they tried first, but the ones who wont even stop and think about it let alone try but first thought is lets call the IT guy now that is frustrating
Work has to involve some cooperation, but some people will exploit this to avoid doing their job. I try to push the idea of things like a wiki to share information that everyone can benefit from. You can end up with the only person who knows how to do something leaving the operation and then you are stuck. Some of them will keep it to themselves to be more valuable. Just have to do the best you can.
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Hey @bozz you are in no way a jerk. You are not their to spoon feed them. And btw I know the type who are brilliant but want everyone to do their job. It sucks.
Thanks, i appreciate it! Have you ever heard the concept of bucket filling? I feel like everyone takes from my bucket but no one fills it sometimes.
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Being in IT support for 25 years, I feel for you. It can be a tough line to walk and I really liked your bucket analogy. All take no give back often makes for a long day.
In fairness .... 😁
I understand what you are saying - right now, I am trying to find who is responsible in our organisation for updating the website, everyone is acting like, "website? what's that?". It used to be a certain person, but she left for another organisation and her job was shared out among remaining staff ... which one got updating the website? 😂
But, to go back to my in fairness, unless a person is using the system all the time it can be quite difficult (like my head is going to explode difficult) to work out where you might find the information (in the student information system) then find the relevant bit etc ... there isn't the headspace alongside course objectives marking schedules work plans parents evening that little so and so in 1st/2nd/3rd/4th grade etc. I know RTFM is the answer, but I also know that every time I go into our database, it's a head wreck and my first point of call will always be another member of staff. My boss, now, she doesn't even know her email log-in 😂. For both of us, our head is in another place.
Situation 1 - with a little coaching and sweet talking you could probably get her to take all your calls about students' emails 😍
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Yeah, I think I wrote that post out of frustration. It isn't always that bad. There are many parts of the SIS that even I don't know how to use because I am not in there every day.
Yes be nice and babysit for a bit. End users are tough because they are not the same person each day. If it is a coworker then training them to do their job works as long as you don't do the job for them. They have to sit at the terminal and type all the mistakes to see what they look like. After a couple of times they should have taken notes on how to do it themselves.
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I didn't work in IT but I had to help a lot of people with their PC and I know exactly what you mean. These two examples are just normal. Even my mother came up with something where I guided her over the phone to unplug a USB cable and later to plug it in again. 'Where do I plug it in?' Where you have pulled it out but it doesn't matter you can use any USB port. 'No way, I have no idea where to plug it in. Please come here and do it for me.' So she wanted me to drive for 30min to her to plug a cable in. I had no words.
Every IT guy I met had a full bucket of similar stories.
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That's your mom though! You gotta make that drive 😃! I am glad I am not alone!
Haha, in this case, it's my boyfriend working in the IT field, and this kind of situation often happens indeed. I hear him staying patient and sometimes until a point where I'm listening from a distance and already got annoyed feeling like he should tell them :P hahaha, so yeah, guilty, I laughed!
This is also a familiar thing I hear a lot here in the room lol. Exactly why I could not deal with that shit myself, I would not be amused and probably explode a lot faster than most people. I feel like those things are a waste of my time and for someone to act if my time is worth nothing, would even piss me off more :) haha
It has been a long process learning to wait a bit before I respond to certain emails!
That's a good approach I guess :)
But yeah, I can feel the frustration when I hear these calls here so I totally get what you mean.
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