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Five Things Your IT Guy Wants You to Know
1. You aren’t an auto-mechanic, either…
… but you know how to drive your car. That’s why we call you “users”: because you use the computer and that doesn’t mean you have to be a computer expert. Some things you should know how to do: find an application that isn’t on your desktop, create a shortcut, know the difference between copying files and moving files, clear jammed paper from a printer. It isn’t our job to teach you to use Excel. If you don’t know how vlookup works, consult Google. We don’t use excel, except once a year to calculate 1.5% of $21.
2. There’s nothing you can break…
… that we can’t fix. So try new things. We promise you, if you break it, we can fix it. And if we can’t fix it, it probably wasn’t you that broke it. So click around on stuff. Figure out how it works. We like users who know what they are doing, and are willing to figure stuff out on their own. In fact, this is why we often don’t get back to you on simple stuff. Because we know you’ll get tired of waiting, and just figure it out.
3. We don’t care…
… what your brother-in-law (or insert any family member here) said about how to fix whatever problem it is that you have. We also don’t care how they did it at the last place you worked. They have their network, and we have ours. And while there may be some things similar, there are always a great many differences. So just sit back, check Facebook on your phone, and you’ll be back to checking Facebook and Ricochet on your work computer in no time.
4. Which brings me to…
Yes, we actually have the time to sit and monitor what you do on the Internet. Just kidding. We don’t. And it isn’t our web filter. It is management’s web filter. Nine times out of ten — no strike that: ten times out of ten — when your boss brings you a report saying you spend too much time on Facebook at work, it’s because your boss thinks you spend too much time on Facebook at work. And he asked us for a report. Which we hate, because it takes time away from us checking Face… um … checking for updated drivers for “the server”.
5. The problem with 5 is …
… there are actually a million other things we want you to know. Like, the fact that disk space isn’t cheap. That backups are tough. That the network isn’t slow. That, if we had all the money in the world, we’d buy you whatever computer you think you need but we don’t, and that you don’t get administrative rights to your computer because — if you did — you’d install software that infects your computer, causing more work for us …
Published in Culture
That’s like saying the highway is slow. No, the highway isn’t slow. What’s slow is the cars on the highway. And usually they are slow because of some schmuck doing 50 in the left lane.
So find the schmuck (he’s the guy streaming audio, as mustangman said), and get him off the freeway.
Oh try pouring concrete for a living:
Random Person: “Hey I poured a barn floor with my granddad back in ’79, here’s what I would do if I were you!”
Me: “So…..your barn floor was 850 cu yds like this floor is? No? Then shut up. lol” Ok I’m thinking most of that as I smile and nod.
Oh no…you and I work at the same company, don’t we?
And no, getting most of that jammed sheet out isn’t enough.
I haven’t heard “greasy kid stuff” in decades!
Do people under 50 even know what that means?
I couldn’t disagree with #2 more. They can always break something badly enough to where, while we can fix it, the costs in time and frustration aren’t worth it. The only way to prevent this is to lock the system down to such a degree that they can only do the most basic of tasks… which robs the computer of it’s real power. And in today’s “creative” economy, we’re not allowed to lock it down to that degree anyway (“Marketing went to the CEO, told them you’re preventing them from doing their job…”). So sysadmins walk a fine line now. Give the users too much slack, and they’ll inevitably destroy things. Lock it down too much, and you’ve got a bunch of expensive typewriters. In that that middle, they can always break things still.
Wait, I’m over 50.
Me too.
By the way, similar thread:
http://ricochet.com/things-your-i-t-guy-wishes-you-knew/
I had a truck out to pour a foundation for my shed. My son was helping me, and he’s a homebuilder, so he knows what is going on. Anyway, I asked the concrete guy if I should pull the garden hose over. He looked at me like I was stupid. I guess they have a tank of water on board. I told him “Hey, I’ve never done this before, so just ignore my stupid questions.” He laughed.
Dadburnit…how did I miss that?
Which part do you disagree with?
You kind made it sound like PEBKAC’s can always be easily fixed, time or trouble not being taken into account. When you get right down to it, you can always nuke and pave and that’ll “fix” things. Just a difference of philosophy, I guess. While we LIKE them becoming experienced and skilled users, which reduces demand for things like “How do I do X on the spreadsheet again?” we don’t want them to do careless and stupid things.
Never too many posts on Stupid Human Tricks™
It’s not really the moron’s fault, is it? It’s the manager who hired them. The job description probably has a line or two about “demonstrated PC skills”. But they didn’t vet those skills.
The analogy I like to use is that of the propane truck driver. If I hired the guy to do that, the way managers hire information workers, I’d hire a guy who used to drive truck for Freightliner, but has no idea how to actually fill a propane tank. Then I wouldn’t give them any training when they showed up, but I’d expect them to actually know how to do it. And when they got out to someone’s house, and couldn’t figure it out, we’d all blame the company that sold us the truck.
Of course not. But often times we have users who are so afraid to touch anything, they don’t learn anything. It drives me crazy.
Somethings your executives want IT Guys to know:
1) You are a cost center and not a driver of revenue. The guys who you deride as lacking in skills actually pay your salary. The guy who is driving revenue might not have time to unclog that printer or go poking around to figure stuff out. That’s why they employ you.
2) You are in a service job and like all service jobs its best to stow the haughty attitude and fix things when you’re asked.
3) We’re all in this together.
IT guys only notice what’s directly in front of them. That’s why employers hire “big picture” morons who don’t know how to use computers but are great at “brainstorming”, “synergizing”, “interfacing”, etc, etc…
Amen to all of this, especially #3. I would only add that “we don’t care” what [insert family member/child name here] who’s going to ‘school for computers’ would do if he faced the same problem we are having, and no, we don’t want you to call him and ask him to help us. Been there. Almost made the 11 o’clock news as a result.
I’ve recently taken a very small ‘job’ as the local IT support for my veterinarian, his previous fellow having passed away very unfortunately and untimely. Thankfully, he did a great job, and it’s not a mess.
I’m amazed, five years after I left the rat-race, what’s in place in my vet’s office. Ten years ago, the physician offices I worked with would have been lucky to have such.
A nice little network.
A fine practice management system, complete with schedules, templates, interfaces to what they call their PACS (it’s a fully digital X-ray machine), an external pharmacy, an external and internal lab, and a patient portal (no, even I don’t think it’s for Fido, I think it’s for Fido’s mom . . .)
A very respectable Windows 2008 R2 server, a backup that runs automatically, for which the ladies know they have to change the cartridge tapes daily.
And a pleasant and interested Office Manager who’s doing her best and glad for some help. It’s very refreshing, even if I’m reminded how much I’ve forgotten in the last few years, every time I step through the door.
It doesn’t matter whose “fault” it is. The IT person’s job is to prop up the people who have no computer skills. The employer hired the moron for a reason. As much as I’d really, really, really like to, I cannot dismiss the moron’s idiotic needs, because my employer thinks the moron has value. If I want to work somewhere without morons then I have to become the one doing the hiring.
Right, because only for-profit organizations have IT departments…
I agree with your point–we’re all in this together, and don’t be haughty.
However, just try outsourcing the IT function for your organization to another company, where you actually have to pay the bills, for a while, and you’ll quickly find out that internal IT is almost always a bargain.
One of the reasons that IT is viewed as a ‘cost center’ is that, historically, it hasn’t been very good at documenting its work, usually on the theory that all that time spend doing paperwork and tracking just isn’t worth it, and takes away from productive work time.
If your IT guy filled presented you an ‘invoice’ based on standard market rates for your area, for each encounter you had with him, or for everything he did for you, you might change your mind.
Of course, this depends on your industry. Mine was healthcare which requires attention 7x24x365. No outside contractor/vendor could ever come close to beating our ‘rates.’
Are you saying that non-profits don’t have revenue concerns and hire people to drive revenue?
By cost center I mean: something the organization does not actively market in order to bring in revenue.
This doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable or that it doesn’t contribute to the bottom line. Many times the attitude I see from the IT professionals in my employ is owe where they believe they are the most important guys in the building. They are important, but so are the other guys they so often throw attitude at.
Not the ones I work for.
How did they operate without revenue? Everyone worked for free?
This is horse crap. I’m not asking end users to learn how to write static routes and put them into the core switch stack. I’m asking them to know how to use the tools they need to use in order to do their job. The same tools they said the knew how to use when they interviewed.
I’m not asking an architect to learn to use a nail gun. I’m asking a framer to know how to adjust the pressure on the compressor that feeds the nail gun he’s using. In that industry, if the framer had to call tech support, he wouldn’t be on the job very long.
Ah, and you’re assuming “unclogging a printer” was part of my job description?
I get it, IT guys know how to do stuff us stupid executives don’t. You know what? Maybe, us execs know stuff you guys don’t. Maybe we hire IT guys to take care of stuff we don’t want to be bothered dealing with because we have other things that need to be accomplished. We don’t answer the phones at the office even though we could. We don’t refill the water cooler either. We hire people to do that. And if you were hired to unclog printers – then unclog the printers.
I once hired a network technician (the entry level IT job in the hospital where I worked), straight out of school, on the basis that he had worked the last three summers for the concrete guy who lives a mile or so down the road and who put in our barn foundation some years ago.
I figured that 1)if he could make it through a summer working for Bob who was an incredibly hard worker and a stern taskmaster, and 2) if Bob hired him back not once, but twice, after the first summer, then he was a keeper.
I was right. I retired in 2010, but he’s still there, and moving up the ladder.
The vast majority of IT guys I know don’t conform to the stereotypes that Jamie Lockett is putting forth. When they do get frustrated it’s because they have answered the same question for you fifty times. You may make more than me, you may be more important to the company than me, but that doesn’t mean you can’t learn something new that really isn’t that difficult to learn. You learned to use your iPhone you should be able to learn how to adjust your printer settings.
Yes, we are a cost center but we are a cost center that enables you to do your job and in many companies it is the technology that we implement and maintain that gives us the competitive edge you maintain. Don’t forget it and don’t take it for granted. The IT market is hot right now and if you treat your IT guys like they are replaceable the ones that can leave will and you will be stuck with those that can’t. My God have mercy on your souls if that happens to you.