Workplace Lessons Learned
Are you familiar with the caricature of the IT worker who is a rude know it all, who talks down to the people who need his help, who orders people to MOVE from behind their keyboard and tries to make them feel stupid for needing help? Are you so familiar with that stereotype that you actually met that guy? I am so sorry on behalf of my profession.
I've been doing desk side support of some sort for a long time. I long ago made peace with the demands of the job and the personality types that go with it. Many years ago, I was struggling with outside personal issues that affected how I treated people at work. I was so preoccupied with me own basket of troubles that it was difficult to have sympathy for Mrs. Smokealot not being able to print her progress reports. My boss, while understanding of my situation, still needed me to keep up professional standards. I went to a friend who served as a mentor to me and asked for advice. In telling the story now, it doesn't come across as profoundly as it did at the time, but it made all the difference then and now. He told me to treat people at my job as I would if I was working for myself, if I were a business owner instead of the civil servant I was. I adopted his philosophy and for many years now, that's the attitude I take with the people who need my help.
I slip sometimes because I'm human. Last week I had a person who refused to trace out her laptop's power cord to make sure that it was plugged in. She told our help desk analyst she just couldn't do it, which made it necessary for me to drive across campus to go under her desk to plug in the power cord. You know people like her are not calling the Best Buy Geek Squad to come plug in power cords for them at home., No, she took advantage of our support department. Now comes my part. Later that day she called and complained that she couldn't print emails. Instead of troubleshooting with her on the phone, I just bluntly asked her why she was printing email. Back in the early days of widespread computer usage, I used to know managers who got their admins to print their emails for them, but we've been out of that era for awhile now. It turns out that this employee was actually printing attachments, not the emails themselves. She had a legit reason and I talked to her a bit rudely. Even at this late, late stage of my career, I still have to examine myself.
Most of the time I just smile and try to brighten folks day. We operate on a yearly schedule and invariably people forget procedures from one year to the next, no matter how many times they've done it. I remind them of what they need to do, while laughing with them because it's hard to remember. I sympathize with people who get confused because their university issued laptop has Outlook and New Outlook and they don't know which one to use. When people apologize for having to call me to help them, I laughingly remind them that the school actually gives me a biweekly check for doing just that.
I live and breath tech and have done so for many years. These people are just using a tool they need for a greater purpose of training nurses, accountants, Army officers and future school teachers. I need to make sure they have what they need to do that and that it creates as little friction in their day as possible. I get real joy when I can suggest a technology change or upgrade for someone to make their life easier. I made a lady's day today just by telling her that I would be glad to change some coper/printer codes for her and the people in her department. The way it'sbeen done has caused her some hassle and I can take five minutes out of my day and make that hassle go away. Why wouldn't I want to do that?
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