It's rare that I loathe users

[tuba-man.livejournal.com]

You know, most of my users are pretty awesome. They stay out of the way and let me get their stuff fixed. I get back to the office (or home) faster, and they get back to their lolcats. Some of them are a bit impatient, but they still stay out of the way for the most part. They're easy to deal with too - send them off with a loaner laptop or something else temporary and they'll stay busy until I get them up and running.

However, there's one type of user... they rarely leave their seats. If they do, they don't leave the immediate area, no matter how long it takes. They refuse any help or temporary workarounds.  Nothing calms them down except a return to the status quo, and even then they've got a complaint.

"I don't understand. I mean, like, I'm sorry, I'm not questioning your skills, but doesn't this normally go faster?"

"No, this is about normal. There's a lot of unexpected stuff here too, your last IT guy didn't provide much information. We're working with all the information we have and adjusting fire as issues progress. I'll continue to keep updating you as we go."

"Ok, cool. Thanks for the info. But, I mean, I don't understand. Why is this taking so long?"

Listen, you passive-aggressive fuckbag, go sit in the break room and continue avoiding eye contact with that girl you like. Just because your shit isn't loud doesn't mean it's any less shitty. Every pity-me-please word that comes out of your whiny, insincere mouth adds a 20 minute billed smoke break to this work order, and I don't even smoke.

Go fuck yourself.

Comments

[mouser.livejournal.com]

"Ok, cool. Thanks for the info. But, I mean, I don't understand. Why is this taking so long?"

I've actually said "It's taking so long because I have to stop and answer your questions."

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

Ditto...and he answered: "Ok thanks..er, but why is it taking so long?"

I swear, I've had better conversations with parrots.

[3fgburner.livejournal.com]

BTDT on the "taking so long".

Also, icon love. Permission to steal?

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

By all means, copy-left permission and all that. Credit would be nice.

[tuba-man.livejournal.com]

Man, if it wasn't for the fact that they're clients and not just employees, I would be doing that regularly.

[lunatic59.livejournal.com]

Time to fix rule of thumb:

30 minutes.
60 minutes if you watch,
120 minutes if you help,
All day if you've tried to fix it yourself before I got here.

[hairbrush.livejournal.com]

This. Very much this.

[amberkitsune.livejournal.com]

I love this too!

[lolotehe]

Yes....had a print server go down and an interim employee kept calling me for something. I had to tell her repeatedly that she was next on my list, once the thing that effected everyone was taken care of.

"But how long will that taaaaaaaake?"

Well, it would have been done earlier, but I keep having to answer the phone and talk to you.

[3fgburner.livejournal.com]

Intern insisted that he needed $expensive_software on his Mac. I pointed out that it wasn't a machine we'd issued, or a package our department supports. His response was, "Which $Bigwig do I need to talk to, to expedite this?".

Dick.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

Huh, I would be tempted to say: "Tell ya what, get Mr Benjamin Franklin and few of his friends to talk to me and I'll see what can be done."

although that would possibly earn me a pink slip if caught I suppose

[natalie-i-am.livejournal.com]

Tell him, if he really needs and it, and willing risk his job, to go to the head beancounter, ask him to buy $x software. Explain in detail that it will also need a new service contract, and that it is NOT for a corporate issued asset.
Possibly plan party for Dismissal Period + 1 day?

[mouser.livejournal.com]

"Grounds maintenance" is good.

Someone that just got fired is good.

CEO is good...

[jecook]

I've *had* to use the old horey line of "it'll be fixed as soon as people stop asking me how long it'll take to fix it, so I can actually work on fixing it instead of giving people estimates."

[cirobi.livejournal.com]

Thankfully we don't get too many of these situations, but we did have a guy up our butts about tickets in the queue for his group. I think I told a colleague that I felt as though I spent more time giving them status reports than actually trying to chase down solutions.