needy

[dog-star-man.livejournal.com]

Anybody have any users who are just plain needy? There are about 4 people at my facility that I can count on hearing from at least several times a day. It's getting to the point where, when I see their name on my phone, I sometimes won't answer. One of the guys is onto me and he calls from various other extensions. They're mostly harmless phone calls, except for the time and brain cells they consume every time I get them. I wouldn't mind so much if they were calling me to help them perform complicated tasks or were having a genuine problem. But, it usually winds up being something like holding their hand while they create a shortcut on their desktop or listen to them talk themselves through a problem. I had a guy call me about a database problem today. Through the course of our conversation, which consisted mainly of him talking and myself interjecting an occasional "hmmm" or "o.k." he figured it out all by himself. But his first instinct when he ran into the barest hint of a problem, was to dial my number, even though he could figure it out himself. I'm really starting to get interested in this trend of "neediness" because lately, a guy who has been here for a couple of years and never really bothered me, has fallen into this same pattern. He's worse in a way, because he comes right to my office and I can't sit there and roll my eyes at him or flip him off, like I would to the phone. In his case, he likes to report all of these meaningless network and computer events, like spam, memory crashes, slow network performance, etc, and then try to tie them all together into one mysterious and looming network problem. But he was so nice before. How did this cycle of neediness start and, more importantly, how do I begin to break people of it?

Comments

[ohhjuliet.livejournal.com]

I have MANY users like that here... the neediness never ends... but it's probably what keeps us employed. :)

[dog-star-man.livejournal.com]

So true.

[alysania.livejournal.com]

YES. Fortunately, our process is that they should call the helpdesk first, as our helpdesk is there to solve stupid issues like, "I need to map a printer" or "I don't know how to create a shortcut" so that I don't get bothered with that garbage as a desktop support tech. If the users call me directly, I was given direction to ask if they have a ticket number, and if not, to politely ask them to call the helpdesk.

[dog-star-man.livejournal.com]

No helpdesk for me. it's just me vs. 200 users.

[japester.livejournal.com]

sadly, you get them everywhere.
My mac users are mostly like that. Complete idiots that need hand holding to create shortcuts on the desk. add icons to the dock. wipe their arse.
::sigh::

We have actually told our management structure that we are not trainers, we are not everyday hand holders. We are infrastructure creation and maintenance people. basic training is what other people do.
hmmmmm thoughts hmmmmmm
I might push that again, given how under-staffed we are at the moment.

[squigit.livejournal.com]

Really? We run a mostly mac shop here (80%/20%) and the pc users over in finance need as much hand holding as the mac users combined.

[kerberos.livejournal.com]

This is when you document it all, then have a one on one with their boss with
"so and so needs basic computer training".

[dog-star-man.livejournal.com]

Their bosses need basic computer training.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

"Your subordinate X is using up 700% more of our team's time than anyone else we support. Could you please explain to me why this is happening and what you will be doing to address it, or, alternatively, should we just start billing your team for his excess calls?"

[geekgrrl-ca.livejournal.com]

work orders. no work order? no helpy

[thecolorblue.livejournal.com]

can you possibly limit the amount of calls per day or week that each user gets? i mean, you can justify it by saying that your time is important and needs to be spread evenly around -- you can't just hang out on the phone while people walk themselves through something. or before even starting the call, you can ask if they've tried it themselves.

or, better yet, go on a week's vacation. see if they can survive while you're gone :)

[dog-star-man.livejournal.com]

I've tried that, "my time is too important" ploy before. It doesn't get through. It definitely doesn't help that I'm the lone IT guy and my boss is across the state. I have nobody to deflect/disperse my work onto. I've gone on vacation and had to troubleshoot this shit over the cell phone. They can't survive two days without me.

Old dude just called me during my lunch break. Normally I leave work to swim or read on my break, but I was working through today. His newest theory was that since we were having some database problems last week (which I repaired), do I think it would effect another linked database. First I told him I was in the middle of something and I just lost my concentration, to which he replied, "Oh, I figured you were on your lunch break" (Grrr). Then I asked him if there was a problem or he was just thinking out loud. he said he hadn't checked it yet...he just wanted to be sure. it's like any random thought that pops into his head, he feels the need to broadcast it to me.

Anyways, there was a problem after all. The database didn't have current information. Why? Because instead of copying a shortcut to it, he copy/pasted the whole db to his desktop. *Cue Price Is Right Loser Music* Wa, wa, wa, wa, waaaaaaaaa.

[thecolorblue.livejournal.com]

well...i hope that at least they pay you some big bucks.

oh, and next time you go on a vacation, go camping or something somewhere where you can't get cell reception. and go for a week.

[dog-star-man.livejournal.com]

Do any of us get paid big bucks anymore? Don't answer that...you might make me sad.

[thecolorblue.livejournal.com]

well...i see that you live in dayton, so it's not fair to compare what we make but i bet you make more than i do, anyway.

it's pretty sad how little i get paid, especially considering i tshoot for techs who i KNOW are making 50$/hr or more.

[kelly-bean.livejournal.com]

argh.. I feel your pain.

I do tech support for an ISP..

SO like.. I have to talk to any home user who feels the need to call into tech support.

I had to help an old lady empty her recycle bin the other day.

I get frustrated when I tell users just to follow the wizard (I get them too the wizard, but i figure they can push the "next,next,next,FINISH" buttons by themselves), and despite me saying yes, you just click next until you get to finish, they insist on reading each screen and asking dumb questions all the way through it. Or downloads......

I think it's like..

Our users are so CONVINCED that they know nothing about computers, that whenever something comes up that they haven't done a million times, they immediately panic and figure they could never figure it out. Then they pick up the phone to bother us instead of reading the words on the machine.

""Connectivity!?" OMG!!! that's more than a 5 letter word! I'll call Tech support!"

[jjjiii]

Anytime I have to do anything for anyone more than once, I document it the second time. The third time, they get the document, and if they have any problems following it, then they can talk to me. If they come to me looking for the document later because they lost track of it or threw it away, they get a polite talking-to.