Is it IT's job to babysit or teach?


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Wait, so are you saying to teach them or not? 

yes . Everything. as an IT guy you have to realize that at any point you can be laid off or fired and have a 3rd party company be called in that will do your job. you have to know how to keep your users happy or you will not have a job to care about.

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yes . Everything. as an IT guy you have to realize that at any point you can be laid off or fired and have a 3rd party company be called in that will do your job. you have to know how to keep your users happy or you will not have a job to care about.

 

Only people I am worried about keeping happy are my bosses and the VPs/Directors in the company.  I dont really do not care if the average user is upset at me.  Some users will go off at practically any little thing.  Cannot make everyone happy.  I do a good job and my bosses know.  Thats all that matters. I also keep myself busy.  Always something to do in IT and if you are bored and have nothing to do, you are not thinking hard enough.

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I will do whatever the employer wants me to do as long as they continue paying me well. I will even wipe the users butts if necessary. 

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Only people I am worried about keeping happy are my bosses and the VPs/Directors in the company.  I dont really do not care if the average user is upset at me.  Some users will go off at practically any little thing.  Cannot make everyone happy.  I do a good job and my bosses know.  Thats all that matters. I also keep myself busy.  Always something to do in IT and if you are bored and have nothing to do, you are not thinking hard enough.

 

keep in mind it only takes one loud employee for your bosses to change how they feel about you. what you think is keeping busy might not be what they think keeping busy is. taking care of the servers in the comp room might be busy but some bosses might only think being busy has to be on the floor.

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Start from the beginning........What does your manager expect you to do and what is your job description and no these are not the exclusive.

If you are open to helping people learn then as suggested guide them and provide the necessary online tools to make it easier for them and you, to complete the task they need as part of their job [providing additional assistance gives you Gold stars but make sure your manager knows what you are doing].

 

Being good at your job can make it look like your being complacent and virtually invisible on the system so always,always make sure your manager knows how much work you put in to keep the system up and running.Some people can been a pain in the butt and need special handling ,no matter how much it takes keep all end users as informed as possible on system issues and learn to bite your tongue.

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Now people may defend her and say she's not good with computers, ok.

 

But if i'm talking to someone over the phone to trouble shoot my car, and they say "pull out the stereo and wiggle the green wire", if they tell me to do this 6 times and on the 7th time just say "Wigggle the green wire again" i'm gonna know where the **** it's at.

 

Yeah, but you're a technical person and so is your car stereo example.

 

I'm afraid in 'doing IT' for a large number of years now, that I've discovered there exists a group of people that will just switch off when anything IT/technical related is being discussed, absolutely regardless of how simple it is! There's nothing you, or anybody else, can do about it..... just be professional and babysit them through it. Doing otherwise will do you no favours.

 

 

... as an aside, I can recall a user complaining that their Outlook icon was missing from the desktop after having their faulty computer replaced (and this is without any sort of hard disk image being available, so you know how much work that involves). Now had I forgot to create her desktop shortcut?.... Nope, I'd just placed it on the desktop about two inches away from where she usually found it (and before anyone says, there weren't hundreds of icons on the desktop either). Just shows that for some you have to go the extra mile to keep them happy (and if your role in any way involves end-user support then that's your job).

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keep in mind it only takes one loud employee for your bosses to change how they feel about you. what you think is keeping busy might not be what they think keeping busy is. taking care of the servers in the comp room might be busy but some bosses might only think being busy has to be on the floor.

 

I know my boss and know what he thinks of my work.  I also keep all my emails and document lots of stuff.  I learned long ago to cover my ass.  If I have a problem with an employee, I talk to my boss right away and let him know whats going on.  And a good boss will not listen to one person and not the other.

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Training classes being rolled out per the owner this am!

 

_______

 

 

IMO. Knowing how to use a USB drive, follow a step by step direction, navigate at least through your files on a USB, and access files from the start menu. These are basic Windows functions. If you own a Windows computer. You should be able to do these before learning anything else. That's just my thought process. 

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And a good boss will not listen to one person and not the other.

 

Not everyone has a good boss or management! In my experience, upper management often prefers to shoot the easy target like low/mid-level IT, rather than tackle the real issues.

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I consider being the 'IT guy' a service. I will do as required: Some users are more computer literate than others, so I will explain/teach for some, babysit for others. There is no use forcing someone who just wants to use his/her PC to learn technical details other users will be interested in.

 

tl;dr: Both are an option, depending on who you deal with.

This. I have some users that are savvy enough to do certain things, and usually they are more than happy to learn things that will allow them to work more efficently (read: spend thirty seconds fixing their own problem as opposed to 30 minutes waiting around for someone to be free to do it for them). Generally if I think they might get huffy about it, I butter them up first by saying something like, "I wouldn't bother explaining this to some people, but I can tell you are tech-savvy enough to be able to do this, so let me show you real quick..."

 

I've always had a lot of success with that, and then both of our jobs are made easier. The people who are honestly helpless with computers, I just help when they ask and are nice about it. The people who are more than capable and are just digging their heels in because they're a lazy prat? I take that into account when prioritising my list of tasks for the day ;)

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Just food for thought, if they know what you did and can fix it for themselves.  Then you're not needed anymore, and will be out of a job.  Just saying that there are different consequences, so them being either dumb or just don't want to do something that they're not getting paid (like you are) might be as it should be.

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would you expect the same from say the police? the doc? fire service? if you ask for assistance its expected you will assist.

If you feel the users need retraining, tell the managers and arrange it, otherwise meh!

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Interesting question. I find it really depends on the situation.

A few months ago we introduced a group management tool to the company. What this meant was that all our users could log on to the page, and if they wanted to be added to a distribution list or a shared mailbox they could apply for access. Previously they would have had to send a ticket to the helpdesk, and we would have manually added them.

For the first few weeks we were still receiving tickets. At this time I would write down the instructions in to the resolution and close the ticket. Once the users could get to the page they could find a user guide. However, this backfired. Instead of the incident being resolved, my phone would be ringing a couple of minutes later because the user had read my reply but wanted me to connect to their machine and hold their hand through the process. This kept happening with the same users each time, and one evening I went to the pub in a foul mood. I happened to get chatting to a guy who works in IT as well, and I explained how frustrating it was trying to teach these users when they didn't seem to want to learn.

He looked at me and said, "hang on. What if you did it for them?" My brain didn't seem to understand the question, so I asked him to explain. "The users are turning a task that used to take 2 seconds for you in to a task that now takes 5 minutes for you. If they are not willing to learn, why are you causing yourself more issues than you need?" That made sense to me, and sure enough if I see a ticket that comes in about being added to a DL or shared mailbox, I'll take it and have the application sent off in a minute.

However, I have a different story as well. A colleague turned around to me recently and asked me how I would go about solving an issue that a user was having. I explained a couple of things off the top of my head, but he said, "she's already done all of that..." This caught my attention, as - like the above story demonstrates - not everyone understands their computer, let alone knows various basic troubleshooting steps to take before contacting us. So I asked him to take me to this user. We got there and I confessed my surprise that this was actually a bit of a technical task. We messed around with it for a few minutes and were then able to solve the issue. Once finished, she asked us what we had done. I explained it to her and she replied, "great. So I can try that next time and see if it works."

There are two types of user, those that want to learn and those that don't. My responsibility in IT is to cater to both parties.

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Just food for thought, if they know what you did and can fix it for themselves.  Then you're not needed anymore, and will be out of a job.  Just saying that there are different consequences, so them being either dumb or just don't want to do something that they're not getting paid (like you are) might be as it should be.

Eh, I don't think that will ever be the case. Teaching someone how to re-map a network drive or do basic troubleshooting on their printer does not eliminate their need to rely on me for the tougher stuff. Just like knowing how to change my own oil and brake pads doesn't mean I never have to see a mechanic.

 

I had a boss at my old job (thankfully I have moved on) who felt this way, though. I actually got in trouble for doing some things that streamlined common processes, automated some regular tasks, and taught a few users how to do things on their own. Then we didn't get as many trouble tickets coming in and she decided that was making us look bad. I told her not to measure our success only in the number of problems we fixed, but to take into account the ones we prevent and the fact that the users can get more done on their end when they aren't waiting for us. She didn't see it that way, because she is an idiot, but...  yeah.

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I know my boss and know what he thinks of my work.  I also keep all my emails and document lots of stuff.  I learned long ago to cover my ass.  If I have a problem with an employee, I talk to my boss right away and let him know whats going on.  And a good boss will not listen to one person and not the other.

That means nothing. what if that person is 1 step above your boss?  things can always change.

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Some wants to learn. Then teach them.

 

For others, never teach sth. if you teach, you can lose your job. Let him to lose his own job!

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I'm there to provide stable and secure IT services for the company and its employees, not do their job for them just because it involves a computer.

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Any suggestions on what you do when users don't want to try anything new?  I know I can probably make some processes better and easier, but since it's a change, Some users don't want to learn it, or don't think they can take the time to learn something new.  It drives me absolutely nuts that they won't even give it a second thought...

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For people who are stubborn with a hint of lazy, which is basically what that boils down to, you would usually have to fall back to company policy or security reason for the change. For example, that is most likely what will happen when companies start switching to Windows 8 or Office 2013. It happens with every change.

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Not everyone has a good boss or management! In my experience, upper management often prefers to shoot the easy target like low/mid-level IT, rather than tackle the real issues.

 

Why I document everything and periodically offload the documentation.I have learned a long time ago to CYA.

 

That means nothing. what if that person is 1 step above your boss?  things can always change.

 

Missed where I said on Page 2 that the only people I am interested in is keeping the directors/VPs happy?  Anyone else I am not worried about.  If I have a problem with an employee, I will talk to my boss and in turn he will talk to their boss and get it resolved.  And I don't go out of my way to ###### anyone off.

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Why I document everything and periodically offload the documentation.I have learned a long time ago to CYA.

 

 

Missed where I said on Page 2 that the only people I am interested in is keeping the directors/VPs happy?  Anyone else I am not worried about.  If I have a problem with an employee, I will talk to my boss and in turn he will talk to their boss and get it resolved.  And I don't go out of my way to **** anyone off.

This would work in a structured organization with a hierarchy of management. But for a smaller company? Or an outsourced IT person? It would be completely different. The question from the OP is becoming too vague to answer universally.
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