4 ms·

While the guy might well be a jerk and rude it is also very likely he is stressed and overworked. Sounds like the company needs a junior sysadmin to handle the

by satysin 10y ago

While the guy might well be a jerk and rude it is also very likely he is stressed and overworked. Sounds like the company needs a junior sysadmin to handle the help desk. Also sounds like this guy is more of a technical specialist/project manager/possibly devops and not just "the IT guy".

minipci1321 10y ago
Exactly! "overstressed" seems to me like a much more frequent reason of a misbehaviour at workplace than "a jerk". And, as you say, one needs an suitable inclination to work with people too. Edit: some companies have rotating days of desk-support for such personnel, but for that, one needs to have at least 2 of them.
- satysin 10y ago
  At Xerox we had a rotating help desk system for a while. It was pretty awful for everyone (those on the rotor and those needing support) as you quickly lose your edge at quickly fixing common issues. If you do it for one day a month (as we did) they it is just a pain in the ass as for one day a month you are expected to be able to fix weird MS Office errors or printer problems. It is always better to pay a little more and have a single person dedicated to handling such issues. There is no shortage of people wanting to get a foot in the door at low level tech support so it isn't going to blow the budget out of the water. In my experience it is actually the opposite as you end up wasting money on getting people to cover a position and they are never as effective as a dedicated person who will come across common issues and be able to resolve them much faster.
shanecleveland 10y ago
Dealing with individual personalities is a reality of the workplace, but obviously there are limits. It sounds like duties and responsibilities need to be more clearly defined one way or the other. If "help desk" is part of his clearly defined role, then he needs to do a better job. If its not, they need to find a better way of addressing the "help desk" need.
- satysin 10y ago
  It might be part of his role but it sounds like he is expected to do much more than handle broken computers and such. Perhaps he is partly at fault for not raising this with his manager but it is also his managers responsibility to be aware of how much work he is doing in all areas of his positions responsibilities. Given the limited (and one sided) information we have and going by my personal experiences of small companies I would put my money on him being overworked and expected to "do it all" because "how hard is running antivirus to fix a problem".

by satysin 10y ago

minipci1321 10y ago

Exactly! "overstressed" seems to me like a much more frequent reason of a misbehaviour at workplace than "a jerk". And, as you say, one needs an suitable inclination to work with people too. Edit: some companies have rotating days of desk-support for such personnel, but for that, one needs to have at least 2 of them.

satysin 10y ago
At Xerox we had a rotating help desk system for a while. It was pretty awful for everyone (those on the rotor and those needing support) as you quickly lose your edge at quickly fixing common issues. If you do it for one day a month (as we did) they it is just a pain in the ass as for one day a month you are expected to be able to fix weird MS Office errors or printer problems. It is always better to pay a little more and have a single person dedicated to handling such issues. There is no shortage of people wanting to get a foot in the door at low level tech support so it isn't going to blow the budget out of the water. In my experience it is actually the opposite as you end up wasting money on getting people to cover a position and they are never as effective as a dedicated person who will come across common issues and be able to resolve them much faster.

shanecleveland 10y ago

Dealing with individual personalities is a reality of the workplace, but obviously there are limits. It sounds like duties and responsibilities need to be more clearly defined one way or the other. If "help desk" is part of his clearly defined role, then he needs to do a better job. If its not, they need to find a better way of addressing the "help desk" need.

satysin 10y ago
It might be part of his role but it sounds like he is expected to do much more than handle broken computers and such. Perhaps he is partly at fault for not raising this with his manager but it is also his managers responsibility to be aware of how much work he is doing in all areas of his positions responsibilities. Given the limited (and one sided) information we have and going by my personal experiences of small companies I would put my money on him being overworked and expected to "do it all" because "how hard is running antivirus to fix a problem".