10 Things I Hate about End Users
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Working in IT, you have a love/hate relationship (i'll let you determine the ratio) with end users.
What are some things they do that really irk you? Let's make these as specific as possible. Instead of saying "when they're dumb and don't understand security," you could put "when they click on suspicious links from unknown email sources"
Have at it!!
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When the owner is the only one that clicks the link on the phishing email test..... who is also the only one that knew it was going to happen.
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I am really lucky, my dealing with end users effectively ended more than twelve years ago and was rare before that time. I get to spend my time dealing with other professionals, not end users.
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Failing to read my emails, then emailing me about the thing.
SERVICE ALERT 3RD FLOOR PRINTER DEAD, RIP.
"Hey Matt, I think the 3rd floor printer is jammed, could you have a look?"
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When end users lie about what they did or didn't do.
End user: I seem to be having connection issues
Me: Have you touched the network settings?
End user: NoDo they realize I will check the settings, once i remote in?
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@ardeyn said:
When end users lie about what they did or didn't do.
Rule #1
- End users lie
Rule #2
- The situation described is often different to reality. Often as a result of Rule #1.
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When they refuse to help themselves.
U - "Can't connect at home... blah blah blah"
IT - "Righto, follow these instructions and send me the results"
...
two months later
U - "Can't connect at home... blah blah blah"
IT is perplexed, befuddled and confused. Same issue, but no results were sent.
IT - "Righto, follow these instructions and send me the results"
...
two months later
U - "Can't connect at home... blah blah blah"
IT is perplexed, befuddled and confused. Same issue, but no results were sent.
U - "I want a new laptop" -
@ardeyn said:
When end users lie about what they did or didn't do.
And when managers and HR feel that this is acceptable.
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@ardeyn said:
When end users lie about what they did or didn't do.
End user: I seem to be having connection issues
Me: Have you touched the network settings?
End user: NoDo they realize I will check the settings, once i remote in?
I actually love the fact that users lie. It turns me in to Colombo ("just one more thing...."). One of my favourite things in life is checking log files for evidence to incriminate users I don't like (I'm sad, I know).
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My frustration is with people who lack critical thinking skills. They can't reason, or put 2 and 2 together. They have to be shown everything in excruciating detail, often more than once.
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Thread of my dreams.
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I have no IT budget which puts me at the mercy of our executive director who is extremely frugal.
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I have to set up every building regardless of the size completely alone. This translated recently to a 10,000 sq ft building. All of the cabling. Configuring over 50 computers with no space to work (I have a small desk in finance). They asked me to give them an estimated cost and I told them we needed a physical firewall with content filtering, two switches and a replicated domain server. They said we'll buy the switches but nothing else. I then told them that a tiny little business router can't handle the traffic and it's not going to work. No one will be able to maintain their RDP sessions. They said we don't care. All users are annoyed with me even though I explained the situation. Two months later my executive director asks me what we have to do to fix it.
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I am constantly asked my opinion and it has never been taken into account a single time. As an example, we have demanding medical billing documentation (basically every 15 minute interval has to be documented and billed for). I was asked if we should purchase laptops or ipads and I said laptops. iPads aren't designed with the kind of data entry we need to do in mind. I was told "I competely agree". Two weeks later I received 35 iPads.
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When I was hired they were using a per diem server admin from another company in the same field that they previously worked for. I asked what this guy was going to do since we were keeping him on. I was told to talk with him and decide among ourselves. Fine by me. We basically said he was the server admin and I was the network admin/desktop support. Well fast forward to the future and he told me he had to delete and re-create the assistant executive directors e-mail account and it was unrecoverable. I asked him if he was going to tell her and he said "You're the IT tech there. You have to tell her." This woman is known to kill the messenger and is extremely nasty. I go and explain everything I know of the situation, which is very little. She freaks out and blames me for it even though I explained that it has nothing to do with me. I am not the server admin. She then said she can see the e-mails and contacts on her iPhone and that she wants me to recover them. I ask her if she actually manually entered them into her phone and she says "yes I did" to which I reply with great. If that's the case I can recover it. This was not the case and I was held responsible for not being able to recover her information even though she lied to me. I spent 3 hours on the phone with apple to prove what I was saying was true to receive nothing but attitude. 3 months later the assistant executive director approached me at an open house for the 10k sq ft building I just built alone and said "hopefully nothing happens like my e-mail again. You really screwed that up." To which I replied with "I've explained to you at length that this situation has nothing to do with me that was <insert name>'s responsibility." She said "Yeah but we've known him awhile and you're new so you take the blame".
I could write a novel in this thread.
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@wirestyle22 said:
and said "hopefully nothing happens like my e-mail again. You really screwed that up." To which I replied with "I've explained to you at length that this situation has nothing to do with me that was <insert name>'s responsibility." She said "Yeah but we've known him awhile and you're new so you take the blame".
Why are you still there?!? That's terrible behavior.
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@Breffni-Potter said:
@wirestyle22 said:
and said "hopefully nothing happens like my e-mail again. You really screwed that up." To which I replied with "I've explained to you at length that this situation has nothing to do with me that was <insert name>'s responsibility." She said "Yeah but we've known him awhile and you're new so you take the blame".
Why are you still there?!? That's terrible behavior.
To be honest I need to educate myself more. Once I feel more secure in my knowledge I'll start applying. I came very close to working for ABC which is owned by Disney but they wanted a Unix guru and my Unix knowledge is basically non-existent. I was honest in my interview. The guy they ended up hiring lied in his interview and they found out pretty quick. Unfortunate because I know I can learn anything.
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@Nic said:
My frustration is with people who lack critical thinking skills. They can't reason, or put 2 and 2 together. They have to be shown everything in excruciating detail, often more than once.
The vapid vacant expression is my sign to de-arse the area.
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@wirestyle22 said:
To be honest I need to educate myself more. Once I feel more secure in my knowledge I'll start applying. I came very close to working for ABC which is owned by Disney but they wanted a Unix guru and my Unix knowledge is basically non-existent. I was honest in my interview. The guy they ended up hiring lied in his interview and they found out pretty quick. Unfortunate because I know I can learn anything.
Disney is famous for being low on the tech totem pole. Likely their idea of guru is very, very different than from most of the industry. They are normally decades behind everyone else.
That they hired people lying in an interview indicates that they don't know how to interview - which indicates that they are not hiring good people as good people will turn them down and bad ones will lie and... well there you go.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@wirestyle22 said:
To be honest I need to educate myself more. Once I feel more secure in my knowledge I'll start applying. I came very close to working for ABC which is owned by Disney but they wanted a Unix guru and my Unix knowledge is basically non-existent. I was honest in my interview. The guy they ended up hiring lied in his interview and they found out pretty quick. Unfortunate because I know I can learn anything.
Disney is famous for being low on the tech totem pole. Likely their idea of guru is very, very different than from most of the industry. They are normally decades behind everyone else.
That they hired people lying in an interview indicates that they don't know how to interview - which indicates that they are not hiring good people as good people will turn them down and bad ones will lie and... well there you go.
My friend does master control for Kelly and Michael (he won an Emmy actually) so I know the social landscape. It would be leaps and bounds better than here and I would be paid double what I make right now. The only real downside is the commute.
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@wirestyle22 said:
@scottalanmiller said:
My friend does master control for Kelly and Michael (he won an Emmy actually)
I take it that is a television show?
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@wirestyle22 said:
The only real downside is the commute.
And the weird cult / slave culture. But beyond that
They are definitely bad enough that their reputation makes a lot of people unwilling to even have a conversation with them. They've built a culture of keeping a large portion of the market from being willing to consider them.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@wirestyle22 said:
The only real downside is the commute.
And the weird cult / slave culture. But beyond that
They are definitely bad enough that their reputation makes a lot of people unwilling to even have a conversation with them. They've built a culture of keeping a large portion of the market from being willing to consider them.
Interesting. I guess I dodged a bullet. My friend did lose his hair at this job lol.
