IT Managers hate users and their jobs

This might shock some people - even the odd good IT manager - but for many of you, dealing with an IT department is akin to trying to get unemployment benefit from a government department staffed by baboons. Do you have an IT manager/department anecdote, horror story, happy tale to get off your chest? If so, send it to me and we'll throw up some of the best/worst next week. Please omit all company details and people's names since we can't print anything that will get our asses sued. Again. At least, not this week. Read on.

A new survey has highlighted something that many of us have always felt: half of IT managers hate their users. We're not sure what the other half think but I suspect they haven't left their bunkers to see a user in decades. What's worse, half of UK IT managers admit to deliberately making life difficult for their staff, colleagues and users. We always thought that was Microsoft's job. Cheap shot, but hey, it's early and I haven't had half enough caffeine yet.

First off, the survey was carried by Skillsoft among 2,800 IT staff between June and July this year and the stats are quite surprising. Let's start with 75 per cent of them wish they were in another job. At least one in 10 IT staff have been so ticked off that they have deliberately been obstructive and unhelpful to users, managers and colleagues. However, this figure rockets when you ask IT managers, and you find that more than half of them have set out to make our miserable lives worse by, generally, being a plonker.

Personally, in the past, I found most IT departments as useful as an umbrella in a hurricane. To be fair though, any job that involves dealing with the public has to suck a bit and, seeing what I saw some non-IT literate employees do to their PCs, would make you feel (a little) for the lot of IT staff. In my experience, it wasn't that they didn't get the job done, eventually, it's just they never got it done within a useful period of time. The worst bit though, was that as soon as you picked up the phone to the IT department you found yourself inexplicably transformed into some mewling version of Oliver Twist: "Please sir, can I have someone come sort out my smoking PC?"

And that's the rub, I always felt like I had to beg in order to get anything done. That was eight years ago. Since then I have been freelance and so had to become my own IT manager, with varying degrees of success. For instance, I always answer the phone when I call with an IT emergency. It's true that I may not know what to do but I always answer myself when I call. I believe that's key to the start of a good relationship. Being both user and IT manager, my reaction to IT disasters - to the casual observer - is somewhat alarming.

It starts with a series of expletives which, after some furious keyboard hammering, escalates into a full, red-faced, spittle-speckled rant with lots of words ending in 'er', 'ard' and 'ing'. That of course, is my user reaction. As my IT manager, my reaction is somewhat different. The foul language continues, of course, but it's now tempered with an attempt to diagnose the problem. Each failed attempt to source the problem and fix it is usually punctuated with words generally centered around the ‘uck' sound. As a user, I'm fretting since deadlines wait for no hack. As an IT manager, my lack of technical skills become evident very quickly, and after an hour I wear a vacant expression and scratch my head a lot. Even using the back-up notebook and getting online looking for solutions for the downed PC on the Wibbly Wobbly Web yields little in the way of a solution.

After two hours, the IT manager and I pound around the house growling at family members and looking for a four-legged pet to kick. After three hours we have a good cry. Eventually a solution presents itself - most of the time anyway - and after losing about six pounds in stress-related sweat, we are back in business. Once the work is done, we get p***ed to celebrate.

This, in my eyes, represents a healthy(ish) IT manager/user relationship. It might not be very effective but at least I know when I call IT support I get a response, which is more than can be said for the days when I had to rely on the IT department. If you want to curdle good favour with IT then stalk one of them, say hello on a regular basis and buy at least one of them a beer now and then in the pub. You shouldn't have to, of course, but welcome to the real world.

If you have an IT tale to tell, start scribbling now. Keep it short and sweet and libel free. µ

L'INQ
VNU Net