🚀 go-pugleaf

Geoff Miller (geoffm@netcom.com) wrote:

: A former boss of mine once mentioned a tidbit he'd picked up somewhere
: along the road to his MBA.  It seems, and my own experience backs this
: up, that an interesting intellectual transformation often happens to
: people whose jobs involve specialized skills or information that's
: required by a wider group of people: they become arrogant and contemptous
: of those whom they support, and irritable when it comes to receiving
: requests for assistance.   They come to think of themselves as a sort
: of aristocracy, since those great unwashed masses aren't members of 
: their privileged priesthood.  They are, after all, mere users; who
: are they to disturb our cloistered contemplation of the infinite?

Yes! If it wasn't for all these damn users, we could have some really 
GREAT systems. 

: I've certainly known system administrators and MIS people who fell
: victim to this mindset, sometimes to an incredible degree.  In one 
: case I had to remind the individual in question, in decidedly 
: less-than-diplomatic terms, of his place in the greater scheme of
: things -- i.e., his membership in the class known as "support 
: personnel."

Any MIS person who forgets that the primary objective is customer 
satisfaction, and allows personal opinion to interfere with that 
objective, is soon to join the ranks of the unemployed. We are among 
the first to get the pink slips, when the bigwigs see red ink, since 
MIS is not revenue producing, and most managers have little real 
grasp of what it is we do. Satisfied users, and a can-do attitude are 
the things that keep our paychecks coming. 

: >It seems to me that the role of the system administrator is to
: >provide service for the user community, and that includes complying
: >with user requests as quickly as reasonable, and providing information
: >quickly.  

: Or bloody well replying in a timely manner and explaining why it
: _can't_ be, and when such assistance can eventually be expected.


: >If I were in a hiring or firing position over someone who called a
: >user who requested a file be restored a "bozo," that person would 
: >get their walking papers no matter how well they did the rest of 
: >their job.

: Hear, hear.

You don't perchance work for the government, do you, Geoff?

-- 
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Buddy Bear   at L & M Enterprises
"It is a great mistake to try to cure a man of paranoia, for it gives him 
just as clear an understanding of the innards of the universe as Psychology
or religion."
             - Peter S. Beagle, I See by my Outfit. 
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