Do you know why, generally, many people in IT hate users, and why, generally, first level support techs despise them?
Because these jobs are, in the end, not terribly different than any other server-related job. The nice ones, who take the time to say thanks, or write a nice note out of the blue praising the service, or who do any number of tiny things to show they appreciate what you’re doing, are rare. It’s nice to get those notes/calls/etc.
The vast majority of users, their issues, and the tech’s resolutions are white noise, that constant murmur in the background that follows a tech everywhere, including into dreamtime occasionally. This group is, again, much like anything else in life, a presence that never really fades away.
And then, there are those people. The ones who are never satisfied. The cheap ones whining to you about costs. The ones who complain they “are not a tech” and shouldn’t have to be a tech just to get through an answer about how to change their password (hey, newsflash: a step by step instruction list doesn’t require anyone to “be a tech” to follow). The ones who think they can be immediately hostile and uncivil to the faceless person on the other end of their message for no real reason whatsoever. The very, very worst of all? The ones who drive good tech people out of the field into more charming, less irritating, and more fun occupations like mucking out cow barns or cleaning sewage lines or deodorant tester.
The ones who request that you do something, confirm that they want you to do it, and never once ask any questions about what they have asked. The ones who then open a zillion tickets, all on the same subject: that they cannot perform operation ABC because what they requested was done. The ones who whine that if (company) had (XYZ), the “inconvenience” they have suffered would have been avoided, as if having XYZ would have made them magically not request the idiotic thing they requested – and that rather stunning logical fail is just another one amongst the thousand little cuts that makes techs hate users. Because it is usually the horrible ones that are remembered best.
Don’t be the horrible one. Be kind to your techs.
