Re: He should be proud that of that guy
(chuckle) Ah, but there's IT staff, and then there's IT staff. I used to work at a company group with offices in two major cities. I was a lowly helldesker for the programming team that had developed and maintained the in-house system that handled the business and customer data for large chunks of the group. The actual IT staff at the same locale as me generally knew what they were about and trying to get to the root of problems that might've been the in-house software or might've been due to some network problem seldom involved any fraughtness.
Not so the bunch at the other site, who were almost universally regarded as an almost useless bunch of monkeys. How they managed to keep their jobs was a mystery to many of us. The classic was that they kept mucking up setting up new users with remote access to the system developed by the team I was Helldesker for. This meant that you could guarantee that shortly after a new employee had started at their site, I'd get a call about how their system didn't work. Well, how OUR system didn't work as it was the responsibility of the team I worked for. Never mind that it was the access to it being incorrectly set up by their local IT that was causing the problem.
Even worse, I'd have to explain to users that I needed to pass their request over to IT, as only they could do the necessary to rectify things. About half the time, I'd be told that it was IT that'd told them to contact me, and could I just get on with it and fix the problem?! Sigh. So about half the time, I'd end up having to ask the local IT team to fix the problem with their ninja network-fu, because I certainly didnt have the tools (or knowledge) to fix what was wrong, and bedamned if I was going to go through the mental agony of trying to get the monkeys to clean up the mess theyd caused and then shoved in my direction, it'd take way too much of my time, and being the only helldesker for my team, that'd mean a worse service to other potential callers, most of whom were at the same site as me.
After having patiently explained what was needed to the distant IT team by phone many times, I asked my boss if it'd be OK for me to write up the process and email it to them. She gave me the go ahead, once she'd checked what I'd written. For a week or two things improved - and then slid back to their previous dismal state. So I resent the instructions. Apparently one of them paid attention that time, but not the others. Third time of sending I sent in a stiff formal complaint about 'em. THAT got their attention. But if they ever received anything more than a gentle slap on the wrist for being so useless, I never heard about it. They NEVER caused me unecessary problems again though.
So, yeah - in that one situation, I was prepared to stab a bunch of IT staff in the back - they damned well deserved it. What made it even more bitter was that the bunch at the other site got paid more than the local lot (and way more than I did!), despite the latter being far the more competent.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
