Why do non-IT people get SO SCARED?

[DS9VOY]

..

 

[Schfifty Five]

Her reaction was a bit silly, as was her supervisor.

However, I get why she didn't want to mess with it, especially if she is not tech savvy. If she messed up anything, it would be on her. She at least did the correct thing and put in a support ticket to IT.

But again, her reaction was pretty dumb.

Edit: Oh and your thread title is kind of stupid. I'm a non-IT person but I can hold my own when it comes to tech/computer stuff more than the typical "non-IT" person. There are some things I don't know how to do, but like in your example, I could have at least attempted to fix the issue.

 

[Drako]

Why are IT people so annoying and self righteous?

 

[keird]

In the medical field we stick our fingers in unusual places. The thought of sticking my hand in a copier machine doesn't concern me unless it's near something flesh-burning hot. We routinely open our copier and fiddle with it. If it doesn't work we call the number taped to the machine for service. If we're calling too often, we're getting a new copier.

edit: also, you're a lurker OP.

 

[DS9VOY]

..

 

[SKORPI0]

The IT/tech support job won't exist without any dumbfounded people not knowing what to do if something "breaks". You need to reassure them that whatever is "broken" is just a simple fix.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

A huge part of the problem is lack of communication. There is always the issue of non IT end users being unable to clearly describe issues. This is common to ALL industries. The other big issue is the cult like elitism cultivated by IT departments everywhere and the almost total lack of communication and feedback from IT departments.

 

[DS9VOY]

The IT/tech support job won't exist without any dumbfounded people not knowing what to do if something "breaks". You need to reassure them that whatever is "broken" is just a simple fix.

Yes, I understand that. I also understand the dangers of keeping most of society helpless and dependent.

Let me ask you this. Let's say the light bulb burns out in my closet. I decide to call an electrician to replace it because I never changed one before and I am worried "it would be on me" if I broke it somehow. Would the electrician be glad I had that attitude and charge me $100 to come out and change it? Yes. Would it be good if that vast majority of our society became that helpless? Doubtful.

So, why is it a good thing if IT issues become that way? (I mean, apart from me banking off of it)

Now, let's assume I want to re-wire my whole house with a new electrical system. Is it reasonable for me to call in an electrician to help if I can't figure it out myself? Yes, it is. The same way it would be reasonable for them to call me if they want to network and entire new floor of their building.

The problem was, this accountant and her printer were akin to my closet and the lightbulb. It was just as ridiculous that she has been conditioned to act that way in the same way it would be ridiculous if I acted that way in calling an electrician out to change a light bulb in my house. Being helpless isn't something to be proud of or defend, and I don't think we are doing anyone any favors by encouraging helplessness.

 

[Jeff7]

Similar here:
1) Call someone at the company who's an expert on fixing things.
2a) Tell the person who's paid to know how to fix things how to do their job.
2b) Criticize everything they do.
2c) Insist repeatedly that they won't be able to fix it.
3) Report to their supervisor that the thing cannot be fixed.
4) Thing is fixed.


Some of my job duties involve modifying light industrial machines beyond their original specifications, change how they operate, or else simply fix them.
If I've got a machine's guts splayed out on a workbench, there are a few people who had been in the habit of saying that the thing is completely screwed and will never work again.

It's been a few years, and some of them still have that look in their eye as they walk past, or a look of forlorn exasperation as they look at what I'm doing, but they aren't as vocal anymore because I have a habit of turning masses of parts back into something that's quite functional.

Early on, sometimes one of those walks-past would then result in someone from upper management suspiciously showing up several minutes later to ask questions about how the project's proceeding and if we need to fly in a technician from the manufacturer. Depending on the nature of the problem, a few hours later I've got the machine back together and running.
In order to replace Part K, I had to remove Parts A through J. That's all it is. If I'm not entirely confident I can put something back together from memory, I'll get some photos and video as a reference.
In other machines, some things can only be put back together one way.

It took years to build up a reputation, and it's not a large company, so that helps.
I do still have to deal with "This part is 10 years old and doesn't work anymore. It needs to be replaced."
"But it's $400."
"And without it, this $20k pile of machinery will churn out $0 of product."




But, technology is just so temperamental sometimes that people think anything and everything will go wrong.

Thunderbird: They changed something in the latest update so that it now inserts two spaces if you hit Enter, instead of just one.
My mom didn't like that at all; it's possible to get one space with Shift+Enter. They did at least make it possible to disable that feature.
In that case, it changed ("broke") without her even doing anything to it.

Firefox: Several versions ago they made it so that it would use the font-scaling setting from Windows. Problem is, some pages wouldn't accommodate that adequately, and they wouldn't render most of the content because the CSS engine evidently thought that the page wouldn't fit on the screen, or something like that.
Again, she didn't have to touch a thing and it just stopped working on its own.

Microsoft: Congratulations, you have Windows 10 now. What's that? You only installed the update that claimed that it was to "fix some issues" in Windows? That description wasn't a lie though. It was to fix the problem of you not having Windows 10.

That probably makes some people edgy around technology. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
Their understanding of it is also very limited. They understand that "chips" make it work, but other than that, it's just short of outright magic.

"We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology." - Carl Sagan

"It would be on her". This is the problem with people today. SO WHAT? I've had tons of jobs. People make mistakes sometimes. Unless the mistake was intended (i.e. you want to intentionally break something), why IS THAT A BAD THING? You learn from it, fix the mistake, and move on. You say "I tried to do the right thing and fix a problem. I messed up. But, now I know how I messed up and how to do it right in the future" That's how progress is made.

Depends on the company.
Some places, mistakes aren't acceptable. "This mistake cost the company $3k. Get out." High turnover, employees-are-disposable sorts of places.
(Or the person's already screwed up a lot and this would be the last straw.)

Can you imagine if biologists sat around saying "Hey, you know what? It should would be nice if we could come up with a vaccine for polio." and then they said "No, you know what? We might fail 5000 times before we succeed and maybe even mess some things up in the process, so let's not even try at all"

Or can you imagine if the Wright brothers sat around and said "Hey, it sure would be cool if we could fly places." and then said "Nah, we might crash an experimental plane into something and it would be "on us" so let's just not even try".

Some people also don't understand designing and experimentation. They see that you have two experiments that failed to deliver the desired outcome for the project and determine that the project needs to be scrapped. Nevermind that the experiments weren't intended to deliver the solution to the whole thing, they were just stages of development, potentially evolutionary ones for that matter.

Hey, and dude above, you want to accuse me of being elitist? That's exactly the opposite of what I am trying to say here.

I am starting to see that this is a big problem in this country. People are becoming COMPLETELY dependent on a small "elite" class of people to SOLVE ALL PROBLEMS FOR THEM. That is dangerous my friends. Flat tire? Call someone. Sink stopped up? Call someone. Light bulb burned out? Call someone. Printer jam? Call someone.

I hope I am not the only one who sees a problem with the way this is going....

Specialization. To some degree, it's going to happen in a society such as ours. At one point in time, it was possible for one person to know the sum total of human medical knowledge.
Now you've got people who specialize in one aspect of heart surgery, or surgery on one type of joint.
Our knowledge is growing but our brains have hardly changed in a hundred thousand years, and good implantable data storage chips to deal with that are still a long time away. At some point, the only way to handle the complexity is to divide it up among multiple people.


Going with that though is documentation, which ties into MagnusTheBrewer's comment about communication.

Documentation is often viewed as an afterthought, or as an optional part of a design project that then gets farmed out to someone who doesn't know how the thing works in the first place, or who can't adequately explain it in the language of their target audiences. (I've had to work with a service manual that looks like it was the result of the original Chinese fed into Google Translate. Some of the photo captions were never even translated from the original Chinese. The manual is also 7 years out of date versus the machine. 3 screws here? Nope, there are only 2 now.)

Or just vague. "Pull the lever on the side at the appropriate angle."
What they mean is "Pull the largest of the three levers on the left side. Pull it straight outward from the machine. It will make a 'pop' when it disengages."

Or bad design. "Pull the lever on the side. Don't exert more than 0.15 pounds of force though, or the cheap plastic will break. Also, you have to pull it any more than 3 degrees from perpendicular, it will break. You also need a proprietary tool to keep the internal latches from snapping."


So you may have lousy documentation crippling someone's ability to even consider trying to service something.

 

[core2slow]

Some people are just not that tech savvy, OP.

I'm sure there are things that you wouldn't touch that an engineer/architect like myself would scoff at due to their inherent simplicity.

 

[Harrod]

I used to have a job at a counseling clinic as the IT guy, and also filled the roll of the operations manager. I couldn't believe all of the dumb stuff I saw over the 2 years working there, including someone who wouldn't save anything to the hard drive, because hard drives crash all the time. So this woman was saving all of her work to 3.5 drives, and then one day, she wasn't able to turn in her work because the disk she was using eventually died. Then it was all of my fault, I'm just glad the accountant, who was my boss, was tech savy and explained to her boss how dumb of a practice it was to not keep redundant copies of work saved.

Probably the thing I hate most, is dealing with clueless people who acknowledge how little they know and then question why you are doing something.

 

[DS9VOY]

Some people are just not that tech savvy, OP.

I'm sure there are things that you wouldn't touch that an engineer/architect like myself would scoff at due to their inherent simplicity.

I know, I understand that. I don't know everything either. I openly admit that I have a LOT more to learn and that there are problems out there I will need help solving.

However, with that said, does that mean I will completely refuse to even try to solve a problem on my own or be open to learning how to do so? Absolutely not. This is the problem I see with too many people.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with saying "This is a new problem to me, but, maybe I can at least try to solve it. If not, I will call someone to help. And, I will also use that as an opportunity to learn something from them"

 

[DS9VOY]

I just want to be clear - I am not criticizing non-IT people for not knowing everything. I am just commenting that we as a society have become way too helpless and way too dependent... and, when being confronted with a problem results is actual FEAR of the problem and FEAR of doing anything to solve the problem, we as a society are in trouble...

 

[Schfifty Five]

I know, I understand that. I don't know everything either. I openly admit that I have a LOT more to learn and that there are problems out there I will need help solving.

However, with that said, does that mean I will completely refuse to even try to solve a problem on my own or be open to learning how to do so? Absolutely not. This is the problem I see with too many people.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with saying "This is a new problem to me, but, maybe I can at least try to solve it. If not, I will call someone to help. And, I will also use that as an opportunity to learn something from them"

The company pays you to fix those tech problems. The Company pays your coworker to do accounting. Why should she spend additional time learning something that is not within the scope of her job duties?

Now, don't get me wrong. I do agree with you that generally, people can become too accustomed to the whole mentality of "Hey you fix this b/c I can't bother to learn it myself." However, there is a place and time for that. She is on the clock and thus is focusing on her accounting duties. You are on the clock doing your IT stuff. Why should you start bitching about that?

You ranting about "non-IT" people being so scared is kinda silly because I can turn it around and ask "why are IT people so weird, anti-social, and always bitching about their job and the people they work with?" You fit the whole "nick the IT guy" stereotype perfectly LOL.

You know what though, maybe it was just her and her supervisor's reaction that is pissing you off. I get that. I too would be like, "WTF, you called a supervisor who seems just as clueless as you?" I bet if her response was more calm and logical, you wouldn't be this upset.

 

[DS9VOY]

"The company pays you to fix those tech problems. The Company pays your coworker to do accounting. Why should she spend additional time learning something that is not within the scope of her job duties?"

Oh, the old "it's not my job" line. Got it. I've heard that a lot. Usually from people who's career never goes anywhere. You know what catches the bosses eye? People who go above and beyond and solve problems. Usually the "It's not my job" folks stagnate. That's cool, though.

Anyway... at what point does "it's not my job" become a little too absurd? I want to again make it clear that I AM NOT COMPLAINING ABOUT SOLVING PRINTER JAMS. I love doing it and all other aspects of my job. I am just saying that for YOU - the person I am solving it for - it's not doing you any good in life not to take the slightest bit of initiative to learn how to do it yourself. And, being AFRAID of that very concept, is very disturbing for your future life chances.

What is the next step below this? Probably saying "The printer being out of paper is not my job and is beyond me. I am going to call IT". Cool. Call me to load up the printer for you. No problem. Does that help you advance in life, though? Just saying. Yea, loading up the printer doesn't have anything to do with accounting. I just hope you never get laid off and suddenly need to find a non-accounting job that actually wants someone capable of learning new things beyond your narrow little scope.

Guess what? I do my own taxes. I could have had her attitude - "That's an accountants job" and hired her. Nah, I like to learn new things outside of my little IT niche. Usually helps me advance in life.

Again, my complaint is not that she didn't know how to do it and needed help. My complaint is that she is afraid of even opening her mind to learn something new, and is afraid of anyone doing something (in my case, opening the printer to fix it) that is outside the scope of what she is comfortable with. Look around people - our entire society is becoming this way. It scares the hell out of me.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Probably the thing I hate most, is dealing with clueless people who acknowledge how little they know and then question why you are doing something.

You're right. Unfortunately, IT departments often exacerbate the situation by silly things like demanding their own dress code, policies that require all information come from the head of IT, end users needs put on hold til the one IT guy who handles those issues comes back from vacation/sick and, IT departments attempting to hold companies hostage in order to get budgets approved. Again, lack of communication on EVERYONES part is the single biggest problem.

 

[DS9VOY]

You're right. Unfortunately, IT departments often exacerbate the situation by silly things like demanding their own dress code, policies that require all information come from the head of IT, end users needs put on hold til the one IT guy who handles those issues comes back from vacation/sick and, IT departments attempting to hold companies hostage in order to get budgets approved. Again, lack of communication on EVERYONES part is the single biggest problem.

Yes, I agree with this completely. This is a big problem. IT basically holds non-IT people hostage and INTENTIONALLY keeps people in the dark and as helpless as possible. This is so you have power over them.

This is similar to software developers who intentionally write source code to be as difficult to read to anyone else as possible, so that, if the company wants to get rid of them, it will be extremely hard for the new person to take over. In other words, the developer has them by the balls simply because he went out of his way to make them dependent on him.

 

[Humpy]

I get a kick out of trolling our IT guy. He's a mess of greasy awkward nervousness who can't look anyone in the eye nor can he ever finish a conversation without midway running out of the room to seemingly go vomit somewhere in private.

I'll call him in for something simple I could have handled myself and then start harassing him with questions about his un-reconciled purchasing card transactions or bring up some complaint against him while he's trying to do whatever it is he thinks he needs to do.

 

[StinkyPinky]

Some people are just not that tech savvy, OP.

I'm sure there are things that you wouldn't touch that an engineer/architect like myself would scoff at due to their inherent simplicity.

I'm sure he knows how to hammer a nail into the wall though, which is about the same level of difficulty as clearing a paper jam. No one is asking the office to service the printer. I wonder if they log a ticket to change the toner.

Honestly, I have met people that can't even change a lightbulb which makes me wonder what the hell they do at home.

 

[core2slow]

However, with that said, does that mean I will completely refuse to even try to solve a problem on my own or be open to learning how to do so? Absolutely not. This is the problem I see with too many people.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with saying "This is a new problem to me, but, maybe I can at least try to solve it. If not, I will call someone to help. And, I will also use that as an opportunity to learn something from them"

Here's the thing in the workplace - separation of duties.

I'm not going to use your extremely exaggerated/rare example in the OP, but some people who i've interacted with do take matter into their own hands to TRY and see what the problem is. Those who dont, it's not because they're inept to the inner workings of workspace electronics, it's simply because it's not in their job description to do so. Back in my desktop support days, there are times where someone would send me a ticket stating the exact issue and requiring me to come and fix it for them (it's not because they're lazy or afraid of it) because they just dont care enough to actually do the dirty work because it's not part of their job. I'm sure even a high school grad would tell you it's a paper jam, let alone an office full of post grads.

Another thing that you're probably not aware of, but certain department relies on the amount of tickets in the queue as a cost projection for budgeting. If everyone would start self-troubleshooting every issue, then the CFO/CEO would decree that having a dedicated IT staff isn't necessary and would rather outsource such services (and that's how you're employed). So really, it's a matter of job security and separation of duties.

 

[StinkyPinky]

I get a kick out of trolling our IT guy. He's a mess of greasy awkward nervousness who can't look anyone in the eye nor can he ever finish a conversation without midway running out of the room to seemingly go vomit somewhere in private.

I'll call him in for something simple I could have handled myself and then start harassing him with questions about his un-reconciled purchasing card transactions or bring up some complaint against him while he's trying to do whatever it is he thinks he needs to do.

So you torment a guy that clearly has some anxiety disorder just for a laugh? Nice one....I'm sure he appreciates that.

 

[shortylickens]

Ignorance is the leading cause of fear.

Why do you think catholics want to vilify and legally regulate vaginas?

 

[DS9VOY]

Here's the thing in the workplace - separation of duties.

I'm not going to use your extremely exaggerated/rare example in the OP, but some people who i've interacted with do take matter into their own hands to TRY and see what the problem is. Those who dont, it's not because they're inept to the inner workings of workspace electronics, it's simply because it's not in their job description to do so. Back in my desktop support days, there are times where someone would send me a ticket stating the exact issue and requiring me to come and fix it for them (it's not because they're lazy or afraid of it) because they just dont care enough to actually do the dirty work because it's not part of their job. I'm sure even a high school grad would tell you it's a paper jam, let alone an office full of post grads.

Another thing that you're probably not aware of, but certain department relies on the amount of tickets in the queue as a cost projection for budgeting. If everyone would start self-troubleshooting every issue, then the CFO/CEO would decree that having a dedicated IT staff isn't necessary and would rather outsource such services (and that's how you're employed). So really, it's a matter of job security and separation of duties.

Here's the thing in the workplace - "Any other duties assigned to fit the needs of the company"

I'm guessing you've worked union jobs where "separation of duties" is a thing. I see the value of separation of duties in certain instances, and I've worked union jobs where that is a thing.

On the other hand, I've also worked plenty of jobs that had a formal job description, yet also said this on the job description "ANY other duties to advance the needs of business and the company". It was made clear to people on hire that, yes, you may be getting hired as <insert job title here> but you better expect to be called on to do things outside the scope of that job title.

So, there are two ways of doing it. Sure, we could debate which way is better. There are pros and cons for each.

Here is my observation working in both types of job cultures. At companies where they had a strict separation of duties, I NEVER grew as a person or employee. Nor did anyone else. Everyone stayed in their little niche and eventually stagnated and become completely dependent on the company, because, over the years, they had developed no skills that would allow them to be competitive as an employee in the larger marketplace. Many of them hated their lives.

On the other hand, I've also worked at companies in which, if there was a problem, whether or not it was typically your direct job was IRRELEVANT. You were expected to at a minimum TRY to solve the problem. These companies expected you to be competent, to learn new things, and to break out from your comfort zone. When I worked at these companies, I grew as person in phenomenal ways. So did many of the other people I worked with. It was not uncommon for someone to jump from doing sales to doing logistics to asking to help out with marketing and later end up in the marketing department.

I'm just saying, there are way too many people out there falling into the "I'm going to bunker down in my niche and fear learning anything new. I'm also going to fear even trying because I am scared I might get blamed if anything goes wrong."

BTW... you know what I did at previous jobs when I made a mistake? "Hey boss, gotta tell you... my bad, but I messed this up trying this thing. I'll fix it though or get with Tom and we'll get it back to where it needs to be" Boss's typical response: "Oh cool. Thanks for letting me know, and good job trying to take the initiative."

FAILURE IS NOT THAT FREAKING TERRIBLE PEOPLE. And guess what? The most successful people are open to failure as long as they are making a good faith effort to TRY.

&#8220;Failure isn&#8217;t fatal, but failure to change might be&#8221; &#8211; John Wooden

&#8220;Everything you want is on the other side of fear.&#8221; - Jack Canfield

&#8220;Success is most often achieved by those who don&#8217;t know that failure is inevitable.&#8221; - Coco Chanel

&#8220;Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.&#8221; - Robert F. Kennedy

"Sometimes by losing a battle you find a new way to win the war." - Donald Trump

"I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying. " - Michael Jordan

"Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat. " - Theodore Roosevelt

"Success is the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty, and persistence." - Colin Powell

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. "- Thomas Edison

"Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out. " - Benjamin Franklin

 

[Red Squirrel]

What sucks is now that you fixed it, if anything in that office stops working within the next year, you're the one the blame is going to go to, and you'll have to go fix it. Wall clock near the printer stopped working? must be the IT guy who did something when he was here!

But yeah it's funny how people get genuinely scared of technology. I do recall being really new to computers and being a bit scared of causing something to mess it up, but that's mostly because I was a kid and if I messed it up I would have gotten in trouble. It was windows 98 at the time, if you did not mess it up, it did so to itself anyway. I learned pretty fast how to reinstall it and setup everything.

 

[Humpy]

So you torment a guy that clearly has some anxiety disorder just for a laugh? Nice one....I'm sure he appreciates that.

Meh. There has to be something to keep the accountants entertained so they don't hurl themselves out a window.