This is just me blowing off some steam at work since I can’t really go on about this to people at work...
This year I have been like totally different than I was last year. I am very pleasant to my co-workers, I fake nice as much as possible, and I ignore the students, smile at them, or politely say hello to the ones who say "Hi Jamison!" to me (which flatters me that so many of them know my name and genuinely just are being nice.)
And this doesn’t really make me steam or anything, but it does strike me as odd.
A teacher was walking into the mailroom while I was in there. She was there for other business, but I KNEW that when she saw me, she would ask me something (there are a handful of these folks who will ALWAYS have something to ask you when they see you). So sure enough, she saw me and asked me a question. Without going into detail, she was sending information for a program we use to the Internet site we use to post information. She got an error and proceeded to say something like "It said error number 0000000(I'm serious here)000013-something"
I’m thinking, "How can I diagnose this problem standing here in the mailroom?". So I tell her to email it to me.
But here is my question:
When she saw the error, she was where? In her office.
When she was in her office she was using what? Her computer.
When she was using her computer, she probably had what opened as well? Her email (If not, she has an icon on the desktop)
Within a matter of seconds, literally, she could have emailed me (she can email, I've seen her do it) typed out the error message and I could have diagnosed and possibly fixed the problem in less than 5 minutes... rather, she saw the error and decided to ignore it until she saw me next time at which point it occurs to her out of midair to ask me...
What would they do if I never set foot out of my office and they never saw me?
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14 comments:
You're an SA (I know you're more than that, please forgive) and they're teachers. They just don't understand. You should send a mass email or even hold a meeting and tell them all exactly how they should contact you. You'll still get people accosting you, but at least you can refer back to your "Rules for Dealing With your SA" email or presentation.
Not only do I get 10 minutes before each school year to go over all of that (And I give a 'top 5 ways to get a hold of me' and email is always number one, and i explain why), not only to I send a mass email every start of school explaining this, but I tell them everytime they stop me in the hall that it is better to email me a problem.
Ive done the above every year for the past 4 years...
Funny thing, is that everytime someone approaches me , they ALWAYS preface their problem with "I know you prefer email, but..."
they do undersdtand, it just baffles me why they dont do it.
good grief! they're stupid...that's all there is to it...
Not everybody is a computer geek and some people just work better face to face rather than through email. I'm one of those people who would rather see someone face to face or talk over the phone rather than emailing. I've got some compute knowledge and the ability to figure things out so I try to not bother the IT guys too much anymore. When I get some sort of error I will call the IT line for assistance. I sorry you hate me so much. When the IT folks tell me to email them something I do it but we have a team I place for such things and you are an army of one. I would guess that when you leave the shelter of your office people consider you to be open to help them because it seems like you don't really like interacting with anyone. It's a special occasion to see and interact with you.
I bet she originally got the error, thought nothing of it and moved on. I mean how often do people get errors on their computer and ignore them as long as they can continue with whatever they are doing?
Then she saw you and felt she needed to say something to you, not knowing you except that you are computer guy, the error message then popped into her mind.
I can see Mullins' point...I like to speak face-to-face too, if possible. But, when it comes to a techy problem, email makes sense. I know I prefer an email for most things that come my way, especially when you consider that most of the folks i work with don't know how to communicate face-to-face.
I kind of agree with Mullins. In my years of management I've learned that people have different ways to deal with a problem. Some people can e-mail you with no problem, others prefer to ask over the phone, and others want to see your face.
I do this at work sometimes. I can easily buzz my boss on the phone or e-mail her, but mostly I walk over to her office and ask a simple question. I like the interaction between us. I like to see her face.
But I do totally understand your annoyance. I get annoyed at my folks for similar things all the time. Like when they ask me to come to their desk to ask me a questin that we just covered in a meeting and they have a memo on.
Jamison, If I go work at your school (fat chance) I promise I'll ALWAYS email you first... And I'll always say Hi in the hall and I'll bring you cookies for always fixing the computer I will probably break a lot....
face to face is great guys, but when you work with 200 people who alwasy look to you to solve problems, the line can get long at face to face meetings. Plus, with 200 people, i forget problems unless they are in an email form, sitting in my inbox, so i can say "okay, this problem needs fixing, this one can wait, this one has been needing fixing for a week..." etc...
ive told them all that i use it as a ticket system.
face to face is the best, but i tell them that if they tell me about a problem in person i am liable to forget about it in 30 minutes.
Indeed, I am with you on that, man. Having the information waiting in a queue is the way to go. Having people waiting in a queue is not.
Like I said, I feel some of your pain. People who bother you like that probably don't think about it. They like the face to face so they come to you.
yeah, they are all innocent, and nice folks... and like i said, it doesnt make me steam with anger.. it is just one of those things that, wehn I am walking away, i roll my eyes and have to laugh
I definitely feel you pain. Sometimes the explaination of a problem is, "I got an error message." What did it say? They don't remember, but think you should know about it.
FEAR! That is the answer. People are affraid of computers. They don't understand them, they know they are expensive, and they don't want to "break" them.
9 times out of 10 at work when an error message comes up, it's the same one they always get...sometimes it's not even an error message it's FYI and the computer wants the user to say ok or cancel. But the because the computer asked them something they freeze up. This ame 9 out of 10 the answer is always the same "ok". But they can't press that ok button, because they are affraid of the consequences.
OK
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