To The Nice Old Lady In Clinical Development:

The BBQ Pit
1

Listen, you’re a beautiful person. You’re bright, articulate, educated, and personable. You work hard and are dilligent in meeting your responsibilities. You really care about deadlines, and you bust your hump to meet them. I really like you.

You’re killing me.

When you call me for support I cringe, because I know it’s going to be another maddening slog through the same issues we’ve covered 153 (documented) times before. You’re so eager to get the issue resolved, so grateful for my assistance, so sweet and pleasant and thankful and complimentary that I can’t resent you.

I resent you anyway.

You send my reporting list such nice messages, about what great work I do, and how lost you’d be without me. You take notes when I help you. Every time. You’ve got a stack of books full of notes. I’ve seen them.

They’re the same notes. All of them.

Yes, there are technical issues. They’re minor, and you’re more than capable of handling them. Yes, the software is slow and clunky, unlike your beloved former system. The old system is obsolete, and no longer meets statuitory requirements. Besides which, you had the same issues with the old system. I remember, as I supported you under the old system, too.

Things change. Deal with it.

I’ve been supporting this user base in general for 9 months, and you in specific for 8 months. I was contracted to help get past the technical teething issues of migrating the old system to the new system, and supporting you interferes with the project. Mind you, you are part of the scope of work, and I like helping people, especially grateful people, but this week I’ve already expended 9 hours supporting you alone, including two late-night calls. I’ve lasted in this role 6 months longer than anyone else that’s had to support you, but I’m running out of patience. I’ve got project work to do, and every hour I burn helping you is one more hour the project lasts, and one more hour your company has to pay me. Your management is fed up with you. I’m fed up with you. You are the End User From Hell. You’re sweet, nice, grateful and eager to learn. You want to understand the new technology, you grasp the new technology, but you’re unable (or unwilling) to use the new technology. Whenever you see something you don’t like, you panic in your so-genteel-aristrocratic way. Once you’ve been shown that it’s not the bogeyman come to eat your work, you effusively thank me. Tomorrow I’ll get another call. It’ll be you, and it’ll be more of the same. You’re too nice to hate.

I hate you anyway.

[sub]I hate myself for hating you.[/sub]

2

Never has a sig line been so appropriate. :slight_smile:

3

Oh my God, Tranquilis, you have described my boss and her interactions with tech support so well I swear for a second I wondered if I knew you.

She (and when I say “she,” I mean my boss and your Nice Old Lady) drives the tech staff nuts on an almost daily basis. She’s a lovely person, but retains nothing when it comes to tech issues and knows just enough to get herself in trouble. I want so bad to defend her when I hear the techies rant in private (I hang with them now and then because one of them is my boyfriend), but I feel their pain because she does it to me too. I am forever solving small computer/software issues for her, showing her how to do it herself, which she seems very happy about, and earning buckets of praise-- only to have to do it again days later, ad infinitum.

I feel so guilty when I tense up at the sound of “I have another computer problem for you!”

4

Gee, sorry you have to do your job for someone. Consider it job security–especially being contracted in, as soon as the little old lady stops calling in, you’re toast and out surfing Monster.com.

5

Not a chance. I said she was part of the scope of work, in that I’m to help solve user’s technical issues, not hold their hands. There are still the business process training, the electronic submissions publishing acceptance tests, and the other 200 writers and publishers to support. I’m here until the electronic submissions publishing passes acceptance testing. That was always the end-point, but every time I have to stop work to support a user, that end point moves. As for finding new work, that’s a non-issue, too. My consulting firm doesn’t stop paying me when I’m on the bench, and there’s a whole team selling new engagements all the time. I’ll roll off this and onto another assignment pretty quickly. This was never about doing my job, it’s about throwing man-hours down a rathole. I’ve got 17 hours of tech calls logged this week so far. TNOLICD owns 13 of them, including two and a half at the premium on-call rate. She’s delaying development, she’s costing her company money, and she’s making me repeat myself. Lots. I LIKE helping people, but she’s not letting me help her, she’s demanding I hold her hand, and due to the terms of the contract (I’m gonna talk to the AEs about that on the next contract…!) and her management’s paralyzed style, I’ve got no choice. I find that offensive.

Hand holding can be left to IBM Global Services, SMS, CSC, or some other commodity support player. I’m too expensive to be doing that, it’s not good for the client. I want to hit an engagement, do the job, and roll on to the next gig. That’s my style, and my company’s style. She’s cramping my style.

Corvus
I didn’t even plan it, I’m just lucky that way… :slight_smile:

Rosebud
TNOLICD doesn’t have any direct reports, but I’ve seen her siblings before. Just never this bad. I guess you’ve got one of her extended “family” on your hands.

6

Ack! I know a tiny little bit of what you folks are going through. I showed someone how to use the “Out of Office Assistant” on MS Outlook as work once–now whenever almost anyone takes vacation time, I have to go over and help them set it up…even if I’ve already shown them a half dozen times how to do it. I made up an example of the monthly task rotation for our group at work in MS Outlook’s Calendar section–now I get to do it every month.

Now, whenever someone asks me how to do something on the computer at work…I tell them I don’t know. Luckily, that’s something that is not part of my actual job.

7

That’s how it starts. Unless you’re smart enough to recognize the trend and play dumb, soon you’ll be the office “guru”. It’ll creep into your CV. Once that happens, you might as well just get certified, because you’re doomed. Doomed, I tell your! RUN! NOW! Hide from the support-seeking zombies! They’ll suck your will to live!

Oops. [sub]Just had a “Network” moment…[/sub]

8

I’m with you, Tranq. I’d rather provide support to ten surly folks who GET it the first time than one nice sweet person who will NEVER get it. But that’s just the way the job goes.

At least I’ve got no SURLY folks that don’t get it.

9

My favorite way to deal with this internally is to write a detailed description of how to deal with the issue, complete with step-by-step instructions on the solution.

When the user calls again for the same issue, I re-send the original e-mail (with the original sent date on there) and tell them to call me if/when they get stuck using the instructions provided.

They rarely call back because the instructions are so explicit. If they do call back, we walk through the written instructions and they feel bad for calling, since they did not try to do it themselves first.

That’s my MO, and so far it’s worked like a charm. Now people save my e-mails and print them out for reference, and my support time is WAY down. Sometimes they’re so proud of themselves, they call to tell me “I had this problem, then I remembered that you helped me before and I fixed it using your directions!” All they’re looking for at that point is an “Atta Boy!/Girl!” from me, which I gladly give them. I also praise my users in front of their bosses when they solve a problem without asking me how to for the second time.

Zette

10

For almost all users, that approach works extremely well. It’s not doing diddly for TNOLICD. She’s got stacks of notes on how to manage and manipulate her documents in the content management system, but it doesn’t stop her. She’s got fully updated job aids in electronic format, she’s got two publishers who’re willing to bend-over backwards to get documents out the door on time, it doesn’t matter.

TNOLICD is right at the ragged edge of getting herself sacked, and around here that’s a virtually impossible achievement. The last two people sacked here were grossly insubordinate for 6 months before getting the boot, and they were contractors! The only two things saving her are the fact the she’s a NOL (Nice Old Lady), and that’s she’s a pretty good medical writer. I’d like to see her stick around, but dammit, she’s killing herself with every bridge she burns. When I submit my reports to the client, the support metrics go with them, and they see her effect on the bottom line. If they were a normally decisive group, she’d have been sacked close to a year ago.

TNOLICD: WAKE UP, DAMMIT! I’ve told you plainly, you’re going to get sacked if you don’t start toeing the line or ask for a less critical position. I don’t care if you like leaning on people, or like your prestiegous title, it’s time to save your job, and save your knowlege for your company. Pay fucking attention to the writing on the wall! You’ve got (maybe) two months to change your ways, then you’re history. I can see it coming clearly: They’re already manuevering new writers into place, and you’ve been warned.

(yes, I’ve told her this, without the profanity, of course)