Ready, Aye, Ready

I'm well aware that many computer geeks have, shall we say, limited interpersonal skills. Generally speaking though, you keep those ones away in a closet somewhere and do not make them customer facing. That rule normally applies within companies as well as to external customers.

Let's say that there's an IS person whose name is "Bob". Bob is responsible for responding to internal issues as only Bob has been given sufficient privileges to do various things like renaming computers on a network. In order to get Bob to do any work, a request has to be raised through an internal help desk system. Actually talking directly to Bob is discouraged.

A problem arises that will prevent other members of staff from doing their work, work which will make money for the mutual company. A trouble ticket is raised at a high priority. It's a trivial thing to fix -- rename a computer -- and will take Bob less than five minutes to do, including travel time. However, Bob is only contactable via the help desk despite working just a few offices down the corridor. So, after two hours have passed on a critical ticket, someone wanders down the hallway to find out what the status is and whether or not any attention will be paid.

Bob gets upset. He'll get to it in his own time. Besides, renaming the computer is not appropriate as some third party virus checker objects to the requested name if it's pushed out from a central location. Bob states that what should really happen is that the code that prompted this change should be altered so that the name change isn't required. Bob is reminded that if that were the easier solution, that would have already have been done, saving having to deal with Bob in the first place. Finally Bob's manager tells Bob to go change the computer name as it's only a five minute fix and the company doesn't use that virus software anyway. But it's an industry standard, says Bob, valiantly holding ground. Bob's manager disagrees and finally Bob capitulates and goes to make the change. Bob makes the change but decides to give the computer a different name from the one requested so that further reconfiguration on the part of the client is required.

I hate to say this, but Bob is an ass. Bob should understand the difference between IS, and, say, a deity. Bob works in customer service and there being an ass eventually gets you fired.