Tossers/Idiots At Work

Oh let me tell you about idiots. I alluded to this earlier and today I had a showdown, the likes of which I have not had in a while and remind me why this job in IT can suck really badly.

In IT, you troubleshoot by asking questions. This elicits a response from the user and from these responses you can then narrow it down and find the root cause or at least a point from which you can start to investigate.

Some idiots in life hear your answers and think you are misunderstanding them when you are not. You are simply trying to get to the bottom of things. They assume you misunderstand them and get exasperated. They huff and puff and make it look like you are the one who is wrong and not them.

I had someone like this today. I ended up having to be quite defiant. A director in a nearby office (a leech who also thinks they are the most important person in the company, that's another story in itself) came out to complain.

In an ideal world, I would not have been defiant as I was, trying to reinforce my message with emphasis and volume. It's almost like the idiot with no social skills has dragged you into their crazy game. But these things happen instantaneously and you react naturally. Also, you have to do something to show that you are not misunderstanding them and are simply asking to get to the bottom of things. Mind you, even if you say that, they will still think you are misunderstanding them anyway.

So the only real thing you can do is to keep your volume low and be as calm as possible and try to explain that you are not misunderstanding anything and why you are asking these questions.

Sadly, you meet complete tossers like this in IT. This one came up later with a groveling apology when he was proved wrong by the outcome of our investigations. The way I see it, it's not about the investigations, it's about their poor people skills in the first place.

What a tosser! He really made my blood boil today.