When you work in IT, you quickly learn that some users are just difficult to deal with, and they make it really hard to help them.

What would you do if one manager was constantly having computer issues, but wouldn’t provide any details that would help you to fix them?

That is what happened to the tech guy in this story, so when he finally demanded that the manager provide useful information, the manager yelled at him about it, but the owner of the company overheard it and sent the manager home.

How I got the HR manager sent home

It’s unfortunate that in our business we don’t always see eye to eye with our users (or clients).

Yeah, that is all too often true.

It’s also been my experience that the most difficult user also believes they are the smartest.

My case for this statement is Bob.

People like this can be very hard to deal with.

Bob was the HR manager (or so he said) for the building/region I worked in. He carried with him an aura of smugness, spite and disregard for the corporate IT rules.

Well, he didn’t disregard them as such, he just forced his preferred applications to be incorporated into the group of “supported” software.

He just wants to make things easier for himself.

He knew of the ticketing system to request help but found it much easier to call us directly or walk down and talk to us face-to-face about whatever it was that was important.

I’ve had several run-ins with Bob, talking him through various minor issues (Bob: “critical and work stopping”). But then the big time came.

Why does he deserve to be in the first group?

We had begun our very roll out of Windows 7 64Bit and of course Bob just HAD to be in the first batch of 20 users to get it.

After 19 roll outs of new hardware with Windows 7, backing up user profiles, applications, settings, favorites and everything else I thought the time had come to see Bob.

He volunteered for this, so he should be aware.

I went through the usual talk about how this was a test build, bugs were expected, applications needed to be tested and that certain applications (unsupported ones) may not work at all due to the new 64-bit Awesomeness. Bob nodded and and agreed to the replacement

It wasn’t long before the calls started. At first it might have been once or twice a week. But soon it was daily.

Apparently Bob can’t figure anything out on his own.

“Why is this over here gone there?”

“Why are my favorites in alphabetical order?”

Come on, this is simple stuff, Bob.

“The button didn’t work!”

“The start bar is in the wrong place!”

Does he just want to waste everyone’s time?

The vagueness of the questions and statements were often worse and would always require a trip to his cubical to find out what on earth he was trying to explain (which once somebody turned up he was able to do easily).

A few months of this and I was feeling the dread every day. Then after lunch I got an email from him that simply said:

You’re going to have to give some more detail, Bob!

“IT’S BROKEN!!!!!”

I waited. It was minutes before the phone rang and I answered it. “What aren’t you here yet!” Hollered Bob “Don’t you realize how critical my work is?”.

He knows he is in for a rough time.

I said I would be up to his office shortly. “Guys, I’m going to see Bob, I may not be back for a while”. My collages looked at me, gave me a nod and wished me luck.

I arrived at Bobs cubical, on the top floor, with a cheery attitude. I knew in my mind what had to be done.

He is being very nice with how he is asking.

“Bob” I said “I know there’s a problem with your computer, but could you please give us more information than It’s broken? It makes it quite difficult to troubleshoot without any information”.

Bob looked shocked, but managed to compose himself with “What the heck do you think your doing speaking to me like that? Show some respect!”.

I suppose deescalating the situation is the right move.

As angry as he was I felt I better diffuse the situation and help him. I did feel somewhat guilty for laying down the law.

“Bob, I can see that your angry, but it’s very difficult to solve these issues without any input from you on what the actual problem is. Now, I can go back downstairs for a bit or I can try and solve the problem now”.

He really has no right to be upset.

Bob, was furious. But I had offered to help him so he showed me the problem.

“My list of programs has gone! And I didn’t do anything to cause it!” he said.

He didn’t do anything, Bob!

At first I was puzzled because I could see all the applications squeezed in nicely to the left hand side of the screen in the task bar, I even clicked the little arrow that took me to the next page of applications. “Wait, they’re back. What did you do?!”.

A-ha….

At least it was a simple ‘fix’.

It seems Bob didn’t notice the little arrows that show up when you have so many applications open that they don’t fit in the task bar. Embarrassing? Yes. Major issue? No.

After a short explanation for why these arrows are for I went back downstairs for a much needed coffee.

Wow, he actually apologized.

Just as I sat down I felt a tap on my shoulder. Bob was there, a bag in his had. “Sorry about my actions before.”

Then he left. Everyone in the room at this point looked at me so I explained that Bob might have lost his cool today, and might have said some things that he shouldn’t have.

I doubt his behavior will actually change.

So, it turned out that using aggressive words when there are a group of HR people sitting around you might not be a wise choice of actions.

Especially when the Boss of the company is one office over with the door open.

That is good that the boss is putting a stop to this.

I friend of mine told me later that once I was down the stairs the Boss had called Bob to his office and had a few words of his own with him. Particularity loud and nasty works that resulted with Bob getting a full week of leave.

He still never used the ticket system though 🙁

Hey, sometimes you take the wins that are available to you. It is nice to see that things are getting better, even if they aren’t perfect.

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about this.

Here is a similar story.

Yeah, don’t tolerate that type of behavior.

This is exactly right.

Hopefully it was a week off without pay.

Why is it always like this?

You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.