Some workplace problems could be solved quickly if people simply spoke to the person responsible instead of escalating things first.

So, what would you do if a coworker skipped you entirely and went straight to your manager to complain about equipment you set up for them?  Would you refuse to help because they frustrated you? Or would you step in and try to solve the problems?

In the following story, an IT employee faces this exact scenario and determines it’s a user error. Here’s what happened.

User bypassing me… going straight to my manager.

I gave a user a brand new cell phone. His Blackberry was not cutting it anymore, and the touchscreen IP67 (waterproof/smashproof) phone was what we decided to give to our users.

He did not approve.

Instead of coming to me with his issues so that I could (attempt) to fix them, he walked straight by my desk and into my manager’s office, shut the door, and had it out with him.

The guy walked right past him.

He and my manager came out, and this guy walked right past me, back to his office. My manager had assumed that they both were going to discuss the issues with me, but this guy had other ideas.

My boss asked me, “What happened? I thought we were giving him a better phone?”

I must have had a pretty odd look on my face b/c my boss asked right after that, “You don’t know what I’m talking about… do you?”

Me…. I didn’t have a clue.

Shocked, he went to fix the issues.

Manager: So, I was told that this user could not use his phone. The keyboard didn’t work, he couldn’t access his contacts, the email was broken, and he could not answer phone calls.

Me: WOW….. I will go fix these issues….

I found out that saying the keyboard didn’t work was his way of saying he was having trouble typing on the touchscreen.

Couldn’t access his contacts meant he uses the cached contact list in Outlook, so he had no contacts.

Nothing was as it seemed with this guy.

The email was broken, which meant he forgot which button (yes, the button that says EMAIL) would take him to his email.

He couldn’t answer his calls, as he got a call, and it said, “Swipe to Answer”, and he couldn’t do it.

I spent half an hour with him. Installed Swift Key, removed all other icons except email, contacts, and phone, and went over everything several times. He then quit two weeks later. (Unrelated Issue)

Yay! (FACE BASH ON DESK)

Yikes! It’s hard to understand why people have to be like this.

Let’s check out what the people over at Reddit think about what the guy did.

According to this person, they had one of the same problems.

Here’s someone who understands the Outlook issue.

This reader also has a good manager.

This guy sounds like a hot mess.

People will never cease to amaze.

Instead of admitting he didn’t know what to do, he sure went to some great lengths.

If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.