August 26, 2004My Lack of PatienceI've noticed myself with an ever-growing lack of patience lately. And I really don't like it. I've always considered myself a pretty patient person. Even sitting still in rush hour traffic hasn't ever really bothered me too much. And maybe it's not a lack of patience but rather a lack of tolerance. Mostly I notice lately that my threshold for problems at work is not what it used to be. Little things that used to not bother me at work now aggravate me to the point of..well, blogging about it. I blogged a few weeks ago about my frustration with ITS management for hiring under-skilled staff. I promised myself a long time ago that I wasn't going to use this site as a medium to vent about work. mostly, because sometimes people from work visit this site. But here I am, not more than a couple weeks later, venting about work again. Most of my job requires me to help people solve their computer problems. What I find most frustrating a lot of the time is that the people I'm helping don't seem to want to try to help themselves. What I mean is that - many times - if our employees would take a moment and try a couple different things, they could probably solve their own problems. Case in point: I went upstairs to help a customer who couldn't get connected to the server. Before I did anything, I asked the customer if she had tried rebooting. She said she had. To be curious, I brought up the Terminal and issued the 'w" command, which shows when the last time the computer had been rebooted. It said something like 16 days (go OS X!). Miffed that I had been blatantly lied to, I rebooted the computer. When it came back up, it connected to the server without problem. The second thing that's been bugging me at work is the amount of calls I receive regarding home computers. Don't get me wrong, I don't usually have any qualm with answering people's home computer questions. But lately it bugs me more and more. I suppose I've made myself so available that people tend to depend on me to be their personal computer consultant. Unfortunately, I know think twice about even picking up my desk phone when I see someone outside of ITS calling me. Maybe the answer to all of this is simply that I'm in a bad mood lately. All the time. Or maybe I'm just becoming an angry old man. I certainly hope not. Or maybe I just need a vacation. Either way, I hope I snap out of it soon. I don't like myself with this demeanor. Posted by Jeff at August 26, 2004 12:43 PMComments
Hey, I've got an idea... why not use the Liquid Plumr to clean out those pesky home computers. That stuff works wonders, ya know :) Posted by: Randy at August 26, 2004 06:38 PMDon't worry, Jeff. I've been finding myself in the same state of mind lately at my job. Just getting irritated and annoyed with the littlest things. I think everyone should take a vacation at least once every few months, just to stay sane! :-) And just think...you'll be in Maui very soon!! Posted by: Jennifer at August 27, 2004 12:49 PMSounds like somebody's got a case of the Muhn-days. ;) Seriously though, I think you've established yourself as a helpful guy. And while it's great that your customers have gotten the word around that you're a handy fella, it's also almost a curse. You have every right to deny requests of the home persuasion, but I'm guessing Martin wouldn't be thrilled if you denied the in-house folks. I'd suggest policy or reminder emails to the company reminding them of something, but you know as well as I do that no one reads/responds to those. So what do you do? Try and see it from a different perspective. The fact that you have done this 4 years now is a sign that you do have that patience in you. Accept that people are clueless, lower your standards of them, and it might be a little less stressful. 'course a trip to Maui might do wonders too. ;) Posted by: BK at August 27, 2004 02:43 PMJeff buddy cheer up there are more like you out there. I dont know if you remember this or not back in our fresshman days at Radford but there was always the rumor of the 5 year burnout or the usefull life span of coders. Well I think that applies to people like us as well who have to answer the same dumb questions from the same people over and over again. I for one am feeling very burnt and im getting ready to enter my 5th year. I still enjoy my job as Im sure you do but im getting more annoyed with the people Im supposed to be helping. The only thing I can figure is that its like a plateu in a diet. you just have to wait it out and then it probably wont seem like a big deal anymore. At least thats what I am hoping for. Posted by: Sparky at August 27, 2004 03:56 PMYou ever watch that skit on SNL? That is what you sound like. MOVE!!!! Posted by: D at August 31, 2004 03:27 PMPost a comment
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