Perhaps we do things too well

[contink]

I was thinking about the whole anger and outrage relating to Google's decision or oversight for todays Google Doodle.

 

In the midst of feeling pretty peeved about it all I realised that there's all these folks talking about kicking off on the Register and other places and yet, wait a cotton picking second, are the Register doing anything? Am I? Erm... Where did all this righteous ire come from?

 

.. and then kerplink between the eyes, I realised this is one of those things where Google's raised the bar for itself and now the expectation is that they'll mark occasions such as this and if they don't people now notice.

 

So, I pursued the thought to it's logical end and applied this logic to our own work.

 

Those of us who work our cohones off are making life harder for ourselves for when things don't work as expected or we don't drop everything to come running. So it's little wonder that the end users, aka teachers or other staff don't recognise the hard work as it's the norm', it's expected...

 

Could it be we're our own worst enemy and how do you redress the balance?

 

 

 

Just a ponderance for the day...

[WithoutMotive]

*strokes chin thoughtfully* hmmm... very valid points there... and very true, too

[TechMonkey]

Yeah I wonder this. It is especially noticable when having to deal with 3rd parties/contractors & the staff don't seem to understand or grasp why it is taking slightly longer. Suppose we shoudl put in an automatic 2 day wait for any job

[witch]

Yeah I wonder this. It is especially noticable when having to deal with 3rd parties/contractors & the staff don't seem to understand or grasp why it is taking slightly longer. Suppose we shoudl put in an automatic 2 day wait for any job

 

I've often thought this: if you drop everything to help someone - sometimes they just think that you weren't too busy in the first place

[michael2k6]

The more you do, the more they come to expect. It's the same in all walks of life.

[User3204]

I have a 15 minute rule, if they ring and ask me to go and sort it, I tell 'em I'm busy and I'll be there in 15 minutes. If they say it's "urgent", I say "I'm busy".

 

It's amazing how some things get "fixed" by themselves within those 15 minutes...

 

After all, if it were really important, you'd know already...

[GrumbleDook]

"Miracles we can do today, please give us 24 hours notice if you want the impossible..."

 

Still one of my favourite headings from various presentations to staff.

[MkII]

Neat bit of contemplation Contink. Is that a monastery school you work in?

[Heebeejeebee]

We along with a few other professions have a very negative bias to our jobs. People only notice when things don't work and never for the 99.99% of time when they're working fine. People say that the IT is never working properly because they've had to report two faults in the past year. We're invisible when things work!

 

Occasionally staff will come in and say thanks for sorting something/helping/staying behind for two hours to get it fixed etc but those moments are rare.

 

HBJB

[SteveB_NI]

I try to do jobs as soon as I can (prioritising as much as possible) but nothing grates on me more than:

 

me: "I'll have to take the computer away, fix it and return - should be in a day or so"

staff member: ok then.

 

I hate it when people tut, sigh, or roll their eyes when I am trying to help them.... I particularly hate it when pupils come in saying "since you're doing nothing can you do this" and when they tut that gets me really going! grr! I've pulled so many up about that!

[localzuk]

I had a rant about this very thing to my boss recently. The fact that some teachers have been whining that 'the network is so unreliable!'. Which is complete rubbish.

 

I have changed the downtime stats for our network from what they used to be (around 85% uptime) when I started, to 99.7% uptime now. Our only real issues are the usual - hardware problems, vandalism, external providers (ISP) going down, and viruses being brought in by teachers.

 

Everything else seems to work like a dream, but no-one notices that. No, they only notice when the website (note, they only chose one website) that they had chosen for a lesson, is unavailable to them. No backup plan from their POV. But it is usually entirely my fault, as I have caused people to expect more from the IT in the school now.

 

It's as if I've taken a large gun, aimed it at my feet and let rip.

[SpuffMonkey]

I have a 15 minute rule, if they ring and ask me to go and sort it, I tell 'em I'm busy and I'll be there in 15 minutes. If they say it's "urgent", I say "I'm busy".

 

It's amazing how some things get "fixed" by themselves within those 15 minutes...

 

After all, if it were really important, you'd know already...

 

JUst link the old Civil Service method of "Dynamic Inertia" - leave a problem alone long enough and either someone else will fix it, or it will just be forgotten..