Staff Complaints

[neilmc]

Yesterday I got pulled aside by a member of staff who told me that there had been something said about me in the staff room from another member of staff.

 

Apparantly this member of staff can't get me to do anything, everytime she asks me to do something I say 'Can you stick it on the helpdesk please' which is what I say to all members of staff. But apparantly the head has an issuse which again when I was asked to do it i never went and did, baring in mind I don't remember being told that the head didn't have a working printer.

 

Oh and also I currently have a very busy helpdesk, the network manager is on a course this week which leaves me to get things done. Am i wrong to ask people to put things on the helpdesk? should I just go running when they call?

 

OH! and also the reason we have a helpdesk is because if people catch us in the corridoor and ask us to do something 9 times out of 10 we are already on a job and by the time we get back to the office we have forgotton, but staff don't seem to be able to understand that. hmmmmmmmm

 

In the end had a very busy week on my own and ready for the weekend.

[featured_spectre]

Helpdesks also show when you are being over worked, what problems keep occuring and how often they occur. So if people do not like it, it is probably because they can be monitored from it!

[neilmc]

Yea good one last week, Can you please allow me to print from my classroom to the printers in my classroom this hasn't been working for the last few days. Go down to the classroom look at the printers turned them on at the wall turned on the power button WOW like magic the printer springs into life. I'm sure that is alittle bit of a waste of my time maybe?

[creese]

BBC News - Gove's top degree plan for teachers criticised

[kmount]

Stick to your guns, be polite and explain the whole purpose of why the helpdesk exists.

[elsiegee40]

Yea good one last week, Can you please allow me to print from my classroom to the printers in my classroom this hasn't been working for the last few days. Go down to the classroom look at the printers turned them on at the wall turned on the power button WOW like magic the printer springs into life. I'm sure that is alittle bit of a waste of my time maybe?

 

Not if there were kids in the classroom when you did it. You don't need to say anything, just leave

[featured_spectre]

Prime example of stupidity, just going through all of my OLD helpdesk jobs...

 

There was a job January 3 years ago to make the snow stop, the job was closed in may of that year. Job done, sometimes just takes me a while.

[Guest Guest]

Stop posting on forums Neil ya lazy git and get some work done!

[creese]

Yea good one last week, Can you please allow me to print from my classroom to the printers in my classroom this hasn't been working for the last few days. Go down to the classroom look at the printers turned them on at the wall turned on the power button WOW like magic the printer springs into life. I'm sure that is alittle bit of a waste of my time maybe?

 

I'd be tempted to say "I'll send someone technical down later to switch the wall plugs on"

[sonofsanta]

BBC News - Gove's top degree plan for teachers criticised

 

O_O

 

That is shocking. Anyone with a third just phoned it in, I can't believe the restriction isn't in place already! I'd rather it be 2:1 and above, but then, those who can, do etc.

 

On topic: I would say you are absolutely within your rights to ask that something be put on the helpdesk, especially if it is written into the SLA or the AUP. If the head complains about it, and wants you to respond to verbal requests, politely detail that one day you may be walking down to fix his printer but it could take you an hour and a half to get there because of interruptions.

 

The frustrating thing is, some of these people are the same teachers that are absolute sticklers for only talking to people if a meeting is pre-arranged, if a parent's not booked a formal meeting through reception they won't deal with them...

[3s-gtech]

That is shocking. Anyone with a third just phoned it in, I can't believe the restriction isn't in place already!

 

I hope you don't mean that in a all contexts, as in many cases that is simply not true.

[Mr.Ben]

Have you got an agreed 'ICT Charter' for them school, giving timescales and expectations?

 

Here's a template: Template IT Support Charter.docx

[sippo]

People have moaned about me behind my back after an issue occured when it wasn't my fault. I just let them get on with it. I know that the majority of staff are happy with the work I do, and all log work via our fault reporting system.

 

Take no notice of the moaners. Some people are never happy. As long as you are trying your best, your management will stand by you.

[srochford]

That is shocking. Anyone with a third just phoned it in, I can't believe the restriction isn't in place already! I'd rather it be 2:1 and above, but then, those who can, do etc.

 

Just because you have a 1st class degree doesn't mean you'll make a brilliant teacher any more than having a third (or no degree at all) means you'll make a poor teacher.

 

There's much, much more to it than that but it's always easy to just set a target ("all teachers will have at least a 2:2") rather than find out what really makes a good teacher (or good anything else for that matter - how many people with MCSE have no idea how a network really works??)

[sted]

I hope you don't mean that in a all contexts, as in many cases that is simply not true.

 

there are always exceptions to elmost every rule (and i got a third on my degree but tbh it was a convertion from a hnd i diddnt want to do really just got sucked into doing it so im not one i really did just do naf all work) but having said all that i know people who passed the same course as me i wouldnt trust to turn a pc on

[witch]

TBH I believe that teachers are born, not made, and a degree or lack of it is fairly irrelevant. Anyway, a first class hons is no proof of common sense, anymore than a third is proof of stupidity

[somabc]

Take Maths for example, you do not need to be highly qualified at University Level to understand High School Maths. They are fundamentally different. High School is all about Calculus and other Nuts & Bolts while if you are getting a 2:1 or above you will focus on mathematical proofs. It's the same with Physics understanding and teaching Newtonian Laws is a bit different from M Theory.

[GrumbleDook]

Back to the issue withthe helpdesk ... oneof the best things you can have the helpdesk do is to send out an email when it is logged. If the person doesn't get an email then it is obviously not logged so they need to get it logged again. It is the lack of communication that gets to people and starts of the problem (or allows the problem to jumped on by those with an axe to grind) and it also means that if you get taken to task you can show someone the list of calls and get them (as senior leaders) to prioritise differently.

[sonofsanta]

/meekly tries to catch his earlier point and return it to its cage

 

Alright, alright, consider me chastised. It was a knee-jerk reaction based off the fact that everyone I knew at Uni who got a third did so because, well, they phoned it in. They were the kind that were nominally at Uni but were never actually at Uni. But, as has been said, degree classification has little bearing on actual suitability for employment.

 

I really should know better, as I've spent all week trying to convince the OH that even though she's not academic, she's a damn sight better at teaching than most of the teachers at her school (she's a TA) because she know how to deal with kids better than they do, and can break subjects down into something mroe easily understandable - chiefly because she's had to do the same herself to remember it.

 

So consider this a humble and public retraction and we can let the thread drift back on topic... which is that staff should use the helpdesk, that's what it's there for. They'd be annoyed if their job never got done because everyone else kept interrupting you before you could get to them. And if there's any ambiguity, get your NM to write it into the SLA/AUP/other relevant policy when he gets back from his course.

[Stuart_C]

"You can't please any of the people most of the time".

People don't see the problem in terms of the school, they see it in terms of their own litte worlds, thus every problem to them is an emergency but in the grand scheme of things might not be or might be superceeded by something else.

 

I would stick to your guns. Get everything logged. If you don't you will forget things and make mistakes. It can be hard but if peole log things you then have a written record, if there's more than 1 of you then someone else may pick up the job. But the most important reason is that it lets you evaluate the workload and decide on priorites and time scales. You might lets 2 or 3 minor jobs build up in an area before looking at them together.

[glennda]

the way i manage teachers is learn the are of talking cr*p, i just tend to make things up on the spot - or say that one of the other technicians is in charge of that type of thing - even if im lying!! But to be honest im normally only heckled for things these days by it teachers when im either in the office at my desk or in there classroom fixing something - so i don't tend to mind fixing other slight issues they may have in the classroom as it saves extra workload - although when i go back to the office i put it down in the comments section of the helpdesk request that i also fixed additional problems while I was in the room.

 

But all staff know here that even if they bring things to the office e.g there work laptops to fix that we will not fix it until they go back to there classroom and email us a helpdesk ticket - even if the laptop sits with us for 4 days before they email us it doesn't get fixed - once they learn the hard way that if they don't email us we wont fix a problem - most laptops only fail the syncronisation but the teacher panics and brings it to us - once the helpdesk ticket is there enless a complicated fault they normally have the laptop back within 3 hours!

[wizzard]

Not if there were kids in the classroom when you did it. You don't need to say anything, just leave

 

I can imagine it, listening to the kids taking the mickey out of the teacher