The Art of Zen

[Gibson335]

There are many types of people who work on the dark side of ICT (and of course I mean ICT Support). There are the ones who want to appease everyone and believe that every request, no matter how moronic or ill-conceived, should be treated with equal passion and fervour to succeed. There are those who adjust their response settings by a variety of factors, including the person making the request, the stupidity of the request, the impossibility of the request, or even the amount of cake still to be eaten before moving from their chairs. And of course there are those whose sole purpose is to seize control with an iron fist and never give a sucker (person making request) an even break.

 

Somewhere in the middle, in a place I like to call reality, live the majority. The people for whom this job that we do amounts to a job/career that we take very seriously when we're doing it, but one that otherwise just happens to be the way we've chosen to find a way to pay the bills. We do our best, we try to make things work, we try to advise, we try to explain the pros and cons, and we try to make things a little easier for everyone. And we do so without wishing to ingratiate or expect praise and open-top bus parades. We get on with the job to the best of our ability, trying to ensure that what we do is in the best interests of the school and its users.

 

We know we won't please everyone all of the time, and we can live with that. We accept that we may not always be popular, and we accept that because if you're too popular it probably means you're too busy trying to please everyone to make unpopular decisions when they are called for.

 

Firm but fair, hard but understanding. Ultimately, the people being paid the big bucks make the final decisions. And if they can't or won't, then our job is to move on and find solace in what does work, what has succeeded. For me, providing a stable, fully functioning, reliable network that meets the demands of its users is what really matters.

 

After years of tilting at windmills, I've come to accept that the above is largely true. And I am peace with myself.