Nerd Rage & The Barren Garden of Empathy April 6, 2010

My fellow IT support compatriots, those who help their parents with “the google”, and anyone who, despite their best efforts and lack of technical skill, bears the nickname “our computer guy”… gather ye round…

I remember the first time I came to understand how my level of frustration, if unchecked, would not only ruin my career, but both my mental and physical health as well… it was in 2003, while I still worked as a helpdesk goon, and I had been tasked with making an image of Windows XP for our hardware(1). I was still fresh on the job, after a 9 month stint of unemployment, and while I’d done well to impress my superiors thus far, I wanted to really shine – those months of unemployment had been brutal. So, I busted my ass, baking in every helpful tip, trick, tool, and tweak that I could think of that would not only look good, but make my support job easier down the road.

Finally, it was finished – and we rolled it out to all the users in the office. Within a few days, the helpdesk tickets came in, and people were bringing their laptops by – filthy with spyware and other crap they’d installed. I’d put so much into this image, it was like watching your cloned children step out into the world, and then come home for Christmas strung out, with needlemarks, and a pimp. I was so angry at this – I’d worked hard to provide the best possible experience for these people, and they’d totally and royally screwed it up.

And then I realized… honestly, what the hell was I so wound up about? After all, my personal maxim at the time was “Good old Microsoft – it’s like welfare for geeks!”, so what could I have really expected? After awhile, I came to realize that there were new maxims for me to follow, and they have held me in very good stead since that day…

1)      It’s not about you personally. I know many geeks that end up putting no inconsiderable part of their heart into their work, because it requires (especially as budgets and staff dwindle) their creativity. And I don’t know many people that are able to delineate a fat line down the middle between their essential self, and their creative abilities. And why would you? Keeping the two linked is often a major source of job satisfaction, and we know how that is an excellent axel grease, when it comes to keeping your personal career machine moving forward smoothly. But in the majority of cases, anyone who questions your fix, or is upset that any work you did for them didn’t resolve their issue, is not questioning you professionally or personally. Really. I’ve seen this throughout the IT industry – you have technical people who are either locked in a tower of perceived superiority, or so insecure (or a combination of both) that they can’t perceive these things any other way. I’ve been both of those, and I can tell you that most people understand the unpredictable nature of computing environments, because they’re aware that they’re just that complex.

2)      They’re freaking out for a reason – even if you don’t think it’s a very good one. Most of us have had an incident where we’ve gone to the doctor because of some symptom that is commonly associated with your body going very wrong. If, the first time I went to the emergency room howling with pain, and the admitting staffer had said “What are you an idiot? That’s a kidney stone – pfft, even a moron could figure that out”, I would have collapsed crying – but that’s only because I was in too much pain to hit him with a chair. Look, you may know the reason why a user’s VPN connection keeps dropping is because Bonjour is installed and plays merry havoc with certain virtual network adapters – but the person who is freaking out because it’s 11:30 at night and they’ve gone a full 39 hours without sleep because they need to e-mail off a proposal… they don’t know that. All they know is that it’s not working and that this is very bad. You’ve had the moment at the end of slogging through a weekend to bring a system back up or roll out a project that you’re fra-jee-lay… guess what, so are they.

3)      They’re intimidated by technology. Given that I’m scared to even raise the hood on a car without the gasoline tank exploding and making that generic explosion sound used in all the old school Battlestar Galactica episodes, I get it. There’s an entire industry of professionals devoted to the arcane mysteries that are the internal combustion engine, because not everyone has the inclination or the time to pore through the contents of the Chilton manual for a 1987 Honda CRX – and I’m SO okay with this. Take a few moments to demystify a process for someone in a friendly, non-threatening way, and you have a very good chance of gaining a friend and ally who will in turn be sympathetic to those days when it’s really all gone wrong.

4)      Empathize as much as you can. Understand that for most people, their corporate desktop machine is a sort of unstable third rate deity that is just as likely to vengefully crash excel.exe as it is to print out your powerpoint presentation exactly the same color and format that you wanted it. Even if you know it’s a quick fix, don’t interrupt them and bark a solution (not unless you’re in the middle of a real crisis – and buddy, checking your world of warcraft stats ain’t it). Take a moment to listen to them, because the first thing anyone in a real crisis wants is to feel validated. And instead of barking out a fix, by waiting for them to finish and saying “I’m pretty sure we can get this squared away quickly – here’s what you do:”, you actually come across as the hero you want to be instead of the oafish nerd-troll that is the stereotype of a thousand IT support departments.

All of these can apply to virtually any technical support position – even if you’re talking your Dad through how to make sure DHCP is working. And if you apply these things to your professional career, any reasonable organization will recognize you as a valuable commodity – even in this day and age.

So take a moment – lend your expertise in a friendly and helpful way, and you’ll find that you’ll gain credibility, professional stature, and when the chips are down, people who will fight for you. And in any situation, those all add up to A Good Thing.

(1)An image is basically a snapshot of a Windows installation, with all the programs you want installed, all the drivers tweaked and running, and everything configured optimally. You can then apply that image to a brand new PC that comes in the door, instead of re-installing every program and making every tweak over and over again.