When are you doing a users job for them?
Were I work the lines between IT support and a users own job are flexible. Not by my choice, but by virture of the fact that a lot of users here are constantly trying to palm their work off on others. The problem is getting worse and my boss is one of the worst offenders.
There is a problem with a GPS tracking device not reporting back to the web interface. The person in charge of the Vehicles is dealing directly with the company responsible for installing the GPS tracking device and who also host the web interface. That same person has been dealing with the issue for some time now, its just that the company concerned are not very responsive.
So I get an email from my boss this am telling me that I should work with this person to resolve the issue. So Both myself and my college find ourselves having a chat about this issue and we end up wondering why we are talking about it and what I am supposed to bring to the table. We both came to the conclusion that because a computer is involved somewhere along the line (web interface, GPS tracking unit) that it must be an IT issue. So we both agree that my collegue will continue to deal with the issue un-aided as he is competent enough to manage it.
Another example would be the ‘Could you look at so and a so’s spread sheet for them, they are having problems’, ends up with me spending hours (sometimes days) trying to understand what it is they are trying to achieve, where the data comes from, how it gets there etc, and ultimately fixing a spread sheet that should be rewritten because I don’t want to be known as ‘the guy who will write your spreadsheets for you’ as that would be like a red rag to a Bull.
Is it just me or should the users who created these speadsheets not be responsble for maintaining them and ensuring data integrity? I mean its not like I know what data should be in there in the first place…