Some mornings it seems everyone at my office conspires to piss me off. Sure, it’s probably the chip I perpetually wear on my shoulder around the office that leads them to act bitchy to me, but it only makes the chip worse. In fact, the whole chip comes from them in the first place. Since I can do my job quite easily without their help, yet they can’t do theirs without mine, it poses a problem for them more than it does for me. This is especially true if it’s before 9:00am, when the FNG gets into the office. Also, before 9:00am, I have most likely not had a cigarette, nor finished a cup of coffee, leaving me grumpy, tired, and likely slightly hung over.

Most people recognize this, and behave accordingly. Some people though, are new, and haven’t had time to learn how to deal with the IT department, so they make inevitable mistakes that ruin my whole day.

Today, a new person, instead of letting me get to my desk so as to set down my thermos, take off my coat and get stuff together decided instead of scream my name several times all the way across the third floor, as I was walking with my hands full to my office. I was already at the door to my office and so I just pretended not to hear the person, and instead just beeped in and went to my desk.

This kind of thing happens ALL the time. Less to me than it used to, but that’s only because I no longer do much actual person to person support. Most of my work comes over the phone, and has to do with more than simply helping someone sign on when they forget their password. That job, thankfully, is now relegated to our Friendly New Guy. Although, as I mentioned before, he comes in at 9:00, and I come in at 8:00, so sadly there is a time each morning, right when it’s likely to bother me the most, that I have to deal with the noobs and users.

As soon as I sat down, the person called, like they should have done in the first place.

“Good morning, Cid.” I said. Note how I said both “Good Morning”, and then I identified myself. That’s as close to foreshadowing as I get.

“What’s with the attitude?” replied the noob.

“Nothing. I just wanted you to call, as I wasn’t going to walk over all the way over to your desk with my briefcase, my coat on, and my coffee cup and thermos in my hands, just to help you with something I could help you with over the phone. Patience is a virtue you know.”

This particular noob knew better than to test me. So she just apologized and went on to explain that as usual, the computer “won’t take” their password. Not because it’s not being typed in correctly, but rather that the computer “won’t take it”.

I dealt with it quickly. And went back to sipping my coffee and listening to Howard Stern. A few minutes later, a much more irritating noob called.

“Hello, cid?”

“Yes it is. Good morning.”

“I need you to make a CD with some files on it just like you did for me yesterday, but this one has to be done before 10 so we can send it to the client.”

“Who am I speaking to?”

“X”

“Who? Where do you sit? I don’t think we’ve ever spoken before, and I don’t know what you’re talking about because I certainly didn’t burn a CD for you yesterday.”

I said it in as friendly voice as I could, but I was irritated and they could probably hear it, as they then hung up on me. They then proceeded to call the other phone in my office, and complain to our FNG about me having an attitude. And that she would “have me know” that she doesn’t put up with that. Our FNG still didn’t know who he was talking to, or what he was talking about, because she didn’t identify herself to him either. Well, actually, she will put up with it. Because she needs help from me, and I don’t need help from her. Primarily, I program all day long. She uses those programs. Also, I didn’t say anything particularly rude to her for her to object to. I mean, go ahead and report it to my FNG, or even to my supervisor. Because what I said is the truth, she didn’t give her name, I didn’t know who she was, and I didn’t burn a CD for her yesterday…so blah.

I do have an attitude I guess, but it’s typically a fairly laid back one. And I don’t really get irritated unless people are inconsiderate or rude. And frankly, it’s rude to scream my name across the floor when I’m clearly not working yet, as is obvious by my coat being on, my briefcase, coffee cup and thermos in hand walking to my desk. It’s also rude to call me, fail to identify yourself, and start making demands when you clearly don’t even know who I am, or you would have known that it wasn’t me that burned a CD for you yesterday. I still don’t know who burned a CD for that person yesterday, but it wasn’t me. Maybe when she see’s this other “cid” that helped her yesterday, they will help her again.

Anyway…I’m done bitching for now. It’s boring to read, and not really going to accomplish anything. But it’s my blog, so I can post what I want and I just wanted to vent…because it’s just now 9:30am, and my day is already pissing me off. Howard is definately on a roll this morning though, they have a new Jagermeister machine in the studio, so it’s not all bad.

Just to make this post somewhat entertaining, I’ll direct you to this. It’s funny if you’re a “computer person”, but probably less funny if you’re a user and/or a noob.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 26th, 2006 at 9:34 am and is filed under Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.