The battle of the IT request continues. After yesterday's fiasco I completed another online form. For good measure I phoned up the team in Glasgow to stress that it was treated as priority.
"We cannot escalate it yet," The voice on the end of the phone told me. "It hasn't passed its service level standard yet."
"What's the service level standard?" I asked foolishly.
"Ten working days,"
"So if its urgent I can't get it prioritised until its too late?"
"No. That's not what I said. You cannot escalate this IT request until it is over its SLA."
"So this should be complete in 10 working days then?"
"Yeah. Of course. It should be complete in 10 working days," The voice on the phone replied. His tone didn't fill me with confidence and I got the distinct impression that he kept putting me on mute to update his laughing colleagues about my naievity.
In the team, discussion was about the XYZ company that was currently sponsoring a massive recruitment drive. According to Gareth, they paid twice as much, had double the amount of holidays, better company perks, a staff gym that was free to use and provided a free bar for anyone working the weekend.
Dan joined in. He'd heard that they organised fully paid weekends away for staff at Alton Towers and Eurodisney. At lunchtime they'd both arranged to visit the agency advertising their vacancies and sign themselves up. The rumour spread across the office and soon most of the floor had visited the agency.
Anne wondered what was wrong. I told her that morale was low at the moment due to our rapidly increasing workloads. I couldn't tell her that all of her staff were deserting her for our biggest competitor. She was in a lighter mood than normal.
"I've just the solution," she said. She left the office with her handbag, unusual for daylight hours, to return half an hour later. Put these out for everyone," she said handing me four packets of chocolate 'Hob Nobs'. She almost winked at me as if she was some sort of magical chocolate biscuit fairy.
That'll reduce staff turnover I thought.
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So, here's my advice on dealing with IT. First thing to realize is that they tend to have a sorta Germanic mentality about things. By that, I mean to say they love new, shiny machines, their first priority is to be correct and radiating compassion is an unknown skill. Also, they're either at your feet or at your throat.
One of IT's unusual character traits is a respect/fear relationship with documentation. On the one hand, it's drilled into them at every opportunity that they should document everything. But, they're too lazy to do so. Acting like you're documenting everything will make them respect you. It scares them and it will make them less likely to secretly undermine you somehow.
In this case, for instance, you've been told that it takes 10 days to escalate a problem, which we normal people know is ridiculous. I might be inclined to call them back and say that your boss doesn't believe you about that, so could you get a confirmation of that policy via e-mail, so you could prove this to her. It won't hurt to say that she has fangs.
If they tell you that it's not possible to get that policy confirmed by e-mail, then ask if you can get that policy confirmed by e-mail. That is, could they e-mail you and tell you their policy on confirming policies by e-mail. At this point, they will realize that you've stepped out of a Vonnegut novel and they will respect you.
You definitely want to get the name of who you talk to on the phone everytime. Any policies they quote to you, you should always say that you don't see that policy listed on their website (or ask if the policy is on their website). Nothing wrong with asking why their policies aren't in writing somewhere.
And always talk in a calm, clear voice.
Or you could send them some cookies.
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