On Thu, 14 Jan 1993 19:01:39 EST Anthea Tillyer <ABTHC@CUNYVM> said:
>I used to be a macro economist and spent my life working with obscure
>models and concepts, just as obscure and arcane as anything a computer
>person can come up with. Yet, I do not recall my colleagues or me ever
>delighting in the humiliation or obstruction of the users of our charts
>and models.
Did users of your charts and models ask you to make sure to produce all
your charts in 3"x5" format because there are people whose folders cannot
take a regular 8"x10" chart, and they don't want to use larger folders
because their dimensions are unlucky numbers? And this isn't even a good
example, you'd have to have spent 10 years working on improving the
technology of 8"x10" charts, and the decision would have to be due to
someone at another company where people are not doing their job well.
While it is obvious that computer professionals are here to provide a
service to users, very often what happens is that you have a couple sites
or departments out there where these computer professionals aren't doing
their job, either because there is not enough staff or because the wrong
people were hired. It isn't the users' fault that their mail program is
not working, but then it isn't the fault of the majority of computer
professionals who are doing their job either. However, it is to the
latter that the users turn, as they find them easier to deal with than
their local staff, who are either never there, too busy to talk to them,
or plain incompetent. I could retire now if I had one dollar for every
time a user at U of XYZ asked me to fix a problem for them, or complained
to me that LISTSERV doesn't have a custom-feature to bypass a problem
that is entirely due to their local staff, and then gave them the "you
computer people are here to serve us" litany when I suggested he should
turn to his local computer people, as "they will not do it so you gotta
do it instead, gee do you think I'm gonna put up with this nonsense, I'm
no computer nerd I've got my chemistry research to do!".
Users get angry at "the computer" and, by extension, to people they see
as an extension of "the computer". That is why they are often obnoxious
with people who are paid to solve the problems of OTHER users and see no
reason they should bear the burden of the staffing policies at U of XYZ.
Now if I went to the legal advice service of Volvo and asked them to
advise me on a house contract because the legal advice service of my
company refused to help me, and then reminded them that it is because of
people with legal questions like me that companies have legal advice
services and that they get a paycheck at the end of the month, not the
other way round, well they would tell me to get lost and fast, and nobody
would find it strange or inappropriate! It fact it is such a normal
reaction that it wouldn't even occur to me to ask Volvo lawyers to help
me, and if I did I would make very sure to tell them I am fully aware
that I am asking for charity, and that I will understand if they don't
want to help. But for some reason it is socially acceptable for users to
demand anything of any computer professional, just for being "one of
them", and if they dare to refuse they get the "you're here because of
us" litany. And don't you tell me that computers are more
obscure/daunting than the law :-)
Eric
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