[Elaminopy]

I work with Kris. He claims to be ENFJ and I'm not good enough at typing to disagree. I work in IT and he manages sales leads from the internet and helps the salesmen in his department with them. He used to be in IT as the webmaster. The salesmen in his department regularly go to him for help in things instead of calling the helpdesk and he is happy to help until it gets to the point where he can't keep up with his own job because of it. Then he calls the helpdesk, frustrated, and urgently requests that we stop what we're doing and take care of a particular salesman's technical issue immediately. He proceeds to complain that he can't keep doing our job because he has to do his own. When I say that we aren't asking him to, he says that they go to him instead of us because they don't feel they get answers from us or something. I don't understand where that can be coming from. I can safely say that at least 90% of the calls we get are fixed in short order over the phone and the remaining ones are either fixed in the same day or need to wait on tech support from external companies and the person with the issue is made aware of that.



Anyway, so last Friday I went around and changed all the wireless access points in all the buildings and departments from WEP to WPA2 and changed the password as well. WPA2 has a much stronger security encryption than WEP. At each location I personally gave the password to everyone using wireless who was there, in addition to the receptionists and asked them to hand out the passwords. The receptionists are more like personal assistants to the salesmen and sales managers. I also gave them to any managers who were there. When I got to Kris's department, I did the same and also let Kris know.

Over the weekend I got a few calls from people who got missed, but I gave them the password and they were on their way. Everything was fine until yesterday (Tuesday) when Kris called me.

What we really said:

Kris: Hey. I've been getting a lot of calls from people saying they can't get on the wireless or don't know the password. If you're going to go around and change the password on something, you NEED to let everyone know. Do your job.
Me: I did my job.
Kris: I don't think you did. I think you did part of your job, but you need to do all of it. I've been called from literally every salesman saying they don't know the password.
Me: That's strange, because I personally gave it to many of them.
Kris: You didn't give it to Bob or Matt or Chico (managers).
Me: They weren't there at the time.
Kris: You could have called them on their cell phone or emailed them or texted them. There are several ways you could have gotten that information to them. That's part of your job. And now I have to go across the street to help everyone.
Me: I let all the receptionists know and asked them to tell everyone else. They are often used for those tasks. I let you know so you could spread the word. I let everyone who was there know to let the people who weren't working that day know when they came in.
Kris: You didn't let Chico know.
Me: He wasn't there.
Kris: I don't want to hear your excuses. And now I have to do your job again. *click*

The thing is, my methods worked perfectly fine for all the other departments. They usually do. It's only the department that Kris works in that seems to have issues. The managers don't even use the wireless. They have desktops. But it's interactions like this that get me. My heart was pounding really hard when he got off the call. The conversation goes so fast and I can't think that quickly. All my responses sound like excuses and are defensive and it's never until later when I can think clearly and come up with what I really wanted to say.

What I wish I said:

Kris, what tasks are part of my job or not and whether I do them or not is between my boss and me. However, I appreciate your feedback and will try to accommodate your suggestions in the future. Is there something I can do right now?

[Happy about Nothing.]

Kris, what tasks are part of my job or not and whether I do them or not is between my boss and me. However, I appreciate your feedback and will try to accommodate your suggestions in the future. Is there something I can do right now?

I suppose you could have left a message, but I see that you did do quite a bit to ensure that this process went smoothly. However, older people and younger people all have different preferred mediums for communication, so it may be good to keep that in mind. If Kris is not your boss as you've said, I think that the above statement is very assertive and business appropriate for the situation, however, when adrenaline is running high, it's a lot more difficult to compose a perfect sentiment as you have. :]

If something like this comes up again, I think you've got this. In the mean time, maybe there are some things you could think of on your own to be more communicative and thorough to the individuals with a limited understanding of IT stuff. You may think you're communicating clearly, when it could sound like a foreign language to them.

[Elaminopy]

I suppose you could have left a message, but I see that you did do quite a bit to ensure that this process went smoothly. However, older people and younger people all have different preferred mediums for communication, so it may be good to keep that in mind. If Kris is not your boss as you've said, I think that the above statement is very assertive and business appropriate for the situation, however, when adrenaline is running high, it's a lot more difficult to compose a perfect sentiment as you have. :]

If something like this comes up again, I think you've got this. In the mean time, maybe there are some things you could think of on your own to be more communicative and thorough to the individuals with a limited understanding of IT stuff. You may think you're communicating clearly, when it could sound like a foreign language to them.

I think part of it is that his best friend (ENTJ) whom he looks up to in everything used to work here as the IT manager and he says that IT was much more efficient than it is now.

It's also a smaller (200 employee), family-run business in a rural area.

And I always think that next time I got this, but the adrenaline comes again and it all goes the same. I say things that I wished I would have said last time only to have them responded to in a way I didn't expect and it all seems for naught. I'm not so much asking for how I can talk to him differently as much as how other ENFJs think of what happened and if I'm in the wrong.

[Falling Leaves]

The thing is, my methods worked perfectly fine for all the other departments. They usually do. It's only the department that Kris works in that seems to have issues.

Re-read this sentence to yourself.

The problem isn't you.

The problem is the members of Kris' department and in the working relationship he maintains with them.

You know what I would do if suddenly the internet password changed? I would ask around the department to see if anyone else has it and then change it myself, problem solved. I would not however, phone someone who, for all intensive purposes, may not know what it is, purely on the grounds they have been helpful before in the past; maybe as a last resort, but certainly not before exploring ALL other obvious options first.

To summarize: The department have become so dependent on him that they use him as their first port of call every time something goes even slightly wrong and, because he can't say no, it is pretty much assumed that he's okay with it.

You want to know why I think he was so mad at you about it? I think really he was pissed at his dept. for bothering him, however, to lash out at them is to turn them away; the thing about ENFJs is that they are a damn prideful species who take letting people down extremely personally, even where there is absolutely no expectation for them to help in the first place. He doesn't know how to express his frustration at the people calling him at all hours, so instead he lashes out at you.

I think that he really needs to learn to say 'no' to people at work.

[Elaminopy]

Re-read this sentence to yourself.

The problem isn't you.

The problem is the members of Kris' department and in the working relationship he maintains with them.

You know what I would do if suddenly the internet password changed? I would ask around the department to see if anyone else has it and then change it myself, problem solved. I would not however, phone someone who, for all intensive purposes, may not know what it is, purely on the grounds they have been helpful before in the past; maybe as a last resort, but certainly not before exploring ALL other obvious options first.

To summarize: The department have become so dependent on him that they use him as their first port of call every time something goes even slightly wrong and, because he can't say no, it is pretty much assumed that he's okay with it.

You want to know why I think he was so mad at you about it? I think really he was pissed at his dept. for bothering him, however, to lash out at them is to turn them away; the thing about ENFJs is that they are a damn prideful species who take letting people down extremely personally, even where there is absolutely no expectation for them to help in the first place. He doesn't know how to express his frustration at the people calling him at all hours, so instead he lashes out at you.

I think that he really needs to learn to say 'no' to people at work.

Wow, thank you. I certainly didn't expect that. I mean, I've always felt this way, but thought I was just being stubborn and unhelpful. Everyone in that department seems to agree more with Kris that I need to do more. I'm always perceived as the problem. The other departments seem neutral, so all I hear is negative from that one department and it's hard not to doubt my own views when everything I hear disagrees with it. It's nice to hear from a different source.

[pmj85]

Kris sounds like a right tosser.

Tell him to grow a backbone. Next time he challenges you like that, complain. Not acceptable.

[Elaminopy]

Kris sounds like a right tosser.

Tell him to grow a backbone. Next time he challenges you like that, complain. Not acceptable.

Thanks, but in order to complain, it would naturally have to be to his boss, who is one of the ones who goes to Kris instead of IT. And that guy's boss is co-owner and always sides with Kris's department. The other co-owner has nothing to do with the department and would side with sales over anyone else anyway. It's a car and RV dealership, Kris's department being cars.

[pmj85]

Find some way to make his life hard for a bit, then. Mess with his mind.

[Elaminopy]

Find some way to make his life hard for a bit, then. Mess with his mind.

I did that once, to another employee. He's a manager in Kris's department who was going around complaining about me because of some mis-perceived thing. I remotely set his screen saver to go on after a minute of being idle. I also changed the permissions in the screen saver registry keys so that his account couldn't change it and also couldn't see the settings, but it could run them. So, it would make the screen saver go after a minute and make him put his password back in when he moved the mouse. When he would go to his screen saver settings, it would show there was no screen saver set. I wonder how that would be to Kris. I'm sure he'd call me a bunch.

[pmj85]

As someone who works in IT, I find that absolutely delicious... and extremely crafty.

I like your style ;)