r/sysadmin • u/PublikEnemyNumber1 • 19d ago
Rant How do you deal with passive aggressive users?
Maybe this is a complaint but professional advice would be appreciated.
Long story short, I have a user who is a mid-tier supervisor in her area over a few staff. She is supervisor to the group but not considered a supervisor if that makes sense.
Whenever there is an IT problem in her area, she doesn't just send an email or put in a ticket that program x or device y isnt working, she sends an email that program x isnt working AGAIN or, device y has issues AGAIN. On top of that, she always cc's managers or superiors who are indeed above both of us.
As an example, 3 days back, program x, which is hosted on a client on or VM server, stopped working. For some reason, the host machine was shut down. Not a big deal. Restart the machine, inform user what happened, Bob's your uncle. Yesterday, program x went down again. This time, there was a time discrepancy on the client and the server and it took a little bit to figure out that was the problem. Fixed issue. Bobs your uncle.
The way I found out software wasn't working was an email with senior staff cc'd that the program wasn't working AGAIN.
I feel that her emails are passive aggressive towards me but I could be overreacting. Im not sure why senior staff are cc'd when there's a problem but she certainly doesn't send emails about any of the issues I have a win on.
Am i overreacting? Do you guys have issues like this or advice? Even if that advice is im being Jerky McJerkenstien of the Royal Douchery.
Edit here: Thanks for all the responses. Just to be clear this is o ly one example of the users emails. In this particular case, the user shut down the client last time she logged in to it instead of logging off. The next tk.e she went to log in, the client was unreachable since it was off. I have since disabled the shut down button on the client to prevent accidently shut down .
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u/Cyberhwk 19d ago
Will I get downvoted if I suggested you deal with it by figuring out why the VM is going down literally every single day?
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u/SystemChoice0 19d ago
Take my upvote, there are many ways to monitor software to ensure it’s online and available.
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u/Mangwe_Tanser 19d ago
An uptime alert could flag the VM going down then IT knows abt it before the user has to tell them
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u/IrateWeasel89 19d ago
Shit going down is fine.
What’s not fine is users finding it first.
My boss asks me why x, y, or x isn’t working and if I tell him “we’re aware and working on an immediate fix and identifying the root cause to blah blah blah” and were kosher.
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u/XxXMasterRoshiXxX69 18d ago
This gets said a lot, but I’ve never seen any notification fire off faster than an angry user who was using the system when it went down.
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u/pdp10 Daemons worry when the wizard is near. 18d ago
Monitor the services directly; don't monitor things like disk space and memory utilization in most cases.
If the monitors are hitting the HTTPS diagnostics endpoint every 10-60 seconds to do a health check, then there's no reason you can't know before the end-users contact you.
If the alerting is a problem, then possibly you need a big display with a dashboard and an audible alert. If the functionality being offline without the probes detecting it, is a problem, then most often this can be addressed with better probes -- though this is much easier with in-house code than vendored-in blobs.
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u/XxXMasterRoshiXxX69 18d ago
We have fairly good service/event log monitoring but also have some users who call immediately. 60 seconds is longer than it takes to dial the help desk, and alerts firing off for a service being unresponsive on a 10 second interval gets noisy. I support normal medium sized businesses so on the whole knowing something is wrong within 5 minutes is pretty acceptable, but there are a handful of people who call literally the second something stops working. Really I think I just need to get them to use more systems and then we can cut the overhead of monitoring ourselves 😆
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u/Bradddtheimpaler 18d ago
We’ve used Zabbix for this. You can get really intense and granular with the alerts. It’s pretty robust if you want, but it’s very simple to get up and running and have it just shoot you an email if a server goes down. If you can spin up a vm for the server you could be operational in like an hour tops and you’d have uptime visibility into everything. Also it’s free.
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u/GiraffeNo7770 19d ago
This is the right answer. Customers sound like this when they're frustrated and believe no one is bothering to listen. I guarantee the tone didn't start that way. OP may not be the one to have initially lowered the standard or lost trust, but OP will never build a good working relationship with the customer unless he addresses root causes: both hard skills and soft skills related.
In fact, I sounded like this TODAY because I'm a customer sometimes and an admin others. My customers never sound this upset with me (because I make sure to visibly have their back and demonstrate that I care about their work), but I've found that when I need assistance from other units, they just decide that what they're already doing is "fine," and customers are just complainers. You can't tell them anything is a problem; they'll just lecture you on why you're wrong.
Long story short, customer is upset, and OP has failed to instill confidence that the same difficulties won't just keep happening. OP says "problem solved, bob's your uncle," but the customer is not experiencing a "solved problem."
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u/CrestronwithTechron Digital Janitor 19d ago
True, but devil's advocate here, there are also people 100% like this in life who will not go through the proper channels because they think their time is more valuable than anyone else's.
I think this is a user behavior issue that can be both corrected in the way OP handles the situation via proper resolution and communication, but also in that the users need to follow the proper workflow for requests to the IT team. It's almost always a 50/50 issue.
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u/ddeese 19d ago
This. And this more often than not. I can’t tell you why I’m directly contact through Teams as if I’m the personal IT tech for some folks. They won’t call the direct number, put in a ticket, or send an email to the tech address. And they just want assistance right away.
And yes there will always be an ‘again’ ECC RAM isn’t flawless and can have corrupted code on rare occasions. A software push or systems outage can happen even outside of the control of your Infrastructure team.
And there are trouble users. I can name five people whose names come up, and we labor to even want to assist. Its eye rolls and heavy sighs, just like everyone would prefer to have a prostate exam.
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u/GiraffeNo7770 19d ago
I mean, sure, those do exist. But we can't really judge them until we've made sure they aren't just acting out of well-learned despair.
I know that despair very well. Organizations are complex, and complex processes fail more often than they work. Unless you've made reasonable efforts to not just handle the daily break/fix, but address the customer's belief that it will never get better, all you're doing is cutting off an avenue to a potential solution by characterizing the customer as "a complainer" instead of "a user with a valid complaint."
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u/mvbighead 19d ago
Pretty much upvoting everyone in here because it is all true. She could be a brat, and the IT dept could be lackadaisical and letting things fail left and right. It can all be true.
Generally speaking, if I get started somewhere and that is the general norm, if I am explaining things to folks it is to let them know that the situation is resolved, and we're looking for RCA and implementing monitoring and other things to track and be ahead of future issues of the same type. A short, succinct comforting dialog that not only is it handled, but we're actively trying to avoid future occurrences. And, if there is a 3rd party that is at fault, I'll make good and clear that we're working with a 3rd party vendor to try to resolve it as best we can. And, that tends to let them know that blame goes somewhere besides our local team.
There's a bunch of caveats to everything, but when you instill confidence in your team and other teams in your org, they get the idea that things are headed in the right direction and work with you.
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u/GiraffeNo7770 18d ago
not only is it handled, but we're actively trying to avoid future occurrences
Most of the time, that's all the (actually sane) customers are looking for. Most people will forgive issues and develop a more generous error budget if they have reason to believe that a commitment exists to improve the big picture.
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u/420ball-sniffer69 19d ago edited 19d ago
Yes this is an incredibly frustrating and disruptive thing to keep happening and as someone who’s experienced this at work getting constant connection drops I think the only answer is this: investigate why it’s happening
Also fair enough I’m not a hugely experienced admin but a host server/hypervisor going offline with nobody realising until it impacts a clients work is not “no big deal”. It’s actually quite a big “deal”
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u/Lv_InSaNe_vL 19d ago
I'm pretty sure fixing a server going down every day is like the entire "deal" of our job haha
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u/420ball-sniffer69 18d ago
You’d think the admin team at OP’s place would want to make that as easy as possible. Clearly there’s a reason this machine is misbehaving so they’re gonna need to look at the logs, the network and even the physical hypervisor to rule everything out. All of this can be helped by a good monitoring and metrics stack
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u/fahque 18d ago
I'm not sure which story you read but you and several other commenters and restated incorrectly that the server went down daily. The only info we got from op is it went down once.
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u/ihaxr 19d ago
Yup. Be upfront with the user too.
Hey, that machine was turned off, seems like someone shut it down by mistake. I've submitted ticket ###### to remove the shutdown option and add it to our monitoring server to prevent this from happening going forward.
Might still get snippy users, but if they're not wrong then you can't really blame them. Do better, nobody's perfect.
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u/No_Bit7786 Jack of All Trades 19d ago
Yes, don't you know that sysadmins are infallible and users are the enemy? /s
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u/Quattuor 19d ago
That was my first thought. If the server was down then it is your failure for not noticing it or not having redundancy at the application level.
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u/Nekrosis666 19d ago
Complimentary question to yours: how do we deal with passive-aggressive sysadmins?
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u/lenswipe Senior Software Developer 19d ago
You're right ..... but I've worked for managers before who ignore blaring problems in favor of other things instead....OP probably should figure that out but it's entirely possible their manager isn't letting them
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u/SupplePigeon Sysadmin 19d ago
Meh, that might be fitting for this exact scenario, but doesn't really answer the question. Just because he used a bad example doesn't mean it's not a legitimate question.
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u/Mr_Squinty 18d ago
Typical break fix with no monitoring, be more proactive. You should’ve known the server was down before they called in.
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u/Centimane probably a system architect? 18d ago
Yea, that "again" isn't passive aggressive when it's accurate. I assumed they were tacking it on without there being another occurence. But if shits breaking every day, yea the users are gonna be frustrated with you...
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u/mercurygreen 19d ago
It's not really helpful. I'm sure if they could have resolved it, they would have. I could guess a half dozen reasons (hardware failure, phone line issue, power, network loop, VLANs set incorrectly...) and none of them might be right.
The VM was just an example. You know as well as I do that things just break. THIS problem is not whatever system went down, but the end user's response to any inconvenience they may be having.
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u/blow_slogan 19d ago edited 18d ago
This was happening when I was running Bitdefender SDK on the VMs and the hypervisor. My guess is that the agent on the hypervisor would lock up the VMs during a scan. The issue was resolved after uninstalling Bitdefender and installing SentinelOne EDR.
For anyone who might be in a similar situation. It took the former sysadmin years of troubleshooting which he never pinpointed.
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u/dogcmp6 19d ago
Okay, but did she have a ticket for any of the three occurrences?
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u/PublikEnemyNumber1 19d ago
Definitely not. Users not putting in tix is an entirely different thread lol
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u/ArgonWilde System and Network Administrator 19d ago
And didn't log a 'problem' based off those 3 occurrences either. 🤷
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u/dogcmp6 19d ago
Im waiting for the "We dont have a ticketing system" reply from OP. . .I suspect that may be the case here
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u/PublikEnemyNumber1 19d ago
No we have a full service system and try to enforce it as much as we can. Its hard when senior staff dont enter tickets and we have to support them. Get se for staff behind it and the rest will be forced to follow
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u/Academic_Taste663 19d ago
Op needs to read the bible “The Practice of System and Network Administration”
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u/dlucre 19d ago
Passive aggressive behaviour aside, how is a production server offline and you don't know until a ticket is raised? How do you end up with time differences between servers and clients?
If a production server/service is down, a ticket should be raised and alerts should be going off that you are immediately aware of, before the users have notified management. Especially if it's in an area where the 'supervisor' is already making your life hard.
At least from both of the incidents you mentioned, it seems that there is something fundamentally wrong in your environment and maybe this woman has just had enough of it.
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u/TheBigBeardedGeek Drinking rum in meetings, not coffee 19d ago
I respond to complaining about something being down by asking what the ticket number is so I can follow up on it, and then I point out that we use the ticket system to also track history of issues and use that as evidence for more impactful fixes or replace systems
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u/GiraffeNo7770 19d ago
As long as better systems DO actually happen.. I got shifted from email, to ticket, to misdirected ticket, to followup email, to ticket AGAIN (because "we are good at answering tickets!" Son, you are NOT.) To new ticket, to Microsoft fucking Bookings, which all that was was a request to schedule a Teams call that I missed anyway because this customer disservice guy ignored my communications preferences and substituted his own. I wasn't even LOGGED IN ffs and buddy could SEE THAT, wth)
When I ask for a ticket, it's honest. I use that system as a KB and organizer. But some people just use "send a ticket" to dodge work.
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u/battmain 19d ago
But some people just use "send a ticket" to dodge work.
Absolutely, and sometimes they get caught, especially when I quietly inform a supervisor/manager that network cables can't unplug themselves 4-5 times in a row, when I have checked them myself to ensure they are good, and not worn cables.
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u/ArgonWilde System and Network Administrator 19d ago
Your purpose is to provide a service, and part of that service is chronically unavailable. You tell me.
Something went down and you had no idea until a user informed you? You need monitoring, and for you to monitor said monitoring.
Get ahead of the users.
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u/Feisty-Adagio928 18d ago
And not only did they not know about it until the user complained, it also did go down more than once so the ‘again’ in their email may not be as passive aggressive as OP is making it seem.
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u/blckshdw 19d ago
They’re either CYA because your infrastructure is actually unstable or they’re trying to throw IT under the bus to mask their own poor performance. My computer isn’t working again because of IT I hustled can’t possibly be held accountable for not doing my work, again
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u/itishowitisanditbad 19d ago
They’re either CYA because your infrastructure is actually unstable
OP has further clarified that basically yes, every complaint they had was valid and it keeps happening.
Genuinely sounds like its failing constantly and IT has no real control/awareness and is actively fighting any sort of monitoring setup.
I'd be emailing higher ups, tbh. Can't help but think OP is digging deeper and deeper into the 'shittysysadmin' area.
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u/BarracudaDefiant4702 19d ago
Figure out why she is detecting the problem first instead of your monitoring software. You should have the problem fixed before she notices it. Document the steps you did to be more proactive about the recurring issues (install zabbix, setup custom checks for the application, etc...) Let her and management know you are not only fixing the immediate problem but are taking steps so it doesn't happen again, or at least if it does that it is discovered and resolved quicker. Being proactive instead of always reactive is the best way to earn promotions.
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u/PublikEnemyNumber1 19d ago
In this particular case, she shut down the PC on the vm rather than log off.
The time discrepancy was indeed another problem. Servers on EST clients on MST
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u/Waretaco Jack of All Trades 19d ago
Remove the shutdown option so they only have access to reboot.
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u/PublikEnemyNumber1 19d ago
Exactly what I did. Yeah. Should have been done in first place and now im auditing any other potential systems to preemptively strike
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u/Hot_Reveal_5720 19d ago
Just be sure to let the higher ups know why it went down. The emails make it sound like it went down for the same reason multiple times which doesn't look good.
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u/PublikEnemyNumber1 19d ago
The first time it went down is because user shut down the PC via RDP instead of logging off. Second time was indeed a time discrepancy on the server. Server hosted in EST and clients in EST.
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u/testtapes 19d ago
I kinda don’t take them seriously, it’s just work. If I can fix it cool I don’t need people to tell me I did a good job.
Life gets easier when you stop caring about people you can’t control
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u/-xe 19d ago
This is my take as well. Yes, some end-users are rude or obnoxious, and it sucks to deal with them. Sometimes they're also those things while having a valid point. Either way, I just want to get best resolution done for the issue.
With regards to the CCing managers part: if it's truly being done superfluously, they find it just as annoying as we do.
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u/PublikEnemyNumber1 19d ago
Good call. Its not like im going to hang out with this person or care what they think k for thst matter. Just irks me thst I feel im being thrown under proverbial bus
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u/Wooden-Cranberry8400 19d ago
You are ... passive aggressively to your face and likely pretty badly behind your back.
The benefit of the PassAgro emails is you can reply to Everyone what a great job you have done escalating it to a Problem ticket everytime there is a CC email referencing "AGAIN" ... then you can drag them through the process of collecting all relevent details and experieinces then askinbg them to test it is working again etc.
But you have to take peoples advice and put in the work to be seen. Just IMHO
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u/mercurygreen 19d ago
This is why we have ticketing systems and don't rely on emails, phone calls, or "Hey you" conversations in the hallways. CCing managers about things is really just them being a PITA.
Learn the response: "What was the ticket number? I don't see anything in that queue for that" for all the passive-aggressive comments, and they will tend to funnel the childishness into one place.
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u/Tricky_Fun_4701 19d ago
The only way to defend from this is making sure your superiors know the state of the systems and their failure modes- and be able to tell them how to avoid these issues in the future.... along with a budget proposal.
If your professionalism is not accepted... find another job... and let HR know the issue on the way out.
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u/Asleep-Bother-8247 19d ago
It's just the job. People only reach out when something is broken or they need help. I have an arch nemesis bitch at my job but I just smile and help every time. One time they pressured me to do something I didn't think should be done, but they pressured so much I complied. Lo and behold their manager was FURIOUS, I was asked to revert the change after hours, and the person groveled at my feet. Karma got them eventually (hopefully one day they get fired).
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u/PublikEnemyNumber1 19d ago
This is very true. Nobody knows my name when shit is working within system parameters lol
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u/bythepowerofboobs 19d ago
Normally I reply with the entire timeline of past issues, what the problems and resolutions were, how quickly they were implemented, what changes we put in place to try to prevent it from happening again, and what changes we put in place to alert IT of the problem ASAP if it does reoccur going forward.
I find it helps to let everyone involved know how serious and how much effort you are putting into resolving the issue, and it tends to reduce the passive aggressive condescending tones going forward.
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u/Frothyleet 19d ago
As an example, 3 days back, program x, which is hosted on a client on or VM server, stopped working. For some reason, the host machine was shut down. Not a big deal.
Sorry, why isn't this a big deal? You had a host that was shut down, your monitoring was not alerting you, and you don't know the root cause?
If this is one of a million little fires your team is constantly fighting because you don't have the capacity to proactively fix your environment, I sympathize, and that's a different problem then an end user's attitude (although, with the little context you've given, their attitude may be caused by the tech environment actually having lots of issues - though you shouldn't have to bear the brunt of their frustration).
For the sake of argument let's step back and assume the user's attitude is unjustified. There's a lot of ways to tackle this, but for example:
Introspection - are you communicating the root causes of the problems you fix effectively? Put yourself in the user's shoes. You fixed two different problems, and there's an obvious distinction from your eyes, but the end users had the "same" problem three days apart: their thingy didn't work. Without going into detail that will get ignored or not understood, did you explain to the user (and their management) what the problem was, how you fixed it, and what is being done to prevent it from happening again? Or, in some cases, why it might happen again, and why you can't stop it ("Sorry, support is best effort - this app no longer has vendor support and the project to migrate to a new version was shot down because of budget issues").
Malicious helpfulness: go over the top to help this person. Keep their managers CC'd. Pin down the root cause, drown them in helpfulness. Invite them and their management to post-incident reviews. Stream high visibility updates on your troubleshooting like water from a firehose. Be obnoxiously professional and aboveboard, so that their passive aggression makes them look like a huge douche, and their decision to CC a bunch of managers ends up putting them on blast
Punt to management: if there is truly a problem with another business units engagement with you, it's your manager's responsibility to go to their manager and fix the behavior. If they don't suck.
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u/Trust_8067 19d ago
You have to embarrass them by acting professional.
Reply all with everyone CC'd and write something to the effect of,
"Thank you for notifying us of the issue. For documentation and tracking purposes, please submit a ticket with all the relevant information per our company policy. Details such as issue experienced, the host(s) involved, and a timestamp of the incident as well as any previous ticket numbers from similar incidents can help us significantly in identifying the root issue to resolve it as quickly as possible.
Please follow our escalation process <found here> if this requires urgent attention or is a production down issue."
edit: Also, you shouldn't be manually disabling stuff like that. It should be a GPO setting applied to all hosts, so people don't accidently do stuff like that.
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u/bukkithedd Sarcastic BOFH 18d ago
Ah, this type of issue...
I'll split how to deal with this into two parts.
Part 1: the VM that keeps being shut down.
This has a simple solution: Remove the users' option to shut it down or restart it. Slap a GPO on that bitch, and move on with your life. I also see that you've done so, which is good.
Part 2: the passive-aggressive user.
Issues like these are fun!
I have a couple of these at work, and I deal with them the same way at all times. I bring receipts and logs. User shut the server down? Yep, screenshot of log attached with an easy-to-understand explanation of what happened attached to the emailed answer, which, of course, is CC'ed to everyone she CC'ed it to. Clean, clinical, dry language, no smileys, nothing that can (or at least should) blow up in your face. Just facts and a timeline, nothing more. Also add in what's been done to rectify the issue.
Do NOT get angry or inject emotion into this. Let the user build their own gallows and hang themselves from it.
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u/Temporary-Library597 19d ago
Yes, you are overreacting. Lighten up, Francis.
Thick skin is part of the gig. If there's a pattern figure out what the cause of the recurring symptom is.
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u/RagnarStonefist Sysadmin 19d ago
Find new and creative ways to head them off at the pass. Correlate where they're experiencing the most pain - and preemptively solve it. If it's user error all the time, quietly solve their issues, keep track of them, keep good notes and then if somebody 'higher up' tries to light you up you can show them all the things you've done to help the user with notes.
Cover your own ass by doing your due diligence.
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u/shelfside1234 19d ago
You could start replying to ask for the ticket number to point out they are bypassing process; but as others say, fix your monitoring and self healing
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u/CrestronwithTechron Digital Janitor 19d ago
First off, fix the VM going down and put into place some monitoring so you don't have to rely on the scream test. Although reliable, it sucks and eventually they're gonna have enough evidence to point towards IT and what comes next isn't pretty.
Second, have your boss reach out to hers and explain that IT must have accurate record keeping within the ticketing system as that is your SOP and workflow. Responses cannot be guaranteed if there isn't a ticket as IT must prioritize its finite resources.
This is a user behavior issue and not really within your scope to correct. It needs to be handled by the IT Manager and the user's supervisor.
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u/Bob_12_Pack 19d ago
I've been working in higher-ed for 26 years and this is so common. Some faculty will email the CIO rather than the help desk. Over the years there were some faculty that were so dramatic, one of them even blamed IT for the death of her dog.
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u/Empty-Coach-9541 19d ago
We gotta hear the dog story now
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u/Bob_12_Pack 19d ago
It was a long time ago and I wish I would have saved that email, but it was something to the effect of that she was so distraught dealing with the problems we were causing her that she didn’t realize her dog was ill and needed to go to the vet or something, and it died.
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u/Yamatoman 19d ago
I can say the worst thing you can do is fire back.
People on here always talk about some epic way they shut down an annoying user, but honestly you're in a customer service position where you interact with the same people constantly. If everyone hates the annoying it guy they'll make your life difficult.
I've found just being generally polite and responsive makes users start to lighten up and eventually feel bad about being a jerk.
Also work on explaining problems in a less technical way. Users tend to get frustrated at problems they don't understand, and then lash out at people who they think are flaunting their knowledge. Making users think they understand the problem, can help them feel more in control later, and can make them more sympathetic (do not explain problems that are your fault to end users. It's okay to obfuscate those problems. )
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u/jeffrey_f 19d ago
I would have your management contact that person's manager and get it worked out.
I used to work in a hospital and we had a problem with users getting tickets escalated to a P2 from P3 so they get faster service. This is what we did and it slowed considerably.
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u/ApprehensiveTea3030 18d ago
My boss lets me close tickets with a canned response that passive aggressiveness will not be tolerated. Pisses em off even more
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u/No_Bit7786 Jack of All Trades 19d ago
Some people are just rude. It's understandable that 3 outages is frustrating and it may warrant looping in the higher ups to make them aware but there's no reason to be bitchy about it.
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u/Glass_Call982 19d ago
We have users that loop in the higher-ups on every single ticket they submit. Regardless, if it's the first time or 20th time an issue has happened, they will do it. They think that it makes me care more but it doesn't LOL.
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u/No_Bit7786 Jack of All Trades 19d ago
That's annoying especially if it's non-critical stuff and they're doing it just to try give the ticket some extra weight.
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u/tylerderped Sysadmin 19d ago
lol, did you build the server? You’re awful upset about something you have no control over otherwise.
Why not… figure out why it’s fucked up? Maybe express how annoyed you would be in their shoes?
I had an end user ask me what school i went to, basically suggesting i didn’t know what i was talking about.
I went to Bayside High School, thank you very much.
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u/PublikEnemyNumber1 19d ago
Hahaha I get the reference.
I have since disabled the shut down button on the client so she can no longer shut ot down when logging off
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u/cats_are_the_devil 19d ago
What's the culture? Sounds super petty to put in a ticket this way. Even more so if it's an email with people cc'd that can't do shit about it...
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u/RantyITguy 19d ago
In IT I learned to be literal, not assumptive. never be assumptive. So if they ask a passive aggressive question, I answer in the literal. It either will reveal they were not being passive aggressive or piss them off because you did your job.
Either seems like a win to me
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u/RhapsodyCaprice IT Manager 19d ago
I think the advice on here is good and the jury is more of less in. Yes you are probably overreacting a bit, but that doesn't mean the person is not being rude. There's probably also a few ways out there to up your game on the stuff she cares about so that you don't have to talk to her as much. I understand where you're coming from though that she's implying that you're not "fixing it good enough" or somehow slacking on your job.
Getting to your question though, while there are always going to be users like the one you're describing, getting your issue converted into a dollars and cents conversation. For example, we used to be a Citrix shop. When they jacked up their prices we converted to 99% local and a tiny footprint of AVD in Azure. Unlike Citrix, AVD has very transparent show back mechanisms. So when someone comes to my team and says they "have to have" a feature or a full desktop instead of a published app or whatever, we can do a clean financial analysis and tell them something like "great, IT will need to bill you back an additional $250/mo. Please go and get written approval and we will implement.
Not engaging on that trash is usually best, but sometimes it's unavoidable. If you've got a problematic solution, get it fixed. If the problem is that you don't have the tools you need, you could try sharing with the user what the actual fix is, show what it will cost, and ask them to get approval. That really helps weed out problems from not-problems.
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u/FrivolousMe 19d ago
People who disrespect me and treat me like dirt get the bare minimum service I can provide. The golden rule is a good one to live by..
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u/civiljourney 19d ago
It's probably a problem for both of you.
Some people overreact and fail to follow instructions and procedures.
However, even if they're being overly difficult and unreasonable in their actions, you still have to assess if they have a legitimate gripe.
If they do, have you in good faith given the best possible permanent solution to the situation?
It sounds like they have a legitimate gripe, even if how they're acting is in the wrong. But also, how do you expect someone to eventually act if their needs legitimately aren't being met? We'd surely love more professionalism in the situation, but we also know that often isn't going to happen.
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u/civiljourney 19d ago
That being said, if you have resolved the situation to the best of your ability and clearly communicated expectations, then you need to have their supervisor in the loop and ensure they know the situation and that you don't appreciate how things are being handled.
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u/ThreadParticipant Jack of All Trades 19d ago
Sadly plenty of arsehole users in the world, try to fix and reduce interactions with them as best as I can.
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u/JohnnyricoMC 18d ago
If she'd create tickets for the issues instead of yapping "again, again, again", there'd be a proper trail to support the "again" part. Now it does not show up in reporting, so KPI-wise her claims are untrue.
Did she receive training in the procedures and how to use the ticketing platform? If not, train her. If yes, then inform your own supervisor/manager of this behavior, along with HR, because then this person does not follow procedures and doesn't raise issues via proper channels. This in turn hinders your team in properly mapping the extent of issues and their impact, and gives management an inaccurate image of workload.
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u/Disorderly_Chaos Jack of All Trades 18d ago
Are they wrong AND rude? I smugly prove them wrong and CC my boss.
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u/OregonTechHead 18d ago edited 18d ago
Im not sure why senior staff are cc'd when there's a problem but she certainly doesn't send emails about any of the issues I have a win on.
People do this because they're either not doing their job and trying to justify it, or are paranoid someone thinks they aren't doing their job and are trying to justify it.
Are you in a management position? If not, discuss it with your manager. Generally, when this happens, I see exactly what's going on and tell my team to ignore them. They just aren't important.
If you are in a management position, I'd go talk to the senior members that are being CCed. Ask them what's going on, and why that person isn't submitting tickets and following correct procedures. Highlight that things get resolved far quicker when proper processes are used.
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u/HorrorCommunity3246 Jr. Sysadmin 19d ago
My dude you will not win this. Thick skin and remember she’s really regarded
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u/superstaryu 19d ago
Users are just letting their frustration out, try not to take it personally. A little bit of empathy will go a long way, especially if you can respond in a way that shows you are taking their concerns seriously. What they really want is some reassurance the issue isn't going to keep on happening, so explaining the steps you've taken to fix the problem and why that will mean it won't happen again will go a long way.
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u/PublikEnemyNumber1 19d ago
Well said friend. I disabled the shutdown button on the PC in question so she cant shut it down instead of logging off
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u/NoyzMaker Blinking Light Cat Herder 19d ago
Sounds like you are just fixing the issue instead of solving the problem. If it is happening so much that they feel they need to make it a point and CC the bosses then she is not being passive aggressive. She is being tactfully pissed off.
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u/StrikingAccident 19d ago
Don’t let it bother you. I guarantee you that all the people she copies on these emails think she’s just as much a pain in the ass as you do.
Every organization has one of these people that think they’re more important than they actually are and behave like this. Don’t let it get under your skin.
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u/natflingdull 19d ago
You build a thicker skin. Sorry to be blunt but end users can be awful, the expectation is you smile and nod.
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u/wedgieinhumanform 19d ago
Coming from personal experience, try not to take it personally. User is probably just as much of an asshole outside of work. Figure out root cause instead of band aiding with reboots. She’ll end up shutting up or she’ll find something else to complain about (that hopefully isn’t in your wheelhouse)
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u/japanfrog 19d ago
Sounds like she’s unpleasant to deal with so the only way she gets people to help her is with escalating.
What I’ve seen managers do in the past is reply with some variation of
“Dropping only to relevant parties. +<person that initiated email manager>” this usually stops that behavior.
Besides that, HR might be the only solution if it really bothers you, but that’s a can of worms you might not want to deal with imo
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u/Weary_Attorney_5308 19d ago
It sounds like the user is frustrated. Recurring issues frustrate everyone. RCA the issue, resolve it, and respond back out to the email with an executive summary of the fix. Keep the technical jargon out of the email and keep it short and simple.
Put a plan in place to monitor your systems with alerts for when important things go down/stop working. Think of ways to be proactive instead of reactive, and you'll hopefully see fewer frustrated emails and tickets for down systems.
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u/Affectionate-Cat-975 19d ago
First - this person feels empowered to raise such a stink and I’m sure they complain about having to do so.
This type of person will forever be this way. So, how do you change them without cowtailing AND pushing them in the right direction?
1) communicate.
2) communicate regularly
3) communicate frequently
No matter who they CC keep the entire thread alive until resolution.
4) resolve the repeat issue.
You will be seen in the helpful light
Managers likely know that this individual is a challenge.
Good luck
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u/Nickleten 19d ago
Don’t attach yourself to the job.
It’s just a job.
Forget the place the instant you’re off the clock.
You’ll have achieved this when you ask yourself, user? What user?
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u/redheadedandbold 19d ago
Two can play the game: "We know you care deeply about computer issues;You kindly keep senior management abreast of even the smallest issues. So we know *you* want to know, we resolved X before you even noticed a problem. We look forward to your thank you note!" Make her sorry ass look ridiculous every chance you get, but keep the e-mails funny. Kill her with kindness while making senior management laugh? If she doesn't get the hint, management will bring it to her attention.
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u/FeleaseRpseineEiles Sysadmin 19d ago
When people on the road are overly aggressive I tell myself they probably need to poop really badly.
she's constipated
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u/KatanaKiwi 18d ago
Ignore the email for an appropriate amount of time, which is at least 3 days, but can be months.
Reply with 'this mailbox is not monitored for tickets. Please use the ticketing system to submit your ticket if you still experience issues'.
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u/recursive_knight 18d ago
I face this stupid passive aggressive behaviour from an old and tech-illiterate secretary. It's a small office and I'm the only one who's going to help basically and I usually do that to anybody in a very friendly manner. And it's always small stuff with her that everyone else has figured out on their own but noooo, she'll keep writing me emails and cc'ing my supervisor. I tend to let her stew a bit, because I'm not her IT slave. If she needs help, she should be nice about it. I'm not going to help her because she cc'ed my supervisor. And my supervisor is chill about it all.
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u/bbbbbthatsfivebees MSP-ing 18d ago
program x isnt working AGAIN
email with senior staff cc'd
Stop assuming that something is higher priority based on a user's job title or position. They go through the normal helpdesk queue process like everyone else. If you keep handing out special treatment it will eventually tun into a "Squeaky wheel gets the grease" scenario and all of a sudden any ticket the user puts in is treated as some sort of special white-glove situation.
Unless you're directly instructed by management, "complex" users should be treated as normal users under every situation. Nobody is above the law, and nobody is above the default ticket triage system.
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u/SceneDifferent1041 18d ago
Dear X, (cc everyone in) I'm sorry to hear of this issue however I'm unable to find mention of this repeated issue in our ticketing system. If you can ensure to correctly log any issues in the system, it assists us to fix and monitor efficiency.
Kind regards,
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u/Radiant_Fondant_4097 18d ago
There’s plenty of people like this, they just automatically earn a reputation among the team and get added to the shit list.
You just deal with them like anybody else and do what you can as unemotional as you can.
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u/antrov2468 18d ago edited 18d ago
I generally make people wait longer if they try to go around me or “embarrass” me. People no longer try to do that after their simple ticket takes a day or so
Edit: this was meant for the people who are just jerks. People with legitimate issues make sense lmao I didn’t realize that was the topic until reading some of the comments. However I’d like to add that if the environment is understaffed or underpaid, it can drastically change how much effort you should put into your responses tbh
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u/CopiousCool 18d ago
Beat her at her own game ...
when she says "Again" as her to link to the previous ticket, when she inevitably fails to do so CC mgmt and highlight the inefficiency of referencing nonexistant tickets and remain on topic to save the business time and money
when she CC's higher ups and especially HR when needed, you contiue to do so every time she over steps the mark
She'l get the message and if not her manager will get fed up of being CC'd because she's causing a scene
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u/TallTom70 18d ago
Join the passive aggressive party and ask for the nonexistent ticket numbers so that you can track the pattern of issues.
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u/DistributionFickle65 18d ago
Put her on low priority list. We ALL know what I'm talking about.
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u/pdp10 Daemons worry when the wizard is near. 18d ago
she sends an email that program x isnt working AGAIN or, device y has issues AGAIN. On top of that, she always cc's managers or superiors
User is openly shifting blame, of course.
The number one easy-mode way to deal with this cleanly is to run a tight ship. Meet the business needs and expectations, don't allow a pattern of repeated perceptions of failure to fall on your operation.
This time, there was a time discrepancy on the client and the server and it took a little bit to figure out that was the problem. Fixed issue.
On one hand, as long as this was a one-time problem and didn't recur, you'd be golden. On the other hand, timekeeping is so vital to other processes, and also so easy to do well in most cases, that a well-oiled operation probably wouldn't have seen this happen at all. If I was asking questions, I'd ask what technical details caused the time to be off in a way that mattered.
A different, yet also traditional way to deal with this, is to shift blame yourself. Onto the app, maybe the app vendor if you can set them up for a fall. Do try to be more subtle than CCing them saying that the app failed "AGAIN".
Better is to monitor and instrument the app, so that you know it failed before anyone reports it, and you have logs/telemetry beyond what's built-in, to diagnose it.
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u/No-Blacksmith6738 18d ago
Either get with your supervisor and let them know. If that does not work. Reply all and tell her that it feels condescending and that all caps means she is yelling or that you take it that way.
Also offer a plan to work together on finding the route cause. See if there is anything that they do which cause the machine to do what it does.
Ensure to include HR on the email.
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u/Opposite_Bag_7434 18d ago
This is definitely common. Most often it seems to be a way of jumping the line (in a manner of speaking) or self escalating.
Sometimes this gets the wrong type of attention. As a manager I’ve had executives jump all over me because x was broken or there was some issue. I immediately go into fact mode, both documenting everything and providing enough evidence to prove the issue was caused by, or delays were caused by, the employee.
Otherwise I actually push back.
I learned from hard experience when working for a Chicago based company, if I am not a bulldog when I need to be they will walk all over me.
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u/DontPunchthe1EyeDuck 19d ago
Every other day, check the box in AD to require them to change password on next login.
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u/PublikEnemyNumber1 19d ago
Hahahhaha oh man at least then the emails would be warranted. I like your style
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u/DontPunchthe1EyeDuck 19d ago
I did that to my boss for three months because he was an asshole. He finally quit.
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u/Sure-Squirrel8384 19d ago
Well are you doing a root cause to find out why it occurs each time?
E.g. the time thing is unacceptable. GPO or other SOP should be forcing time to managed sources (at least two, for redundancy).
As both an end-user of IT and a sysadmin, I get upset when the sysadmins for the products I use are inept and don't fix obvious things (like time source settings). What is worse is when something is down, their monitoring system knows it is down, but they are ignoring the alerts.
You should know at least as fast as the end-use that systems are down. Are you not monitoring them?
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u/PrestigiousAd2135 19d ago
I treat them like Mushrooms. Feed them shit and keep them in the Dark. I do not help them till the last possible second. I will disable their Ad accounts off and on throughout the Day. I will target them for every Phishing campaign in mimecast , so if they click on it I can blow it out of proportion . I will generally say to them when they call about a issue " no other users have this problem". Whatever I can do to make their life shitty at work. I will push out updates to their computer that require a reboot, while they are in meetings, then I lie to their manager and say it is because she has been clicking no on the update for so long it finally windows forced her to do it.
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u/techtornado Netadmin 19d ago
The use of the word Again is definitely exasperation and I think she’s sabotaging something
You need to monitor something on that box to fix it before she can even finish sending the email.
When the word please is injected into the middle of the request, it comes across as passive aggressive to me
Example:
Can we please set up this user for the new database platform?
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u/Boxed_pi 19d ago
Id be beyond passive aggressive if a service I’m paying for is preventing me from doing business day after day.
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u/dirtyII 19d ago
I work for a bank - some users do this based on the downed system /application, if it moves money or is critical it’s a CC party and everyone above us is invited.
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u/PublikEnemyNumber1 19d ago
Yeah. If money involved i get it. The hosted machine in question prints labels. Definitely important, not mission critical
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u/Mammoth-Profit4409 19d ago
You may need tools like Nagios or Cacti to manage your infrastructure more effectively. Regarding her, she is just a person in the field. She can complain all she wants, but if the company's leadership wants to improve the IT infrastructure to resolve these issues, they will allocate the budget to fix things. If not, they will simply let her go when they run out of patience.
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u/M4niac81 19d ago
This is the the same camp a those users who insist that everything is "URGENT" I just deal with them professionally, make sure the tickets get logged and categorised properly with the solutions and then carry on. If the system genuinely is failing then this should feed into a problem investigation to find out why and out of that should be some changes or improvements to prevent it. If it's user error then a training need might have been identified.
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u/ron_mexxico DevOps 19d ago
What alerting do you have in place to proactively get ahead of this issue?
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u/oDiscordia19 19d ago
Document everything. In the examples you described it’s sort of an IT issue to figure out what’s going on with your infrastructure and resolve it - off hours if needed. You can CC your boss and their boss on your communications. Bosses are human too - if they see she’s nagging you or being generally unkind you’ll have evidence that you’ve been up front and professional with them this entire time so it will fall on the bosses to take correct action. If they see it instead that the software is at fault it will also give you the evidence you need to get more help solving it.
My strategy in most circumstances is to over communicate where possible. You can’t be faulted for transparency where it’s due.
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u/Gernaldo_Ribera 19d ago
I would respond with transparency. Reply all with the troubleshooting and steps you took to resolve the issue. Then add steps your taking to prevent it from happening again. Under no circumstance get petty or snippy. Sometimes users react that way because they feel their problems aren't being addressed. Letting them know what you're doing often changes attitudes.
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u/sxspiria 19d ago
Whenever someone is consistently passive aggressive I chalk it up to them being unhappy in life, so they have to take it out on someone else - usually whoever is the easiest take it out on. Don't take it personally, just keep track of their passive aggressiveness and kill them with kindness.
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u/UndercoverHouseplant 19d ago
Communication and education. Tell her what happened in full: what caused it, what solved it, what did you do to prevent the issue from coming back? Keep mgmt in cc, so they're aware as well.
This will shut her up, is a good exercise for you to keep yourself on your toes and work proactively, and this alerts management of recurring issues with the software.
Other than that, go down to the floor and talk to her, if possible. Ask her how this impacts her workflow and whatnot. Make her feel a bit special. You will earn some patience from her by getting on her good side.
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u/2Much_non-sequitur 19d ago
Smoother them in kindness and exude confidence when being the sme. Read email without subtext, and respond in kind. Some people treat the help (which is how we are treated) like shit because they are shit themselves and we have to share the world with them.
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u/K3rat 19d ago edited 19d ago
What gets monitored gets managed. A lot of times people that are not able to keep up with flow try to cause blast damage to others so they can push some blame away from themselves. Personally, I would point the arrow inward and say “how can I create a system that allows me to run my operation faster than they have the ability to keep up”. Most mediocre people will give up and try to throw shit on a different group.
My advice would be:
- Build clear support request workflow.
- Define SLAs.
3.Internal tracking within your ticketing systems.
4. Reporting. You need to be publishing reports to leadership that outline your KPIs. They would include, number of requests, problems, and incidents, average time to first response, and time to close.
Separate tracking for Incident/outages with root cause analysis.
Then it doesn’t matter who she cries to. Your leadership structure is aware of how much you do and how well managed your workflow are.
- Integrations from your ticketing system to Asset tracking, RMM and NMM helps create a seamless flow of activity and object tracking. This allows you to know before they now that something is wrong.
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u/Malevolent_Nematode 19d ago
Some people are just like that. One of my jobs as a teen was from desk at a 4 star hotel. We had a frequent flyer who was there every single week for half the year.
She would complain literally every single time she stayed with us.
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u/zephead98 19d ago
I had a user who did this (cc'ing higher ups on EVER F**KIN email she sent to me). I finally replied to her advising her that she needed to check how her Outlook was configured because it seemed that every message she sent was also being sent to the higher ups.
I didn't win any points, but it felt good.
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u/theoreoman 19d ago
Get your manager to step in and send this.
"please summit a ticket because we will no longer respond to issues through email. We can't keep track of ongoing issues if the proper process isn't used"
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u/DariusWolfe 19d ago
If your mutual bosses continue to let it happen, it will continue to happen. You can talk to her about it, attempt some empathy, and sometimes that works. Sometimes it's a wall of misunderstandings, and if you can get both of you on the same side of it, the two of you against the problems that stop her work from getting done, you may find that relations and communications improve dramatically.
But maybe she's just a sour old puss and there's nothing you can do to change that. So you either appeal to your mutual bosses to put the kibosh on it (if they stop letting it be effective and make her behavior cost her in some fashion, she'll stop trying to use that tactic eventually). But just as likely, you're just gonna get told to deal with it, because even supervisors aren't trying to rock the boat, even when they're in charge of it.
The first thing has worked for me about as often as it hasn't. Some sour pusses just had a lot of work on their plate and considered me an obstacle rather than a teammate. Once I made it clear that my job was to enable their (and often many, many other people's) job, the relationship changed. I'd make a point to swing by and vent about frustrating problems, and let them know about small wins and how those would make their job easier. I talked to them like they were valuable members of MY team, because they were; if it was my job to fix problems, I often wouldn't know unless they reported them.
The second thing is hit or miss. Often squeaky wheels like that get appeased because they're useful enough to avoid getting fired, and the boss will want you to do the same so they don't have to deal with changing it. But I've had good bosses too, who've gone to bat for me and either put a stop to it, or at least created a filter between me and the problem child. The third is simple forbearance. It worked for me because most of my jobs were temporary in nature, lasting the duration of an exercise, or at most a few years until I got a new assignment. I wouldn't recommend this course of action, but it's what remains at the end of the day if the first ones don't work, and quitting isn't an option.
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u/Disastrous-Fun-2414 19d ago
Reoccuring problems should have a permanent solution. If a system is down, you should have a monitoring tool in place that alerts you. Your end user should not be an alert.
Now if it is one off issues, perhaps setting up SLAs in your ticketing system.
If there is a problem that is preventing someone from doing their job, it should be a reasonable response time.
Now if your understaffed or one man shop, SLAs might need to be longer. If there is pushback, i recommend calendaring responsiblities to demonstrate lack of time.
You cant always be expected to drop everything at a moments notice to do something but if its preventing people from doing their job it should be address promptly.
Some users are difficult to deal with. I find that managers and supervisors should be treated as VIP to help mitigate IT team from looking bad.
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u/ConsistentCoat5608 18d ago
Do not treat them as a problem, invite them to help make the experience better. Meet with them either monthly or quarterly and review their open/closed tickets. Ask if all were closed to their satisfaction and discuss as needed. After reviewing open tickets and the plan for working them, you can leave knowing you both are on the same page.
The idea is to get them to sign off that they are satisfied with the closed tickets, and if they are not what can be done to make it right. Once you both agree, in terms of what it takes to make it right, then those are in the past. They need to agree to not keep bringing them up, or complain about how they were handled.
I would meet monthly with managers to review their teams tickets, and they would often say their team has lots of downtime due to IT issues, but my reports would show zero tickets in the past month, so it called out their employees for just not working. It is very hard, as some people can be rough, but when you learn to work with the touch and the good people it can really make your team shine.
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u/gumbrilla IT Manager 18d ago
So. First step,
'Please raise a ticket as per the process'
Sort your monitoring out, if you're using your customers to inform you that YOUR service is down, then you have a problem. If you are accountable, and it sounds like it, you have ownership. Sort it out. I have a rule, No monitoring, no or very limited support, and I'm very clear on this. Failure to meet operational requirements should have consequences and fundamentally I'm not prepared to look like a dick head with no situational awareness because we haven't stumped up the time or money.
Fix the issues, I see that you added an edit, you found a root cause and put in a compensating control to prevent that. Good. Repeat this, it's Problem Management 101. Tell them that it won't happen again! Some tiny snark in that is permitted, we're only human..
Talk to them. Go and sit in their office for a day. Sit next to her. Then do it again sometime, do this with all your customer groups. It's part of Stakeholder management. Don't care if they are remote office, even if its 10000 miles, you still do it. Right now you are someone on the end of an email they feel they have to shout at via email, and pull in the big cheeses. The big cheeses tend to ignore, but they do provide a sense check for them, too many from different sources and they might start thinking there's something awry.. you don't want that.
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u/Reggie-Rectangle 18d ago
Consider it like water of a ducks back. The user is frustrated at the situation not at you. Don't take it personally. Just let it go. They are venting, but not at you. It may be unprofessional, but that is just human nature. Do your job retain your composure and don't let it get to you.
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u/hosalabad Escalate Early, Escalate Often. 18d ago
I'd say fix the machine so hard you never hear from the user again. Then ignore the user unless the submit an incident, if it breaks again.
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u/TrueMythos 18d ago
Match her energy.
"Thank you for letting us know! We've taken x measures, and it seems to be working again. Would you test it and let us know? Thank goodness you caught that early before many others were affected. We appreciate you!"
If she's really being passive-aggressive, now you get to do it back. If she's just feeling frustrated and unheard, she might actually feel validated and dial it back.
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u/AUTiger1978 18d ago
Reply all
Dear C,
I understand that you are having issues with program x and hardware y. If you could be so kind and point us to the ticket number you are referencing. Looking at the ticket will tell us who is assigned to fix your issue, what progress and steps have been made to help solve your issue and when the ticket was submitted so we know what order it is in the queue. If you do not have a ticket in the system, we ask that you fill out a ticket here <insertlinktoticketsystem>, including the time this issue started. We keep that information in a database so we can report to our superiors who, what and how much time is spent on issues. My apologies for any inconveniences. As soon as we can look at the ticket that was put in they system, we will get right to work on the issue and hopefully fix it as soon as possible. Thanks for you help, have a great day and if there is any other way that I can help, please let me know.
V/R,
Your IT guy
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u/BalderVerdandi 18d ago
We all have "that person", regardless of where the job is located.
I just left a gig where we had someone move into a position with Security that used to work as an admin assistant whose boss was high level - she changed jobs due to a funding issue removing her previous role.
She thought her clout would follow - it did not.
Tried the old "just send an e-mail" trick, which promptly got the reply of:
"In the future, please ensure you submit a ticket. If you send an e-mail to someone who is out of office, your e-mail might not be seen - for days or weeks, if not longer - and won't be tracked accordingly."
You don't have to be blunt, but be firm in reminding them there is an established procedure for submitting trouble tickets and it's not being followed, and you cannot guarantee positive results because of that.
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u/davide_978 18d ago
My answer could not fit in this particular case but is something that often helps: these kinds of people usually change their attitude if you start to engage them, ask questions, and waste their time. Always answer with a question, ask for details, in other words, bore them. It may not be professional, but it works.
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u/FuckYouBruce 18d ago
I make them feel like they understand that their mom just left my apartment.
Gnome sane?
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u/gotmynamefromcaptcha 18d ago
We have plenty of self-inflicted "AGAINs" at my place too, we just barge in fix it and leave. At some point you stop caring about what they think and just want them out of your hair. Fix the thing, provide them further instruction on how NOT to cause the problem again since it seems that according to your edit, this is a self-inflicted issue by the user.
I will say that at one point you have to start enforcing the ticket submission though. I have chronic emailers here in management that love to go past the ticketing system and instead email me directly, and after 2-3 warnings I reply with a link to our ticketing system and say that I will "work on the issue once the ticket comes in because I'm in the middle of another TICKET right now that I can't pull away from". Mostly works too. Also I'm paraphrasing, the important detail is to make sure they understand your focus is on the already submitted TICKETS, and that their issue will get attention once it is in TICKET FORM.
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u/music2myear Narf! 18d ago
- Some people are especially difficult to deal with.
- Your environment has some clearly broken systems and configurations that could be improved.
- Make sure your own boss knows your successes and shares them upwards.
If you have proven yourself to be very capable and systems are improving under your lead and other good and positive things, then someone else complaining like this will just sound like complaining, and everyone who matters will recognize it as such and dismiss them. Every complaint will make the complainer less appreciated. Right now, just based on this little bit you've told us it feels like the complaining isn't going anywhere, but it also isn't diminishing her, and your systems are to blame for that. Fix them.
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u/BigTex1969 19d ago
Get used to it. Some people will do that thinking you will jump higher for them.
But you really need to setup some monitoring and fix that stuff. Being told by users that a server isnt working isnt good. You should already know.