Manual labor vs. IT type guys

[digitalandanalog]

See, you're being outraged and acting superior.

 cheesy  It's sort of an inside joke here, usually describing someone else.

Oh, I've seen the quote about being outraged and feeling superior at the same time many times before...however there was no humorous "face" tacked on the post regarding my thread. No smile with serious words equals an attack to me.

If it was a joke...well...a doofy little icon would have helped me to get it...maybe.

[Balog]

A sense of humour helps in these cases as well. Oh, almost forgot

I'd say your professed feelings of inferiority are more the issue than any perceived slight on the part of IT people.

[grislyatoms]

I don't look down on anyone.
I've been the guy on the other end (whether it's across the counter from an irate customer at the burger stand, being yelled at for putting a load of block in the wrong place, or on the phone with a high-and-mighty vendor support person) all too often.

This stuff, however, sorely tests my patience (as revdisk related):

-repeating the same information to the same person more than 3-4 thousand times. 
-policy jumpers
-folks that don't ponder a situation one iota before calling/emailing.
-Screamers or 'Right NOW' folks.
-the wilfully ignorant

I can't even begin to guess how many times I have had to run all the way across campus to fix a machine that is "broken and beyond repair" only to power on the monitor. "How did you do that?" :rolleyes: I want to ask "How do you know when your oven is on at home?"

I'll add one - folks who rant at IT for procedural issues - "I don't know how to order a blood gas analysis w/lbt and abc and lmnop". Neither do I. That's THEIR responsibility, but I catch grief over that kinda thing repeatedly.
 
"Our supervisor said we may not___________. So what do we do instead?"
"Uhh, call your supervisor and find out?"
" Gee, thanks, you have been very helpful." I catch the bile for other's poor communication skills.

and this:

if I get someone computer illiterate that is polite, doing what they're supposed to do, etc and has a tech problem, I don't stop until their problem is resolved or is proven that it cannot possibly be resolved. I've typed up so many "cheat sheets" for folks it's not even funny. 

 

Me too. If they say they need help and don't try to b.s. me I'll bend over backwards for them (if I can help them).

[Teknoid]

Having come from both sides of the fence, I can assure you it works both ways.

Put a IT guy who has never swung a hammer on a roof in July with 5 guys that can walk up a ladder no handed with a shingle pack on each shoulder.

There will be plenty of looking down.

I haven't seen that much looking down from either side, and I've been on both. I've been a roofer in Dallas in August, and a software engineer in Chicago during winter. When I built (or repaired) a computer for a bue collar person or put a roof on my boss's house while I was writing software, both seemed pretty appreciative.

[KD5NRH]

I can't speak for anyone else, but personally, if I get someone computer illiterate that is polite, doing what they're supposed to do, etc and has a tech problem, I don't stop until their problem is resolved or is proven that it cannot possibly be resolved.

Agreed.  Back when I was doing some tech support work, I had a caller who was upgrading from a Macintosh to a newer Mac clone.  We supported the clone.  While I was talking her through setting up AppleTalk to transfer the files over to her newer, faster word processor, the Mac had a complete and utter disk failure.  She was polite and absolutely cooperative - following instructions exactly without question and giving good feedback on every action - despite crying over the two years worth of documents on the now-defunct disk.  Norton Disk Doctor said there was no drive there, (that's bad) but Disk Editor found something resembling a master boot record in roughly the right place. 

Fortunately, we had full discretion regarding support boundaries, and I'd rebuilt dozens of boot sectors before...on PCs.  The first - and to date, the only - time I've rebuilt a Mac boot record was working blind, over the phone, with a client who barely understood the mouse.  Three hours later, she was happily moving the recovered files over.  I had her call back a few hours later to be walked through a low-level format and reinstall on the Mac, (I was winging it with generic information from an older machine that we had handy for parts testing, so it was reporting the wrong disk size.  It said there was twice as much data on it as the disk would hold.) and later that week I found out that my boss had gotten one of the most enthusiastic customer letters ever seen in that department over my work that day.

As a bonus, it had people with ten times my MacOS experience coming to me for advice after they found out I'd done that.  Since "consulting time" counted as production, but could happen out at the smoking area, that was a nice fringe benefit.

[Iain]

I'm not an IT guy, but here and there I've done things that have earned a modicum of IT related respect from IT guys. People do ask me about 'puters and how to make them work good.

Don't mind helping at all, but as others have said wilful ignorance annoys. The worst are those who profess to being unable even to navigate a webpage and so can you help them look up so and so. They then spend the entire time telling you to 'click there' 'then there'.

Also, I appreciate that computers are pretty difficult for some people, but if you've owned one for six months and still act like it is going to bite you...

Anyway, I've done warehouse/shop floor work for the pay and had guys look down on me in that situation.

[digitalandanalog]

I'd say your professed feelings of inferiority are more the issue than any perceived slight on the part of IT people.

Much to your chagrin, I know the difference between my feeling of inferiority and the sense of being looked down upon...

...kinda like you do to me frequently...

Oh snap! Just called you out. And you know it.

[Balog]

Much to your chagrin, I know the difference between my feeling of inferiority and the sense of being looked down upon...

...kinda like you do to me frequently...

Oh snap! Just called you out. And you know it.

Oh teh noes, I've been called out!  And I know it.

Maybe if you untwisted the panties and calmed down a bit, I wouldn't feel the need to mock your persecution complex so much.