Dealing with a Difficult Techie

If you've ever seen the Saturday Night Live skit Nick Burns: Your Company Computer Guy ("He'll fix your computer, then he's going to make fun of you"), you know that the snarky techie featured in the series can be a pretty accurate representation of some of the IT personnel out there.

If you're on the phone with tech support and someone is rude or unhelpful, you can always ask to speak to another representative or even the manager. But what should you do if the problem is in-house? The IT team at TechSoup weighed in on how to respond:

If you're in a managerial position:

1. Hire well in the first place.

When employees feel uncomfortable asking for help — or their IT problems aren't treated with adequate attention — the entire organization can suffer. Therefore, when hiring IT personnel, look for someone who is easy to work with and a nice person in general. When checking references, ask about your candidate's "computer-side" manner; in an interview, double-check that he or she is comfortable fielding very basic questions from inexperienced users.

Because references and self-assessments may be unreliable, you may also want to consider a temp-to-hire setup, which gives you a chance to see the techie in action before committing to a long-term employment agreement. A 30-day review period can also offer you a buffer.

Finally, keep in mind that it may be easier to teach a hardworking, cooperative person a new program or IT skill than it is to reform an ego-tripping prima donna, no matter how technologically adept that person may be.

2. Move on quickly.

If it becomes clear that your nonprofit has hired someone who is uncooperative or condescending when addressing coworkers' technology problems and that person has not responded to constructive criticism, the TechSoup IT team agreed: Let that person go immediately.

Keep in mind that if you have hired someone to help maintain your IT infrastructure and support your staff, that person isn't doing her job if she is unhelpful or rude when dealing with others. You wouldn't keep on an accountant who rolled his eyes when you had a question about the payroll; don't put up with bad performance from an IT person either.

If you are not in a managerial position:

1. Document incidents and report them to HR.

There may be times when you personally do not have the authority to hire or fire a difficult techie, but this doesn't mean you should suffer in silence. Keep a record of any unprofessional behavior and report it to your HR department or to the techie's supervisor. Chances are, you are probably not the only one being inconvenienced. The more people who report the problem, the better the chances that someone will start to listen.

2. Don't take it personally.

It's easy to feel that a person with specialized knowledge has the intellectual high ground, especially when you're desperately relying on him do your own work. Keep in mind, however, that your coworker may be acting rude out of insecurity or lack of skill. After all, you don't really know enough to evaluate how technologically savvy that person really is.

If a techie is offering you garbled, hard-to-follow explanations, it may be that he doesn't really understand the topic that well himself. His exasperation may result more from his own limitations than yours.

3. Focus on the task at hand.

If you need help with a technology issue and an IT staff is being unhelpful, keep your energy focused on solving the problem. Fuming inwardly about it is only going to distract you and prolong your interaction with this person. Stay calm, ask her to walk you through anything you don't understand, and pose simple, direct questions until you get what you need.

As easy at it is to feel defensive or angry about unjust treatment, try to take the moral high road. While you needn't be effusive, remaining polite and professional will help resolve the problem and possibly even shame your coworker into shaping up.

If emotions are escalating and you're dealing with a non-emergency situation, it can't hurt to ask to return to the problem later after everyone has gotten some distance. This will also give you time to arm yourself with more information to help you solve the problem.

4. Take matters into your own hands.

If you encounter a technology problem, and know you're in for a demoralizing experience by calling IT, your first resort might be to use an application's Help menu, consult the vendor's Web site, or post your question in TechSoup's Community forums.

While this won't solve every problem, it can help arm you with information you can use to ask good questions and minimize your time with an unpleasant techie. You may also find that the technology problem that seemed so daunting really wasn't that difficult after all.

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Discuss This in Our Forums

How have you dealt with a difficult techie? Share your tips and strategies for dealing with problem IT staff in this Technology Planning forum discussion.