We need tech knowledge in tech workers

Geeks for a geek industry

Sore point so it’s likely I’ve blogged about this before. Just as you wouldn’t take a person off the street to do surgery, you also shouldn’t take a person off the street to manage, maintain or control an IT project. I was getting used to all the people who wouldn’t know a pre-test loop from a post-test, but didn’t realise how prevalent the issue was till recently.

Picture the scene. A customer has logged an issue. It’s been assigned to an engineer in a different time-zone. Uh-oh, problem due to working hours. Let’s read up on the issue. Hmmmmm. Interesting. Wonder if I could talk the Tech Support Duty Manager into shifting to a local time-zone by appealing to her/his geek-sense?

Gary: Hi, this is Gary, the Duty Manager. (Not his real name.)
Me: Hey Gary. Say, I have a bit of an issue with one of my customers. They’re after a shift to a local engineer due to time-zone issues. I believe they called earlier with that request?
Gary: Yes, I’ve had a look at that but it isn’t a really serious issue. Priority is always given to production crash customers.
Me: Sure, but I think this could be resolved very quickly if we transfer it. See, I think the solution is already waiting and just has to be given to the customer. We could get the issue wrapped up today.
Gary: Really?
Me: Let me explain it to you and maybe you can also sanity-check my thinking?
Gary: Okay.
Me: I’ve been reading the internal notes on this issue and Engineering essentially provides a simple solution. First, they say the solution can come from Technical Support, and not necessarily them.
Gary: Yep, I read that bit too.
Me (going into greater detail but this is essentially the gist of it): Great. Then, they provide a script. If the script produces a particular result at the customer site (which it did last night), Engineering says to back-up the production system and apply that same script to Production. To me, that sounds like we are very close to a solution if only someone from this time-zone could call the customer and talk them through it. What do you think?
Gary: Well, everything you said sounds reasonable but, to be honest, I’m not a technical person so I wouldn’t know.

And BANG! my entire argument went straight out the window. No issue shift. Pissed off customer. Not very delighted customer tech team having to work back late every night. And a pretty incredulous Support liaison (that’s me). Has it fallen this far that a phone call to a decision-making representative of Technical Support — and let me say it again, just in case you didn’t get it the first time … decision-maker in TECHNICAL support — elicits the excuse that that senior decision-maker cannot make the decision because he’s “not technical”? I still, a couple of weeks later, can’t quite come to grips with the fact that making a technical argument to a technical manager on a technical issue won’t work because the manager Doesn’t Understand A Word That I’m Saying!!!!

And this is a technical field I’m supposedly working in? The mind boggles.