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OK, I'm in IT and a work collegue cc'd me in on an email explaining to a user (very politley) why their PC had died (it was switched off). I then replied to my collegue and speculated whether the user remembers to turn their car ignition on when they use their car. Problem being my collegue was logged into this person's PC, this person then saw the email I sent to my collegue, and has replied "I find that comment quite offensive", and I have a hunch the user will take this further. It's clear the user shouldnt have been reading other people's email but whats not clear is if I'm in the wrong? I know there are similarities with the Carol Thatcher saga, but I wasn't talking about about gollies after all, and I feel this was just normal IT banter between two IT workers...any opinions, should I appologise or if challanged should I stick to my guns and tell them to stop reading other people's email?
Racist.
delete and deny....easy
if i were you i wouldn't worry about it until you know if it was taken any further, then just say as and when that it was meant as a joke, no offence intended and apologise. not really much more you can do.
I'd love to hear the outcome of that in a disciplinary - no case to answer in my opinion.
I have thought about deleting all trace but I cant tell who else actually saw the email as the user is 200 miles away.
What theflatboy said except do it now and don't wait for it to escalate.
I know there are similarities with the Carol Thatcher saga
Indeed, moral of the Thatcher story is if you act like an @rse things will get worse.
If that was the only piss taking that took place when they couldn't even turn their computer on then I think they got off lightly.
Hmmmm, you're not trolling now are you? This is not even "similar" to the CT episode. But, if it's true, then hell, we've all been there...just make your apology and move on. I wouldn't expect to get into trouble for this but you might be asked to apologise for it. Little mickey-pulling things like this always look worse when they're written down.
If you'd said the person was a ****ing retard and i bet they forget to switch the ignition on the car, then you may have a case to answer.
As you most probably didn't then you're ok. All that's happened is you sound and feel like a tit.
They'd have a hard job giving you anything more than a verbal warning if that. If I was you, I'd swallow my pride, apologise to the person and leave it at that.
Me, a troll, NEVER, (trip trap trip trap)
No honestly I'm not, good advice cheers, I've appoligsed
Don't delete all trace; they could have a screenshot which would make you look very silly.
BOFH time, erase the logs. Falsify evidence to show the user offended you and has goat p*rn on the PC. Then duct tape, a roll of carpet and a tape safe are required, Use of PFY optional. Report back when done. 😀
If that's all you said, just forget about it. I've never heard of wit/sarcasm being a sackable offence.
If the person escalates it, they will probably look like a pillock for making such a big issue of something so trivial.
yeah cheers Sandwich, someone from Personel walked up behind me just as I was looking for Goat Po*n on my PC, now I'm fu**ed !
As Mike says.
In fact their ability to do their job will probably be called into question as they wasted company resources calling out support for a PC they hadn't turned on.
In fact you will be thanked for bringing this to the attention of the management, given promotion & a pay rise.
If they do take it further, then they are going to look a right pillock for raising the call in the first place
piedi you've obviously never worked for a firm like this!!
In our Ts & Cs one of the examples of gross misconduct is 'rudeness to or derogatory remarks about clients'
mysterymurdoch
Don't delete all trace; they could have a screenshot which would make you look very silly.
If they thought their computer was busted when it was off, I'm not sure they'll know how to take a screen shot.
update, user has replied to my apology with a bit of a snooty BS. Wish I hadn't apologised now! Oh well, I think I've done all I can FFS!
Offer to make up for it by showing them how the cup holder works... 😀
Hold on... I'll get you a number for a bulk quicklime dealer.
Seriously, if someone gets that "offended", then they are probably not worth worrying about. Just wait and see what happens and then say sorry if required. Not before. They are just upset that you found out they were a muppet.
wee in his/her/its shoes and run
Humble pie anyone !!!!
Move along,, nothing to see
Why not download a file deleting virus onto their computer?
Lesson learned; never apologise for a wisecrack. If they can't see the funny side it's there loss.
you said they replied to the email you sent to your colleague, well how did they reply? With their email or your colleagues? If they used your colleagues, i think that's slightly worse than what you have done. If they used their own email account to reply and they take it further, you could have them done for reading your colleagues emails. privacy act and all that!
Not to wind you up but...
My partner replied to a mail from a colleague in which he stated some external contractors sometimes act like cowboys. The so-called-colleague forwarded this mail (with a throw-away line in it, not the main thrust of the mail or owt) to the third party who then got in a huff.
The short of it was a disciplinary followed by a written warning (nothing happened to the colleague who sent the mail externally, of course). Then, lo and behold, shortly after this there was an email to all staff to discuss redundancies. "Oh look AdamW's better half, you have a black mark here due to a disciplinary. Don't slam the door on the way out, and it is statutory redundancy."
Yes, he shouldn't have written what was a throwaway line to someone he thought was a colleague. Now he's scared stiff that he won't get another job because of the disciplinary that happened beforehand....
BUT
I think you'll be all-right. If it is internal type stuff it would, at the most be a word in your ear.
Someone deleted my e-mail account so on the incident management system I said "some idiot has deleted my e-mail account', the 17 year old 1st line agent got upset so I had to apologise.
I then sacked someone for sending a mysoginistic and totally unacceptable picture/joke about wife beating to dozens of people via the corporate lan.
Moral - our terms and conditions are pretty clear on one and make no mention of the other.
IT Nazis, the geeks shall inherit the Earth..... gotta love em,glad I don't work in an office anymore.
Getta life boyz.
If you can't take a joke, don't join up. Nothing wrong with a bit of wee removing to keep moral up.
Everyone just chill, look it's snowing again! Anyone for a snowball fight? Or is that illegal now on H&S grounds?
Google the 'I love you poo pic', and send them that...
(I'm not even going to attempt putting up a link to that!)
The IT Crowd
The phones rings-
"Hello, IT. Have you tried turning it on at the wall?"
How long would it take you to send a short email saying 'I'm sorry if my email caused you any offence'. All of ten seconds?
Its escalating, FFS! FYI the user really is a stupid stupid idiot, I could have been far more scathing, lucky I wasn't 8O.
There is a case to answer why the user was reading and replying to someone else's email.
Best form of defence is attack ARRRGGGGHHHHH!!
andym, I did, exact words were [i]"No offence intended it was just a bit of (private) banter, but if you do feel that way then I honestly apologise"[/i]
what andym said - and let your line manager know your version of events before someone else does.
They laid the the line manager off in May (small firm) let 'em do their worst the ****wits. I'm quite angry about this BS
Nick was it this one you sacked someone for or another one?
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Just sit tight and leave it at that.
Did far dodgier things than that when I worked in the City (e.g. participated in chain e-mails involving over 30 staff which were eventually discovered by the finance director (not good use of £1.5m worth of IT equipment is what I think he had to say at the time), and wrote satirical song lyrics which included names of various members of staff) and nothing came of it.
Don't delete all trace; they could have a screenshot which would make you look very silly.
Easy as pie to fake a screenshot, though said user may well not be capable by the sound of it.
I think that at the end of the day you were caught out making fun of someone, which isnt overly nice and does nothing for IT people in general (who have a tendency to be considered as smart-arsed and ever-critical anyway) but IMO it's nothing more than a personal disagreement between yourself and the person you offended. Obviously this person has no sense of humour or they'd have sat back and laughed at their own stupidity, but I think the annoyance has clearly come from the fact that the IT "crowd" are having a group giggle at them behind their back, which is never nice, or clever.
Show em the box that you keep the internet in.
Where I used to work, the IT support group had a white board with a 'Muppets of the Week' top 10 style list. This listed, in order of 'muppetness', the daftest calls logged, the problem and the person's name. No one ever took offence.
However, there was this one time (at band camp :wink:) when a global email was sent out (to around 7000 worldwide staff) asking if anyone could provide Serbian language translation for some work they were doing. This was about the time that the Kosovo Liberation Army was exacting its revenge on the Serbs for all of their atrocities. The first paragraph was all very business like. He then went onto say
"Failing that, there are a bunch of Kosovan refugees just moved into the house next door to me. They don't speak much Serbian, but I am sure they could manage to translate 'Would the Serbian pig dog like a last cigarette before his execution?'"
Laugh? I almost bought a round! The chap quickly followed up with a very contrite and grovelling apology.
People feel quite threatened by IT staff often. People depend on something they don't understand for their jobs and professions, and this makes for an uncomfortable situation. Just because things are obvious to the geeks among us, doesn't mean that everyone should know, and IT people need to understand that.
In this particular case, it seems safe to say that the caller would know a computer needed to be turned on. He probably just didn't think of it - after all, we've all struggled with something only to find it was something ridiculously obvious we forgot about. In that situation, the last thing you need is some small minded disposable peon who earns a quarter of what you do taking the piss and assuming you're thick.
IT geeks need to learn how to deal with human beings as well as machines - on the whole.
(btw I work in IT)
andym, I did, exact words were "No offence intended it was just a bit of (private) banter, but if you do feel that way then I honestly apologise"
*holds up hands*
Sorry - I didn't read the thread carefully enough.
Hmm my last post disapeared.
Anyway, it's always interesting to read about other folks workplaces as it's a far cry from the world I work in.
Put it this way. The dimwit that did'nt turn on the computer and then wasted the time of another work colegue would be the one brought to task not you. And I would sugest that being that sensitive that perhaps working with other people is perhaps the wrong thing to be doing.
An example of the last diciplinary I heard (I was actually in another building across the road) basically consisted of words begining with F and C preceeded by the word 'You' shouted load enough to worry runway protesters.
molgrips I take your point, but working in IT yourself you'd be honestly surprised how often this user can be so ****in stooooopid. Probably the most IT illiterate person in the whole company, and BTW I aint no ****in geek you mo fo!!
WELL SOME PEOPLE DO NEED A KICK UP THE ARSE ... if confronted by managers etc, explain to them the amount of worktime that was lost because the staff they employ need their hands held all the time etc, the fact you were ther doing the job you are paid to do is a bonus to him and not a drain on his resources - ( in effect turn the complaint around).
Grumm - I wouldn't want to work with someone who found that sort of thing funny and thought it was ok to share around, the one I'm talking about was worse though.
[i]molgrips I take your point, but working in IT yourself you'd be honestly surprised how often this user can be so ****in stooooopid. Probably the most IT illiterate person in the whole company, and BTW I aint no ****in geek you mo fo!![/i] I've never worked in IT or 'know' IT however I bet said person is probably quite lazy in certain other ways as well and routinely gets her way/people to do menial things for her 😉
Only today Ive had someone in their 30's walking round the office asking if anyone had a calculator. The fact that EVERY ****ing computer has one loaded didnt occur to him.
you cant deny it, and youve pissed off a customer, the customer is always right.
if it comes to anything, apologise and be humble.
if it goes further than a complaint, use the fact that it was a private work email and she shouldnt have been snooping (even if it was your colleagues fault for leaving it on there)
using IT as an "excuse" not to use their brains is too common. If I had my way I'd horse whip the lot of 'em. Sh*t job, can you tell?
But lets face it this customer must be a total knob if they can't come up with a cutting putdown for some one in IT!
I've found "have you ever kissed a girl?" can have a quite devistating affect.
[i]"have you ever kissed a girl?"[/i]
Pwnd.
[i]"have you ever kissed a girl?"[/i]
To which the correct reply is:
'I've kissed yer mum, does that count?'
I did more than kiss his mum
Or "whens your job going to india then?"
As soon as I've finished f******g your mum
"I did more than kiss his mum"
I bet you tried to hold her hand as well.
No my hands were covered in lube
[i]using IT as an "excuse" not to use their brains is too common[/i]
100% yes! Funny isn't it? You get a constant stream idiotic requests which can virtually always be answered by simply looking at the screen or applying a modicum of common sense. Not uber-geek knowledge, just a bit of common sense. This is apparently because people 'aren't technical' or 'don't understand computers'.
However, it's not uncommon for IT staff to have to build project plans, manage budgets, deal with suppliers and customers, manage resource and be ready to provide reams of management speak to senior management. In short, they're expected to do the same things that all the non-technical users do but aren't allowed to apply a catch all 'I'm not commercial' get out.
You've apologised, make sure you've saved the apology, tell whoever is acting as your boss and forget about it.
"No my hands were covered in lube"
IT geek in hand full of lube shock! You been watching star trek by yourself again? You'll go blind.
If it makes you feel better assuming I'm a geek then well done give yourself a gold star you tw*t. Me thinks your the sort of character we've been discussing.
He shoots - he scores!
Try not to cry now, never mind eh. There might be some reruns off Red dwarf on later.
WTF? You keep hiding behind your keyboard boy
What's wrong with being a geek?
sounds too much like greek, oh sh*t I'm a racist!
A greek geek covered in lube with someones mum and a keyboard??.........am I on right website?!
"WTF? You keep hiding behind your keyboard boy"
Why what you going to do? Slice me intwain with your light sabre?
Grow up or haven't been humiliated enough today?
Kick you in half?
speshpaul what do you do for a living?
sounds too much like greek, oh sh*t I'm a racist!
Possibly, but mainly just a tool.
You could, god forbid, ring them up & apologise directly.
I doubt it would be taken any further if they did complain & it came to light that you had apologised directly.
I complained to Hoover about a vacuum cleaner we bought a few years ago, The thing was a newly released model & it was pretty poor quality. I had an email back from a customer service woman telling me to contact some helpline. But scrolling down it had been forwarded to her from a customer service manager...& his exact words were...
"Contact this idiot & see if we can pacify the bloody whinger"
After forwarding it to the CEO of Hoover UK I was given a refund.
Apologise and laugh it off. I've seen it happen before and in my experience it dies down quickly and seems a big issue to you at the moment but just amusing to others.
I'd be suprised it it came to anything, as Takisawa2 says call them up and eat humble pie, it should leave them nowhere to go.
fight fight fight fight etc
Today i am mostly baiting Geeks on the interweb.
Why, what do you want to do when you grow up?
Hey Spesh you wanna fight?
"Hey Spesh you wanna fight?"
PMSL
Oh dear. And you wonder why you are in the cack at work.