rant on...

I've been at a new place for 2 month. Lots of responsibility because i am the only tech on site and have to service all equipment or find a way to deal with it whether i know it or not. This week came down to my supervior and manager (who are quite a ways away) getting mad at me because the only way I could get them to respond to some of my concerns was to use the top down approach - I lack knowledge in repairing a new piece of equipment, I have pocked around it for a bit and talked to support after which I decided that the risk of running into problems was too high and was not worth it, if it was an old unit, maybe, but a brand new one, no way. The end result was that I did get a service tech to come out, we worked together and I got excellent training from him. What I am trying to figure out is why would my management prefer me to go ahead and risk breaking something, than to do it properly. They are always trying to save money, but are they not aware that the cheap comes out expensive? What is even worse, they came out saying that they do not trust me to do proper troubleshooting before calling for service - then why did they send me here in the first place?

I guess I am wondering if this is common. When I meet someone, I give them full trust with no doubt, it is theirs to loose. Here I am told that I am supposed to gain it???? of course I am new at this department, but people do not stay for more than 2-3 years and I can see why, I like the place where I work and the environment but the treatment and disorganization is just insane.

 

I can see their point. They are paying you to fix something because you are supposed to be good at it, and then you can't fix it yourself and have to pay someone even more expensive than you to come and show you how to do it!

Of course I'm not saying you were wrong to do that, just that is how they would see it.

Like if they were paying an accountant to do the books, and the accountant got a specialist in to show him how to do bookwork. They would be pissed at him too.

There is not likely to be an easy solution. Because you are new there things like this make you look bad, and you have not really had enough time to shine and show them the things you do well without hassle (which management tend not to notice anyway).

Management's job is to spend the absolute minimum to get the task done, so your actions were in direct opposition to management's goals. It's likely the service tech billed hundreds of dollars and hour + travelling expenses etc and they got a massive bill (do you know the amount?).

I think at the very least you should have consulted with management FIRST, and got their confidence that this external support tech was going to be the best possible decision. Like present them with TWO options, and let THEM choose to bring in the external tech this one time only, then you have been trained on that machine which saves them money in the future...

 

I realize all that which is why...

I was CCing e-mails between me, tech support and my supervisor for 2 weeks and telling my supervisor that I would not be able to handle a bigger problem until the issue escalated to a point where the users needed something resolved quickly. Since my management was dragging its feet (and would continue to as they are not in place to see the actual situation, everything seems non-urgent on the phone somehow), I told the staff to do what they had to get my department to react. Obviously it all fell back on me, but somehow my supervisors forgot that I was asking them for a reasonable resolution before - they had an option, but chose not to use it or discuss it with me. That is the part that upsets me. I even forwarded all the e-mails after they had a "conversation" with me. There is no service cost, only travel expenses, under a $1000, amount of information received - priceless as doing it by myself I would have most likely broken a couple of parts (tricks to take them out not described in the manual and I haven't worked on enough equipment to be able to spot them yet) and had a minor flood.

It is just weird to me that they would rather risk someone break new equipment - vital to public service - and then pay for parts and have to call in service anyway, than to have it done properly the first time and be done with the issue.

p.s. you are totally right about them not seeing things that are done smoothly

 

Justtrying ,Are you lucky enough to have tech support,can tech support guild

you thru the problem you have. Do you belong to a company more than 500

employee's. Do you have direct contact with tech support, do they have back up

equipment that you can check out. Is tech support local,these are a lot of of

questions to think of. Make a mental list of whats available.

 

How important is this equipment to the company operation,would your boss

hold up a operation by giving you a deadline on something that would reflect back on

him.

 

I've been at a new place for 2 month. Lots of responsibility because i am the only tech on site and have to service all equipment or find a way to deal with it whether i know it or not. This week came down to my supervior and manager (who are quite a ways away) getting mad at me because the only way I could get them to respond to some of my concerns was to use the top down approach - I lack knowledge in repairing a new piece of equipment, I have pocked around it for a bit and talked to support after which I decided that the risk of running into problems was too high and was not worth it, if it was an old unit, maybe, but a brand new one, no way. The end result was that I did get a service tech to come out, we worked together and I got excellent training from him. What I am trying to figure out is why would my management prefer me to go ahead and risk breaking something, than to do it properly. They are always trying to save money, but are they not aware that the cheap comes out expensive? What is even worse, they came out saying that they do not trust me to do proper troubleshooting before calling for service - then why did they send me here in the first place?

I guess I am wondering if this is common. When I meet someone, I give them full trust with no doubt, it is theirs to loose. Here I am told that I am supposed to gain it???? of course I am new at this department, but people do not stay for more than 2-3 years and I can see why, I like the place where I work and the environment but the treatment and disorganization is just insane.

Rule #1: your job is not to do things, it's to make your boss look good.

You can do absolutely nothing useful but make your boss look like a God and he will get you raises.

Seems here you made a decision above your pay grade. You do NOT get your bosses to respond, at worst you stop awaiting their decision.

Every place I've ever worked seemed disorganized. It is. Get used to it and learn to work around that. Don't work around your boss when he's watching.

 

I guess I am wondering if this is common. When I meet someone, I give them full trust with no doubt, it is theirs to loose. Here I am told that I am supposed to gain it???? of course I am new at this department, but people do not stay for more than 2-3 years and I can see why, I like the place where I work and the environment but the treatment and disorganization is just insane.

I am currently working for a company who has followed the path laid down by one of their long term employees, who 'manages' the technical side. Due to his limitations, and the investors inability to recognize the situation, the companies ability to compete in the markets has seriously eroded. They pay my invoices and my contract ends at the end of May, so it's all good from my perspective.

 

Thanks for all the pointers. I see where this is going. I never worked in a hierarchy before so that is probably the main issue, not sure if I can get used to it

The other thing is that this team likes to push people into working outside their limits, not for the sake of growth, but for the sake of trying to save money on proper training. It has already resulted in a tech getting fired, but the upper management gets untouched, so there is the issue of setting up boundaries, which I have discussed with them before I accepted the job, but as all of you have said, money rules.

 

rant on...

I've been at a new place for 2 month. Lots of responsibility because i am the only tech on site and have to service all equipment or find a way to deal with it whether i know it or not. This week came down to my supervior and manager (who are quite a ways away) getting mad at me because the only way I could get them to respond to some of my concerns was to use the top down approach - I lack knowledge in repairing a new piece of equipment, I have pocked around it for a bit and talked to support after which I decided that the risk of running into problems was too high and was not worth it, if it was an old unit, maybe, but a brand new one, no way. The end result was that I did get a service tech to come out, we worked together and I got excellent training from him. What I am trying to figure out is why would my management prefer me to go ahead and risk breaking something, than to do it properly. They are always trying to save money, but are they not aware that the cheap comes out expensive? What is even worse, they came out saying that they do not trust me to do proper troubleshooting before calling for service - then why did they send me here in the first place?

I guess I am wondering if this is common. When I meet someone, I give them full trust with no doubt, it is theirs to loose. Here I am told that I am supposed to gain it???? of course I am new at this department, but people do not stay for more than 2-3 years and I can see why, I like the place where I work and the environment but the treatment and disorganization is just insane.

It is common for bad managment to hire and individual and not give them the total picture of what is required of them as they prefer to not want to hear any problems and would rather have YOU figure it out for them.

This is not your fault unless you told them that you are something your not at time of hiring.

I help run several family owned companies which are now quite large and I make it a point to hire management that knows they will be held accountable for employee issues.

I also make certain that any firing is first examined by our very good HR director to make certain a good employee is not canned just to fulfill the needs of some managers ego.

In your case it would seem you have poor management backing you up. I would either have a meeting to clearly define your role...or I would quit before things get dicey.

Split Infinity

 

I would be tickled to have an employee that knew he/she was in over their head and asked for help rather than to work blindly on something, possibly causing way more damage.
Sometimes my students bring stuff in to work on. They tell their friends they can fix anything, when they get in clas they totally dissamble whatever it is, then they holler for help.
While I agree it's good to take on a challenge, I don't think they need to experiment on someone elses equipment, at least they advise accordingly.



My $.02..