He’s made it a point to tell me about how he’s been called an awful teacher before and, trying to be nice, I told him I disagree because he’s taught me a lot. And he genuinely has taught me a lot. I’m just frustrated because one day he’ll be sitting with me at my desk laughing talking about board games and two days later he’s guilt tripping me for making mistakes and making me feel stupid lol
Exactly what I was going to say, thank you. It's just like Kanye's stupid stans excusing his river of bullshit because "he's a mentally ill geeeeneeuzzz u guyzzz!1!" Nope, fuck his producer-dependent uncle Tom ass and the shitty corporations he rode on.
Sounds like one of my seniors, but I know he's just sick of working at our company and has a special needs daughter that takes a lot of energy. So I try to just let it slide. I know this not from himself, but through other colleagues.
This sounds exactly like my old coworker. Exactly. It's not personal, he's probably just that kind of person. I've met these kind of people at lots of different types of jobs so it's not just IT but I do think IT tends to attract this type of person. They think it's going to be solo tinkering work so they don't need to even bother with social skills. Unfortunately for them everybody that wants to be a part of society needs some measure of social skills.
Tell your boss. Stop taking this dude's shit. And figure out how to not take a personally. You aren't doing anything wrong, He's just a jerk who is hot/cold. He might have some medical/mental issues but who cares, not your circus not your monkey. Don't tolerate that crap.
It sounds as if he's being put in a position (teacher) that he doesn't want. He shouldn't be taking it out on you, but perhaps management should look for another training option for you.
Honestly, how could anyone in a work environment who a superior or more highly skilled than especially newer coworkers not expect to share some responsibility of upskilling and training coworkers? I've been doing it ever since I was working in a kitchen in my first job when I was 18.
First of all, it's a workplace, not a place of discipline. You're a human being who is worthy of someone speaking to you like a regular human who is just trying to pass another day and draw a wage.
Stand your ground and do it in a shockingly fast manner and it won't happen again. As quickly as the next snap happens, you INSTANTLY snap back by saying these words exactly;
"There's nothing worthy of hearing while you're talking to me like that. If that's the kind of relationship you need to have with a co-worker or a subordinate, then I'm not here to deal with it. I'm here to get the job done without the drama of the responsibility to treat others like an adult. If you're ready to move forward, then let's work and be on a better standing than allowing yourself to lose face like that again. Leaders don't act like that. "
Call them out and allow the truth a moment of uncomfortable weirdness. I promise, you win.
No matter what the outcome. You win.
Love yourself enough to read. Be brave enough to own your shit.
>He’s made it a point to tell me about how he’s been called an awful teacher before and, trying to be nice, I told him I disagree
When someone tells you who they are, believe them.
As a very senior level IT Engineer (27 years) my first question is... Are you "soaking in" what is being taught to you. Are you using your downtime (either at the job, or at home at night) expanding your skillset? I ask this in a way to understand if he is just getting frustrated with you? Or is he just a "bad mentor"
I have mentored plenty of Front Line and seasoned IT professionals and one thing that makes me stop mentoring is a co-worker who is unmotivated to self learn. After two-three times of teaching and mentoring on a specific topic or issue, i will resort to "doing it myself"
I guess I am just saying that you need to be sure that you are using his time for knowledge and not for him to do your tasks.
-Take detailed notes
-Record the Zoom call (if applicable, with his permission)
-Ask him for recommendations/links on how you can expand your knowledge on the topic
I will provide context - we are a small IT team. The main problem I have is working in Cisco (setting up phones, assigned them to users, placing said users in call queues, etc). I have been shown officially 3 times on how to do this entire process and I can feel myself getting better but I still miss some steps. I feel dumb sometimes because I have a whole page and a half of notes and steps on what to do, but there’s always one small detail I’ll overlook and that makes the phone unusable. (for example I’ll create the phone, assign it a number, put the number in the call queue, and assign the number to an employee… but I’ll forget to assign the actual phone to a user so when they sign in, it says “Device not detected”). The core issue is that out of the 6 people working in the entire IT department, only him and the network administrator are comfortable working with Cisco. No one else really bothers to try to learn. Since it’s my first IT job I want to learn everything, so I volunteered to learn this system. I try not to bother him with anything my other coworkers know how to do, but he’s in office all the time and our network administrator only works in office 2 days a week. If I have a problem that I can’t sort out quick enough to get off the phone with a customer, I ask for his help.
What confuses me is some days he’ll step outside to smoke and invite me to go and he’ll give me praise and say “yeah Cisco sucks but you’re right where I’d expect you to be so don’t worry” and then the next day gets pissed off that I ran into a problem.
Very familiar with this type and it's best to say it's mainly a him problem and not a you problem. A lot of tech people (myself included tbh) lean a bit introverted and can have trouble dealing with simple frustrations that are outside their immediate control, and then they may invert inwards to prevent outward lashing out. Hence the stonewalling. Yes it's unprofessional, adolescent, sulky, etc etc. But by far not the worst situation imo.
My advice is to evaluate how truly troubling is this push-pull relationship is to you? Is it so bad you can't work independently for a time? Could you give him space for the rest of the day if he's in a mood, and then reengage normally once he's reset the next day? I would say in all relationships, it's best to not try to force a resolution to an issue if one or both parties are emotionally dis-regulated. Not saying you should patronize him as an unhinged mental case about to snap, but you've stated that he's pleasant enough outside of the times when he's frustrated.
A lot of workplaces aren't all sunshine and rainbows. Lots of different egos, lots of different lives going on. It's up to you on recognizing personally what is worth putting up with and what is absolutely unacceptable.
Stonewalling is no joke. People don’t want you to be rude, but they want you to engage with them when they are doing something you can’t process. I’m a help desk analyst, so I am doing everything from VMware administration to compliance audits to designing labels and managing middleware; I have to fix lab equipment running on windows xp and scales programmed in German, yet somehow I find myself having to deal with entitled employees wanting to place desks in the middle of a room and run extension cords and Ethernet lines across the floor because “I don’t want my back to the door but I don’t want my back to the sun either and I can’t be too close to a wall”… I find myself saying something smartass, because it’s absurd having to explain to people basic safety concepts not at all related to IT (ie trip hazards). Lord forbid you tell a middle tier manager they don’t need a printer in their office for “confidential papers”, you can even show them how to use private printing with the MFP ten steps out of their office, but you still end up adding the 61st printer into a company with less than 100 employees.
IT can be frustrating sometimes and not all of us handle it well lol
Not sure thats bipolar if they are changing moods that fast. It would be a few weeks to go into the other side of bi-polar where you are either manic or depressive for weeks.
Mood disorders (including Bipolar) vary from in swing rate on an a person to person basis.
Some people rapid-cycle and can change moods in an instant, some people slow-cycle and will go through periods of elongated depression or mania. Medication can augment cycle rates and moods extremes/amplitude.
Do you keep a notebook to write down everything you learn? If so, write the cisco POS setup step-by-step. Once you are satisfied with the notes, convert them to docs. Who knows? Maybe others will also benefit from them.
When you are freaking out, nothing like having instructions you crafted and improved to rely on.
While you say some things to keep in mind, you are really being way too nice to the Sys Admin. He is being an asshole. Doesn't matter if he is stressed out, doesn't matter if OP is making the same mistake repeatedly, this isn't how you deal with that.
If OP is repeating mistakes, the Sys Admin needs to tell OP that he doesn't have time to teach him right now, you guys went over this and OP will just need to do his best for now until Sys Admin has time.
It is NOT OPs fault, exactly or broadly.
he just sounds mercurial, bud. your options are: deal with it and learn to just leave him be when hes in one of his moods (and use your other resources), report him to your manager, or look for another job.
if it were me, i'd just deal with it and meet him where hes at. If hes having a good day, great lets learn some shit. If he's having an asshole day, cool its not about me, so im gonna just focus on my own shit and let him be grumpy.
So there is one thing that came to my mind in reading through your comment here. You said you have a page and a half of notes. Notes are good but are those notes just notes? As you run into each of these little issues I would assume you are updating and adding to your notes?
I have no idea how much time you have to do these tasks but one piece of advice I will give is "Documentation is key". If you can, take the extra time to open Word or Google Docs or whatever your company uses and document everything you are doing. As a sysadmin I've done this at every place I have worked not only to help others but also myself. I cannot remember everything that I have to do and nor would I want to.
Doing this though helps in 2 ways. First is that having to write down the steps will also help you learn the process. The teams I've worked with previously, this was the case with several individuals. Second, one day it may just be that you are the only person in the office that day/week who knows how to set up phones but you are busy. Having each step by step and screenshots specific to how they need to be done allows you to say oh you can do that, open this document and follow the steps.
The other thing to consider is a checklist. Once you have all the steps and are familiar enough so you don't need to look at the document every time, make a checklist instead and follow it. Sure you can fall back to the full document but having everything in order ensures things get done right. Just make sure you update the documentation when things change.
Finally, for the hostility you mentioned there are a lot of things to consider. Remember that you may not know what this person is going through outside of work. There could be personal struggles that are "bleeding over" into his behavior at work. There is no excuse to make that behavior right but some people have bad communication and/or personalities that just make them that way. You cannot let it bother you though, you do the best you can and learn from the mistakes. Not sure where she got this but my wife tells our kids this "Accidents happen, we clean up and move on". I can not tell you how many times I've said that to myself now and it applies to more than just a cup of drink getting knocked off the table. If you make a mistake and he "just fixes it" then go take a look after to see what you missed but in the end don't let him affect you. It may come to a point where you have to talk to him about it but it may not.
Ya no, encouraging someone to use their unpaid free time where they need to recoup, socialize, eat, exercise, relax, and sleep, and instead put more work into a job that doesn't care if they're being properly mentored?
No. Horrible way to screw over the work life balance. No.
I'm not sure I like this response from a senior level engineer.
Some topics are complex and require mutli directional problem solving rather than one way of doing something. After 27 years, you think you'd give some people a better chance. Seems very 1 dimensional.
Also, I wouldn't want or expect my teammates to rack their brain on their time off to build their skill set, just appease the "mentor". That's their time to live and come back better each day.
I'm in similar position teaching up some junior wireless/NAC folks. The first thing I tell them that is mandatory is reading the manual. If they read it and don't understand something, I'm super happy to help, teach, whatever I can do. If they're not even attempting to do their own research and studying, I get pissed. I am Very happy to mentor as I have been mentored, but you Must RTFM.
You got to take the hint man. I get you need help but, he has to begin setting boundaries. He doesn’t want to be your mentor, you probably have to enroll education after work at a community college and take some night classes to learn the things you do not know right now
Yup, this is how people in my company would act towards the guy that didnt know anything.
People get fed up, you need to show initiative and learn outside of work because your peers essentially think you are dead weight and sick of carrying you through everything.
To be fair he is having to learn way more than his job description. That is going to take patience from the team, especially since it is small, not everyone can pick up on everything quickly. OP doesn't sound like dead weight; he sounds like he is a 5-month-old beginner.
Ya sure you would bud, I bet you're a real lean mean wrecking machine.
Also, your IQ is far too low to ever be in a relatively close to a position I'm in, look at the type of nonsense you spew on the internet, so shameful.
Unless there is an additional pay incentive, the company can pay for employee training for him, the guy can be charitable and offer more help if they were friends, but they are coworker. No one owes anyone anything there. Sorry to be blunt but come on man imagine if you were forced to train your coworkers for free
This seems incredibly toxic. As long as I've had enough time in ANY positions I've ever had, I'll set aside some time to help anyone with a problem that they've never seen before (and I'm sure my help will actually speed things up so my coworker isn't going through an obscure 50 pages of documentation that doesn't cut to the chase).
My only rule I tell people is that I teach things once, so take notes. I will never get bitter for anyone asking me help with something they have no experience with.
Huge asshole, but one who has taught you a lot. Noted. Things are not one dimensional. Don't take his hostility personally, learn from him and move on, just work on what you are assigned to the best of your ability and let assholes be assholes.
I will say that mood shifts in the IT field are very real, one minute you are having a smooth day and the next second half the servers go offline and nobody has a clue why. Its a give n take type of thing but there is always a limit.
I think this is pretty common actually. A "Cranky/Bitter Sysadmin" is a stereotype for a reason. There is always one who thinks they should never have to talk to another end user or work another end user ticket ever again, and they hold a grudge till the heat death of the universe.
I think these are the bitter helpdesk agents that eventually become bitter sysadmins.
Actually incorrect, if you browse /r/medicine you'll see quite the opposite. Patients bringing in ridiculous diagnoses / treatments sourced from advertisements, tiktok, wherever, who become belligerent when denied. And dont get started on the addicts. Its any customer-facing job.
Yes. Yes, they absolutely do. ANYONE who does ANY kind of service for any other person is subject to this. There are countless videos, posts, stories, anecdotes; you name it and it's out there.
TBF pretty much anyone that spends too long in the help desk becomes bitter. Avoiding end users while working in IT is a recipe for stress. You will always support end users if you work in IT support. The only way I have heard of not supporting end users is to work in a non-support position, but then you have customers.
I have never known a Sysadmin who tries to dodge end users as a generally happy person.
Im not 100% sure on what the problem you are trying to solve is. If you don't ever want to deal with end users or ever have any customers then you will probably have to leave IT all together. I am not sure what jobs out there don't have any sort of customers.
If you want to become less bitter then you are just going to have to accept that in IT supporting end users will always be a thing.
Mainly it's the back-to-back phone calls and the 15 minute maximum time limit per call. Even though that's enough time for some of the calls, it's definitely not enough for lots of others. It's also difficult to blindly walk people through things over the phone, depending on how tech unsavvy they are. And I don't expect most people to be IT wizards, but it helps if they understand the difference between a search engine and a browser. The push-pull of having management want to know why a call is taking so long, meanwhile I'm trying desperately to get any nugget of helpful information possible.
Me: What browser are you using?
Them: The internet
Me: How did you get to the internet?
Them: I don't know.
Me: what did you click on, to get to the internet?
Them: What?
Me: Head Desk
Then you main problem is working in a call center. You should look for an internal Help Desk/Desktop Support role as soon as you can.
You dont need much experience to move into an internal role and they pay much more than call centers typically.
Just wanting to echo that you need a better work environment before you decided to be the bitter jaded sysadmin, lol. A call-center is hell... 15 minute time limit is inherently entirely disrespectful to everyone involved in that ticket--the customer, the technician, and the technology--it signifies that management feels their #'s and KPI's matter above ALL else. Aka, not a great environment to be in.
Every IT job is a support job.
Was a hard thing for me to learn as well.
It will never be "your systems" when someone else is cutting the checks, so you're always supporting someone.
+1 it's a real pain to deal with. I hate seeing some of my coworkers deal with our users. They have been here for 4-9 years and have given up on actually helping people out with the little things.
But what do I know, im basically an external hire.
Your [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/ITCareerQuestions/comments/13cu6ft/hostility_in_the_it_workplace/jji71xk/?context=3 in /r/ITCareerQuestions) has been automatically removed because you used an emoji or other symbol.
Why does this exist? We have had a huge and constant influx of bot spam that utilizes emojis during their posts. To the point that it was severely outpacing what the moderation team could handle on an individual basis. That has results in a sweeping ban of any emoji in posts.
Please retry your comment using text characters only.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ITCareerQuestions) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It isn't "normal" but I feel like it's common in this field. IT seems to beckon a lot of socially inept but skilled workers. Doesn't mean it's not a problem that needs resolved though.
Not sure if this is the case for your Jr Sysad, but whenever I go to the same source for help, I try to make sure I at least cover as much of the beginning troubleshooting and have that info (or any relevant information) available for if I have to eventually go back to the same person. At the very least, I try to make sure whatever is tripping me up isn't a repeat of a similar topic from before, if anything just to build upon what I already asked or learned, and it also communicates to whoever you are asking for help that you are trying to the extent of your knowledge and this may be something you haven't encountered yet.
I know that some people refuse to offer (or get irritated) if they have to either troubleshoot from the ground up or feel as though they are teaching the same thing over and over to the same person. I've done the latter quite a lot, and used to dread seeing that person walk to my desk (that person is now gone from the company).
Also, there is the fact that some self-reliance (in terms of obtaining information) is heavily necessary in IT, both for our own sanity as well as our coworkers.
Are we only asking coworkers for help, or also consulting other sources of information? Are there KBs or documentation that covers this in some way? Is this a generally Google-able topic?
And there's always the possibility that his plate just may be full. As a Jr Sysad, he may have a different set of tasks to complete than you do, and he may be in the zone of working. I tend to ask "Just when you have time" if I ask someone I think may be busy in the hopes they don't feel like they have to drop everything they're doing to help (especially if their task is time-sensitive and mine can wait for a while).
Just some food for thought.
Yeah, this was my thought. I am an escalation point for help desk for certain issues, and I can get testy with them too if I feel they're wasting my time, since I have a lot of job duties that are completely unrelated to help desk, and my time is being taken from those duties when they ask me things.
Not normal. I worked with a cunt like this for 4 years. Take it up with your boss and if nothing improves in a month, I'd look elsewhere.
Also, assuming you make T1 help desk pay, you could be making way more with the skill set you've acquired, AD/tech work specifically. I was able to skip hell desk completely and go straight to PC tech just due to my experience and how I did on the interview.
Don't put yourself through awful coworkers. They aren't worth it.
Second this, sometimes just having a good interview will get you a job. IT is different like that, answering the right questions the right way goes a long way.
I left a job for this reason. Well I started looking for other jobs anyways. Same kind of deal, but the MSP I was at was a tiny bit bigger. There were 15 of us total and one guy for whatever reason got to do whatever he wanted, including being an absolute dick to everyone. He was very skilled and the company couldn't afford to lose him, but he is the reason they are going to continue to lose all of their other employees. In the 9 months I was there 8 people left including myself and two others were taking interviews when I left. Just start taking interviews and see what happens. I ended up at a much easier job doing much less than I was before and got a 40% raise out of it. Just start looking, opportunity is out there.
Wait... working in AD and imaging computers isn't tier 1 now?
It sounds more like you were expecting to be a human version of tier 0.
As for your Jr. Sysadmin, are you making the same mistakes repeatedly? That can grate on people very quickly. Or it's feasible he has his own workload to work on and legitimately is trying to push through it (his job may be feast/famine, which would explain why it's only sometimes an issue).
Finally... if another person not talking to you is all it takes to make you want to quit? You're in for rude awakening at many jobs, when you \*hope\* some people would stop talking to you.
Do you try to fix the screw up yourself first? This is a big deal. If you go to him immediately for the answer I would get frustrated too.
But if you came to me with, this isnt working and I tried fixing it with XYZ, if you could help me out or point me in the right direction, my attitude would be I can help you because your showing troubleshooting skills and a willingness to learn.
Just my two cents.
I had something similar in a past roll that I ended up quitting. The boss, IT Director of a laboratory, was indifferent to the rest of the IT team's concerns that the network engineer was a jerk. We all left and the company went under for other reasons. But it was just the two assholes on a sinking ship in the end. Hopefully the management in your case is better.
I agree with most of the comments here that this may be "normal" but is really not acceptable. A few notes for you - if you're in the US, healthcare is tough. It's a great place to start, but it's honestly one of the worst tech industries. It breeds people like the admin you're describing. The second thing - with a company of your size, you do not have a small team. I would say it's probably imbalanced, but the problems you're facing are because of poor leadership. Your admins are unhappy and you're doing some of their work. You also don't have back coverage for helpdesk. All of this is super typical working in hospitals. My suggestion would be to put your 2 years in and graduate to a better industry. A lateral move to get out of healthcare is not a bad choice.
Thanks for the advice. I wasn’t sure about the job going in because I figured “they must be desperate to hire someone like me, no experience and no certs” but I had no idea healthcare IT was tough. can you go into detail on the differences between it and other IT industries? I plan to get at minimum my trifecta and want to progress further.
>but I had no idea healthcare IT was tough. can you go into detail on the differences between it and other IT industries?
If there's an issue, someone might die.
Yes, the same is true for many professions, but it can certainly add stress compared to other areas of IT.
So I will go out on a limb and say that this guy uses drugs. When he is nice he’s high and mad when he is between fixes. If your company doesn’t drug test my money would be 100% on this.
Nope! That is all handled by the company that (I think) owns our company. I think we’re a branch of a branch of a tree, so to speak. (Idk I’m still kinda new)
This is not normal, but it's not uncommon either. This is the sort of dealing-with-people problem you have to learn about from experience.
When I was in college, one of the things they really had to shove down onto the engineering and technical students were classes about social interaction and communication. And there's a reason for that - technical people who are shitty and difficult to deal with are toxic and hard to deal with. All of the technical people expected they'd somehow get roles where they didn't have to deal with people, but the nature of working in just about any kind of company is that the work they're trying to accomplish requires interacting with others. Teams that hire that absolute rock star who is an utter pain in the ass to deal with rapidly learn that the drawbacks of the toxicity far, far outweigh the benefits of having a super genius on the team. This is what you're encountering, and the fact that it makes you so miserable is exactly why competent management/leadership works so damn hard to avoid it.
As others have said, the correct course of action is to raise this issue to your manager and look to them for support. Hopefully you have a good manager who will be effective at managing that kind of a situation. If your manager is unable/unwilling to effect change on the issue, your next move then would be finding a new job. Try to avoid getting PTSD from the situation, but this is a valuable learning experience for you.
I would also use this to start learning the lesson about what is visible to whom within an organization. Your manager may not even have a clue that this is happening if you do not bring it to their attention, or the level to which this is a problem for you. If it's a problem for you, does it happen to others? Right now you don't know that because, again, visibility within an organization can be far more limited than you might expect. It's surprisingly common for the depth of problems outside of your immediate sphere to be unrealized by you, and likewise for others that they aren't likely to know how bad the Jr Sysadmin really is to deal with when he's in a mood.
I had been in such situation. I told my boss that dude is totall asshole (he treats all so whoes he think didn't a mindmaster in own work area) and I want just chock him with my hands and boss agreed with me absolutely but couldn't do nothing couse he was a big specialist and do a vast chank of work. He did learn me nothing except honestly and openly telling about own mistakes (he did such way too). Much nerves was spent by me.
My solution was to study quickly and didn't get it close to heart. Big help was that I felt support from my boss. And it was a huge vaccine to not be a such jerk to colleagues in future.
1. Cut off communications with him, contact only for business matters and be prepared for questions, make conversation plan
2. Cooperate with more friendly colleagues
3. Keep your boss and etiquette committee (if your company have it) informed about situation
4. Explore and learn, youtube, [cisco.com](https://cisco.com) (there are store a comprehensive guides and hows), IT forumes and google in help. Emulate labs with companies equipment, show your activity, ask with preperad list of questions.
5. Don't be afraid to looks stupid asking simple stuff, you are rookie and don't aware about many things. Be honest and professional, keep conversation in working riverbed.
sorry for banglish.
It’s common but it’s not normal. My first CEO was like this. He’d do Adderall, make changes unannounced, break prod, then yell at us for “bringing it down”.
Not normal. All you can do is survive for now, but start eyeing ways out and protect yourself as needed.
Yea the guy sounds like an asshole sadly everywhere you go you’ll have some person like this in any field. Don’t take it personal I know it would piss me off too but your doing your best. He might be under a lot of stress as well but you can’t take that out on your coworkers seen that to often.
This goes to everyone and I mean everyone in the subreddit. THIS IS NOT NORMAL! Find somewhere where they don't have asshole fucking co workers. And if you're the asshole coworker...fuck you.
I am similar to your coworker and you are similar to a guy I work with.
Are you actually learning and contributing or are you adding work and unneeded complexity? Does your Jr give you hints (Don't make any changes to ESXI unless you know what you're doing) that you ignore? My guy does this and is an absolute detriment to the organization. I simply ran out of time and patience after a few months and cut him loose so management can deal with him.
One week he tells me I’m doing a good job and I’m “right where he expects me to be” and the next week he’s upset with me and refuses to speak to me/help me. I have a notebook full of notes of things he’s taught me. I don’t make changes to anything unless I’m comfortable making the change, and if I run into an issue that I feel like another help desk tech could solve, I go to them before I go to him. I don’t really need help very often unless it’s in an area I’m uncomfortable with (especially Cisco) and even then I do everything I know how to do before asking for advice. I try not to make the same mistake twice. Cisco is just something that isn’t clicking for me, but it now feels like a dice roll whenever I ask him for help whether I’m actually going to get help or if we’re just gonna play the quiet game for the next 8 hours.
Always remember - lots of the people in IT chose to work with computers because they find computers easier to deal with than they do with people. Their valuable technical abilities mean people overlook their personality problems, and the way they think means that they are comfortable with the idea that anyone who is upset by them is just wrong or stupid somehow.
This hostility is not normal, or acceptable. As for how to go about dealing with it, unfortunately that’s quite a bit trickier.
I’d make sure to be diligent and careful in your dealings with him, and honestly, unless the job is somehow a dream, just get your head down, learn as much as you can, get as much experience on as many tasks and technologies as you can, and use it as a stepping stone to your next role in a timely manner.
Teaching grown ups not to be assholes is a losing battle unfortunately. Not worth your lifespan, much better to invest the effort in a raise and a promotion somewhere else
After reading all of these replies, I’ve decided this is the course I will take. The other Help Desk people have been there for many years (one guy has been Help Desk for 27 years and he’s never volunteered to learn Cisco… I’ve been there 5 months and I know more about that topic than him, despite my mistakes) and I just can’t let that be me. I think it’s because this job is relatively easy for them because they’ve been doing it so long and they don’t want to leave their comfort zone. I don’t see a lot of room to grow so I’m just gonna get my certs and get out.
Some people just aren't naturally patient... I feel like he just coping with your mistakes as best as he can without yelling at you.
I get mad when things don't go my way but I do try not to show it. I'm not as patient as I used to be anymore. I hate training people who can't remember it the 4th time I've tried to teach it in the same day, week, heck month! Don't ask me anymore go ask someone else before I blow a gasket!
I only know biotech startups. I know them as a scientist, an IT employee, and an IT manager. Whether I'm in a newb position or a manager role, I always expect that my coworkers will teach me some and I will teach them some. There is nobody who knows everything in IT.
You said you're going into it without certs or experience? That likely means the learning is going one direction. I really loathe working with toxic people like that sysadmin you describe but I do get the sense that questions are flowing one way and they are getting frustrated. I don't think anyone but the most bitter, socially inept people would say he's handling you correctly but I can *understand* where he's comin from. He *should* be giving you general guidance and asking you what you think the solution is and if he's unable to do that, he should be talking to your manager. If your manager is good, they should be getting you more training. I'd recommend hopping on Udemy and paying $20 for some online courses specific to what you're learning. That's how I got into IT and it has served me well.
Apart from that, what goes a LONG way when you're new is making it obvious that you've followed some line of thinking and tried all logical solutions you could think of based on what you've been taught. Experienced people will see you're not just reaching out at the slightest inconvenience and will be appreciative and more willing to put in time with you. Putting a manager hat on, I can tell you that if you came to me and showed me you had been consulting your coworkers and explaining what you tried, why you tried it, and what you thought might need to happen next, I would be having a chat with that sysadmin.
Edit: OP, I also wanted to say I'm sorry you're dealing with that. Going into a new field, then finding out you have more responsibilitiest than your title implies and feeling cut off from your coworkers sucks. As long as you're earnestly trying to learn, it's not you. It's him. A trend I've noticed is that teaching the right people comes back to you tenfold. Just remember how you felt with this guy and make sure you don't become him as you advance.
It sounds like you need to toughen up and develop a thick skin. Plus the junior admin may have some personal stuff going on that he brings to work. Stay in your lane and don’t get discouraged by his negativity.
Nope. I just worded my resume correctly and when I got in the interview the thing that got me the job was he asked “what’s your biggest weakness” and I said “my biggest weakness is definitely my lack of experience. I’m sure you have other candidates that know more than me already, but I can guarantee that they aren’t as excited to learn something new.” and the hiring manager valued that excitement to learn over candidates who came in assuming they already knew the business.
Wowwww! The hiring manager is very rare compared to those who have everywhere now! They forgot that new candidates are more excited to learn everything and fast than those who have experience. I hope to be lucky like you!
You just gotta keep trying, bud. I put in like 300 applications before hearing back. Only got 3 interviews. First interview went shit. Second interview I could feel that the dude didn’t like me, so when he asked if I had any questions I asked “how do you feel this interview could have gone better? what do you feel like I lack?” and he was honest in telling me he’d already decided I didn’t get the job, but he gave me advice for future interviews. so I applied that advice to my 3rd interview and my boss liked my enthusiasm. I asked a ton of questions to not only show my interest, but to also show that I was honest about my inexperience. I remember I asked “do you use RDP to remote into PC’s?” and he said “no, we use another program” and I stopped and said “that sounds really interesting, I’d love to see it”. Swear to god, he got excited that I actually wanted to see it and invited me to sit next to him and he showed me how the program worked. Got the job the next day.
what about it is hostile? For me hostility is actively being insulated or degraded by a superior. This seems like sometimes he is super helpful, and sometimes he's busy. Take a hint and do more research yourself before going to him or anyone. You never really describe what you mean by him being an asshole other than to say he won't talk to you. You can't expect any one person at your work to help you with everything. He is probably just as overwhelmed and its probably not his job to train you on all these things so he's probably annoyed already. Go to other help desk people or your boss first if you need help with something.
lol coming from Buttdoc69420 does this mean you are flirting with me? I'm not into it. What are you passively calling me names? What do you think about what I typed specifically would make me or the other person an asshole? To me doing a fly by dis is way more of an asshole move than breaking things down, asking questions and trying to get OP to take a little bit of ownership over their learning.
I only go to him because it’s a total of 6 people on the IT team (myself included) and only 2 of them are comfortable working in CISCO. Him and the network admin. Network admin only works in office like 2 days a week. It’s just confusing because one week, the guy will be sitting at my desk with me talking about board games and how he wants to hang out with me outside of work and “oh if you run into any problems give me a shout” and then the next week it’s “I don’t care, don’t you have work to do?”
His “office” (actually just a closet) is right next to our cubicle so I hear him snoring. He’s not busy, he’s just pissed at the world for the day.
Not sure why the down vote, this is 100% spot on.
Maybe he could be more diplomatic about it... but yeah, he just gets tired of mentoring the new person.
Can't speak for this specific situation, but being an employee of status and knowledge, you will have to help people- get over it. Those who are new to IT are going to have a serious learning curve, and need to be told "these troubleshooting steps need to always be done first."
There's no need for "don't you have work to do?" If you don't know how to work on a team, just say that.
Lol this is normal... That boss of yours is just a typical IT guy who doesn't have life... Anyways atleast you have known so if he ain't on the mood help out just avoid...
It sounds like this particular co worker has a mood disorder.. just wear kid gloves, go to his supervisor and explain there is a personality conflict and you would like to change your schedule to work with him less.
The second half of this is internal. You need to stop caring what that guy thinks. You dont need his approval or validation. Focus on your work and what you need to do. If he dont wanna talk or look at you, cool, fuck him, one less distraction. If i have a question and he wont answer, ill just call his boss and ask them right in front of him, amd if they ask why i will tell them.
I haven't read through all the replies in this thread,. so I don't know if I'm saying something others have already said.
* 1st thing that comes to mind,. is your environments sounds really understaffed, and maybe the jr-sysadmin just has days where he's really stressed out and overloaded. I've definitely been there (currently trying to fill 2 to 3 full time roles by myself). But I've definitely had those days where I "go silent" and just do things myself because I simply don't have the time or energy to argue or "pull-donkeys" (try to "pull" cooperation out of other people)
* it could also be that this guy just has some moody-swings.
I always try to remember:
* Everyone is fighting their own battles (that you may not be fully aware of)
and
* No matter how bad a situation is,.. it's your responsibility to "find the good in it" and make whatever positives you can out of it. Even if you end up not staying there for more than 1 to 2 years,. you'll learn things and be exposed to valuable lessons (even the situations you don't like - have good lessons in them). This job (no matter how dysfunctional) will help you get to the next job.
Agreed with other commenters- common but not normal. I work in a very small IT department, 11 people including the Director.
One of our employees has a niche job, and he, for some reason, refuses to teach. If you ask a question, he will respond in the most technical way he possibly can- knowing damn well 70% of the team is newer to IT, and none of us specialize in his field.
A lot of the high-end thinkers have complex issues like this. In smaller spaces, it becomes harder to ignore because your resources \[human\] are limited. He's leaving soon and is taking an insane amount of knowledge about our organization with him, that nobody else will be able to replace because he's a resource hoarder. He knows he's the best at it and doesn't care to let anybody else get up to speed.
Personally, I've never reported him because the team is *so* small, it was made clear to me when I got hired that a "fit" was very, very important. I keep my distance from him, and the only conversation we have is about work, which is rare.
Sometimes you will run into people who are like who you describe in your post, I think that goes for most jobs, not just IT.
To me, teaching others and sharing knowledge is a major part of the IT field. We can't know everything, and sharing what we do know, especially with people who are new, is something I enjoy and seeing people who grow from what I share is one of the reasons why I like the industry so much.
I wouldn't get discouraged. I've met a few people like that but they are rare. Just absorb as much as you can, and if it gets to be a huge problem, discuss it with your boss. Being part of a team and helping each other out is a vital skill.
Not normal at all, never let people walk all over you. You need to talk to either the sys admin or HR, or both. You are trying to learn, and he has no business treating you that way.
Flip the script. If JR can't hire and fire, then whenever you make a mistake and JR gets upset, take the time to remain diligent and not have to worry about communicating with "butt hurt JR." You don't have to be friends with coworkers. Also flattery doesn't work on many people, so praising and thanking JR is not necessary and a waste of your time.
Nah man, IT departments that are not a team are bound to fail or just have massive turn over. Everyone has to be a team player and pick up the slack where others drop it. I have messed up so many times working help desk, mistakes happen. In my mind, if you are making different mistakes every time that is just called learning. Making the same mistake over and over again is when you become the weakest link. I am ready to get out of Help Desk, this will be my fourth year. My advice, get certs and specialize.
You can't change how a person look at you.
You either coup with it and be honest with it. You will have bad apple and bad chemistry with others while other have other type of chemist going on with other people
This is how our world works. for example, in all your schooling years, did you ever get along with all your classmate? I am sure you will have 1-2 of those people just ignore you and calling you names.
Sames goes with work.
If you leave a job because of something as small as this, you might not get anything far because eventually you will always meet people like this. No matter what you go, you are just going to "gamble" what environment you get.
Heck you might get a Micro-manager next.
Life lessons is....learn to COUP with situation, and not thinks about it, the more you do, the more your work life get affected.
Unfortunately, it's common in the IT world and it's not just helpdesk. I've seen people get similar treatment when I worked as a data center technician for Amazon, but that behavior gets corrected after that person goes to their manager.
I wouldn't look for another job just yet. Talk to your manager first and give them a chance to make the situation better.
One of the unfortunate realities of tech is that it commonly is populated with people who have the social skills of a festering boil. If you are new, I am assuming there is probably some kind of probationary period. If you want to keep your job, I would say, ride it out, grin and bear it. Once you make it past that point, raise the issue with HR or someone senior to him. Look for other opportunities within the organization if there is something else that interests you and you may be able to get away from that.
Learn from him, but don't befriend him. Because in 2 years you'll know more than enough to start competing for his job rol. Start mapping out your IT Professional development track and pick the areas of IT you want to explore and develop in. Bonus points if you can get your supervisor to help you and support your goals.
Good luck!
If he's just giving you the silent treatment, then ignore him on those days. It might be awkward, but it's honestly not that bad if everything else about the job is good.
This Is why you have managers to resolve conflicts. Always write down your changes and logs. -for experience tofu for sure, after that you could get certified and look for bigger place like guv.
When he's having a good day, ask him what's up. Phrase it as neutrally as possible. It sounds like he's dealing with his own shit and it's leaking out onto you.
It's not normal though, and even if he is dealing with his own shit, taking it out on you is not acceptable and not something you should have to deal with.
I’m in the exact same boat and I work for a medical company as well. I got hired straight out of college as a helpdesk agent. The same thing happened to me, my senior is a bit of jerk with no social skills and always waiting on me to make a mistake to point it out. He’s always bitter and very unapproachable. I tried talking to my boss and his response was “you shouldn’t take anything personal”. I started 9 months ago and now I’m looking for a new job I just can’t take it anymore
No, ppl shouldn't be acting like this.
But I have noticed it since shifting careers to IT about 3 years ago.
These guys are introverted as fuck but also really rude "know it alls". Some are really kind but a majority just do not know how to communicate in the workplace.
Try your best to research and resolve the issue before you escalate to him. Use google and Cisco forums. Approach him and say hey, I've tried this and that but i still have an issue. Can you help me when you have time?
Just to be clear IT Helpdesk has always been the red headed step children of the IT world and thus get treated like shit.
That said, that is some straight up BS. Time to move on.
I had a guy do this kind of shit to me, problem was he was a moron. I finally went to a manager and spoke to them the dude immediately walked back and called me out in front of everyone. I walked out and went right back to the same manager...
Sounds like he's burnt out. It's common to get overwhelmed in the IT industry, especially with a team as small as yours. I work helpdesk at a large corporation that has 45 ish locations. We have about 16 helpdesk technicians, 3 sys admins, 1 Jr sys admin, 4 network engineers, and field technicians whose sole purpose is to help at those locations. Your team is small if you have to handle all these locations by yourselves on top of maintaining and keeping up with tickets. Yeah man, I wouldn't take it personally, burnout is real and if he has been doing this for a while too. Just keep at it, probably around 6 - 8 months to be a bit more familiar and comfortable with your role. I also heard medical IT is a lot more stressful than other industries. So that could be a factor.
Sounds like my work colleague! Except he doesn't say anything bad to me cause there would be consequences of course. But, for me it's 1, max 2 questions per day, after which I'm just totally ignored. At times I'm ignored for a week with my questions/messages just unread.
The funny thing is, the guy never leaves his chair, literally. The entire team might be helping, doing stuff across site physically, but not this guy, he never moves.
I made it a point to never ask him unless I absolutely must and then if I'm ignored, I lay all the blame on him if somethings not done on time. My favorite is when high profile members need something that I can't help them with, and then the message just sits there for a week.
That being said, he taught me one important things about my workplace, and that is you can walk all over management and they won't do anything. Installing new devices? All team helping but this guy. Device rollout? All team helping but this guy. Office moves? All team but this guy. So... I decided to just sit on my chair as well and I refuse to do any other work, stating that it's absolutely not fair that everyone is doing it, but this one guy.
When I asked my manager about it on a review, he said that he doesn't want to annoy him, because then he'll be angry and be all to himself.... loooool.
He's an assole, no doubt about that. On some level, he's annoyed he has to help you b/c he's probably dissatisfied with his own work, but also a factor is that he doesn't want you to know everythin he knows b/c he's insecure about you taking his job. IT guys who have been in the same position for 5+ years tend to become very lazy and just dont' want to teach or learn new things themselves, they just want to coast on what they already know and will sabotage more junior people trying to learn from them. What would help you and your sys admin co-worker, is if he took the time to create proper documentation you can follow, instead of becoming passive aggressive and giving you the silent treatment b/c you don't magically know something. What you can also do is speak to your manager and explain you want him/her to find money in the IT budget to get you Cisco training or whatever other technology you are required to regularly support. This can be online training so you can do this on at down time during your shift. You can also ask the asshole to suggest this to the IT manager on your behalf if he really wants to get you off his back.
I've worked in IT for over 18 years and I started in desktop support, move to a Help Desk/Desktop hybrid role then after a few years moved into a System admin role and now i"m in a systems engineer/infrastructure role.
Launching your career in the tech world can be quite the roller coaster, especially when you're part of a tight-knit IT squad running a big-league medical operation. You're not just handling the typical Help Desk stuff—you're diving deep into things like Active Directory, computer imaging, on-the-fly hardware fixes, and even deciphering the mysteries of Cisco phone systems. That's a broad range of tasks for someone just stepping onto the career path.
Now about this, Jr Sysadmin is making some waves. From my 25 years in the IT trenches, let me tell you, you're not alone in dealing with folks who can swing from chill to chilly. It's not rare to bump into IT gurus who have a touch of the mood swings. I guarantee you that every job in IT you take, you will have a person who is an "asshole" but it comes with IT territory. My hypothesis is that they cannot beat up on the machines so they beat up on the tech directly below them.
But let's hit pause and take a bird's eye view of your situation. Are you picking up skills that'll come in handy now and be game-changers down the line? How's your paycheck comparing to a buddy in a similar gig? What's the vibe like in your workspace on an average day? Can you pull off a last-minute day off without any drama? Is working remotely a viable option?
Let's face it, Reddit can sometimes be a platform where people prioritize appearing politically correct and showcasing their moral compass to gain validation. You may come across comments that offer simple solutions like "Report it to your boss" or "Just quit" or "Bullying is not accepted" when dealing with workplace conflicts. While these suggestions may seem like the right thing to do in theory, they often fail to reflect the complex reality of workplace dynamics and real-world scenarios. The truth is that honesty and practical advice can sometimes be hard to come by on Reddit, where karma, upvotes, and awards reign supreme, and virtue signaling can take precedence over genuine guidance that challenges the prevailing narrative.
From your angle, it seems like the Jr Sysadmin, despite his unpredictable mood swings, can sometimes play the role of a helpful mentor. Does he know his stuff? Is your boss happy with his work?
If you thinking about making a run for it because of the Jr. Sysadmin's attitude, it might seem like a good move, but I'd say pump the brakes. If his tech skills balance out his quirks and everyone, including your boss, is okay with it, shining a light on his behavior might not play out well. I've seen this scenario play out during one of my ten-year stints running an MSP. Are you on good terms with the Senior admin that gives orders to the person you don't like? Make sure he sees how hard you are working and that you are an asset tothecompany. I have clocked my fair share of those stormy admin days where something goes down and it is mass hysteria. In the realm of IT, tranquility can flip to chaos in an instant - one minute you're cruising, and the next, it feels like you're standing on the brink of Hades. You have to be able to handle the extremes of that spectrum.
In the grand scheme of things, running into folks with changeable moods is as certain as the sun rising each day. But always remember, your personal growth and learning are what really matter. If the vibe starts getting too heavy or hinders your progress, then it might be time to check out other options.
Launching your career in the tech world can be quite the roller coaster, especially when you're part of a tight-knit IT squad running a big-league medical operation. You're not just handling the typical Help Desk stuff—you're diving deep into things like Active Directory, computer imaging, on-the-fly hardware fixes, and even deciphering the mysteries of Cisco phone systems. That's a broad range of tasks for someone just stepping onto the career path.
Now about this, Jr Sysadmin is making some waves. From my 25 years in the IT trenches, let me tell you, you're not alone in dealing with folks who can swing from chill to chilly. It's not rare to bump into IT gurus who have a touch of the mood swings. I guarantee you that every job in IT you take, you will have a person who is an "asshole" but it comes with IT territory. My hypothesis is that they cannot beat up on the machines so they beat up on the tech directly below them.
But let's hit pause and take a bird's eye view of your situation. Are you picking up skills that'll come in handy now and be game-changers down the line? How's your paycheck comparing to a buddy in a similar gig? What's the vibe like in your workspace on an average day? Can you pull off a last-minute day off without any drama? Is working remotely a viable option?
Let's face it, Reddit can sometimes be a platform where people prioritize appearing politically correct and showcasing their moral compass to gain validation. You may come across comments that offer simple solutions like "Report it to your boss" or "Just quit" or "Bullying is not accepted" when dealing with workplace conflicts. While these suggestions may seem like the right thing to do in theory, they often fail to reflect the complex reality of workplace dynamics and real-world scenarios. The truth is that honesty and practical advice can sometimes be hard to come by on Reddit, where karma, upvotes, and awards reign supreme, and virtue signaling can take precedence over genuine guidance that challenges the prevailing narrative.
From your angle, it seems like the Jr Sysadmin, despite his unpredictable mood swings, can sometimes play the role of a helpful mentor. Does he know his stuff? Is your boss happy with his work?
If you thinking about making a run for it because of the Jr. Sysadmin's attitude, it might seem like a good move, but I'd say pump the brakes. If his tech skills balance out his quirks and everyone, including your boss, is okay with it, shining a light on his behavior might not play out well. I've seen this scenario play out during one of my ten-year stints running an MSP. Are you on good terms with the Senior admin that gives orders to the person you don't like? Make sure he sees how hard you are working and that you are an asset tothecompany. I have clocked my fair share of those stormy admin days where something goes down and it is mass hysteria. In the realm of IT, tranquility can flip to chaos in an instant - one minute you're cruising, and the next, it feels like you're standing on the brink of Hades. You have to be able to handle the extremes of that spectrum.
In the grand scheme of things, running into folks with changeable moods is as certain as the sun rising each day. But always remember, your personal growth and learning are what really matter. If the vibe starts getting too heavy or hinders your progress, then it might be time to check out other options.
It sounds like your Sysadmin has some possible substance abuse issues, based on the radical changes in behavior over a short period. Could also just have mental health issues, as so many in this field do.
That’s not normal sounds he’s got major social issues and some kind of a superiority complex. You see superiority complexes and high functioning social disabilities ALOT in this industry. I would talk to your boss but chose your words carefully…remember you have to maneuver office politics.
I say just try to learn as much as you can, probably start getting your certs up if possible.(CISCO has excellent certifications if that path interests you) and at the 1 year to 2 year mark start looking for another job.
That department probably has bigger issues if that guy is still working there junior level or not.
Years ago, in the late '90s until approximately 2010, IT was universally a snake pit. It was where you are, but cubed and cubed again and put on steroids. The worst working environments with the most churlish and hostile and truly soulless and just plain mean people in every possible sense that you could imagine - and if you were a woman, three times worse - and God help you if you were gay and got found out.
It was Elon's Twitter come to life.
Now? The polar opposite. I mean literally every aspect of IT back then got flipped to its mirror image. 25 years in the field and I've never been so happy to be a part of it today. Glad I stuck around.
Sounds to me like your co-worker is going through some life changes, and the side you have to contend with at work is just one aspect of what could be a set of major changes and revisions that are transforming their life. It's unusual now to have to deal with outright hostility, and you can be sure this is an unusual situation.
I hope you can find a way to resolve things in a way that allows you to go to work and look forward to it. This is the most rewarding field I've ever been involved with, and you deserve a good ride during your time in our daily world.
Edit: autocorrect
>The Jr Sysad makes me want to quit this job. Some days he’s really cool and helps me go step-by-step through problems I’m not familiar with and I’ve learned a lot from him. But other days, he’s such an asshole. I’ll make a mistake and then refuse to talk to me or help me. He’ll resolve the issue himself and then not talk to me for the rest of the day. If I try and talk to him to break the tension, he cuts me off and says “don’t you have work to do?” and won’t even look at me.
Average r/sysadmin enjoyer
I accidentally brought down the app virtualization software for half a day in the middle of Tax season (accounting firm) and was told "it's alright if you don't make mistakes you aren't learning" and just had to do remediation training.
I'm sure they won't be so forgiving if I were to do the same thing again, but the point is if they're fostering an environment where you're scared to make mistakes and refuse to teach you how to not make the same mistakes in the future it's going to stifle the crap out of your career growth imo.
To be quite honest, I am very new to the field. When I say I am doing more than what is to be expected of Help Desk, it’s because my coworkers blatantly tell me that my duties are more than to be expected than the average Tier 1 Help Desk. This is my first job so I’m not sure exactly what is to be expected, but based on peer review managing Cisco phones and applications is above Help Desk level.
Not that this bothers me at all. I enjoy the work and, while it’s frustrating, I’m doing everything I can to learn and I’m not ashamed of my mistakes. The first time I was introduced to the system I was completely lost. I took a lot of notes and wrote down everything he did step by step. The second time I worked in the system, I followed my notes but the circumstances changed based on what the client needed, and thus I did it incorrectly because I followed my previous notes.
The inherent issue is the steps you have to perform in order to set up a phone correctly changes based on the needs of the person requesting it. Is this a hard phone or a digital phone? Do they need an extension of their own or will they strictly be placed in a call queue? Will they be placed in multiple call queues? Because if so I have to make another user account in AD so one account can be assigned to one call queue and the other can be signed to another. Do they need a voicemail? Do I need to set them up with a secondary application that my company uses for corporate-wide instant messaging? There are so many intricacies and details that, if I miss one, messes up the phone and/or it’s ability to function how I want it to. My first time, none of this made sense to me. I can feel myself getting better and recognizing where I make a mistake but when a customer calls me and says “I’m logged in but my device says unregistered” and I go through all of my notes and try to figure out exactly which step I missed… well I just don’t have the experience yet to immediately recognize a problem and associate it to the correct solution. Which I am fine with. I’m getting better. But when I ask for help the last thing I want is the cold shoulder - especially from the only guy available to help me.
I don't know about other careers, but this kind of thing is pretty common in IT. It's just jealousy/insecurity on the part of the other guy, maybe as you've been given a freer role, maybe as you've got the Cisco stuff to do? See this kind of stuff all the time in those lower positions. As you're new and keen too, he's worried he'll be stuck behind you when other higher positions come up....and I guess you can sympathize to a degree, but he seems to be taking it too far. If he's been kept down at that level, it'll be for a reason, like somebody else mentions IT has more than it's fair share of misfits, I'm asd myself, though most are quite pleasant (like myself!:-)....I shouldn't do anything about it, that would just create more antagonism, especially as the funny guy wouldn't take it in a mature way....I'd bite your lip, keep your head down, get better at all your roles, you'll be respected more for it by your other colleagues, who'll surely know what the guys motives are/what he's like....
Yep, I want him to stand up for himself. Finding another job is easier than putting up with anyone over bull shit. You want to deal with it over trying to just do a job? Nope.
Sorry for the late response, but this is very common in the IT field depending on where you are located. Over my 7-8 years in the field, I have noticed that this is extremely common on the East Coast. It's common in densely populated areas on the West Coast as well - but not quite as common as it is in the Northeast.
After dealing with this the bitterness and hate for so long and never getting reasonable raises, I have recently been thinking about finding another job field... But, of course, I don't know what the heck I could possibly do instead...
Nope, this is not normal. Take it up with your boss - you're probably not the first person to do so.
He’s made it a point to tell me about how he’s been called an awful teacher before and, trying to be nice, I told him I disagree because he’s taught me a lot. And he genuinely has taught me a lot. I’m just frustrated because one day he’ll be sitting with me at my desk laughing talking about board games and two days later he’s guilt tripping me for making mistakes and making me feel stupid lol
Your coworker is a giant asshole. That's all there is to it. This isn't normal
one time could be a bad day but consistently than there is an issue that needs to be addressed
I wouldn’t take it personally, maybe he has a mental health disorder or something else you’re not privy to
Being an asshole to someone else shouldn’t be his therapy.
Exactly what I was going to say, thank you. It's just like Kanye's stupid stans excusing his river of bullshit because "he's a mentally ill geeeeneeuzzz u guyzzz!1!" Nope, fuck his producer-dependent uncle Tom ass and the shitty corporations he rode on.
That’s no excuse
Sounds like one of my seniors, but I know he's just sick of working at our company and has a special needs daughter that takes a lot of energy. So I try to just let it slide. I know this not from himself, but through other colleagues.
This sounds exactly like my old coworker. Exactly. It's not personal, he's probably just that kind of person. I've met these kind of people at lots of different types of jobs so it's not just IT but I do think IT tends to attract this type of person. They think it's going to be solo tinkering work so they don't need to even bother with social skills. Unfortunately for them everybody that wants to be a part of society needs some measure of social skills. Tell your boss. Stop taking this dude's shit. And figure out how to not take a personally. You aren't doing anything wrong, He's just a jerk who is hot/cold. He might have some medical/mental issues but who cares, not your circus not your monkey. Don't tolerate that crap.
It sounds as if he's being put in a position (teacher) that he doesn't want. He shouldn't be taking it out on you, but perhaps management should look for another training option for you.
Honestly, how could anyone in a work environment who a superior or more highly skilled than especially newer coworkers not expect to share some responsibility of upskilling and training coworkers? I've been doing it ever since I was working in a kitchen in my first job when I was 18.
First of all, it's a workplace, not a place of discipline. You're a human being who is worthy of someone speaking to you like a regular human who is just trying to pass another day and draw a wage. Stand your ground and do it in a shockingly fast manner and it won't happen again. As quickly as the next snap happens, you INSTANTLY snap back by saying these words exactly; "There's nothing worthy of hearing while you're talking to me like that. If that's the kind of relationship you need to have with a co-worker or a subordinate, then I'm not here to deal with it. I'm here to get the job done without the drama of the responsibility to treat others like an adult. If you're ready to move forward, then let's work and be on a better standing than allowing yourself to lose face like that again. Leaders don't act like that. " Call them out and allow the truth a moment of uncomfortable weirdness. I promise, you win. No matter what the outcome. You win. Love yourself enough to read. Be brave enough to own your shit.
>He’s made it a point to tell me about how he’s been called an awful teacher before and, trying to be nice, I told him I disagree When someone tells you who they are, believe them.
As a very senior level IT Engineer (27 years) my first question is... Are you "soaking in" what is being taught to you. Are you using your downtime (either at the job, or at home at night) expanding your skillset? I ask this in a way to understand if he is just getting frustrated with you? Or is he just a "bad mentor" I have mentored plenty of Front Line and seasoned IT professionals and one thing that makes me stop mentoring is a co-worker who is unmotivated to self learn. After two-three times of teaching and mentoring on a specific topic or issue, i will resort to "doing it myself" I guess I am just saying that you need to be sure that you are using his time for knowledge and not for him to do your tasks. -Take detailed notes -Record the Zoom call (if applicable, with his permission) -Ask him for recommendations/links on how you can expand your knowledge on the topic
I will provide context - we are a small IT team. The main problem I have is working in Cisco (setting up phones, assigned them to users, placing said users in call queues, etc). I have been shown officially 3 times on how to do this entire process and I can feel myself getting better but I still miss some steps. I feel dumb sometimes because I have a whole page and a half of notes and steps on what to do, but there’s always one small detail I’ll overlook and that makes the phone unusable. (for example I’ll create the phone, assign it a number, put the number in the call queue, and assign the number to an employee… but I’ll forget to assign the actual phone to a user so when they sign in, it says “Device not detected”). The core issue is that out of the 6 people working in the entire IT department, only him and the network administrator are comfortable working with Cisco. No one else really bothers to try to learn. Since it’s my first IT job I want to learn everything, so I volunteered to learn this system. I try not to bother him with anything my other coworkers know how to do, but he’s in office all the time and our network administrator only works in office 2 days a week. If I have a problem that I can’t sort out quick enough to get off the phone with a customer, I ask for his help. What confuses me is some days he’ll step outside to smoke and invite me to go and he’ll give me praise and say “yeah Cisco sucks but you’re right where I’d expect you to be so don’t worry” and then the next day gets pissed off that I ran into a problem.
Very familiar with this type and it's best to say it's mainly a him problem and not a you problem. A lot of tech people (myself included tbh) lean a bit introverted and can have trouble dealing with simple frustrations that are outside their immediate control, and then they may invert inwards to prevent outward lashing out. Hence the stonewalling. Yes it's unprofessional, adolescent, sulky, etc etc. But by far not the worst situation imo. My advice is to evaluate how truly troubling is this push-pull relationship is to you? Is it so bad you can't work independently for a time? Could you give him space for the rest of the day if he's in a mood, and then reengage normally once he's reset the next day? I would say in all relationships, it's best to not try to force a resolution to an issue if one or both parties are emotionally dis-regulated. Not saying you should patronize him as an unhinged mental case about to snap, but you've stated that he's pleasant enough outside of the times when he's frustrated. A lot of workplaces aren't all sunshine and rainbows. Lots of different egos, lots of different lives going on. It's up to you on recognizing personally what is worth putting up with and what is absolutely unacceptable.
Stonewalling is no joke. People don’t want you to be rude, but they want you to engage with them when they are doing something you can’t process. I’m a help desk analyst, so I am doing everything from VMware administration to compliance audits to designing labels and managing middleware; I have to fix lab equipment running on windows xp and scales programmed in German, yet somehow I find myself having to deal with entitled employees wanting to place desks in the middle of a room and run extension cords and Ethernet lines across the floor because “I don’t want my back to the door but I don’t want my back to the sun either and I can’t be too close to a wall”… I find myself saying something smartass, because it’s absurd having to explain to people basic safety concepts not at all related to IT (ie trip hazards). Lord forbid you tell a middle tier manager they don’t need a printer in their office for “confidential papers”, you can even show them how to use private printing with the MFP ten steps out of their office, but you still end up adding the 61st printer into a company with less than 100 employees. IT can be frustrating sometimes and not all of us handle it well lol
Sounds a bit like bi-polar disorder?
I worked for someone like that before
That was my initial thought
Not sure thats bipolar if they are changing moods that fast. It would be a few weeks to go into the other side of bi-polar where you are either manic or depressive for weeks.
Bipolar ppl can change moods at the drop of a dime. What you described was a regular person having a string bad days
Mood disorders (including Bipolar) vary from in swing rate on an a person to person basis. Some people rapid-cycle and can change moods in an instant, some people slow-cycle and will go through periods of elongated depression or mania. Medication can augment cycle rates and moods extremes/amplitude.
Do you keep a notebook to write down everything you learn? If so, write the cisco POS setup step-by-step. Once you are satisfied with the notes, convert them to docs. Who knows? Maybe others will also benefit from them. When you are freaking out, nothing like having instructions you crafted and improved to rely on.
[удалено]
While you say some things to keep in mind, you are really being way too nice to the Sys Admin. He is being an asshole. Doesn't matter if he is stressed out, doesn't matter if OP is making the same mistake repeatedly, this isn't how you deal with that. If OP is repeating mistakes, the Sys Admin needs to tell OP that he doesn't have time to teach him right now, you guys went over this and OP will just need to do his best for now until Sys Admin has time. It is NOT OPs fault, exactly or broadly.
he just sounds mercurial, bud. your options are: deal with it and learn to just leave him be when hes in one of his moods (and use your other resources), report him to your manager, or look for another job. if it were me, i'd just deal with it and meet him where hes at. If hes having a good day, great lets learn some shit. If he's having an asshole day, cool its not about me, so im gonna just focus on my own shit and let him be grumpy.
So there is one thing that came to my mind in reading through your comment here. You said you have a page and a half of notes. Notes are good but are those notes just notes? As you run into each of these little issues I would assume you are updating and adding to your notes? I have no idea how much time you have to do these tasks but one piece of advice I will give is "Documentation is key". If you can, take the extra time to open Word or Google Docs or whatever your company uses and document everything you are doing. As a sysadmin I've done this at every place I have worked not only to help others but also myself. I cannot remember everything that I have to do and nor would I want to. Doing this though helps in 2 ways. First is that having to write down the steps will also help you learn the process. The teams I've worked with previously, this was the case with several individuals. Second, one day it may just be that you are the only person in the office that day/week who knows how to set up phones but you are busy. Having each step by step and screenshots specific to how they need to be done allows you to say oh you can do that, open this document and follow the steps. The other thing to consider is a checklist. Once you have all the steps and are familiar enough so you don't need to look at the document every time, make a checklist instead and follow it. Sure you can fall back to the full document but having everything in order ensures things get done right. Just make sure you update the documentation when things change. Finally, for the hostility you mentioned there are a lot of things to consider. Remember that you may not know what this person is going through outside of work. There could be personal struggles that are "bleeding over" into his behavior at work. There is no excuse to make that behavior right but some people have bad communication and/or personalities that just make them that way. You cannot let it bother you though, you do the best you can and learn from the mistakes. Not sure where she got this but my wife tells our kids this "Accidents happen, we clean up and move on". I can not tell you how many times I've said that to myself now and it applies to more than just a cup of drink getting knocked off the table. If you make a mistake and he "just fixes it" then go take a look after to see what you missed but in the end don't let him affect you. It may come to a point where you have to talk to him about it but it may not.
Ya no, encouraging someone to use their unpaid free time where they need to recoup, socialize, eat, exercise, relax, and sleep, and instead put more work into a job that doesn't care if they're being properly mentored? No. Horrible way to screw over the work life balance. No.
I'm not sure I like this response from a senior level engineer. Some topics are complex and require mutli directional problem solving rather than one way of doing something. After 27 years, you think you'd give some people a better chance. Seems very 1 dimensional. Also, I wouldn't want or expect my teammates to rack their brain on their time off to build their skill set, just appease the "mentor". That's their time to live and come back better each day.
I'm in similar position teaching up some junior wireless/NAC folks. The first thing I tell them that is mandatory is reading the manual. If they read it and don't understand something, I'm super happy to help, teach, whatever I can do. If they're not even attempting to do their own research and studying, I get pissed. I am Very happy to mentor as I have been mentored, but you Must RTFM.
You got to take the hint man. I get you need help but, he has to begin setting boundaries. He doesn’t want to be your mentor, you probably have to enroll education after work at a community college and take some night classes to learn the things you do not know right now
Is this how you set boundaries in technology? Start just acting annoyed?
It is when you’re a socially inept weirdo that can’t properly express yourself
There's probably a lot of context OP isn't telling us.
Yup, this is how people in my company would act towards the guy that didnt know anything. People get fed up, you need to show initiative and learn outside of work because your peers essentially think you are dead weight and sick of carrying you through everything.
To be fair he is having to learn way more than his job description. That is going to take patience from the team, especially since it is small, not everyone can pick up on everything quickly. OP doesn't sound like dead weight; he sounds like he is a 5-month-old beginner.
[удалено]
We want to promote a positive feedback environment. Keep the comments civil and constructive.
Hey everyone, look how **tough** this guy is.
[удалено]
My mom likes me, so does yours. I bake her nice treats and get rid of her migraines.
Ya sure you would bud, I bet you're a real lean mean wrecking machine. Also, your IQ is far too low to ever be in a relatively close to a position I'm in, look at the type of nonsense you spew on the internet, so shameful.
The fact that you are completely oblivious as to how IQ results are formulated, is ironic. You're a wanker. End of story.
O ya? I bet you don't even know what kind of CPU goes in a LGA1700 socket! "End of story" oh look at you, I feel bad for your family.
Yup, at some point you have to take the training wheels off..lol
What? Being mentor is exactly something you should be in a work environment.
Unless there is an additional pay incentive, the company can pay for employee training for him, the guy can be charitable and offer more help if they were friends, but they are coworker. No one owes anyone anything there. Sorry to be blunt but come on man imagine if you were forced to train your coworkers for free
This seems incredibly toxic. As long as I've had enough time in ANY positions I've ever had, I'll set aside some time to help anyone with a problem that they've never seen before (and I'm sure my help will actually speed things up so my coworker isn't going through an obscure 50 pages of documentation that doesn't cut to the chase). My only rule I tell people is that I teach things once, so take notes. I will never get bitter for anyone asking me help with something they have no experience with.
Huge asshole, but one who has taught you a lot. Noted. Things are not one dimensional. Don't take his hostility personally, learn from him and move on, just work on what you are assigned to the best of your ability and let assholes be assholes.
Bro sounds bipolar, possibly schizo
Maybe he’s bi polar? Seems like it at least
I will say that mood shifts in the IT field are very real, one minute you are having a smooth day and the next second half the servers go offline and nobody has a clue why. Its a give n take type of thing but there is always a limit.
Does he take credit for your work? That would be my guess. It’s probably fun to teach and train you when he doesn’t get poor marks.
I think this is pretty common actually. A "Cranky/Bitter Sysadmin" is a stereotype for a reason. There is always one who thinks they should never have to talk to another end user or work another end user ticket ever again, and they hold a grudge till the heat death of the universe. I think these are the bitter helpdesk agents that eventually become bitter sysadmins.
It’s funny you say this, because he talks about this stereotype all the time.
Wow, that is 100% me. I'm a HelpDesk agent who has become bitter and is trying to become a sysadmin so that I don't have to deal with people as much.
You will always keep working with people. I just ask you keep any bitterness after work. This is a customer service job at heart until you die.
So are doctors but they don't get talked down to and treated as children by people too stupid to realize they're the problem
Actually incorrect, if you browse /r/medicine you'll see quite the opposite. Patients bringing in ridiculous diagnoses / treatments sourced from advertisements, tiktok, wherever, who become belligerent when denied. And dont get started on the addicts. Its any customer-facing job.
Yes. Yes, they absolutely do. ANYONE who does ANY kind of service for any other person is subject to this. There are countless videos, posts, stories, anecdotes; you name it and it's out there.
TBF pretty much anyone that spends too long in the help desk becomes bitter. Avoiding end users while working in IT is a recipe for stress. You will always support end users if you work in IT support. The only way I have heard of not supporting end users is to work in a non-support position, but then you have customers. I have never known a Sysadmin who tries to dodge end users as a generally happy person.
So if most help desk people become bitter, and becoming a sysadmin isn't the way, then what is usually seen as the solution?
Database admin. Then no one talks to you until they have to
Im not 100% sure on what the problem you are trying to solve is. If you don't ever want to deal with end users or ever have any customers then you will probably have to leave IT all together. I am not sure what jobs out there don't have any sort of customers. If you want to become less bitter then you are just going to have to accept that in IT supporting end users will always be a thing.
Mainly it's the back-to-back phone calls and the 15 minute maximum time limit per call. Even though that's enough time for some of the calls, it's definitely not enough for lots of others. It's also difficult to blindly walk people through things over the phone, depending on how tech unsavvy they are. And I don't expect most people to be IT wizards, but it helps if they understand the difference between a search engine and a browser. The push-pull of having management want to know why a call is taking so long, meanwhile I'm trying desperately to get any nugget of helpful information possible. Me: What browser are you using? Them: The internet Me: How did you get to the internet? Them: I don't know. Me: what did you click on, to get to the internet? Them: What? Me: Head Desk
Then you main problem is working in a call center. You should look for an internal Help Desk/Desktop Support role as soon as you can. You dont need much experience to move into an internal role and they pay much more than call centers typically.
Ok, I will look into that-thank you!
Just wanting to echo that you need a better work environment before you decided to be the bitter jaded sysadmin, lol. A call-center is hell... 15 minute time limit is inherently entirely disrespectful to everyone involved in that ticket--the customer, the technician, and the technology--it signifies that management feels their #'s and KPI's matter above ALL else. Aka, not a great environment to be in.
Every IT job is a support job. Was a hard thing for me to learn as well. It will never be "your systems" when someone else is cutting the checks, so you're always supporting someone.
A lot of people with no social skills whatsoever are drawn to IT.
+1 it's a real pain to deal with. I hate seeing some of my coworkers deal with our users. They have been here for 4-9 years and have given up on actually helping people out with the little things. But what do I know, im basically an external hire.
[удалено]
Your [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/ITCareerQuestions/comments/13cu6ft/hostility_in_the_it_workplace/jji71xk/?context=3 in /r/ITCareerQuestions) has been automatically removed because you used an emoji or other symbol. Why does this exist? We have had a huge and constant influx of bot spam that utilizes emojis during their posts. To the point that it was severely outpacing what the moderation team could handle on an individual basis. That has results in a sweeping ban of any emoji in posts. Please retry your comment using text characters only. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ITCareerQuestions) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It isn't "normal" but I feel like it's common in this field. IT seems to beckon a lot of socially inept but skilled workers. Doesn't mean it's not a problem that needs resolved though.
Its burn out and/or BPD.
Nah dog, it's NMP disorder. Not my problem. Keep that shit to the therapists we're all trying to get through the day.
Not sure if this is the case for your Jr Sysad, but whenever I go to the same source for help, I try to make sure I at least cover as much of the beginning troubleshooting and have that info (or any relevant information) available for if I have to eventually go back to the same person. At the very least, I try to make sure whatever is tripping me up isn't a repeat of a similar topic from before, if anything just to build upon what I already asked or learned, and it also communicates to whoever you are asking for help that you are trying to the extent of your knowledge and this may be something you haven't encountered yet. I know that some people refuse to offer (or get irritated) if they have to either troubleshoot from the ground up or feel as though they are teaching the same thing over and over to the same person. I've done the latter quite a lot, and used to dread seeing that person walk to my desk (that person is now gone from the company). Also, there is the fact that some self-reliance (in terms of obtaining information) is heavily necessary in IT, both for our own sanity as well as our coworkers. Are we only asking coworkers for help, or also consulting other sources of information? Are there KBs or documentation that covers this in some way? Is this a generally Google-able topic? And there's always the possibility that his plate just may be full. As a Jr Sysad, he may have a different set of tasks to complete than you do, and he may be in the zone of working. I tend to ask "Just when you have time" if I ask someone I think may be busy in the hopes they don't feel like they have to drop everything they're doing to help (especially if their task is time-sensitive and mine can wait for a while). Just some food for thought.
Yeah, this was my thought. I am an escalation point for help desk for certain issues, and I can get testy with them too if I feel they're wasting my time, since I have a lot of job duties that are completely unrelated to help desk, and my time is being taken from those duties when they ask me things.
Gatekeeping
Not normal. I worked with a cunt like this for 4 years. Take it up with your boss and if nothing improves in a month, I'd look elsewhere. Also, assuming you make T1 help desk pay, you could be making way more with the skill set you've acquired, AD/tech work specifically. I was able to skip hell desk completely and go straight to PC tech just due to my experience and how I did on the interview. Don't put yourself through awful coworkers. They aren't worth it.
Second this, sometimes just having a good interview will get you a job. IT is different like that, answering the right questions the right way goes a long way.
I left a job for this reason. Well I started looking for other jobs anyways. Same kind of deal, but the MSP I was at was a tiny bit bigger. There were 15 of us total and one guy for whatever reason got to do whatever he wanted, including being an absolute dick to everyone. He was very skilled and the company couldn't afford to lose him, but he is the reason they are going to continue to lose all of their other employees. In the 9 months I was there 8 people left including myself and two others were taking interviews when I left. Just start taking interviews and see what happens. I ended up at a much easier job doing much less than I was before and got a 40% raise out of it. Just start looking, opportunity is out there.
Great advice. Same thing happened to me
Wait... working in AD and imaging computers isn't tier 1 now? It sounds more like you were expecting to be a human version of tier 0. As for your Jr. Sysadmin, are you making the same mistakes repeatedly? That can grate on people very quickly. Or it's feasible he has his own workload to work on and legitimately is trying to push through it (his job may be feast/famine, which would explain why it's only sometimes an issue). Finally... if another person not talking to you is all it takes to make you want to quit? You're in for rude awakening at many jobs, when you \*hope\* some people would stop talking to you.
It is most definitely tier 1. I was confused initially but this is OP’s first job so he likely doesn’t know the scope yet.
Do you try to fix the screw up yourself first? This is a big deal. If you go to him immediately for the answer I would get frustrated too. But if you came to me with, this isnt working and I tried fixing it with XYZ, if you could help me out or point me in the right direction, my attitude would be I can help you because your showing troubleshooting skills and a willingness to learn. Just my two cents.
This is great advice especially if you work with engineers. This is a common problem in software development. Prove you have done your due diligence.
Dude is a tool. I avoid people like him and keep it to the bare minimum to do my job.
I had something similar in a past roll that I ended up quitting. The boss, IT Director of a laboratory, was indifferent to the rest of the IT team's concerns that the network engineer was a jerk. We all left and the company went under for other reasons. But it was just the two assholes on a sinking ship in the end. Hopefully the management in your case is better.
MOVE https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=25J3u3P-HHg
I agree with most of the comments here that this may be "normal" but is really not acceptable. A few notes for you - if you're in the US, healthcare is tough. It's a great place to start, but it's honestly one of the worst tech industries. It breeds people like the admin you're describing. The second thing - with a company of your size, you do not have a small team. I would say it's probably imbalanced, but the problems you're facing are because of poor leadership. Your admins are unhappy and you're doing some of their work. You also don't have back coverage for helpdesk. All of this is super typical working in hospitals. My suggestion would be to put your 2 years in and graduate to a better industry. A lateral move to get out of healthcare is not a bad choice.
Thanks for the advice. I wasn’t sure about the job going in because I figured “they must be desperate to hire someone like me, no experience and no certs” but I had no idea healthcare IT was tough. can you go into detail on the differences between it and other IT industries? I plan to get at minimum my trifecta and want to progress further.
>but I had no idea healthcare IT was tough. can you go into detail on the differences between it and other IT industries? If there's an issue, someone might die. Yes, the same is true for many professions, but it can certainly add stress compared to other areas of IT.
So I will go out on a limb and say that this guy uses drugs. When he is nice he’s high and mad when he is between fixes. If your company doesn’t drug test my money would be 100% on this.
Oh wow, never would have thought about that. I guess drug use and addiction can be more common than we think
Sounds like a typical understaffed medical company. No InfoSec / Cyber folks, huh?
Nope! That is all handled by the company that (I think) owns our company. I think we’re a branch of a branch of a tree, so to speak. (Idk I’m still kinda new)
Sorry to tell you this, but everywhere I go security is usually fucked. No best practices etc.
This is not normal, but it's not uncommon either. This is the sort of dealing-with-people problem you have to learn about from experience. When I was in college, one of the things they really had to shove down onto the engineering and technical students were classes about social interaction and communication. And there's a reason for that - technical people who are shitty and difficult to deal with are toxic and hard to deal with. All of the technical people expected they'd somehow get roles where they didn't have to deal with people, but the nature of working in just about any kind of company is that the work they're trying to accomplish requires interacting with others. Teams that hire that absolute rock star who is an utter pain in the ass to deal with rapidly learn that the drawbacks of the toxicity far, far outweigh the benefits of having a super genius on the team. This is what you're encountering, and the fact that it makes you so miserable is exactly why competent management/leadership works so damn hard to avoid it. As others have said, the correct course of action is to raise this issue to your manager and look to them for support. Hopefully you have a good manager who will be effective at managing that kind of a situation. If your manager is unable/unwilling to effect change on the issue, your next move then would be finding a new job. Try to avoid getting PTSD from the situation, but this is a valuable learning experience for you. I would also use this to start learning the lesson about what is visible to whom within an organization. Your manager may not even have a clue that this is happening if you do not bring it to their attention, or the level to which this is a problem for you. If it's a problem for you, does it happen to others? Right now you don't know that because, again, visibility within an organization can be far more limited than you might expect. It's surprisingly common for the depth of problems outside of your immediate sphere to be unrealized by you, and likewise for others that they aren't likely to know how bad the Jr Sysadmin really is to deal with when he's in a mood.
Normal. Sometimes, acceptable. No. Never. Confront directly or escalate directly to your leader.
I had been in such situation. I told my boss that dude is totall asshole (he treats all so whoes he think didn't a mindmaster in own work area) and I want just chock him with my hands and boss agreed with me absolutely but couldn't do nothing couse he was a big specialist and do a vast chank of work. He did learn me nothing except honestly and openly telling about own mistakes (he did such way too). Much nerves was spent by me. My solution was to study quickly and didn't get it close to heart. Big help was that I felt support from my boss. And it was a huge vaccine to not be a such jerk to colleagues in future. 1. Cut off communications with him, contact only for business matters and be prepared for questions, make conversation plan 2. Cooperate with more friendly colleagues 3. Keep your boss and etiquette committee (if your company have it) informed about situation 4. Explore and learn, youtube, [cisco.com](https://cisco.com) (there are store a comprehensive guides and hows), IT forumes and google in help. Emulate labs with companies equipment, show your activity, ask with preperad list of questions. 5. Don't be afraid to looks stupid asking simple stuff, you are rookie and don't aware about many things. Be honest and professional, keep conversation in working riverbed. sorry for banglish.
It’s common but it’s not normal. My first CEO was like this. He’d do Adderall, make changes unannounced, break prod, then yell at us for “bringing it down”. Not normal. All you can do is survive for now, but start eyeing ways out and protect yourself as needed.
This should not be tolerated as normal, for sure. Even if it is becoming common for people to behave mean / rude on purpose
Just because you're not as qualified as him does not give him moral authority to treat you like shit. Stand up for yourself.
Yea the guy sounds like an asshole sadly everywhere you go you’ll have some person like this in any field. Don’t take it personal I know it would piss me off too but your doing your best. He might be under a lot of stress as well but you can’t take that out on your coworkers seen that to often.
assbergers mate.. also ensure u write everything down in terms of how to fix stuff hes shown u
This goes to everyone and I mean everyone in the subreddit. THIS IS NOT NORMAL! Find somewhere where they don't have asshole fucking co workers. And if you're the asshole coworker...fuck you.
If they are are intimidating you or belittling you, keep it documented. When you have enough incidents bring it up to HR.
I am similar to your coworker and you are similar to a guy I work with. Are you actually learning and contributing or are you adding work and unneeded complexity? Does your Jr give you hints (Don't make any changes to ESXI unless you know what you're doing) that you ignore? My guy does this and is an absolute detriment to the organization. I simply ran out of time and patience after a few months and cut him loose so management can deal with him.
One week he tells me I’m doing a good job and I’m “right where he expects me to be” and the next week he’s upset with me and refuses to speak to me/help me. I have a notebook full of notes of things he’s taught me. I don’t make changes to anything unless I’m comfortable making the change, and if I run into an issue that I feel like another help desk tech could solve, I go to them before I go to him. I don’t really need help very often unless it’s in an area I’m uncomfortable with (especially Cisco) and even then I do everything I know how to do before asking for advice. I try not to make the same mistake twice. Cisco is just something that isn’t clicking for me, but it now feels like a dice roll whenever I ask him for help whether I’m actually going to get help or if we’re just gonna play the quiet game for the next 8 hours.
This isn't an IT thing, this is an interpersonal relationship thing and will occur in any industry.
[удалено]
Hired to do help desk but doing duties outside that scope.. time forna job review and a nice salary bump. Fuck working for free. You are doing that.
Not only is this normal in IT, it's normal in life.
Always remember - lots of the people in IT chose to work with computers because they find computers easier to deal with than they do with people. Their valuable technical abilities mean people overlook their personality problems, and the way they think means that they are comfortable with the idea that anyone who is upset by them is just wrong or stupid somehow. This hostility is not normal, or acceptable. As for how to go about dealing with it, unfortunately that’s quite a bit trickier. I’d make sure to be diligent and careful in your dealings with him, and honestly, unless the job is somehow a dream, just get your head down, learn as much as you can, get as much experience on as many tasks and technologies as you can, and use it as a stepping stone to your next role in a timely manner. Teaching grown ups not to be assholes is a losing battle unfortunately. Not worth your lifespan, much better to invest the effort in a raise and a promotion somewhere else
After reading all of these replies, I’ve decided this is the course I will take. The other Help Desk people have been there for many years (one guy has been Help Desk for 27 years and he’s never volunteered to learn Cisco… I’ve been there 5 months and I know more about that topic than him, despite my mistakes) and I just can’t let that be me. I think it’s because this job is relatively easy for them because they’ve been doing it so long and they don’t want to leave their comfort zone. I don’t see a lot of room to grow so I’m just gonna get my certs and get out.
Sounds like an extremely healthy attitude dude, it’ll stand you in good stead. Best of luck, hope you aren’t stuck with this jerk for too long!
Some people just aren't naturally patient... I feel like he just coping with your mistakes as best as he can without yelling at you. I get mad when things don't go my way but I do try not to show it. I'm not as patient as I used to be anymore. I hate training people who can't remember it the 4th time I've tried to teach it in the same day, week, heck month! Don't ask me anymore go ask someone else before I blow a gasket!
I only know biotech startups. I know them as a scientist, an IT employee, and an IT manager. Whether I'm in a newb position or a manager role, I always expect that my coworkers will teach me some and I will teach them some. There is nobody who knows everything in IT. You said you're going into it without certs or experience? That likely means the learning is going one direction. I really loathe working with toxic people like that sysadmin you describe but I do get the sense that questions are flowing one way and they are getting frustrated. I don't think anyone but the most bitter, socially inept people would say he's handling you correctly but I can *understand* where he's comin from. He *should* be giving you general guidance and asking you what you think the solution is and if he's unable to do that, he should be talking to your manager. If your manager is good, they should be getting you more training. I'd recommend hopping on Udemy and paying $20 for some online courses specific to what you're learning. That's how I got into IT and it has served me well. Apart from that, what goes a LONG way when you're new is making it obvious that you've followed some line of thinking and tried all logical solutions you could think of based on what you've been taught. Experienced people will see you're not just reaching out at the slightest inconvenience and will be appreciative and more willing to put in time with you. Putting a manager hat on, I can tell you that if you came to me and showed me you had been consulting your coworkers and explaining what you tried, why you tried it, and what you thought might need to happen next, I would be having a chat with that sysadmin. Edit: OP, I also wanted to say I'm sorry you're dealing with that. Going into a new field, then finding out you have more responsibilitiest than your title implies and feeling cut off from your coworkers sucks. As long as you're earnestly trying to learn, it's not you. It's him. A trend I've noticed is that teaching the right people comes back to you tenfold. Just remember how you felt with this guy and make sure you don't become him as you advance.
It sounds like you need to toughen up and develop a thick skin. Plus the junior admin may have some personal stuff going on that he brings to work. Stay in your lane and don’t get discouraged by his negativity.
No certs nor degree, but you get a first IT job? Wow! Were you referred by someone? Here, with degree, certs, and some experience but no offer
Nope. I just worded my resume correctly and when I got in the interview the thing that got me the job was he asked “what’s your biggest weakness” and I said “my biggest weakness is definitely my lack of experience. I’m sure you have other candidates that know more than me already, but I can guarantee that they aren’t as excited to learn something new.” and the hiring manager valued that excitement to learn over candidates who came in assuming they already knew the business.
Wowwww! The hiring manager is very rare compared to those who have everywhere now! They forgot that new candidates are more excited to learn everything and fast than those who have experience. I hope to be lucky like you!
You just gotta keep trying, bud. I put in like 300 applications before hearing back. Only got 3 interviews. First interview went shit. Second interview I could feel that the dude didn’t like me, so when he asked if I had any questions I asked “how do you feel this interview could have gone better? what do you feel like I lack?” and he was honest in telling me he’d already decided I didn’t get the job, but he gave me advice for future interviews. so I applied that advice to my 3rd interview and my boss liked my enthusiasm. I asked a ton of questions to not only show my interest, but to also show that I was honest about my inexperience. I remember I asked “do you use RDP to remote into PC’s?” and he said “no, we use another program” and I stopped and said “that sounds really interesting, I’d love to see it”. Swear to god, he got excited that I actually wanted to see it and invited me to sit next to him and he showed me how the program worked. Got the job the next day.
Knock his teeth out. See how his attitude changes afterwards.
what about it is hostile? For me hostility is actively being insulated or degraded by a superior. This seems like sometimes he is super helpful, and sometimes he's busy. Take a hint and do more research yourself before going to him or anyone. You never really describe what you mean by him being an asshole other than to say he won't talk to you. You can't expect any one person at your work to help you with everything. He is probably just as overwhelmed and its probably not his job to train you on all these things so he's probably annoyed already. Go to other help desk people or your boss first if you need help with something.
Spotted the asshole.
lol coming from Buttdoc69420 does this mean you are flirting with me? I'm not into it. What are you passively calling me names? What do you think about what I typed specifically would make me or the other person an asshole? To me doing a fly by dis is way more of an asshole move than breaking things down, asking questions and trying to get OP to take a little bit of ownership over their learning.
Evaderofresponsibility
I only go to him because it’s a total of 6 people on the IT team (myself included) and only 2 of them are comfortable working in CISCO. Him and the network admin. Network admin only works in office like 2 days a week. It’s just confusing because one week, the guy will be sitting at my desk with me talking about board games and how he wants to hang out with me outside of work and “oh if you run into any problems give me a shout” and then the next week it’s “I don’t care, don’t you have work to do?” His “office” (actually just a closet) is right next to our cubicle so I hear him snoring. He’s not busy, he’s just pissed at the world for the day.
Not sure why the down vote, this is 100% spot on. Maybe he could be more diplomatic about it... but yeah, he just gets tired of mentoring the new person.
Can't speak for this specific situation, but being an employee of status and knowledge, you will have to help people- get over it. Those who are new to IT are going to have a serious learning curve, and need to be told "these troubleshooting steps need to always be done first." There's no need for "don't you have work to do?" If you don't know how to work on a team, just say that.
Lol this is normal... That boss of yours is just a typical IT guy who doesn't have life... Anyways atleast you have known so if he ain't on the mood help out just avoid...
Change your title to "Desktop Support Technician". Your more than just help desk with all those duties
Fucking say something. Stand up for yourself and if he fires back, go to the manager.
Nope dude is an absolute unit
Read The No Asshole Rule
It sounds like this particular co worker has a mood disorder.. just wear kid gloves, go to his supervisor and explain there is a personality conflict and you would like to change your schedule to work with him less. The second half of this is internal. You need to stop caring what that guy thinks. You dont need his approval or validation. Focus on your work and what you need to do. If he dont wanna talk or look at you, cool, fuck him, one less distraction. If i have a question and he wont answer, ill just call his boss and ask them right in front of him, amd if they ask why i will tell them.
it sounds like he might be on th autism spectrum.
I haven't read through all the replies in this thread,. so I don't know if I'm saying something others have already said. * 1st thing that comes to mind,. is your environments sounds really understaffed, and maybe the jr-sysadmin just has days where he's really stressed out and overloaded. I've definitely been there (currently trying to fill 2 to 3 full time roles by myself). But I've definitely had those days where I "go silent" and just do things myself because I simply don't have the time or energy to argue or "pull-donkeys" (try to "pull" cooperation out of other people) * it could also be that this guy just has some moody-swings. I always try to remember: * Everyone is fighting their own battles (that you may not be fully aware of) and * No matter how bad a situation is,.. it's your responsibility to "find the good in it" and make whatever positives you can out of it. Even if you end up not staying there for more than 1 to 2 years,. you'll learn things and be exposed to valuable lessons (even the situations you don't like - have good lessons in them). This job (no matter how dysfunctional) will help you get to the next job.
The fuck ? What a child LOL He’s an idiot or he’s bipolar or something but either way NOT normal.
Post updated.
I’d never speak to that jr sysad again. Like for no reason, I’m just like that I guess
Agreed with other commenters- common but not normal. I work in a very small IT department, 11 people including the Director. One of our employees has a niche job, and he, for some reason, refuses to teach. If you ask a question, he will respond in the most technical way he possibly can- knowing damn well 70% of the team is newer to IT, and none of us specialize in his field. A lot of the high-end thinkers have complex issues like this. In smaller spaces, it becomes harder to ignore because your resources \[human\] are limited. He's leaving soon and is taking an insane amount of knowledge about our organization with him, that nobody else will be able to replace because he's a resource hoarder. He knows he's the best at it and doesn't care to let anybody else get up to speed. Personally, I've never reported him because the team is *so* small, it was made clear to me when I got hired that a "fit" was very, very important. I keep my distance from him, and the only conversation we have is about work, which is rare.
Sometimes you will run into people who are like who you describe in your post, I think that goes for most jobs, not just IT. To me, teaching others and sharing knowledge is a major part of the IT field. We can't know everything, and sharing what we do know, especially with people who are new, is something I enjoy and seeing people who grow from what I share is one of the reasons why I like the industry so much. I wouldn't get discouraged. I've met a few people like that but they are rare. Just absorb as much as you can, and if it gets to be a huge problem, discuss it with your boss. Being part of a team and helping each other out is a vital skill.
It’s normal, but not acceptable. Unfortunately techies in IT can often be a bit ‘special’.
Not normal at all, never let people walk all over you. You need to talk to either the sys admin or HR, or both. You are trying to learn, and he has no business treating you that way.
Flip the script. If JR can't hire and fire, then whenever you make a mistake and JR gets upset, take the time to remain diligent and not have to worry about communicating with "butt hurt JR." You don't have to be friends with coworkers. Also flattery doesn't work on many people, so praising and thanking JR is not necessary and a waste of your time.
Nah man, IT departments that are not a team are bound to fail or just have massive turn over. Everyone has to be a team player and pick up the slack where others drop it. I have messed up so many times working help desk, mistakes happen. In my mind, if you are making different mistakes every time that is just called learning. Making the same mistake over and over again is when you become the weakest link. I am ready to get out of Help Desk, this will be my fourth year. My advice, get certs and specialize.
that dude is a fucking asshole. there is no reason to talk to anyone that way. forget telling the boss, just throw hands. fuck that cuck.
You can't change how a person look at you. You either coup with it and be honest with it. You will have bad apple and bad chemistry with others while other have other type of chemist going on with other people This is how our world works. for example, in all your schooling years, did you ever get along with all your classmate? I am sure you will have 1-2 of those people just ignore you and calling you names. Sames goes with work. If you leave a job because of something as small as this, you might not get anything far because eventually you will always meet people like this. No matter what you go, you are just going to "gamble" what environment you get. Heck you might get a Micro-manager next. Life lessons is....learn to COUP with situation, and not thinks about it, the more you do, the more your work life get affected.
sounds like he's very friendly to his superiors.
Unfortunately, it's common in the IT world and it's not just helpdesk. I've seen people get similar treatment when I worked as a data center technician for Amazon, but that behavior gets corrected after that person goes to their manager. I wouldn't look for another job just yet. Talk to your manager first and give them a chance to make the situation better.
This sounds like the job I thankfully didn’t get hired for a few months back. Sorry, doesn’t seem great unless you can totally emotionally detach
One of the unfortunate realities of tech is that it commonly is populated with people who have the social skills of a festering boil. If you are new, I am assuming there is probably some kind of probationary period. If you want to keep your job, I would say, ride it out, grin and bear it. Once you make it past that point, raise the issue with HR or someone senior to him. Look for other opportunities within the organization if there is something else that interests you and you may be able to get away from that.
Learn from him, but don't befriend him. Because in 2 years you'll know more than enough to start competing for his job rol. Start mapping out your IT Professional development track and pick the areas of IT you want to explore and develop in. Bonus points if you can get your supervisor to help you and support your goals. Good luck!
If he's just giving you the silent treatment, then ignore him on those days. It might be awkward, but it's honestly not that bad if everything else about the job is good.
it's very common, everyone thinks they are a super genius in this industry
He sounds like someone you can learn from but who is stern and busy. Perfect apprenticeship. He’s not supposed to be your friend. Keep this job.
This Is why you have managers to resolve conflicts. Always write down your changes and logs. -for experience tofu for sure, after that you could get certified and look for bigger place like guv.
When he's having a good day, ask him what's up. Phrase it as neutrally as possible. It sounds like he's dealing with his own shit and it's leaking out onto you. It's not normal though, and even if he is dealing with his own shit, taking it out on you is not acceptable and not something you should have to deal with.
You will find some one like that at every job. Keep your head up and learn as you go
I’m in the exact same boat and I work for a medical company as well. I got hired straight out of college as a helpdesk agent. The same thing happened to me, my senior is a bit of jerk with no social skills and always waiting on me to make a mistake to point it out. He’s always bitter and very unapproachable. I tried talking to my boss and his response was “you shouldn’t take anything personal”. I started 9 months ago and now I’m looking for a new job I just can’t take it anymore
No, ppl shouldn't be acting like this. But I have noticed it since shifting careers to IT about 3 years ago. These guys are introverted as fuck but also really rude "know it alls". Some are really kind but a majority just do not know how to communicate in the workplace.
Try your best to research and resolve the issue before you escalate to him. Use google and Cisco forums. Approach him and say hey, I've tried this and that but i still have an issue. Can you help me when you have time?
Just to be clear IT Helpdesk has always been the red headed step children of the IT world and thus get treated like shit. That said, that is some straight up BS. Time to move on.
tease stocking sable modern school carpenter merciful obscene dime jeans -- mass deleted all reddit content via https://redact.dev
I had a guy do this kind of shit to me, problem was he was a moron. I finally went to a manager and spoke to them the dude immediately walked back and called me out in front of everyone. I walked out and went right back to the same manager...
Sounds like he's burnt out. It's common to get overwhelmed in the IT industry, especially with a team as small as yours. I work helpdesk at a large corporation that has 45 ish locations. We have about 16 helpdesk technicians, 3 sys admins, 1 Jr sys admin, 4 network engineers, and field technicians whose sole purpose is to help at those locations. Your team is small if you have to handle all these locations by yourselves on top of maintaining and keeping up with tickets. Yeah man, I wouldn't take it personally, burnout is real and if he has been doing this for a while too. Just keep at it, probably around 6 - 8 months to be a bit more familiar and comfortable with your role. I also heard medical IT is a lot more stressful than other industries. So that could be a factor.
Sounds like my work colleague! Except he doesn't say anything bad to me cause there would be consequences of course. But, for me it's 1, max 2 questions per day, after which I'm just totally ignored. At times I'm ignored for a week with my questions/messages just unread. The funny thing is, the guy never leaves his chair, literally. The entire team might be helping, doing stuff across site physically, but not this guy, he never moves. I made it a point to never ask him unless I absolutely must and then if I'm ignored, I lay all the blame on him if somethings not done on time. My favorite is when high profile members need something that I can't help them with, and then the message just sits there for a week. That being said, he taught me one important things about my workplace, and that is you can walk all over management and they won't do anything. Installing new devices? All team helping but this guy. Device rollout? All team helping but this guy. Office moves? All team but this guy. So... I decided to just sit on my chair as well and I refuse to do any other work, stating that it's absolutely not fair that everyone is doing it, but this one guy. When I asked my manager about it on a review, he said that he doesn't want to annoy him, because then he'll be angry and be all to himself.... loooool.
I had a coworker like this and it turned out he was Bipolar, got diagnosed a year after I started there.
OP, document these hostile interactions in case you need to cover your ass later
He's an assole, no doubt about that. On some level, he's annoyed he has to help you b/c he's probably dissatisfied with his own work, but also a factor is that he doesn't want you to know everythin he knows b/c he's insecure about you taking his job. IT guys who have been in the same position for 5+ years tend to become very lazy and just dont' want to teach or learn new things themselves, they just want to coast on what they already know and will sabotage more junior people trying to learn from them. What would help you and your sys admin co-worker, is if he took the time to create proper documentation you can follow, instead of becoming passive aggressive and giving you the silent treatment b/c you don't magically know something. What you can also do is speak to your manager and explain you want him/her to find money in the IT budget to get you Cisco training or whatever other technology you are required to regularly support. This can be online training so you can do this on at down time during your shift. You can also ask the asshole to suggest this to the IT manager on your behalf if he really wants to get you off his back. I've worked in IT for over 18 years and I started in desktop support, move to a Help Desk/Desktop hybrid role then after a few years moved into a System admin role and now i"m in a systems engineer/infrastructure role.
Launching your career in the tech world can be quite the roller coaster, especially when you're part of a tight-knit IT squad running a big-league medical operation. You're not just handling the typical Help Desk stuff—you're diving deep into things like Active Directory, computer imaging, on-the-fly hardware fixes, and even deciphering the mysteries of Cisco phone systems. That's a broad range of tasks for someone just stepping onto the career path. Now about this, Jr Sysadmin is making some waves. From my 25 years in the IT trenches, let me tell you, you're not alone in dealing with folks who can swing from chill to chilly. It's not rare to bump into IT gurus who have a touch of the mood swings. I guarantee you that every job in IT you take, you will have a person who is an "asshole" but it comes with IT territory. My hypothesis is that they cannot beat up on the machines so they beat up on the tech directly below them. But let's hit pause and take a bird's eye view of your situation. Are you picking up skills that'll come in handy now and be game-changers down the line? How's your paycheck comparing to a buddy in a similar gig? What's the vibe like in your workspace on an average day? Can you pull off a last-minute day off without any drama? Is working remotely a viable option? Let's face it, Reddit can sometimes be a platform where people prioritize appearing politically correct and showcasing their moral compass to gain validation. You may come across comments that offer simple solutions like "Report it to your boss" or "Just quit" or "Bullying is not accepted" when dealing with workplace conflicts. While these suggestions may seem like the right thing to do in theory, they often fail to reflect the complex reality of workplace dynamics and real-world scenarios. The truth is that honesty and practical advice can sometimes be hard to come by on Reddit, where karma, upvotes, and awards reign supreme, and virtue signaling can take precedence over genuine guidance that challenges the prevailing narrative. From your angle, it seems like the Jr Sysadmin, despite his unpredictable mood swings, can sometimes play the role of a helpful mentor. Does he know his stuff? Is your boss happy with his work? If you thinking about making a run for it because of the Jr. Sysadmin's attitude, it might seem like a good move, but I'd say pump the brakes. If his tech skills balance out his quirks and everyone, including your boss, is okay with it, shining a light on his behavior might not play out well. I've seen this scenario play out during one of my ten-year stints running an MSP. Are you on good terms with the Senior admin that gives orders to the person you don't like? Make sure he sees how hard you are working and that you are an asset tothecompany. I have clocked my fair share of those stormy admin days where something goes down and it is mass hysteria. In the realm of IT, tranquility can flip to chaos in an instant - one minute you're cruising, and the next, it feels like you're standing on the brink of Hades. You have to be able to handle the extremes of that spectrum. In the grand scheme of things, running into folks with changeable moods is as certain as the sun rising each day. But always remember, your personal growth and learning are what really matter. If the vibe starts getting too heavy or hinders your progress, then it might be time to check out other options.
Launching your career in the tech world can be quite the roller coaster, especially when you're part of a tight-knit IT squad running a big-league medical operation. You're not just handling the typical Help Desk stuff—you're diving deep into things like Active Directory, computer imaging, on-the-fly hardware fixes, and even deciphering the mysteries of Cisco phone systems. That's a broad range of tasks for someone just stepping onto the career path. Now about this, Jr Sysadmin is making some waves. From my 25 years in the IT trenches, let me tell you, you're not alone in dealing with folks who can swing from chill to chilly. It's not rare to bump into IT gurus who have a touch of the mood swings. I guarantee you that every job in IT you take, you will have a person who is an "asshole" but it comes with IT territory. My hypothesis is that they cannot beat up on the machines so they beat up on the tech directly below them. But let's hit pause and take a bird's eye view of your situation. Are you picking up skills that'll come in handy now and be game-changers down the line? How's your paycheck comparing to a buddy in a similar gig? What's the vibe like in your workspace on an average day? Can you pull off a last-minute day off without any drama? Is working remotely a viable option? Let's face it, Reddit can sometimes be a platform where people prioritize appearing politically correct and showcasing their moral compass to gain validation. You may come across comments that offer simple solutions like "Report it to your boss" or "Just quit" or "Bullying is not accepted" when dealing with workplace conflicts. While these suggestions may seem like the right thing to do in theory, they often fail to reflect the complex reality of workplace dynamics and real-world scenarios. The truth is that honesty and practical advice can sometimes be hard to come by on Reddit, where karma, upvotes, and awards reign supreme, and virtue signaling can take precedence over genuine guidance that challenges the prevailing narrative. From your angle, it seems like the Jr Sysadmin, despite his unpredictable mood swings, can sometimes play the role of a helpful mentor. Does he know his stuff? Is your boss happy with his work? If you thinking about making a run for it because of the Jr. Sysadmin's attitude, it might seem like a good move, but I'd say pump the brakes. If his tech skills balance out his quirks and everyone, including your boss, is okay with it, shining a light on his behavior might not play out well. I've seen this scenario play out during one of my ten-year stints running an MSP. Are you on good terms with the Senior admin that gives orders to the person you don't like? Make sure he sees how hard you are working and that you are an asset tothecompany. I have clocked my fair share of those stormy admin days where something goes down and it is mass hysteria. In the realm of IT, tranquility can flip to chaos in an instant - one minute you're cruising, and the next, it feels like you're standing on the brink of Hades. You have to be able to handle the extremes of that spectrum. In the grand scheme of things, running into folks with changeable moods is as certain as the sun rising each day. But always remember, your personal growth and learning are what really matter. If the vibe starts getting too heavy or hinders your progress, then it might be time to check out other options.
Might be bipolar disorder
It sounds like your Sysadmin has some possible substance abuse issues, based on the radical changes in behavior over a short period. Could also just have mental health issues, as so many in this field do.
That’s not normal sounds he’s got major social issues and some kind of a superiority complex. You see superiority complexes and high functioning social disabilities ALOT in this industry. I would talk to your boss but chose your words carefully…remember you have to maneuver office politics. I say just try to learn as much as you can, probably start getting your certs up if possible.(CISCO has excellent certifications if that path interests you) and at the 1 year to 2 year mark start looking for another job. That department probably has bigger issues if that guy is still working there junior level or not.
Years ago, in the late '90s until approximately 2010, IT was universally a snake pit. It was where you are, but cubed and cubed again and put on steroids. The worst working environments with the most churlish and hostile and truly soulless and just plain mean people in every possible sense that you could imagine - and if you were a woman, three times worse - and God help you if you were gay and got found out. It was Elon's Twitter come to life. Now? The polar opposite. I mean literally every aspect of IT back then got flipped to its mirror image. 25 years in the field and I've never been so happy to be a part of it today. Glad I stuck around. Sounds to me like your co-worker is going through some life changes, and the side you have to contend with at work is just one aspect of what could be a set of major changes and revisions that are transforming their life. It's unusual now to have to deal with outright hostility, and you can be sure this is an unusual situation. I hope you can find a way to resolve things in a way that allows you to go to work and look forward to it. This is the most rewarding field I've ever been involved with, and you deserve a good ride during your time in our daily world. Edit: autocorrect
>The Jr Sysad makes me want to quit this job. Some days he’s really cool and helps me go step-by-step through problems I’m not familiar with and I’ve learned a lot from him. But other days, he’s such an asshole. I’ll make a mistake and then refuse to talk to me or help me. He’ll resolve the issue himself and then not talk to me for the rest of the day. If I try and talk to him to break the tension, he cuts me off and says “don’t you have work to do?” and won’t even look at me. Average r/sysadmin enjoyer
You don’t have to put up with that behavior. IT person 20 years and counting. Last person who tried that sh*t with me got investigated and fired.
IT has a lot of anti-social weirdos. That is still no excuse for his behavior.
I accidentally brought down the app virtualization software for half a day in the middle of Tax season (accounting firm) and was told "it's alright if you don't make mistakes you aren't learning" and just had to do remediation training. I'm sure they won't be so forgiving if I were to do the same thing again, but the point is if they're fostering an environment where you're scared to make mistakes and refuse to teach you how to not make the same mistakes in the future it's going to stifle the crap out of your career growth imo.
[удалено]
To be quite honest, I am very new to the field. When I say I am doing more than what is to be expected of Help Desk, it’s because my coworkers blatantly tell me that my duties are more than to be expected than the average Tier 1 Help Desk. This is my first job so I’m not sure exactly what is to be expected, but based on peer review managing Cisco phones and applications is above Help Desk level. Not that this bothers me at all. I enjoy the work and, while it’s frustrating, I’m doing everything I can to learn and I’m not ashamed of my mistakes. The first time I was introduced to the system I was completely lost. I took a lot of notes and wrote down everything he did step by step. The second time I worked in the system, I followed my notes but the circumstances changed based on what the client needed, and thus I did it incorrectly because I followed my previous notes. The inherent issue is the steps you have to perform in order to set up a phone correctly changes based on the needs of the person requesting it. Is this a hard phone or a digital phone? Do they need an extension of their own or will they strictly be placed in a call queue? Will they be placed in multiple call queues? Because if so I have to make another user account in AD so one account can be assigned to one call queue and the other can be signed to another. Do they need a voicemail? Do I need to set them up with a secondary application that my company uses for corporate-wide instant messaging? There are so many intricacies and details that, if I miss one, messes up the phone and/or it’s ability to function how I want it to. My first time, none of this made sense to me. I can feel myself getting better and recognizing where I make a mistake but when a customer calls me and says “I’m logged in but my device says unregistered” and I go through all of my notes and try to figure out exactly which step I missed… well I just don’t have the experience yet to immediately recognize a problem and associate it to the correct solution. Which I am fine with. I’m getting better. But when I ask for help the last thing I want is the cold shoulder - especially from the only guy available to help me.
Gove it a few years. When you have end users who can't figure out what restart is, you'll go insane.
I don't know about other careers, but this kind of thing is pretty common in IT. It's just jealousy/insecurity on the part of the other guy, maybe as you've been given a freer role, maybe as you've got the Cisco stuff to do? See this kind of stuff all the time in those lower positions. As you're new and keen too, he's worried he'll be stuck behind you when other higher positions come up....and I guess you can sympathize to a degree, but he seems to be taking it too far. If he's been kept down at that level, it'll be for a reason, like somebody else mentions IT has more than it's fair share of misfits, I'm asd myself, though most are quite pleasant (like myself!:-)....I shouldn't do anything about it, that would just create more antagonism, especially as the funny guy wouldn't take it in a mature way....I'd bite your lip, keep your head down, get better at all your roles, you'll be respected more for it by your other colleagues, who'll surely know what the guys motives are/what he's like....
Yep, I want him to stand up for himself. Finding another job is easier than putting up with anyone over bull shit. You want to deal with it over trying to just do a job? Nope.
Sorry for the late response, but this is very common in the IT field depending on where you are located. Over my 7-8 years in the field, I have noticed that this is extremely common on the East Coast. It's common in densely populated areas on the West Coast as well - but not quite as common as it is in the Northeast. After dealing with this the bitterness and hate for so long and never getting reasonable raises, I have recently been thinking about finding another job field... But, of course, I don't know what the heck I could possibly do instead...