Stop! Being! Helpful!

I was working at a tech support job. I was very self-motivated, I like solving problems and I like working with computers. I read any SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) I could get my hands on (which wasn’t too many at that time), and I constantly asked questions to senior techs that had been working there for a while.

After about eighteen months at the job, I was promoted from Tier 1 to Tier 2. When I was a Tier 1, I was the official go-to guy for all Tier 1 techs to get information on how to handle issues that all the Tier 1 techs should know for resolving. I was basically a trainer for Tier 1 techs, helping them learn the easy stuff so it wouldn’t get escalated to Tier 2.

Most Tier 2 techs were fairly new employees, but we had a handful that had been Tier 1 techs longer than I had been working at the company. After a few days as a Tier 2 tech, I started to notice that a lot of Tier 1 techs were constantly struggling with a simple task that they should all know how to do based on escalated tickets I’d been doing. It was a task that would take about two minutes to fix and get the customer off the phone fast, resolving the issue.

While I was the go-to guy for Tier 1 techs, I was also trying to alleviate the unnecessary tickets pushed to Tier 2, and this one simple task was a great learning experience for all the Tier 1 techs to know. This way, the actual harder issues that took a lot more time were only coming to the senior techs so we could keep within our SLAs (Service Level Agreement).

I took the time to write up an SOP about the issue and step-by-step instructions on how to resolve the issue. I emailed out the SOP to all the Tier 1 techs, and I copied the help desk manager. I also flagged all the emails I sent to notify me when the email was read because a lot of Tier 1 techs would glance at emails and then claim they had never gotten any email. This way, they couldn’t say they didn’t get the email.

As the day dragged on, I had my list of Tier 1 techs, and I checked off their names when I got confirmation emails that they had read my email. About two-thirds of Tier 1 had read it as the day wound down and I headed home. I figured by the time I got to work the next day, the other third of the Tier 1 techs would have read the email.

I showed up at work the next day, and I saw that almost all Tier 1 techs had read my email. As I was just about to start my day, the help desk manager wanted to talk to me about the SOP.

Manager: “I saw that SOP you emailed out. I like it, but I wanted to let you know that this isn’t your job, and I don’t want you sending any more mass emails out to your team members. If you have something important to send out, you give it to me first, and I’ll decide if it’s something everyone else needs to know.”

Me: “No one else is creating SOPs for problems or helping other techs out… but if that’s what you want, okay. I won’t send out group emails anymore.”

Manager: “I also see a lot of Tier 1s coming to you. They don’t need to be coming over and bothering you. If they have an issue with a ticket, they can escalate it to Tier 2. I don’t want to see them constantly getting up to talk to you.”

Me: “All right, I’ll let them know.”

Manager: “Thank you. Go ahead and get yourself logged in.”

I had worked with enough crappy managers to know that [Manager] wanted to take credit for work he didn’t do; that’s why he wanted me to send any SOPs I created to him first. He was always looking to take credit for something to look good to upper management. I don’t like people taking credit for my work, but at the same time, I was not looking to stand in the spotlight and hope to get an “Attaboy!” I just genuinely wanted to help my coworkers out so I wouldn’t have to bust my butt picking up their slack; it was a win-win for all the techs on the help desk.

Seeing as how I was shot down, I figured I’d do exactly what my manager asked for.

As the day went on, I had a lot of pissed-off Tier 1 techs because they weren’t getting any help on issues like they usually did when they came to me. They’d approach me to ask me questions, and I’d tell them that management didn’t want me talking to them anymore and that they needed to go back to their desks. This meant that easy issues were getting pushed to Tier 2 and not getting handled fast enough for their SLA.

A build-up of tickets and failed SLAs started to plague the help desk over the next few weeks, and [Manager] was getting in hot water with upper management because of it. Now the company wanted Tier 2 techs to put in eight hours a week of mandatory overtime until the backlog was cleared. This happened over and over again for months, and [Manager] was getting reamed about it constantly.

With [Manager] in charge, I never went out of my way again to help my coworkers so they could further learn and grow by writing up SOPs for easy tasks or talking with Tier 1 techs to help them out. I let them flounder and get frustrated, and they would eventually leave because they couldn’t get help with their job.

Management always wondered why the retention rate of Tier 1 techs was so abysmal and why they had such crappy times on their SLAs and metrics for such simple problems.

Eventually, [Manager] was let go and a good manager came in. I ended up being the Tier 2 lead and was given the green light to manage my time as seen fit to help other Tier 2 and Tier 1 techs, and any SOPs I wrote up weren’t questioned.