The Portal Of Most Resistance

I work in IT and am on a call with an end-user who contracts with our company. He is trying to get signed in to do some required security training.

Contractors usually have slightly different access than regular full-time employees, but some of them do have regular access. I’m trying to figure out if he might be in the group that has the regular access and what he’s actually looking at so I can determine where the break is for his issue.

Me: “Are you on a [Company]-owned machine?”

If it’s a company machine, I can remote into it to see what he is looking at.

Caller: “No, I’m on my own device. I’m connected to the portal.”

Me: “Okay, so what’s on the page currently in front of you?”

Caller: “I’m trying to sign in. I’m on the portal but it won’t let me sign in.”

Me: “Which portal are you connected to?”

Caller: “Do you even know how a VPN works?!”

That was basically the straw that broke the camel’s back; he’d been difficult the entire call, talking over me, not listening, and not answering me as I was trying to figure out where his issue was. Any desire I’d had to help him went right out the window.

The emails he’d received regarding the training had an email for access issues and I told him to email that. He threw me under the bus — CC’d me and my manager on the emails — when he was asking for assistance and blamed me for his issues. I couldn’t bring myself to care.