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June 30, 2009

Computers? Not my job

An IT tale about a tech support call for a printer that wouldn't print -- and the reason why

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36 Recommendations

I work for a department that provides computer hardware support at an integrated steel mill. The company produces steel from raw materials to finished product. The steel workers take shifts around the clock, seven days a week, and our group is on call for production emergencies.

I received a call one weekend that a production printer would not print out the lineup sheets. Our company is fairly large, and I had never been to this particular location before. It was a trailer located in the steel slab yards. This is where they store steel slabs until ready for processing. The workers in the trailer operate the cranes in the slab yard and mark the steel with order numbers.

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I went into the trailer and noted about eight employees sitting around a table playing cards. "Nice job if you can get it!" I thought.

They indicated that the printer across the room would not print. I asked if it had been printing at all and they said, "Yes, it was printing earlier, but then just stopped."

I had never seen this type of printer before. It was a Japanese model, about four feet tall and three feet wide. I thought to myself, "How am I going to begin repairing this?" I knew we would have no spare parts for this printer, as I had never seen another like it anywhere in the plant.

Upon inspection, there were no lights lit. I pressed a few buttons to no avail. I considered that maybe the power supply had died.

First, I had to verify if it had power. I followed the power cord across the room to where the men were playing cards. The cord went around the table to the socket. I could immediately see that one of the men's chair legs had knocked the cord out of the socket. I reached around and plugged the cord into the socket. The printer sprang to life and started printing out the lineup sheets.

Incredulously, I said to the men, "There are eight of you here and not one of you could figure out that the printer was unplugged?"

"Not my job!" was their reply.

I just shook my head and left, content to get four hours' pay (the minimum call-in rate) for five minutes of work.

I couldn't believe that the employees could be so apathetic or unmotivated that they didn't at least try to resolve the problem before calling someone in. It wasn't a rocket-science solution, nor would it take any skill to solve.

It's no wonder that IT costs are high, when you get silly calls like this one.

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zanzan42 30-Jun-09 6:51am
1 reply
A perfect example of union behavior and attitude. No wonder the steel industry is practically non-existent in the US anymore. Soon to be followed by the auto industry.
kb9lgs 30-Jun-09 3:31pm
Then again one has to wonder if this is also a management failure. What would happen to the guy who plugged it back in instead of calling support if plugging it back in were to cause it to be damaged. How about if IT claims that the inexperienced guy who plugged it in did so into the wrong plug. As much as unions I have seen management actions to be the cause of this action. Suspend one guy who plugged a device back in when there was a specific procedure for it that he didn't know and would not logically know exist, and that will be the last plug reinserted or other logical fix completed by line workers in the next several years.
Luteguy 30-Jun-09 8:50am
zanzan42 has it exactly right. Unions had their purpose at one time, but that purpose these days is apparently to produce poor-quality products while giving a fat paycheck and huge benefits to blue-collar workers who can't be fired except in the most extreme circumstances.
Hiram Q. Pustule 30-Jun-09 8:53am
I know a few union workers, and worked alongside a lot of them, and sadly, zanzan42 is right. There are some good reasons why a union worker shouldn't do something outside his job description, but this story is an excellent example of a good concept taken way too far. I'm also curious why the cord was strung across the room, instead of putting the printer close to the outlet, so something like this wouldn't happen in the first place.
glanglois 30-Jun-09 10:12am
I've been a member of two unions but have to agree that they often just don't know when to stop. This is classic - I've seen it again and again in a union environment. We have to be fair, though. Plenty of people don't need a union to be lazy, self-centered, and obnoxious. The problem solves itself when the worker isn't protected by a union. With a strong union present, the problem is solved by putting the entire plant out of work and moving production outside the US. Then we all pay. Again and again.
joecompute 30-Jun-09 10:29am
Youse guys got it all wrong! The cord clearly was a logical victim of the card game action and to plug it in would ruin that. So, lighten up! Get yourself a good job, say, trading stocks and thank God you are not wasting your time playing cards, or cutting steel, and instead are producing truly valuable product! You are a Master of the Universe!
joeldavis 30-Jun-09 11:37am
Get used to it. The current administration and Congress are advocating non-secret balloting for union elections, including formation meetings at non-unionized companies. Additionally, if the health care legislation passes, companies who pay health benefits to non-union workers will not be able to deduct them as a business expense from their tax returns. Try them apples on for size!
Wretched 30-Jun-09 11:53am
1 reply
Seems to me those guys' answer reveals they knew what the problem was and just wanted to play cards. They might even have intentionally done it.
kb9lgs 30-Jun-09 3:45pm
I would suspect that it is more likely that they did indeed know the problem. Heck they probably point it out up the chain of command that called the guy out. But they knew that if the plugged it back in and something went wrong they would be fired. They call support and they are covered. I saw almost the same thing at one office. I guy came in and found that his computer was not working. Found the plugs for the computer and monitor on the floor right under the outlet. He plugged them back in and went merrily along until maybe there was a surge. The computer stopped working. It turns out the IT tech had noticed an outdated surge suppressor and so unplugged it, left no note or anything and went to get a new one. His shift ended before he got back. So the guy had violated IT policy he had never been informed of that every computer be plugged into a surge suppressor. He was fired. He had to fight for his unemployment, his pay, and money from his bank account. It seems the company considered his firing "for cause" (a year and a half later the department of unemployment disagreed since he had not been informed of the policy.) They also docked his pay for the cost of a new computer and monitor (which incidentally was not damaged) and since he had direct deposit and his pay he was owed would not cover this they used payroll error reversal procedures to withdraw the balance from his account. He finally got the money they took out of his account back, but never got his pay back. That would have taken hiring a lawyer. That is the type of company situation that causes this type of thing as much as unions.
Accounting IT Guy 30-Jun-09 12:20pm
If everyone did that "not my job" crap we wouldnt even have the jobs we have today. Nevermind that though, "ITS NOT MY JOB TO CARE"... See where that goes? Everyone fails.
ostwolf 30-Jun-09 12:30pm
It looks all good an fun on a 30 minute sitcom - get a game of cards going till the repair dude comes by to find what we did. Reality - loss of company to outsourcing where someone hungry for work will take over for you.
rthawk 30-Jun-09 1:48pm
1 reply
First of all, you are making an assumption that the guys playing cards were union workers. Secondly you are making an assumption that the union made the rules. Perhaps it was the IT department rules? None of this is spelled out in the original article. Years ago I had a similar incident, except unlike the card players, I fixed the problem. It wasn't as simple as plugging something in, but it was along the same lines. Well when IT showed up, they went ballistic. The company rules were if it was computer related, only IT could fix the problem. It wasn't union rules, it was company rules as determined by IT management. The complaint went up the chain of command to the level of management where the manager oversaw both my department and IT, which was about three levels up from my boss. My boss got reamed and I got reamed and I almost lost my job. Under no circumstances was anyone other than someone from the IT department to attempt to fix a computer or a peripheral. The next time something went wrong with the computers, we just sat around until IT showed up. Moral - don't make assumptions unless you know the circumstances.
kb9lgs 30-Jun-09 3:35pm
Exactly and this is common.
zanzan42 30-Jun-09 5:55pm
1 reply
A couple of points: 1. The cord was originally pulled out by one of the guys' chair legs, so they were already sitting down and playing cards before the problem happened, not playing cards while they waited for the IT guy. 2. In this particular instance, there was no management mandate that IT had to deal with this particular problem to the exclusion of everyone else. We know this because we have the actual IT telling us that the card players should have plugged it back in themselves. 3. Any company willing to waste the amount of money some of you are talking about with their "nobody can plug a computer in" policies isn't going to be competitive for very long. Plugging in a computer or peripheral that you accidentally unplugged yourself isn't "attempting to fix a computer or peripheral". 4. They were union because we're talking about a steel plant. I don't know of *any* steel plants that aren't union. Do you?
rcprimak 1-Jul-09 3:38pm
2 replies
I live in the Chicago area. Since the steel industry got expensively outsourced and out competed by South Korea, there are now plenty of steel industry specialty mills and foundries where there are no unions, even in the Gary, Indoana and South Chicago areas.
rcprimak 1-Jul-09 3:39pm
I posted "expensively" when I ment "extensively". Freudian slip there!
fushigi 2-Jul-09 6:25am
A friend of mine used to work for one of the steel mills around Gary. As a non-union engineer he was sometimes critical of the union "workers" and their practices. For instance, one worker would clock in, go to the cafeteria, and sleep through his entire shift. He did this because he actually worked another job so he was getting 2 full time pay checks. Anyway, the mill had this on video but could not fire or even reprimand the guy because of the union contract. IMO it has been the unions and to a degree the corporate management that agreed to the union contracts that brought about the lazy, unethical, and poor work habits that are at least partly responsible for the movement away from domestic production.
jsk 30-Jun-09 11:01pm
"I just shook my head and left, content to get four hours' pay (the minimum call-in rate) for five minutes of work." And you were complaining about "union workers" wasting money for the company?!? So, if you did 10 minutes worth of work you'd get a full days pay? Go get a dictionary and lookup the word "irony." Good thing you don't belong to a union! Good work if you can get it.
mysticturner 1-Jul-09 6:49am
Probably 60 years ago, my dad was the head of engineering at a refinery. One day he walked through the command center and noticed some pressure guage showed that an explosion was eminent. Lots of chaos ensued, portions of the plant shutdown, restarted, etc. When the inevitable investigation started to determine why no one had noticed the condition, it was because the light bulb over that panel had burned out. Replacement bulbs were in the closet 15 feet away. But replacing it required an electrician per union rules. At the next contract negotiation, the contract was updated to allow for something like 'reasonable tasks that anyone could do'. The hammer that forced the acceptance of the clause was the realization that the union would've ceased to exist if my dad hadn't spotted the problem. Why would the union have ceased to exist? Because they all would have been dead.
jckelly 2-Jul-09 11:59am
Been there, done that... Thirty years ago I left my first job and moved to a company that had a unionized factory (I was too young to know better). A few of us were walking through the plant on our return from lunch one day and somebody's winter jacket snagged on a bucket of glue that was sitting on a bench and knocked it over. I was young and quick and grabbed the bucket before the contents completely emptied. The following morning I was called into a meeting because the union had filed a grievance. In the end nothing came of it but I started my new job hunt that same day. "Is there a union involved?" became a standard question in job interviews after that and an affirmative answer signaled the end of the conversation.

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