Managing input and knowing your users

I was in the Help Desk under a contracting company for the FDIC (and you can use their name) when they transitioned from Windows 95 to new Dell desktops running Windows XP. MANY of their users were utilizing desktop shortcuts to get to various applications and files.

We had an introductory teleconference meeting, where it was specifically stated by those managing the XP transition that we would NOT be copying desktop shortcuts from the old machines to the new ones. I told them that this was inadvisable and would lead to a lot of customer dissatisfaction and help desk calls. The irrational response was that ‘many of those shortcuts are broken, anyway.’ (Never mind the majority that were not.) This response was delivered in a very dismissive and unmistakably condescending tone of voice.

I stood up and walked off camera long enough to throw away a doughnut wrapper. When I went back to my seat, the video camera had swung away, back to the center of the room. I didn’t think much of this.

Until I received a call from my supervisor later that day. She informed me that the Regional Manager (who had been described to me by others as a ‘hothead’) had called and told her to fire me. No review or research into the situation, no prior warning, nothing. Turns out he THOUGHT I had stalked out of the room after the condescending and dismissive response my input had received. In truth, I almost had. When one of his direct reports informed him that this was not the case, things calmed down somewhat and work proceeded normally for the next week or two.

That is, until the XP transition went into pilot. And what was the Number One user complaint? Of course, “Where are my desktop shortcuts?”

Given the nature of the FDIC, I didn’t expect any kind of acknowledgment or apology. And I wasn’t disappointed.