21–30 of 41 posts
And I wouldn't change one iota of it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yep. This comment at metafilter has been discussed here before, I think, but it's worth linking again: http://www.metafilter.com/112698/California-Dreamin#4183210
Thank you for linking this. The main article being discussed made me think "okay, so administrivia, book stuff, etc. Actually doesn't sound so bad". This link, however, made me realize how emotionally draining the library can be for everyone involved.
What we were puzzled by is what causes the difference. One reason could be some kind of selection bias for the kind of work. Another could be that in both cases the "base person" is nice in principle and that it's the work that brings out these personality differences. In that case it would be nice if one could transport "environmental fixes" from the library work floor to IT somehow.
When I was teaching at Malmö University, one of the professors once shared that he had noticed one constant across all universities he had attended: on average, the librarians are the most helpful, cooperative members of supporting staff, whereas IT people are the most antagonistic, least helpful people. With just one year of working experience there I already knew exactly what he meant. What we were puzzled by is wh…
I can't see the same being quite as true for librarians as people aren't starting from a state where something that should be working isn't.
When I was teaching at Malmö University, one of the professors once shared that he had noticed one constant across all universities he had attended: on average, the librarians are the most helpful, cooperative members of supporting staff, whereas IT people are the most antagonistic, least helpful people. With just one year of working experience there I already knew exactly what he meant. What we were puzzled by is wh…
Woops, a disk in our 9-year-old array just died. Let me fill that form for financial director, and explain we really do need to buy a new one. Pray so that spare disk won't die in the meantime. "No, we cannot buy a cheaper one". What, new server? We just bought you a brand new expensive hard drive 6 months ago!
When I was teaching at Malmö University, one of the professors once shared that he had noticed one constant across all universities he had attended: on average, the librarians are the most helpful, cooperative members of supporting staff, whereas IT people are the most antagonistic, least helpful people. With just one year of working experience there I already knew exactly what he meant. What we were puzzled by is wh…
IT support can be a thankless job. People only need you when something goes wrong, which means you can get a lot of unpleasant people. It also doesn't help that non-functioning technology is often amongst the biggest of many peoples pet peeves, so they already start out from an impatient state. I can't see the same being quite as true for librarians as people aren't starting from a state where something that should b…
Extending your second paragraph, when people interact with the IT desk, they're trying to go from a bad state up to their base state. When people interact with a library desk, they're trying to go from a base state up to anything above that.
When I was teaching at Malmö University, one of the professors once shared that he had noticed one constant across all universities he had attended: on average, the librarians are the most helpful, cooperative members of supporting staff, whereas IT people are the most antagonistic, least helpful people. With just one year of working experience there I already knew exactly what he meant. What we were puzzled by is wh…
Most people who go into IT do it because they enjoy working with technology. When they're working in IT, they want to work with computers, not people. Add in the common problem that techies often have a hard time understanding a non-techie's problem or explaining the solution to them ("You're telling me you don't know what a file browser is?"), and it the above observation becomes somewhat understandable. (Although not really excusable.)
Librarians, on the other hand, know from the outset that they will have to interact a lot with people - in fact, that's what most of their job is about. That's a whole different mindset to start a job with, and it will also attract people who work well with people.
(Having said all that, I have only had positive experiences with the IT support at out university - whenever I went to them, they have always been very friendly and helpful.)
[1] Yes, I'm being subjective. YMMV of course, but we're over 18 years in, and still totally happy.