goidel.net

I once worked at a company where everyone — and I mean everyone — avoided the IT department.

The IT people were incredibly hard to work with, had a major attitude problem and generally said “no” to every reasonable request (at least it certainly felt that way).

Sound familiar?

Now, before one of my IT friends sends me hate mail, I must say that IT is often a whipping boy. All they every hear about are problems that must be fixed immediately for frustrated people who don’t necessarily understand technology — and they never receive much credit when the ship is sailing smoothly. I get the picture; it’s challenging.

I guess these IT folks were good at attending to the company bottom line (after all, technology is costly) but they certainly weren’t good at attending to the needs of — and their relationships with — their associates. They were pretty horrible at attending to the needs of their own internal brand.

I don’t know whether they knew — or cared – but one would hope they would have done something about it if they did.

Or, at the very least, someone in senior management would have.

Seems like there’s always some group — or some individual — that doesn’t get it when this applies to them; doesn’t get how toxic it is; doesn’t get that, when all’s said and done, their behavior probably adds to the bottom line by fracturing team cooperation and fostering inefficiency.

If it were me, I’d do everything within my power to avoid avoidance.