Saturday, November 13, 2010

Trying to Do Someone Else's Job Isn't Helping Them

So, something came up on Friday at work and I've thought it more (after sleeping on it). I was annoyed (big surprise) when I was trying to solve a problem that a customer was having. On solving it, I needed to direct some other people in other teams and departments on the exact nature of the problem, and what to do to fix it.
The annoyance came from the unsolicited help I was getting from someone I was asking for only information: what's the problem, when, where, who, etc.
This person wanted to troubleshoot. I explained I wasn't looking for speculation (since he couldn't see the whole picture) and just needed the information. Not suggestions about the solution.
Then I've realized that there's a deeper problem that I'm not going to be able to solve. So now, I need to just pass the information & specifics to Development...and not to do their job for them by telling them what to do.