ANTenna Blog -- IT

Nearly everyone in IT has, at one time or another, come across the IT bully -- that IT guy who not only thinks he knows more than everyone else and needs to let everyone know it but is also rude, crude, and nasty. Resolving to let your IT department handle the IT bully on their own is a big mistake, unless you want to end up with an IT department of one.

At Datamation, Eric Spiegel tells the story of Dirk, an IT bully he had to deal with at a former place of employment. The bully was aggressive, humorless, and quick to blame Spiegel for everything rather than trying to work things out. Sound like anyone you know?

Spiegel has three suggestions for dealing with an IT bully: first, try to establish a conversational relationship, then try to show off your knowledge on a tough IT topic, and, when all else fails, find some intermediary to step in and deal with the situation.

After Spiegel struck out on the first two, he asked his CIO to help him deal with Dirk. The CIO said, "I pay you two enough to work these things out without involving me." As Spiegel says, "Strike three."

Spiegel ended up leaving the company. He writes: "I eventually left because by the CIO enabling this behavior, more and more people in the company started acting like Dirk, causing an unproductive, confrontational workplace culture."

Don't let the bullies run the show at your smaller business. They'll end up chasing away your most talented workers. Robert Cone wrote a book on the topic and in an interview he emphasized the danger of not dealing with the IT bully:

"With the talent market so tight, it's just dumb business to get the reputation as a nasty place to work, to drive people out or not get the best out of them or not let them develop to the fullest because you have a climate of fear. The CIOs said there were times when you might have been able to get away with being an asshole, but they are under so much pressure to recruit right now that it's just not acceptable. A number of them talked about how it used to be that way in their own organizations, but especially with Generation X and Generation Y, people won't put up with it. One guy went into some detail about abusive managers who have technical knowledge and prowess; he used to put up with that, but once they started figuring out the cost of turnover, they couldn't do it anymore."

Despite the fact that IT workers are not always known for their social skills, Cone believes at least some IT bullies can be managed, most specifically by creating a culture within the company that doesn't tolerate jerkiness. Also he recommends screening the IT guys for interpersonal skills especially when they get some managerial responsibility.

Crunchgear has his own suggestions for dealing with IT bullies but they're more along the lines of roll your eyes when the salespeople speak and make sure the IT guy sees and push the non-IT guys out of the way when the IT guy is running down the hall. These, and his other suggestions, would probably work with this guy.

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