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Don't fall for the trap
(sh.itjust.works)
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this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2024
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Alright I'm probably the outlier here but... I like helping people with their IT needs, and I've always found the problem solving and praise kinda nice. Maybe it's just a me thing tho
imo - you are not the outlier, you just haven't yet progressed to the mostly inevitable stage where people take advantage of your help, or their spyware ridden dumpster fire of a laptop breaks and they blame you because you "touched it last" - never mind that was 6 months ago and the only thing you did was change the screensaver timeout.
I like helping people, but not with what I do for my day job. Ask me to shovel your driveway or help you move or proofread your emails or anything but more of what I’ve already spent all day doing.
I actually like helping people a lot, too.
I don't think IT folks are naturally misanthropic or antisocial, but I personally got beat down so much by wanting to help and realizing they didn't care to listen, or weren't willing to learn anything. At all. Even though they came to me with the problem, it seemed they mostly just wanted me to fix it for them with zero understanding required, or to "be emotional at someone" or were lonely.
I also got so tired of being friendly and enthusiastically educational with advising my relatives or friends, only to then watch them completely disregard 100% of my advice they came to me for.
In the former job I'm still putting myself back together from, most of the public peoples who visited me would have been better served by visiting a psychologist / therapist first, but I was cheaper (free). :(
Often when it's something I do specialize in and I get all excited, that's when they choose to gloss over and I can tell they just want me to stop talking.
I hate having biases against people, but there very much are definitely "normies" who are threatened by the prospect of having to activate their neurons for the first time since they stumbled out of their highest level of education, and only learned to think when it was forced upon them.
Makes a guy feel pretty crappy. So I'm not as forthcoming with my skillset as I used to be in casual company. Lol
I think what you are describing is teaching not helping. Helping someone is just doing the thing they need help with and thats it. Its not a prerequisite that someone learn something if your goal is just to help them but it is if your goal is to teach them something.
It is nice when people share your interests and want to learn but everyone's got their own stuff going on and sometimes can't make room for something new like that.
Except in a minority of scenerios, helping someone do something ≠ doing that thing yourself. It could mean less, or, at times, even more than that.
Take the familiar example of helping a blind man cross street. While you do cross the street with him, the fella ALSO WALKS with you and crosses the street on his legs, not yours.
Are you implying you would be teaching that man how to walk?
When you help someone on a computer, they come along with you too, just like the blind guy. And just like the blind guy, them coming along with you does not mean they will be able to do it themselves next time, or that they want to do it alone next time.
This sounds a lot like "only my perspective is correct" type stuff.
I pointed that the meaning of a particular word is more general than what was assumed in the previous post. Drawing meaning from a different perspective in the example I gave as usage, reinforces my point.
In fact it would support my point even more if a third view/meaning of the same example is presented, like, some helper of the blind guy chooses to give him lift in a car, or, some rich philanthropist donating an automated AI/IoT controlled wheelchair to the blind guy, etc - in which the act of walking itself is omitted from help provided.
I used to work in IT, and both then when I was on my personal time, and now, I do not love helping people, but all it takes is someone else doing it poorly would annoy me enough I would end up helping someone
I'm with you but there's definitely a line that gets crossed fairly often when you help people out with these things.