Senior management requesting IT support on personal devices

[evilmoose]

Hello all,

Opinions on senior management requesting IT support on personal devices? This has included laptop services, virus removal, home network setup, and support of other non-company devices. All requests have been during office hours.

I must admit I would like to respond to such a request gently that it is not company policy to support personal IT devices and that perhaps as a member of the senior management team you should be more inclined to follow your own fking business operating procedures. Unfortunately, this would not be well received, and I imagine certainly wouldn't make my life easier!

So, am I not living in the real world? Does this sort of thing happen all the time? Or does anyone else agree that it is just not right to expect the rules to be changed because of your seniority?

[purplepolarbear]

Does the manager declare the benefit in kind to the inland revenue?

[otolith]

Is it any skin off your nose?

[DJC]

otolith said:

Is it any skin off your nose?

+1

Unless it has a serious impact on your 'real' job, I don't see a problem with it. Stuff at their homes would be treated as a bit of time out the office.

Bringing it up as an issue is likely to cause them some offence.

A bit of brown nosing doesn't do anyone any harm!

[Sheets Tabuer]

Happens all the time, do it to brown nose.

Pissing of senior management isn't the best idea when it is usually them who decides redundancies.

[XDA]

Depends what level of senior management you are talking about?

The only senior management's personal IT stuff I look at, are people at company director level. It never hurts to get on friendly/first name terms with the directors!

However, if you fix a home pc/laptop belonging to senior management, expect them to turn around in a few weeks time saying such and such has stopped working since you touched my pc/laptop. It can sometimes turn into a proper ball ache.

If I'm not busy then I'll have a look, but I always put work users before home stuff no matter who they are.

[prand]

Happens a lot here. When the iPhone, then iPad came along it got much, much worse. We've at least sorted the push mail and got an approved Mac build, and we're working on a virtual/containserised desktop as well so everyone cam buy their own mac and use it at work. That's going to be a lot of fun!

[stewies_minion]

Sheets Tabuer said:

Happens all the time, do it to brown nose.

Pissing of senior management isn't the best idea when it is usually them who decides redundancies.

This ^

When it comes to setting next year's IT budget, I'm willing to bet £1 there will be some managed service / outsourced solution who will fix their laptop with a smile on their face as well as your old day job.

it rubs the lotion on its skin.
It fixes it's manager's kid's laptop.
Etc.

[GeraldSmith]

It is a difficult one, as a business owner I'd be unimpressed if I found that our IT Manager was fixing personal IT problems for anyone in the business on our time. So I'd say that if the person is directly or indirectly your boss then go ahead and do it, but if they are not then no matter how senior make sure that your boss knows that you have been asked to do it.

[zollburgers]

It's a perk of the job really, I've helped with similar issues for my bosses and I've asked my minion for the odd favour.

[Odie]

This is an interesting one, do they also ask the finance dept to manage their finances, do they ask the cleaners to clean their home, do they ask operations dept to get people to fix their home for them?

I personally dont think its on, if I was asked to design a conservatory for someone then the first world out of my mouth would be "£20 an hour".

Doing it on your own time but at work to brown nose is one thing, but in company time they are taking the piss.

[944fan]

Worked somewhere once where an senior bod ask the ItTsupport chaps to fix his laptop. They did the decent thing and went searching through the hard drive for things and found some photos of what we could assume were of his wife minus her clothes spead on the bed. They got sent round the office! I didn't keep them though before you ask!

[XDA]

944fan said:

Worked somewhere once where an senior bod ask the ItTsupport chaps to fix his laptop. They did the decent thing and went searching through the hard drive for things and found some photos of what we could assume were of his wife minus her clothes spead on the bed. They got sent round the office! I didn't keep them though before you ask!

I've had similar. Was asked to look at a laptop belonging to a bosses teenage daughter, which had some "interesting" photo's of herself and her boyfriend. I kept quiet about them!

[pugwash4x4]

Odie said:

This is an interesting one, do they also ask the finance dept to manage their finances, do they ask the cleaners to clean their home, do they ask operations dept to get people to fix their home for them?

I personally dont think its on, if I was asked to design a conservatory for someone then the first world out of my mouth would be "£20 an hour".

Doing it on your own time but at work to brown nose is one thing, but in company time they are taking the piss.

as a finance manager i frequently get approached for advice on personal finance from all and sundry in the company. Very very rare to say i diddn't have the time- why would I? You make the time and call in the favour later as required.

To be honest its always the IT lot that throw their toys out about it!

[Slurms]

Yeah number of times we've rebuilt a PC that "my son uses at home" i've lost count.

Though it is true the first thing we do is go looking for is dubious internet history and questionable images \ videos. Sadly rarely do we find anything good

Normal advice following a rebuild is "To advise your son to be careful about the websites he's been viewing" that normally causes said manager to say "oh yes I'll make sure he's more careful" and we then expect to do the whole thing again in about 3 months.

[cailean]

They probably work all hours of the day on company business anyway so are they supposed to take time off to visit PC World? It is a "perk" and quite normal. They probably trust you more anyway, take it as a part complement.

[BliarOut]

pugwash4x4 said:

Odie said:

This is an interesting one, do they also ask the finance dept to manage their finances, do they ask the cleaners to clean their home, do they ask operations dept to get people to fix their home for them?

I personally dont think its on, if I was asked to design a conservatory for someone then the first world out of my mouth would be "£20 an hour".

Doing it on your own time but at work to brown nose is one thing, but in company time they are taking the piss.

as a finance manager i frequently get approached for advice on personal finance from all and sundry in the company. Very very rare to say i diddn't have the time- why would I? You make the time and call in the favour later as required.

To be honest its always the IT lot that throw their toys out about it!

The reason is most home networks are the biggest pile of ste you will ever have the misfortune to work on. Each machine usually needs a good few hours updating/crap removal before it'll work remotely like normal again.

The reason most IT types don't want to go near them with a barge pole is you take ownership of all the previous problems that have been building as soon as you work on it. "Oh no, it didn't do that before" is the favourite.

No backups, a life that entirely depends on some unsupported freeware crap they got from magazine ten years ago.

It's like being asked to weld the headlights back into a MKI Escort

[TurricanII]

Many senior management/directors will use the home computer for work/remote access to email/research and so we treat such cases as if it were a business PC that needed fixing. Beyond this (kids PC's/laptops) then we just take care to prioritise it appropriately (low priority!). So long as it fits in work hours then a job is a job! If home users are impacting your ability to do your job then raise it with your IT deparment boss/director and ask for his authorisation or direction on how to proceed.

[jesta1865]

XDA said:

I've had similar. Was asked to look at a laptop belonging to a bosses teenage daughter, which had some "interesting" photo's of herself and her boyfriend. I kept quiet about them!

i kept quiet at my last place, i rebuilt a laptop for an md's son, didn't have the heart to tell him half his sons browsing history was gay sites, forums etc.

his son was very nice when he came and picked it up from me, said thanks and all smiles, the md was very pleased. thing was his son was only about 14.

its a minefield and you end up having to correct badly built machines that were built by my mate who is in IT, when in fact he knows how to turn the thing on. thats why IT people make an issue of it.