Time Management for System Administrators: Stop Working Late and Start Working Smart

by Thomas A. Limoncelli

Fix. If the problem was easy to fix (less than two minutes), she’d fix it right then and there. Redirect. If the problem couldn’t be fixed in a few minutes, she would help the customer send email to “help” to create a ticket in the request-tracking system. This was a group that wasn’t used to creating tickets, so it was scary for them. Walking them through the process made it less intimidating. Sympathize. Many times the issue was just something that couldn’t be fixed, or it was a known problem that wouldn’t be fixed for a while. My coworker found that the best thing to do was to show sympathy without being condescending. “Yeah,” she would sigh, “it’s crummy that it works that way.” The person would agree and feel better now that their complaint was acknowledged. Then my coworker would say, “I don’t think there’s a way