Politely Decline Learning New Software

Question

I'm a client liaison (Sales/Client Consultation) for a software company, and occasionally something will come up in our application that is broken/doesn't work.

When this happens, I alert the Dev & Tech support group (via ticket or email - Tickets assigned to Tech Support) and I'm often asked "Have you checked X?" Where X is one of 4 pieces of software related to running our application. I reply no, sometimes adding that I don't know how or I don't have access.

I'm not a Developer, and in most of these cases learning these server or processing backend programs is arduous and time consuming to me.

It has already been established in the team that these items are not my responsibility. It seems that because I'm the one reporting the issue, there is a developer expectation I will investigate as well.

However, recently the developers have made implications that I should get access to these programs and learn them so I can investigate these issues myself. I've gotten numerous email "invitations" indicating my email address has been granted access to these programs.

How can I tactfully decline to learn/use these programs without playing that "that's not my job" card?

Answer 1

You don't decline.

You raise your concerns with your manager, as your manager (and not you as an individual) determines the scope of your work and required access to systems and not the development team. If your manager says that you should be doing these things or having access to these systems and tools, then you work with the development and operations teams to get the appropriate training and access to do the work that is in-scope for you. If your manager says that this work is out-of-scope for your job, he should bring this to the attention of the development team and their manager.

If, after taking to your manager, you still feel that your manager's expectations of the work that you do and your expectations of the work that you do don't align, you can choose to resign your position and find a new job that is more in line with what you expect.

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To follow up with the edit to the question.

If it has already been decided that it is not your responsibility, you should be informing your manager that the development team is (still) making these requests. Your manager should be the one to ensure that your time and effort is put on doing the work that is assigned to you. This is their battle to fight, not yours.

However, as a developer myself, I would (and would expect my manager) to push back on the idea that this is beyond your job. I find it suspicious (and unsafe) that the entire development team would have access to production systems and data. Since it sounds like your job is to do front-line support, I would expect that these people have at least read-access to system configuration and data and can include it in the problem report so it is much faster for me to reproduce and design a solution.

It still sounds like this is a problem that needs to be hashed out with management to make sure that everyone understands everyone else's role. It sounds like the company isn't that big, so it shouldn't be too hard for everyone.

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To follow up once again with some of your comments, it sounds like your company's process has serious issues.

If you are submitted tickets to the Technical Support team, I wouldn't expect that the Development Team is involved at all. Maybe the Technical Support team may need some information from you, but I would expect that the Technical Support team would either fix the issue or pass it off the the Development Team if their assistance was needed. I would expect that the Development Team interfaces with the Tech Support team and not you for understanding the issues, only bringing you in if necessary.

Again, my original points still stand: Don't get involved yourself. Talk to your manager and have him work with the managers

Answer 2

You need to discuss this with your boss. It could be the client liaison is expected to be able to resolve simple issues and only problems requiring programming should go to the developers. If this is the case, in no way can you refuse to use the software. So ask him or her exactly what is expected of someone in your position concerning these software packages and client support. this is not refusing to do the task, just asking for clarification as to how this stands with your other duties and priorities.

It also could be the case that the devs don't want to do support work so are trying to pawn it off on you when they are supposed to be doing it. Only your boss can resolve which is correct.

Answer 3

How can I tactfully decline to learn/use these programs without playing that "that's not my job" card?

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I'd still be interested in hearing how to word that in the moment when I'm being pushed by the dev team

As an "in the moment" response, you can say "Learning these programs would be a large investment of my time, but it's worth considering. I'll ask for Vice President's point of view on my priorities, and get back to you."

It's a tech startup, so Me, 1 Tech Support, 1 Part time Tech Support/Part time Dev, 2 Dedicated Devs, and the VP. I usually report rather than taking up Tech's bandwidth since I can use the ticketing system. But perhaps I should just email Tech instead?

My understanding is that startup employees have to learn a lot of roles outside of their comfort zone, and it could be a good opportunity for you. If someone else is solving your customers problems, they'll bypass you (the customer liaison) and work with that person. BUT as you are the only salesperson, spending all of your time on new sales could be more important than developing relationships with existing ones. Deciding which is more important sounds like "not your job".

Answer 4

You were invited into sort of support or even key user role. Proceed as with any other incoming role invitation.

Couple for factual points:

• Invitations to workplace roles and responsibilities happen, they might not neccessarily come from your manager, although you and your manager make the decision.

• Your career path expectations determine your willingness to accept/decline the invitation.

• This process must be accompanied by your manager (ideally from the beginning), because one of their responsibilities is to oversee your career path and manage team's resources ("Is it possible to allocate this team member for that?")

• Potentially accepting the role should go with expected percentage of your time, i.e. you are expected to dedicate 20% of your time for this new responsibility. And there also should be plan to transition out of some present to have a room for this.

Answer 5

Update from what i read in comments throughout this page - You should create the tix and assign them to the tech support team, who will then assign/investigate as needed. Sometimes developers forget they are linguists translating one language to another.

Bigger problem seems to be the communication breakdown, given how small you are - but developers are not trained in management, don't let them manage you.

Original answer: You don't.

You can ferry the emails into a separate folder and let them sit there, and that is probably the end of the problem. Develpers don't give you tasks, you give them the tasks.

I wouldn't bother escalating - it has already been established it is out of your area of concern.

If developers start with the "have you investigated" you can either point to the email that outlines your tasks, can respond with "no" or suggest to their manager that they come up with a simple REST client that can be used to access the specific data needed to debug the issue.

Don't try learning some random software component. If the developers aren't doing their work, escalate to your/their manager of their tardiness.

Answer 6

Perhaps there is a communication issue. It is sometimes amazingly difficult to track down a "bug", when it can't be replicated in the devolvepment environment and the tools being referred to may provide the developers the needed info to solve the problem. Often the ticket is so cryptic, one doesn't even know where to start. The tools might also be used as a "sanity" checker to make sure configurations are within parameters. Sometimes "bugs" are "we never intended to be able to do this." Unfortunately, a user intelligible error message may not be generated. Again, unless the developer grasps the end user's intent, these can be hard to figure out Perhaps the developers and the clients need to be told you are only the sales person, an "expert" tech is immediately introduced on sale to do install, configuration, and support. This "expert" need not be highly skilled, but be willing and able to learn to determine client's desires (not always easy), common issues and fixes, and be able to walk through basic diagnostic steps. If I was the developer, the reason I might ask you to try other tools would be to assist in data gathering, so the problem may be diagnosed, so that the best solution may be engineered. If you can give the developer a better option in helping them do their job, they will jump on it.

Answer 7

There's a reason why your company doesn't have developers as the first line of support for customers. The reason is that developers are usually working toward specific objectives, with deadlines. If the developers had to stop to handle every issue the customers have, your company would never get any updates (including critical bug fixes) out the door.

Your job, on the other hand, really doesn't start until the phone rings or you get service tickets.

Therefore, it would be wise for you to learn any tools that help you do your job, which is to support the customers AND create safe space for the developers to do their jobs with minimal interruption. This actually makes you a valuable team member. If you want to make noise about having to learn new things, eventually your employer will not have any problem replacing you with someone who's more open to learning.

You work for a tech company. The developers can't tell management that they don't want to be bothered with learning new technology that helps the company overall, and really, neither can you.