I'm upvoting this as I specialize in a portion of IT, and therefore I'm not "The IT Guy" that's usually stereotypical of people to coin me as.
I haven't worked on generalized computer hardware or software in a troubleshooting role in a long time. My specialty involves healthcare information technology, though in every company I've worked for I've been clumped into generalized IT.
Far too often to I find myself being confronted with employees asking me to re-image their computer, run virus scans, fix their email accounts, etc. Not only do I not have the ability(security-wise) to do this, but I haven't worked in this arena in so long that I wouldn't know what's going on if I tried.
Much like patients going to a hospital and not expecting the medical records personnel, nurses, janitors, etc to be employees holding MD's, or vice-versa for the credentialing. Employees shouldn't expect every person in "IT" to know everything about computers. It's too broad of a generalization. It's why the field has specialties - and it is a personal pet-peeve of mine, as about 90% of my job is specialty related and 10% of it is computer related.
In closing, you shouldn't be changing out toner cartridges as a programmer. From a personal perspective I'd consider this as a slap in the face as far as knowledge goes. From a business perspective you don't need a programmer on payroll wasting their time doing mundane IT tasks that an intern could do - or better yet, with proper employee training that anyone could do.
manpreet![Tuteehub forum best answer]()
Best Answer
2 years ago
So I have work in this 100 person company, and I am part of the only 3 technology (a subset of operation department) staff.
It has come to the point where everything falls into our department. For example, if microwave doesn't work, it falls into our department cause it has buttons and an LED display.
But the number one issue I have is that whenever the copy machine or printer needs ink changed they come to me where I "normally" handles programming/software support.
In your company does change copy toner falls into technology or you have like an office manager who does this. I guess to the higher ups that we get an "Operations Coordinator" to do all the "non-technology" what do you guys say?