Re: It's not for everyone...
"There isn't always a defined border between your work and home life"
Yes, but that is entirely up to you...renting a desk at a local shared office achieves this and costs less than a commute would. It's also tax deductable and wouldn't really cost you anything.
"If you are WFH, it's much easier to think at the time you should be finishing that "Oh, I've nearly finished, I'll just do this for a bit longer", and if you aren't careful, you end up doing a lot of extra work out of hours"
Yes, but that is entirely up to you...if you aren't disciplined enough to stop and/or you suffer from presenteeism etc...then going to an office won't fix this. You need to be self disciplined.
"Although he said was going to be there all day, he wasn't, and has been away from Teams since 8:55 this morning"
You had an agreement to get a job done at a specific time. Just do the job. If the new machine isn't quite to his liking, and he wasn't there to check it, it's not your fault. Grow a set of balls. You did your job the best you could at a time that was pre-arranged. If your colleague is a fuckwit and can't manage his time effectively or is shirking off, that's not your fault. You aren't subservient to this guy. If he has booked your time to fix an issue, he is automatically burning time that you could use for something else...he needs to understand this.
"They can sign in to teams, go do something else and essentially vanish".
They can, it's not your fault or your problem. Keep logs of agreements and timestamps. Remind them of their previous transgressions, tell them you will no longer prioritise their time wasting and show them why. If you never step up and point these things out, people will continue to walk over you.
"he hadn't signed in to teams for 3 months"
Or he set it to 'appear offline' as I do. Everyone I work with knows they can send a message to someone, even if they appear offline...I set my status to "appear offline" to prevent unsolicited random messages from people, and the reduce the sheer amount of company spam. For the most part, the people I work with typically call me or I call them if I need them urgently. Hardly anyone relies on Teams as an urgent method of contact. For one, they know that the chats can be recovered, two nobody wants their phone beeping every 2 minutes causing anxiety...is it urgent? Is it just a company meme? Better get my phone out to check...every two fucking minutes...with phone calls, you can screen your calls, block people after a certain time etc etc...much more control.
It sounds to me like you have two issues.
1) You're a bit of a shrinking violet. You don't want to chase people and you don't want to phone them.
2) You don't understand your place in the pecking order and you operate under the assumption that the main company chain of command applies to you.
I had both of these problems early in my career. Especially the second one...I wasn't that much of a shrinking violet, but as a younger guy, I operated under the assumption that certain people ranked above me because they ranked above others...I didn't understand that because someone is management and they have their own team etc, that their status didn't apply to me. They were senior to other staff, but not me. I had my own chain of management that applied and that was the only one that mattered. If you work in a large enough company, you end up with quite a few people that have seemingly higher rank than you...like the head of finance, head of HR etc etc...but the only "head" that matters to you is the head of your own department. Everyone outside your department is the same. Unless you get a few people from the same department contacting you at the same time, in which case, you triage according to their rank...but only to establish a chain of communication because that is probably how their structure works...you're not applying priority based on rank, you're streamlining communication so you only have to deal with one person instead of 3...more efficient.
The whole shrinking violet thing springs out of not understanding your place. As a technical member of staff, you are there to facilitate the smooth running of the business...you are key to things working and people being able to do their job. If someone is wasting your time, they are not only affecting you, they are affecting the business, because you could be elsewhere, doing more important stuff...therefore, you become more important than them, regardless of their rank or position. When you start a career and you're fresh out of school, uni or whatever...you're moving from an environment where older people are clearly the more senior people...a teacher / pupil relationship for example...older people know more and are more important and you are there to learn...to an environment where you have been hired to fulfil a function, duty or responsibility...you aren't there to be taught anymore, you are there because they need you to be there for a particular reason...it's a completely different dynamic. The relationship between you as a techie and the head of finance, is not the same as the relationship you had as a pupil/student and the head of say the Maths department. The head of the maths department can throw you off the course....the head of finance has no power over you whatsoever. His title to you should be meaningless.
if someone is faffing you around, move on to the next person that needs your help...ultimately the faffer will end up in a situation where he can no longer perform his job to the level required, and you will have logs proving that you did everything reasonable to assist him. He will lose his job, get a shitty review etc etc...and you will be completely unharmed.
Just remember, without techies like you, nobody can get their job done efficiently...things would go to shit fast, and the business would go under...you are a critical member of staff, and if anyone fucks you around they need to be reminded where they stand. You can't be replaced as easily as a marketing manager, finance manager etc etc...because you have (or will have) knowledge and experience that is company wide, these people only have knowledge and experience in their respective bubbles. Techies ultimately end up with more working knowledge of a business than anyone else in that business...except maybe the CEO...even the CTO probably knows less about what is going on than you do because he isn't on the front line.
I've been in tech for 20 years now, I suffer no fools. If I arrive to consult with someone, or do something for someone and that someone decides not to be present...I reschedule for a time that suits me...fuck them, whomever they think they are. After a while, people get the message and you find you very rarely get fucked about then...you stop hearing the classics as well..."I'll leave you to it, if you need me call me, I'll go for a walk or something", "Do you need me for this? Or can I go and have a coffee?"...you nail their balls to the fucking ground, don't let them go anywhere...you never want to associate a visit from IT with getting a "free break"...because you will get taken advantage of because you're incentivising a lack of care...if you show them that dumb mistakes not only waste an hour of your time, but also their time, you show them that being careless has a cost.
Bottom line, if you get fucked about, don't tolerate it. Do not suffer fools. Remember where you fit in. You're a lot more senior than you probably think and you are definitely more important and valuable than you might think.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
