I worked in IT. I had two techniques for people with inane questions -- number one, acknowledge their request and tell them they are in the queue, then follow up the next day asking if they still need help. Usually they had either figured it out or asked a friend by then. Number two was to just teach them where to figure it out for themselves as a ticket update, and then close it out the next day.

If they actually came by, we would just help them and then file a ticket for them to track our work.

There is no reason to force people to file tickets before you help them.

Yes and no.

I think at least a part of that problem is that the usual support ticketing process infantilizes users. If you call in and the first question is along the lines of "is it plugged in? have you tried turning it off and on again?" then of course your next ticket will take that level of questioning into account. And call in even for a switched off monitor next time. Because they wouldn't ask that question if that wasn't their job to fix, right?

Also, of course users will try and fail to fix issues themselves. They should be applauded for the intent and empowered to be successful next time (if possible). Instead they are usually berated for failing and breaking stuff along the way. Which leads to the usual sheepish "I didn't do anything, I didn't touch it, it always was broken like that".

Of course there is a minimum number of imbeciles. But most people can be educated and empowered, so they do behave like adults when dealing with problems. "The system" just has to give them that chance.

It's been a long time since I've worked in a support-adjacent role, but IME it was always less about "keep[ing] the idiots at bay" and more about covering the ass of the help desk.

Things that take a support person 5 minutes are the bulk of the job, and those things have to be accounted for. If you slack on that, people will make their own determination of what constitutes a "simple" issue, you'll wind up with most of the issues the help desk solves not showing up in their metrics at all, and it looks to the higher-ups like the support people are just lazy.

In the places I've worked, support always _loved_ the "idiots" because their problems were simple. Being able to resolve a ticket by putting in a single screw, telling the person to turn on their computer, or initiating a password reset was the easiest kind of win you could get.

When you see this, this is almost always a management vs IT issue, and you're just suffering the fallout of it.

With this said, if the management demands IT has tickets, this is something that must be reiterated to every employee. "If you go to IT without a ticket, they cannot and will not help you"

While you as an employee may not have been adversarial, it is extremely common for angry users demand help right now for their life ending issue that's more important than anything else in the world! You know, they need that PDF printed right now... While you happen to be working on the server that's keeping 100 other people from working.

I was the IT support tech who would input tickets for people instead of insisting they call/walk-in with a ticket. The result was management gaslighting my ticket numbers as artificially inflated and being highly critical of my work. Wound up on a PIP.

(Realistically, everyone outside the department knew me by name. They would call and ask for me any number of ways including outright lying. They'd tell me I was the sole source of any problems getting solved! "Everyone else in that department can't do a thing.")

Please just put tickets in before you reach out to IT and have the number ready. Print it off, even.

Around here, I as a support guy could theoretically open a ticket. But I'm shielded by policy, so users cannot call me directly. Instead they will reach a call center (same for emails) where tickets are written down, classified and assigned. It usually takes an hour from initial call until I even see the ticket.

They wants metrics for everything but surprisingly they always refuse to measure the time people are using to fill those tickets and time spend in meetings everybody dislike.

> how long did it take to close this type of ticket

About ten times as long as wihout using the ticket system and involving middle management

Why would HR care whether an IT support staff was following the IT team's ticket process? HR is there to recruit, help hire, help fire, explain benefits packages and vacation policy, sometimes address workplace personnel conflicts, sometimes help teams budget salaries, and so on. IT's policies are made and enforced by IT management/leadership. I've never heard of any company where HR had any input whatsoever into an internal engineering or support team's processes.

Real fun when your review is all about number of tickets closed. You get bitter quick.