Fear

/feer/: an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.

It's crippling. Debilitating. And even more frustrating when you can't control it. When it manistes itself in another person and you know that there's nothing to be fearful about, it's even worse.

It showed itself in an entire organizaion I was tasked to help recently. They simply didn't understand technology and made assumptions that only hurt them in the end. And I understand why, they had just gotten out of a nearly two day outage after a power loss/surge in their building. So they were still a little jittery and no matter what I did to explain the solution I was proposing (which would not have impacted them whatsoever) they could not make a positive decision. Or really any decision to be honest. "Leave it alone and how it is, even if it's broken."

And it's too bad that they couldn't see the forest through the trees. This simple fix would have gone a long way in helping them in the future should anything catasrophic (like happened to them this weekend) ever happen to them again. So what turned into a nearly 2 day ordeal could have maybe only lasted 2 hours. But their fear and ignorace got the best of them. Maybe one day they'll come around.

As I read this back it comes off as a little preachy and maybe even a little like I'm being a sore loser. And I really don't intend it to. How I really feel is like I didn't do my job in explaining the benefits and the solution. (Aka frustrated.)

The problem they have is easily solvable and I was going out of my way to help them. Not because I want to make a few bucks (quite honestly I would have come out maybe as breaking even once my labor and time were considered). And not because they even asked for it, but they needed it! And their lack of IT staff (their guy left last week) put them in this position. It's tough when you want to help but the other side doesn't want it or even know that they need it.

Sometimes this is the thanks you recieve for being a good and honest person in the IT space. Oh well... On to the next project.