[seqizz]

Honestly I am not convinced. If someone comes to sysadmins channel to ask "hey I randomly get a bluescreen, what should I do?" the solution is to answer "well you can ask #officeit channel". Holding their hand and asking to office IT myself + explaining this to the person who asked the question does not add any extra value, not to mention the extra time it needs.

[williamdclt]

You’re right that there’s regularly cases where the problem really objectively is “not my job” and a cold redirect is more efficient.

However, personally I found that it is incredibly useful to use these sort of things as opportunities. The main opportunity is learning: I’ll learn something about BSOD, and about our specific IT setup, maybe some troubleshooting or windows stuff, and all this knowledge builds into strong mental models and often comes in useful even if it’s years from now.

It’s also an opportunity to build relationship (with the asker, with the IT person). It’s a tiny interaction but it makes a difference, you are now seen as “helpful” (and if you didn’t know the person at all, you got from 0 to 1 which is huge).

It’s also an opportunity to help (sometimes): as a SWE I have a breadth of knowledge, maybe I can help the IT person to have a better config to avoid BSODs, maybe I can help the asker with their specific setup that the IT person is confused about…

There’s no question that a warm handoff can be a waste, absolutely. But do it a hundred times and you get so much back

[jabroni_salad]

For me its a numbers problem. You help one person and they will tell everyone that you are 'the guy who does stuff'. 2 weeks later people are showing up at my desk acting offended that I did not answer the phone (i was already on the phone with a different process dodger and my line is not integrated with any queue system because I am not a CSR) demanding to talk to my supervisor about how terrible I am.

That company had a really strict 'just help anyone' policy and I'm really glad I do not work there anymore.

[hitekker]

This is quite key. Performing a service more than once, creates a new role, and with it a new responsibility.

Doesn't matter if my intention was just "I'm just being helpful" gesture. Doing it repeatedly becomes an expectation from others that people rely on. It will be assessed in your performance, and in the bad case, it will become a standard that your team (but not others) are held to.