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I did four years ISS tech support and I think I’d eat out of bins before going back.

I wish it was just coworkers/management

I’ve had customers scream at me, threaten to unalive themselves or me, threaten to shoot me, masturbate on calls, speak to me like I was a phone sex worker, call me every name under the sun, tell me I’m a bad person and I should unalive myself, and threaten their own children.

Had some spout qanon stuff, and scream about 5g causing cancer while using their mobile to conduct the call. Scream that lefties are ruining the country.

Had people tell me that land tax is stupid and not know what it goes towards (roads, infrastructure, schools, were my answer), that it was just funding trans people to abuse children 🙄. Scream about having to sell their investment properties (not my fault). Some spoke down to me, or call me racist names because they though I was an immigrant (I’m not, not that it makes it okay).

Threaten to find me and rape me, wanted me to tell them my last name, tell them my home address, call me queer slurs. Ask me out, ask me to talk dirty to them, and demand I do something against company policy.

All this because I was just doing my job, or I was “taking too long”, or I told them they had to pay xyz bill, or tell them it would take X time for payment to be received/refund to land. Never told anyone my political leanings, never provoked them. I think you lucked out, because these days people have gotten worse and worse.

@tombruzzo @SituationCake The other thing is to keep in mind is that it’s not necessarily IT that is the “business owner” of the website.

Sure, IT might be responsible for keeping it online. But the main decisions about it, and the responsibility for maintaining the content, belong to a different person/team/department.

Depending on where I’ve worked, that’s been operations, content, comms/PR, and marketing.

Even in small orgs, it’s often the CEO rather than IT who has the final say.

And sometimes different parts of the website are managed by different people/teams/departments.

The second thing to be mindful of is it’s not just about whether you have the WordPress skills.

There’s often a lot of office politics in many organisations.

People quite rightly don’t enjoy feeling like their jobs or responsibilities are being undermined.

And they don’t want changes made in an area they’re ultimately responsible for without them knowing.

That’s where business processes and procedures come into play.

It might be as simple as emailing a particular person to get their sign off on you making a particular update, or notifying them afterwards.

You also need to think about what the benefits to them are of granting you this access. Perhaps it frees up their resources for more meaningful tasks?

And the third thing to be prepared for is if you get the admin privileges you want, suddenly other people might ask you to make changes as a shortcut around IT. You might want to push back against that.

If I were in your position, I’d plan out the case for:

* What the problem you want to solve is.
* Your proposed solution. That’s not just gaining access, but also the approvals or notifications around it.
* Restrictions and safeguards. You are only to have this level of privileges and make updates in situations x, y, and z. This helps you push back if someone else wants you to make other changes — I’m not authorised to do that.
* The benefits to the business, including improved productivity, or customer experience.

I’d have a chat with your boss to get them on board.

I’d find out who the business owner(s) of the website are.

I’d organise either an informal chat (maybe buy them coffee one day?) or a meeting to talk through the case with them.

And finally, I’d be prepared for the answer to be a no. That’s ultimately their call. If that’s the case, your decision is whether you stick with your current job, or find a different one that makes better use of your skills.

You still havnt said the magic word that makes me believe you are a good actor yet. Have you logged a “……”?