The Relational Technologist Mindset

The technical work hasn’t started yet. I haven’t looked at a single Canvas setting in the course, clicked a single menu item, or offered a single solution. We are thirty seconds into a Zoom call and the most important work of the consultation is already done. Most technology support professionals don’t know this window exists. Before the call begins, I’ve done one thing: I’ve read the email. Not skimmed it. Read it. I know why this person asked for a meeting, what they’ve already tried, and roughly what kind of answer they’re hoping for. By the time they see my face on their screen, I already know their name, their course, and their problem. They will not have to explain themselves twice. ...

There is a thought I have never said out loud to a client. It arrives when a faculty member emails me wanting Canvas to do something Canvas simply cannot do. Or when a student expects their newly-enrolled course to appear in their dashboard before the student information system has had time to process it. The thought is vivid, and entirely unhelpful: Well, I want my car to levitate 120 feet in the air so I don’t have to deal with rush hour traffic. But my car can’t do that. ...

One is an anomaly, two is a curiosity, three is a trend. I’ve said that for about a decade. It’s pattern recognition distilled into nine words. And a few times a year — often at the start of a new academic term — the student emails arrive in a cluster. An old course still haunting their dashboard. They weren’t expecting to see it. They’d like it gone. The first one is an anomaly. The second one raises an eyebrow. By the third, I’m no longer looking at individual emails. I’m looking at a trend. ...

The email arrives on a random Tuesday. No exclamation points, no URGENT in the subject line. A student has an old course still sitting on their Canvas dashboard — a course they finished last semester, maybe three semesters ago — and they’d like it gone. The tone is somewhere between mildly puzzled and mildly annoyed. A pebble in the shoe. A two out of ten on the distress scale. ...

There is a sentence I have said hundreds of times, in person and in writing, over the better part of a decade. I have it memorized the way a surgeon has a pre-op checklist memorized. Not because I am reading from a card, but because the words matter enough to get right every time. While I never make changes to a professor’s course without prior permission… with your best interests, and your students’ interests, in mind… I took the liberty of [what I did, specifically, for you]. ...

The subject line says URGENT. The body of the email confirms it — exclamation points, fragmented sentences, the digital equivalent of someone grabbing you by the lapels. I read it once, nod slowly, and already know what happened before I’ve opened a web browser tab. This is what nine years of pattern recognition feels like. The URGENT subject line isn’t chaos to me. It’s a signal I’ve seen before. I already know where the exit is. And I’m not gonna lie, it puts a big ol’ smile on my face. ...

The fifth one confirmed it for me. Four email responses before it, I’d read the same words and it never registered with me — “Awesome! Thank you so much,” “This was SOOOOO helpful,” “I watched it three times” — and filed them somewhere between relief and exhaustion. But the fifth one made me exhale for the first time in three weeks. Not because the praise was louder. Because I finally believed it wasn’t a fluke. ...

I can fix most of my clients’ issues in about 14 seconds. Five mouse clicks and the problem is gone. But I almost never do that. Because the fastest resolution isn’t always the best one, and the person sitting across from me didn’t schedule a consultation to watch me show off. Ten minutes before every consultation, I start preparing. I adjust my browser, check my webcam lighting and background, and set up my client’s account. By the time they arrive, their view is already waiting for them. Not my whole desktop with its files and folders and distractions. Just the browser. Just their view. No bookmarks like “crypto investing” and no open tabs like “Fluffy Blueberry Muffin Recipe.” When they join, I say something like, “Can you see the screen I am sharing okay? I’m more than happy to share my screen so you can sit back and direct traffic. Sort of like a Subway restaurant, where I make the sandwich for you and you watch the process and say ‘More cucumber, less onions.’” That usually gets a chuckle. Then I say, “But if you want to share your screen to show me what you’re seeing, do let me know. Now how may I help you today?” ...

I am not a quitter. I want to make that clear before I say anything else. I have spent nearly thirty years in higher education technology support. I have had opportunities to leave. Moments where the frustration was loud enough and the alternatives were tempting enough that walking away would have been understandable. I stayed. Not because I didn’t have options, but because I believed in the work, and I wasn’t finished with it. ...

This one is for the managers. Not the frontline supervisors who work alongside their teams every day. The directors. The decision-makers. The people who establish the work culture, curate department budgets, and write the annual performance reviews. If you manage technology professionals, this is the conversation your best person wishes they could have with you, but won’t. So I’ll have it for them. Your best tech is not thinking about leaving because of the money. The money matters, but that’s not what’s discouraging them. What’s deflating their morale balloon is the slow, accumulating realization that what they do doesn’t seem to matter. Not to you, and not to the broader leadership who’ve never heard their name spoken in a meeting they weren’t invited to. ...