Work Ticket Editing

Like most IT shops, my employer has a ticket system for user requests, system changes and such. If a person needs a new service, they put in a ticket so we can prioritize the work and assign it to an appropriate team member. If something breaks, we need the ticket history to determine what was done and (hopefully) to allow faster resolution if something similar breaks in future.

One of the side effects is that you can also track which users are clearly not thinking ahead. They're easy to spot: those are the tickets which start with requesting Task A, and then are edited repeatedly over the next few business days to include the next logical steps such as Task B, C, & D, all of which were incredibly obvious from the start. If a ticket has been edited more than three times before any work has been performed, it's a sign of a user who doesn't really have a firm grasp of what they're trying to accomplish.

Yesterday, I received such a "huh?" ticket, requesting insane things NOW NOW NOW URGENT TOP PRIORITY NOW!!!. The author then rescinded the ticket, added more requirements and resubmitted it. *sigh*

I, of course, updated the ticket but I had several false starts as I attempted to throttle back my initial sense of annoyance and disgust.

Attempt #1: "The ticket timestamp indicates you created this ticket in July and only forwarded it to my team this morning at 3am. You then pulled it back to add two extra tasks which should have been part of the original request per the default template. Your inability to plan your work is far more likely to threaten the success of this project than anything I could do."

I deleted that before hitting the "submit" button.

Attempt #2: "This can't be a priority #1 if you created the ticket and left it forgotten in your own queue for six months. We have actual P1 tickets which need our attention; we'll get to your steaming pile of mistakes & misconceptions when time allows later today."

I deleted that too.

Attempt #3: "In your rush to avoid responsibility for neglecting your own project for six months, you neglected to get management approval for this ticket. As near as I can tell, you've also either neglected to do the required architectural review or to document it on the company wiki per procedure. When you get your act together, please give me a call. Until then, we have tickets from actual software professionals which need our attention."

I deleted that without submission as well. I'm a softie.

Last attempt: "We need management approval and a documented architectural review before we can execute the tasks you've requested. Please see the process documented here (link) and resubmit the ticket to our queue as soon as possible."

I finally hit "submit" for that one. It wasn't as personally satisfying but I think it's unquestionably more professional and productive.