There's also the possibility that the decision was not based on politics. "Annoyed" says that "the consensus is that it was a valid ticket." The consensus among whom? Clearly not the manager tho called out Annoyed for the bad ticket.

Did the ticket describe only the technical issue? Or did it describe the potential business impact of the problem? That's really the main issue here. If you believe Bob's frequent point that there are no IT projects, then it follows that there are no IT problems.

The manager who shot down the ticket may not have known the impact of an insecure system. The people a few steps up from him almost certainly did not. So it doesn't take politics for someone to miss the importance of an issue, if the technologist doesn't explicitly point it out.

And even if it is a case of politics, you still use the principal that there are no IT problems. The goal is to convince those with veto power that it is their problem: Their department will fail an upcoming audit. Their budget will take a hit if a compromised system has to be replaced quickly. Their productivity numbers will drop if there is any unplanned downtime.

If you can't point to real impact, or a reasonable chance of it, then you don't have a real problem anyway.

I don't mean the following to sound too argumenative, but I do want to post the point as to what the purpose of the ticket really is. If the ticket is intended to accomplish multiple objectives (ie, run translations to multiple parties), then political problems are inevitable.

Drew's issue of "If you can't point to a real impact..." is all too real. It must be the impact to THEIR agenda and it must be informed. Good management will meet halfway, but bad won't. Good tickets will attempt a translation halfway, and bad won't. The rub is "how do you keep from spending all your time selling the issue"? If you have an answer to that, I'm all ears. If outsourced management is included in the arrangement, then God have mercy on your soul.

My definition for politics includes transmutation of issues between disassociated partners. If the front line troops (in this case, ticket originators) must translate for management in UNINFORMED business impact terms (as we must assume management operates from UNINFORMED technical impact terms), there is an inevitable cycle that tends toward complete relativistic desensitization. "Oh that's critical to the mail service? These guys! Everything is always critical to the mail service".

The only way to make the "no IT problem" scenario work is with a critical level of beaurocracy, that will perform the translation in a perceptably standardized fashion; a specialist. Good luck finding stability for the voice... they're usually the first promoted out or otherwise lost to the system.

Ticket systems real value (in my jaded opinion) remain the exclusive utility of same-level employees. They're the ones who will duct-tape the solution once the request fails anyway.

To address the original post, the best reason to avoid anger (IMHO) is simply that you may miss a solution. I've never seen anger actually payoff in a disassociated party communication issue, except psychologically. I've also never seen it payoff against a wave of idiotic mob-mentality... but best of luck.

I think Kent might have made some really good points, but I don't know because they were wrapped in impressive, but empty words. "My definition for politics includes transmutation of issues between disassociated partners" is pithy, but meaningless.

Maybe he would like to resubmit his ideas so as to be understood by others.

Imagine submitting a ticket with these terms, trying to impress the boss, instead of explaining the problem... The boss might promote the sender (out of fear), but the problem would remain unsolved.

I think this discussion is on track, and I would like to add one more note to it.

Avoiding anger is a great starting point, but if you want to be successful, sometimes it's not enough to simply take this "hold your anger" approach. You have to take action that is 180 degrees from your anger.

OK, so you get a rebuke for your ticket. Building upon the previous posts, you could respond by saying, "My apologies, I didn't do a good job of outlining why this ticket is important. It's no wonder you're inclined to reject it. Here's what I should have told you about the project. We need to take care of this issue because...." You then conclude by asking for suggestions on alternative ways to solve the problems (i.e. gain the benefits you're offering through your ticket).

This kind of response accepts responsibility for the conflict and defuses it, clarifies the benefits to the objecting managers and puts you on the same side as those who were opposed to you by recruiting their help in solving the real problems. Who knows, they may respond with ideas that you will find preferable over your proposed ticket.

Why get angry when it is so much more fun to get revenge?

Another useful quotation: "Your enemy does not believe himself to be a villain. Remember this, and you may yet gain him as a friend, or, if not, you may kill him quickly and without anger." -- and I'd really like to know the origin of this. Sounds like Machiavelli, or maybe Sun Tzu.

Your enemy is never a villain in his own eyes. Keep this in mind; it may offer a way to make him your friend. If not you can kill him without hate... and quickly. Robert Heinlein, Time Enough For Love (1973). I found this at the website: en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_A._Heinlein

An excellent point. What I see from the third front of solution implementation is that as long as there is feedback from above, there is hope; and your suggestion is ideal.

Rickj: The transmutation of data from one disassociated partner to another in a corporate setting is a very old one, but I do apologize for using diction and syntax that you don't prefer. I hope you can see that your response mirrors equally the other end of the dilemma of ticket-writer to managment relations.
Its probably good that I don't draft tickets, but I do draft closure reports that are considered model. The sympathy I feel for Seriously Annoyed is based in scenarios that I've seen any number of times. Where there is no feedback at all, in my limited experience, it is often due to a lack of comprehension and/or policy on the part of the ticket recieving party. A pointed rebuke, even when warranted (?), is disasterous for morale. A timely request for clarification is the ideal response from management. More times than not, my colleagues on both ends are desperate for any kind of feedback at all. The system I participate in does not conform fully to Bob's "there are no IT projects" scenario, but most of Drew K's comments above still apply.

"Opinions are rather like earlobes: Almost everyone has one or two, and they're frequently full of holes." JT, 1979

From the data presented by Annoyed, three things are obvious:

1. The ticket was apparently NOT presented in uninformed business impact terms. The response to such a ticket in an otherwise functioning business unit is (at worst) refusal of the ticket, not a public flogging.

2. The manager who called out Annoyed for the bad ticket was not part of any consensus against the value of the ticket. Annoyed's own manager went to bat for him, regardless of the motive for invalidating his manager's support.

3. That the manager who called out Annoyed for the bad ticket resorted to the (angry) action of public denigration indicates that someone above him tolerates and perhaps encourages this kind of (angry) behavior. Poor Annoyed lives in a culture of anger, and in such a culture it is unlikely that any mea culpa would defuse that manager's attack. Perhaps even Annoyed's own angry response can be traced to living too long this corrosive culture.

As Bob presented so lucidly in a recent article, Homo Sapiens as a species reserves the right to be totally devoid of functioning grey matter from time to time. The most efficient method for dealing with such lapses is to provide processes that catch and correct them. Attempting to discourage such lapses by public humiliation of this sort simply reduces the effectiveness of the entire organization, by forcing them to devote a substantial fraction of their energies to fear.

Another observation is that the only time one goes for emotion over logic is when one has already lost on logic. This confrontation has nothing to do with trouble tickets, unless the truculent manager doesn't understand trouble tickets. More likely he has an issue with what he deems "excessive security concerns", and recent events have already cost him the logical argument.

I agree with the assessment that anger is never appropriate, but for much different reasons. In the military, I learned to pick engagements where my forces, strategy and tactics were superior to my enemy's, and to extract myself as quickly as possible from any engagement in which I found my enemy had such an advantage. For you non-military folks, "You can't fight City Hall." Anger will cause you to take on a fight you can't possibly win (re: G.A. Custer). The manager who has Annoyed in his sights has clearly got the advantage, and is not likely to lose it in the near term.

What are Annoyed's options? I went through most of my civilian career believing that if I did my job well and with integrity, I would reap some part of the benefits that my employer reaped from my efforts. It took me longer than some others to realize the complete folly of this viewpoint, and by then, my character was so completely formed that I found I could not adopt the values of deception and treachery that it requires to get to the top. No matter how much your organization may try to impose the promotion of merit, the bottom line is that your own success in an organization depends not on your value to that organization, but on how well you are liked by your boss, and how well (s)he is liked by their boss, etc., to the top. It's a very childish system, at best, but that's the way it is. Like a handsaw, you can learn to use it within its limitations, or lose fingers.

When you find yourself the anger target of powerful people (as Annoyed clearly is), you can get mad, you can hide, or you can get moving. And getting mad only makes things worse.

Aristotle's thought that it is easy to be angry, but it is hard to be so in the right way, to the right , person, at the right time.