How IT Admins Deal with the Narcissistic Worker – with and without Zero Clients

Most businesses have at least a few workers who really think they are something special. They might even be special. The business benefits from high-output, out-of-the-box thinkers, but the IT department can run into trouble when big egos ask for their fair share of IT resources.

“I need the best, fastest PC money can buy.”

You are feeling sassy, so you say what you are thinking: “Tell me, what tasks do you perform, which require the processing speed of a supercomputer?”

He is surprised by your candor and flusters momentarily. Then he looks offended and hostile, “Well, I analyze quality assurance reports, and the process is clunky on my current desktop. It slows me down, and my valuable time could be much more effective if I could run other programs simultaneously.”

Of course, he does not understand that he runs these reports once per week. For the remaining seven days, all of the RAM and power of his high-tech machine would be, for all practical purposes, useless.

You have tried explaining this rationale before, with very mixed results. Over time, you have realized that the conversation is not about processing power from his point of view. It is about hierarchy. And no matter how reasonable your explanation, the size of his processor relates directly to his value as an employee.

Zero-clients Take the Ego out of IT

Zero-clients share all network resources, which allows you to allocate them in real time. If one employee needs half the company’s RAM for a couple of hours, then you can give him those resources. Then, later in the day another worker can access the same processing speed for another high-powered task.

The entire company’s aggregated processing power is available, to everyone, at the same time. The infrastructure also saves considerable time for maintenance and upgrades on your part, by way of Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI). Remote workers no longer present substantial security threats because their processes occur within the safety of the network firewall.

Call us with any additional questions about Zero Clients. We would love to talk shop with you about this exciting new phase of business IT.