do_nothing.txt

https://paul.copplest.one/blog/do-nothing.html

I spent my early career as a sysadmin in a company of about 300 
people. These interactions were frequent. Being an young upstart I would
 jump on them straight away.

 Often I would spend hours solving 
the problem, prioritising it above what I was previously doing, only to 
find it wasn't important to begin with.

 The reason people make 
these requests is that it removes a burden from the requestor. They have
 some stress, and they need someone to offload that stress on. This has 
nothing to do with the actual problem and everything to do with the 
person's peace of mind.

 At some point we realise that we aren't 
paid to be psychologists, we are paid to solve problems in the order of 
most important first.

 Do less.

 Make sure you cut out the signal from the noise. Sometimes the best course of action is no action at all.