I can somewhat relate to this programmers position. Being familiar with all (most) of the systems at my place of employment, I find myself constantly being asked "help me with this one thing". Email, file layouts, network issues, anti virus updates, even WebShots for crying out loud. This "one" thing adds up in a day and it takes away from my true position, creating software using PERL. I find myself breaking a cardinal rule of software engineering, not planning out the program in detail before I start to code because I am now in a pinch for time (I must say that PERL lends itself quite well to quick fixes). I am unable to focus on one project at a time and produce a high quality script because everyone has an emergency. I find myself going back and recoding my work on my own time to save from having headaches in the future. My advice would be to let the poor guy focus on one project at a time with clearly outlined parameters and expectations. If he likes programming, and it sounds like he does, he will hone his coding skills quickly. And as mentioned in the other informational posts here, a pat on the head, back, butt (if thats your thing) can go a LONG way in encouragement.