The hardest part of working in the help desk or desktop support?

Bchen22

For the IT pros out there
what is generally the hardest part of working in a help desk or desktop support
being on call?
the customers?
the lack of work life balance?
keeping up with technology?
lack of job security ( Due to outsourcing)
your work environment or culture?
please explain thanks

bugzy3188

For me in the beginning it was staying orginized and prioritizing. Often times I would get tickets that I would be unable to take action on and be forced to sit on them forcing me to go out of order on my list of things to do. It took me about a year to develope a system to keep me on task and maintain communication on all open tickets. I have made vast improvements but it took a concious effort to do so.

wd40

For me it is being on call 24 x 7 and expecting to receive calls even during my leave.

The issue with being on call is the fear of missing an important / critical call and not the call it self.

markulous

Depending on the environment, it can be challenging if you have to work within a specific timeframe from each ticket (say 30 minutes) and it's back to back calls nonstop. I personally need a breather in between inbound calls and that's just not an environment I enjoy.

xocity

I would have to say it is communication and documentation. Sometimes some coworkers would make changes or work on a high priority issue and 2 things will happen,

a- another user calls about the same issue that is effecting them, and I start to work on it and realize that we're both trying to resolve the same thing causing me to kick him/her out of a server or waste a bunch of time figuring something out when someone has already done it.

Or

B- someone made a change to a FW or Server and didnt update documentation to reflect that change. Or they implemented something and never made a document of the change. I then waste a lot of time making sense of the change and how things it is effecting the specific user I am helping. Really annoying.

The Soft Skills and my patience or Tech skills for me aren't the hardest things I deal with. But communication and documentation is something I have had a hard time dealing with in Every Job I've been in. (I've only worked for MSP's as a Level 1/2/3 engineer. Might be different in the corporate world)

tuleeoh

For me at first was explaining technical terms to nontechnical people. I worked at the help desk of an university and I had to help faculty and staff with all sort of IT related problems.

skully93

The most difficult part for me is difficult people. Some will just call and yell because they are frustrated, and see you as the wizard that 'makes it work'.

I try to keep a nice face, but it doesn't always work. Never be afraid to say "I'm not sure, but I'm confident that we can get it worked out". Puts people at ease.

The other part is trying to balance what I learned in certs with real world scenarios, and overall just continuing the learning process. Some companies are great about encouraging it. Mine isn't.

techfiend

I second bugzy, prioritizing and keeping everything organized as a desktop support tech. I'm getting the hang of it now mainly by keeping a list of all the admin type roles I need to work on and doing the support calls on typically a first serve basis as soon as they come in. Luckily the support isn't that high of volume, might do 10 a day but often no more than about 5. Maybe 1 or 2 a day are 10+ minute projects the rest are just a few minutes.

Second would be environment, it's freezing outside and a furnace in the office, it's also fairly dirty in a few areas that I have to work in.

PJ_Sneakers

Difficult people who are used to getting their way. Routing trouble tickets to the myriad specialized groups. Being patient with impatient people. Being the only guy trying to knock down the high-priority queue. Etc.

jamesleecoleman

Trying to figure out what the actual problem is.
Someone will tell me something and it's a completely different problem, so I'm ready for an easy problem but it ends up being a little more work.

Params7

Handling calls when the customers complains about technology you have no idea about.

Kai123

Customers can be one of the greatest aspects of the job and also the worse, even more-so with corporate/business people. Some businesses have no IT support so its all done via the web designer, financial controller or even a store manager.

Snow.bros

For me dealing with an issue that is way above my tier for a customer who wants a problem resolved urgently.

Coming a across a new problem most of the time.

Lastly customers, some of them are impossible you get one of those who want a problem resolve so smartly and perfectly those and those who always blame the network even though you explain and prove them that the issue is not on the network.

markulous

I must be the oddball. I don't find the customers difficult at all. Anytime I have a customer that's pissed or that gets escalated to me I think of it as an opportunity to turn around their mood. I've had guys literally say they hoped the person in charge died in a car accident with their whole family and at the end of the call they were happy and apologizing quite a bit to me.

Snow.bros

Yup we all have different perceptions and different techniques, what comes easy to you might not necessarily come easy to me but what I am sure of is that I am not rude to any of the customers or argue with them and believe me if a client is on call with me I always try and hope that I can help resolve their issue before the end of the call it's one of my personal goals so I don't feel good when I have to escalate a call but then again in IT there are different levels of technical problems and certain problems can be handle by certain individuals sometimes you cannot help everyone especially if you a junior tech but I am always happy to help where I can. Honestly though I would mention customers if I didn't have a hard time with them, but any way I might consider your enthusiastic approach to customers as a wise advise. I figure there are no difficult customers in your organization.

Snow.bros

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