Experience and Training on a new job

HotRodHames

Hello all,

Just curious about something. If you start a new job as a desktop support or field technician, and you have quite a few years of experience, does the company take the time to teach you "the way they do troubleshooting and repair", or do they just put you out in the field and you have to fix computers "the way that you know how"? The reason why I'm asking this is that after 8 years working for 2 hotels as an on-site technical support person, where you usually are on the phone with their helpdesk to resolve problems, I will be now moving into the field technician or desktop support technician arena where the pay is so much more. Now, I definitely have experience repairing computers, having to rebuild several workstations onsite at the hotel. But I don't think that it was as much as I will probably face going from place to place. As we all know with being techs, you are able to fix a computer the way that you know how, but does a company have procedures as to how you would fix a computer working for their company? Your thoughts, and thanks in advance for your responses.

ubergeek

From my previous experience, some companies have indoor policies on how to fix some pc's, this is different from mission critical boxes (webserver, mailserver.. etc) where they put up a maintenance calendar and with a dedicated internal technician/helpdesk that would oversee the entire procedure. It is better to confirm with the company if they have policies such as that.. Who know's that company may refer you to other business partners in the future

HotRodHames

Thanks for the response. Sometimes I worry that if you can't resolve a problem within a certain amount of time, they think that you don't know anything. At the hotel where I used to work, we also had a contract with an outside support company, and most of their techs were pretty knowledgable, however, sometimes they would have to call back to the office if they couldn't figure something out. I didn't have a problem with them doing that, since I wasn't able to figure that particular problem as well. I was just wondering if most computer support companies have support back at the office that they are able to call to "escalate" a problem?

ubergeek

On my first work, we were a BPO type of company, so my previous company has some clients like HP & IBM to name a few which we provide mainly technical support either by desktop or network. I was previously with the network team in there, and in our process we send level 1-2 (tier-1) technicians on the field depending on the urgency and complexity of the request, we also have level 3 technicians (tier-1) on stand-by at the office ready for any calls from the on-site personnel. But if the customer request a senior tech to be on site, then we send Level 1-2 (tier 2) senior techs on site. When tier 2 are on site then we are also on call tier 1 network group in case the customer encounters any network problem during the on site visit.

HotRodHames

Well that really clarifies things a good deal. I wouldn't expect a company to send you out in the field 100% on your own with no one to call if you run into something that may need another opinion. It wouldn't be good business for their customers, even if you know what you're doing. No one knows it all. Thanks!