Does anyone else enjoy doing help desk?

jmanrta

Hi All,

I have recently re-entered the IT field, and just took a job doing help desk for students for major for profit education provider. At first I thought I was going to hate it because I have heard negative things about help desk/call centers, but I am finding I really enjoy the work. I get a lot of satisfication out of helping others, and the fast paced nature of it makes the day go by faster.

I feel this is something I can do for the rest of my life. It may not be the most be the most lucrative IT job, but I feel job enjoyment is a bit more important than money. My last gig was an internship with an MSP which was more of a sysadmin type job and I find that I enjoy the help desk job a bit more.

Now I would like to move to Tier 2 or Tier 3 eventually, after all, money does talk. But does anyone else here enjoy help desk and could find themselves making a career out of it?

markulous

Not me, but I know plenty of other people that do enjoy help desk or desktop support. Something about waiting in a queue for me to do just break/fix gives me a "meh" feeling. I'd rather have a job where I can be more proactive on the back end and something that's much more challenging.

But if that is what you're passionate about, then definitely pursue it. You won't be making tons of money, but there are plenty of roles along those lines that pay 80k-90k if you're a lead or Tier 3, which is pretty good depending on the area.

Dakinggamer87

I enjoyed it when I first started out in the field and needed the experience to get myself in the door. However, I enjoy being challenged even more so and moving forward so yea... lol

I think it's great for the right people and personality and honestly if your happy that is what matters the most. Money comes and goes but your happiness is so much more important in the grand scheme of things.

bpenn

I do desktop support and dabble in information assurance and I can tell you that I really like it. It really helps when your clients are very appreciative of the work you do and understand the challenges of IT sometimes. There is nothing better than receiving validation for working extremely hard to resolve an issue. Now, I am looking to move on from this as the pay is too low for me at this point in my career but I am grateful to work in such a positive environment.

NetworkNewb

It's not too terrible. You get to work directly with your users, get to know them, help them fix their issues... It can be easy for some to get complacent with that position if the environment isn't too stressful. You don't have to worry about big issues and you have to make a pretty bad mistake to for your mistake to have a big impact.

But dealing with printer issues, cellphone problems, setting up equipment for people, etc, it gets old. And the pay usually sucks. Glad I am out of that!

Simrid

I hated working on a helpdesk. It was repetitive and the customers aren't at all polite. HOWEVER this is where I gained some of the most valuable experience of my career. I learnt so much on the helpdesk, anything from customer service all the way to learning some indepth technical server bits.

Everyone has to start somewhere.

pinkydapimp

I enjoyed Helpdesk and desktop support when i started my career. I have always enjoyed working in customer facing roles. The downside to making a career in helpdesk is as long as you arent increasing your skills, you are doing yourself a disservice and at some point you will be too expensive for them to keep at that position. So if its the customer facing/problem solving that you like, find ways to do that while still increasing your skills and experience.

joelsfood

I'm too old and burned out to deal with users these days, but I used to enjoy it

EnderWiggin

I liked working a help desk when the people calling in were friendly and polite, because I was able to help them get the issue fixed. Or at least escalate them to the team that had the ability to do so. But the non-friendly rude people made me hate it, and those are the ones that stuck with me. So I would never want to go back.

torqux

For me it was extremely depressing, thankfully I am not working in that environment anymore...

networker050184

Fix the same problems every week for a few years and then reevaluate if you want to spend the rest of your career there.

Anonymouse

I made a thread about hating it years ago: http://www.techexams.net/forums/jobs-degrees/61482-dont-think-im-cut-out-helpdesk.html

I hated it at the time but I was able to mess with a lot of different stuff remotely. I learned a lot more than I thought was possible in that kind of job. I hated the customer service aspect and dealing with people but I did learn a lot. Coming from there into desktop support positions I found a lot of techs who didn't do helpdesk first are pretty dumb about troubleshooting methodology. Like going straight to google search before even figuring out what the issue even is. Around where I live I applied to a few jobs that sounded like desktop support jobs and they turned out to be helpdesk jobs paying $60-70k a year. I didn't want to answer the phone all day again even for that kind of money so I passed.

Mooseboost

It really depends on the environment. I enjoyed working at the help desk somewhat when I worked for an ISP (smaller company) but some calls really get to you. Coming from that position to where I am now (Engineer in NOC), it made me appreciate my current position more. Help desk is a great place to start, at least it was for me. It helped me learn how to deal with stressful calls. I think my personal skills are much better now than before help desk.

jamesleecoleman

I enjoy it from time to time, especially when I learn something new. I don't just do Help Desk stuff. Once in a while I'll do infrastructure stuff like cabling and racking. I'm trying to get it where I can do InfoSec stuff once in a while. I get time to study for certifications too. Sometimes dealing with the customers are a pain but it's nice to be able to talk to people, especially where I work at... Some people come from way different backgrounds.