Workload in IT Industry

Hello All,

I was wondering for those who just entered into an IT position for first time or those who remember your first IT job, was there a difference in workload from your previous jobs?

I used to work claims in auto insurance industry and I have been in a tech support type of position for about 6 months now and the transition from busy claims work made me wish I had more work hours during the day to get everything done. In my new position, on average I spend about 15 minutes on the phone, answer approximately, 5-6 e-mails, and work on approximately 2-3 tickets a day. The rest of the time I'm either reading or surfing the net. Some may not complain but I have a lot of down time and always feel like the day is dragging. The pay is more than I have ever had with any previous job so that is definitely a perk.

I'm sure the whole "results not typical" thing may apply but just wanted to get feedback from people on here with their experiences.

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EANx

Is there nothing else you can do to either be more productive or to improve your abilities? I have to tell you, the single most common reason I hear for *NOT* hiring someone is that they aren't motivated. There's a lot of free training out there in networking, servers and storage. If you aren't closing tickets, find something within the company that's broken and fix it or bring it to someone's attention. Once you have legitimate downtime, work on your skills. If you don't have an interest in storage, stay away from NetApp's free classes and instead swing to VMware's free classes or vice versa. Finally, do you have a degree? Yes? Then a Master's?

Once you have a Master's degree and have fully explored all of the free and low-cost IT offerings, and found the majority of problems you can find, I say you have leave to be bored. Of course, I wouldn't expect you to be working help-desk either.

networker050184

I've noticed it's easy to skate by and do the bare minimum in this industry. A lot of people do exactly what you described for years. That also makes it extremely easy to stand out and move ahead quickly with a little motivation. Take some initiative to stream line some processes or close a few extra tickets than the rest of the crowd.

Lexluethar

First level support is generally low key in terms of work load. You are doing yourself a disservice if you aren't taking advantage of that time by getting certified in areas of interest, improving your skillsets and improving things at your current job. It's nice in a low end position to leave work and not worry about on call or stuff breaking bc it's not your responsibility, take full and vantage of that and use that free time to stufy.

I promise once you gain the knowledge and skills etc people will take full advantage and you won't have free time. I went from having a crap ton of free time doing level 1 support, to less free time doing level 2 support, moved jobs to do desktop support and I had a little more time to now I'm assistant manager of it infrastructure and I have zero free time, I'm overbooked and I rarely have time at work to decompress (realize I work to live so I rarely work over 40 hours and do my best to leave work at work).

Point being take every opportunity you have to increase your skills. Realize just like you there are millions of people trying to break into IT and will take that next big step from you unless you work for it.

superbeast

Thanks for your input guys. I was worried that it would always be slower paced coming from a job that was extremely fast paced. It makes sense that entry level lower end work is slower paced because of less responsibilities. I do self study during down times, currently Net+ and some SQL server to help out with some projects here. I appreciate it

revbox

It really depends on you and your environment.

If you are the desktop guy for a small business, I would expect days like this. Take advantage of the downtime to study for any certifications for the next job. If you are doing desktop or help desk for a large enterprise, it will all depend upon how much they outsource or cut heads for cost savings. We used to have a team of about 12. That was too large. We cut down to five individuals. We sliced positions in other departments. Now we all wear multiple hats and maintain a 24/7 on call status.

Like the other guys are saying, once people recognize your ability you go from ho-hum another printer install to "the customer just signed this PCR and wants all this stuff implemented immediately even though we can't get a PO approved for another two weeks so setup this ESX host install the OS get the binaries from dev to build the app servers file the change request by the way there is no PM so you are going to have to take charge here and keep the other teams on task".

Another thing, hit up the guys in your environment. Senior people love enthusiastic guys who can DO EXACTLY WHAT THEY ARE TOLD (no more, no less). Yeah, the first time you go up to the Tier 2 or Tier 3 Sys Admin and ask if he has anything you can help with he might just give you the task of cleaning up the server room and taking out some cardboard boxes, but if you do this a few times and manage not to cause a fire you will be given other stuff. If there is no such role at your place, then go find someone doing something you are interested in. If you have been thinking about developing and know a language, mention this to a DEV and see if they will politely walk you through what they are working on. A few months down the road might see you being trusted with doing a minor code change. If you have an interest in SQL, see if your DBA minds you shoulder surfing. This will get you doing custom queries or report writing for the guy that can't make up his mind about what data he needs on a regular basis. Every role has menial tasks they hate or people that they would rather not deal with. You can get your foot in just by building a relationship and taking the crumbs they offer before they start giving you actual work.

PC509

Can you take the more difficult tickets? Sometimes, I'm very busy and have to take the normal stuff. Other times, it's pretty damn slow. I'll look through tickets and find some that I can do. I kept asking to be taught or given the permissions to help out in that queue. Eventually, after some training, I moved up into the net/sys admin ticket queue (along with the day to day stuff). Mix that with certs, MS degree, personal interests (programming), I'm always busy. I'm also looking for more stuff to do. If it's slow and I'm bored of studying, I'll clean a switch closet, clean up computers, do some preventative maintenance stuff to make sure I don't have a problem down the road.

Work load has gone down from when I first started. I've gotten more efficient, and a lot of that preventative maintenance pays off. But, I am way more busy than I was before. My "job" responsibilities are less of my day. My other responsibilities that aren't part of the job description take up more. I've always had the philosophy that there is always something to be done, always be busy. It's paid off so far.

alias454

You don't really speak to the size of your environment but given the workload you describe, I would go insane from boredom if I wasn't finding something to do. Use your "downtime" to be productive; like others have said, find something to do by asking around. Realize you are probably going to get tedious work but that is part of paying your dues. Once you are able to show you can accomplish those types of tasks without complaining, you should start to see the quality of work assignments get better.

ImYourOnlyDJ

networker050184 wrote: »

I've noticed it's easy to skate by and do the bare minimum in this industry. A lot of people do exactly what you described for years. That also makes it extremely easy to stand out and move ahead quickly with a little motivation. Take some initiative to stream line some processes or close a few extra tickets than the rest of the crowd.

x2 though it tends to catch up with you no matter what road you go down. I was the newest guy on the team when I got promoted to 2nd tier support (and again to network support), now the guy that was hired before me on the 1st tier is getting let go due to cutbacks. The difference between him and myself is that I pushed to learn and handle everything that I was allowed to do in my role, earned some certs, made significant process improvements, and created programs and scripts that helped the whole team do our jobs quicker. He on the other hand, bought a gameboy because he was bored during downtime.