Landed my second job as desktop support for 25k. =)

Hi guys,
its been a while since i have been on here but i really have been busy sorting out my life, i just wanted to get some tip's off you such as what to expect and what to look out for. the company that i am working for is a HR & PR company and it is based in central london. the system that they have in place is pretty simple they have 90% mac and 10% pc. which is kool as i have experience with trouble-shooting PC's & mac's as i worked for an apple ASSP as well as a network adminstrator. so thats no problem. i just want to be on the ball and need some tip's from you guys.

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Comments

thelordharry

The one thing I've learned about Desktop Support in all the years I've been doing it is never believe anything unless you see it for yourself

Many is the time where I've had a job drop into my call queue and I've sat there for 15 to 30 minutes investigating the possible fixes to then remote control or attend the user's desk to find that I've wasted my time because the reported fault is nothing like the actual one. Very frustrating!

Patience is also the key. Bear in mind that every person will have a different level of IT knowledge so you have to learn to be patient with the 60 year old guy who's never used a computer in his life to putting up with the amateur IT enthusiast who thinks he knows more than you do

Last but not least, don't forget to enjoy it and learn as much as you can! You probably won't be there forever and are using it as a stepping stone for greater things so just do a good job, soak up as much as you can and leave the IT department a better place

l33tgama

thanks for the reply, yes i am using this company as a stepping stone to better my carrer/ future. i will stay until i feel i am ready to move on. as for having to deal with the average amateur IT enthusiast who thinks he knows more than you do i had quite a lot of that at my old job where customers would phone up about the pc they have sent into us for repair. and then start telling me what the problem was when it was quite not the case lol.

its just something that im used to now anyways:P im really looking forward to the role as desktop support as i like the fact that someone can carry on doing there job because i fixed there problem. "the office hero", that fixed the paper jam lol! :P oh if only they knew.

thelordharry

I know what you mean. I find one of the most rewarding things about desktop support is fixing a problem that you had no clue about to start with but after a logical thought process and investigation (perhaps a little Googling and maybe even a slice of running around like a headless chicken!) you somehow manage to resolve it and you get a big smile from the user who says "thanks very much, you're a genius". Makes it all worth while

Unfortunately, on the other side of the coin there's always the people who hold you personably responsible for the problem happening in the first place, are rude and dismissive of you and when you do fix it, look at you as if to say 'you took your time!'. You definately need to take the rough with the smooth....

Another frustrating aspect of IT can be problem ownership. If you work in a small company then this might not be so bad as you're more likely to take care of everything but in a medium or larger company you have a desktop support team, a server team, a network team, a hardware team etc etc. Sometimes a problem can be a ambiguous, for example, like of a desktop machine that cannot log onto the domain. In this case, is it:

1) A dodgy network cable/floorpoint or patch room problem (hardware team?)
2) Failed or incorrectly installed network card (desktop support?)
3) DMC down (server or network support?)

Unfortunately, in my experience, it's always left to the desktop support engineer to prove it's not a desktop issue first before passing it on. Even when a call will state several users in the office cannot logon either

Anyway. Good luck with it. As it turns out, I'm in the process of moving over to Wintel Server Support myself so I'll take some of my own advice