Doing 1st/2nd line in a head engineering role

Hi guys. Got a bit of a dilemma and was hoping to get some responses regarding typical workloads.

Basically, to cut a long story short, I was taken on to be a high level technical engineer, taking care of Server migrations and general 3rd line support. What i've actually ended up with, is answering our forever busy helpdesk 90% of the time, with 10% of my time dedicated to Server installs and projects that I actually enjoy doing.

Here's where it may turn into a longer post

For example...you're working on a fault on a Server, the phone rings and you get a remote sesion and have to prat about with some dumb user who has bought a USB printer and wants it setting up remotely which takes your concentration off the Server issue. You manage to get it out of the way, and yet another call comes in when you're deep in the troubleshooting process on a Server, this time, a user is complaining that emails have "dissapeared" and would like them restoring asap. It's not worth getting into the fact that they have clearly deleted them and are making it worse by lying, so you get them to put the correct tape in (turns out they have to put two incorrect tapes in first as they also can't read..) This just seems to go on and on...

Then to top things off, you can't do the proper investigation and pre migration checks for a typical Server migration (LOB applications, system health check, BPA etc) and before you know it, you're booked in to replace a Server 'next week'. It just seems to go on and on..

Now I know I'm part of a small company (3 technical engineers, 1 director), but the director is clearly very deluded about what we do through there, and genuinely believes that we are a large corporate company, and in turn takes on far too much work, when in reality I'm a bloody helpdesk operator most of my time.

Is the above very similar to what you guys have to deal with, when part of a small organization, or have I been told a big porky and possibly need to look at some larger organizations? The only benefit I can see where I am, is that I'm completely indispensible as I am one of the longer standing members of staff and so job security isn't a worry in the slightest, unlike a larger firm.

Feel free to leave detailed replies, It would just be good to see how other peoples roles play out and whether I'm just expecting something that really doesn't exist in most cases.

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Comments

azjag

Sounds like you have fallen into the "other duties as assigned" category. Unless you like being the help desk I would move on. I was a Solutions Architect handling pc moves in a previous position. That position was also a small company, 1 owner, his wife doing HR, 1 supervisor and 3 "techs". You will end up doing anything and everything that needs to be done. In my case, cleaning the owners garage during a slow period was the last straw.

undomiel

It sounds pretty similar to my position over here. Got brought on about 2 years ago as a senior engineer (out of 2 techs including me and the boss) and ended up some weeks spending almost all my time out cleaning off spyware. I would be working on projects, as that is what I was brought on for, migrations, Exchange, virtualization, but I would still have to put things on hold if the help desk line got swamped. It has gotten better though. As the boss brought in more work I would spend more time doing projects and level 3 support and less time cleaning spyware and restoring files from backups. As more work came in the boss has hired more people including a full time help desk guy which has really helped matters. I still have to deal with some spyware every now and then but it is rare and any project I'm working on takes precedence.

It all really depends upon your boss and how he is running things. Since I brought on board a much higher level skill set than what had previously been here the boss was able to pick up bigger and better projects which allowed him to get a help desk guy so that he could free people up to work on projects. It sounds like that may be what is needed there, a dedicated help desk guy. But that really depends upon it making business sense to your boss. If you can pitch it to him and show how it will help the company make more money that may be worth a shot.

Turgon

mr2nut wrote: »

Hi guys. Got a bit of a dilemma and was hoping to get some responses regarding typical workloads.

Basically, to cut a long story short, I was taken on to be a high level technical engineer, taking care of Server migrations and general 3rd line support. What i've actually ended up with, is answering our forever busy helpdesk 90% of the time, with 10% of my time dedicated to Server installs and projects that I actually enjoy doing.

Here's where it may turn into a longer post

For example...you're working on a fault on a Server, the phone rings and you get a remote sesion and have to prat about with some dumb user who has bought a USB printer and wants it setting up remotely which takes your concentration off the Server issue. You manage to get it out of the way, and yet another call comes in when you're deep in the troubleshooting process on a Server, this time, a user is complaining that emails have "dissapeared" and would like them restoring asap. It's not worth getting into the fact that they have clearly deleted them and are making it worse by lying, so you get them to put the correct tape in (turns out they have to put two incorrect tapes in first as they also can't read..) This just seems to go on and on...

Then to top things off, you can't do the proper investigation and pre migration checks for a typical Server migration (LOB applications, system health check, BPA etc) and before you know it, you're booked in to replace a Server 'next week'. It just seems to go on and on..

Now I know I'm part of a small company (3 technical engineers, 1 director), but the director is clearly very deluded about what we do through there, and genuinely believes that we are a large corporate company, and in turn takes on far too much work, when in reality I'm a bloody helpdesk operator most of my time.

Is the above very similar to what you guys have to deal with, when part of a small organization, or have I been told a big porky and possibly need to look at some larger organizations? The only benefit I can see where I am, is that I'm completely indispensible as I am one of the longer standing members of staff and so job security isn't a worry in the slightest, unlike a larger firm.

Feel free to leave detailed replies, It would just be good to see how other peoples roles play out and whether I'm just expecting something that really doesn't exist in most cases.

What you have here is small company syndrome. Not to bash small companies, they offer great experience because you are forced to cope with a lot of stuff but I think you have outgrown that phase of your career. Your director is doing a decent job on one level because there is plenty of work coming in, but you are not afforded the time to do what you were employed to do properly because of the business model and resourcing issues.

You have three options:

1. Suck it up and stay. The situation will not change.
2. Find a larger shop where you have time to do what you want to do.
3. Discuss with the Director

No 3 is worth a punt if A) You think your discussion is worthwhile and

You want to continue at this company.

The company will not scale well following the present model. Lose one or two techs and the damage will be considerable as you will no longer be able to react to your customers demands. They already have this expectation of you because of the way the company handles workflow.

I would recommend that they either recruit a helpdesk manager who is hands on to take care of the support issues you are often fielding, or a contract to hire person to do the same. Your role should be redefined as Network Architect. You should be doing the projects and design work and in-extremis offering last line support for serious incidents. The folks below you should be offering helpdesk, break-fix, installation and build services for the clients.

If your boss does this then your company will have a more professional structure better suited to larger clients who like to see formal escalations to more senior people i.e you, within the provider.

N2IT

Man that has gotta suck. Sorry to hear that

My situation knock on wood has been the complete opposite. I was brought in as a team lead, and I actually manage 95% of the time. Like Turgon said though, I joined a huge biotech company.

If it was a smaller company that wouldn't be the case most likely.

blargoe

What are the other "engineers" doing? Are they swamped with helpdesk calls as well, and the director just doesn't have a clue what's going on?

If it were me, I would start looking elsewhere. It's reasonable to be asked to help out with level 1 and 2 in overflow situations, but that is clearly not what this is. Hopefully, you have acquired some experience and/or training that you can add to your resume.

mr2nut

Sorry, I forgot to check back on this post as i've been so busy and forgot.

Cheers for the replies, I take it on board fully. I'm just a bit confused, part of me is hoping that things improve, but part of me knows that we simply need another 1st line engineer to take away most of the basic calls so that we can fully concentrate of maintaining and installation of Servers/Networks etc.

Viruses seem to be cropping up more and more in all IT positions from what I can see though. Some moron has clicked 0.mpeg.exe on either a stupid Facebook link or blindly clicked an attachment which has now jumped across to the Server and infected pretty much every machine on the Network. I'm now going to be there for a few days running malware and cleanup tools like TFC, ComboFix, Malware Bytes etc. as the anti-virus protection has been compromised and they keep replicating all over the C drive and system state..... oh joy

mr2nut

Well after failing my 649 exam today I thought i'd update this negative post for a positive thing! We now have an admin guy and a 1st/2nd line engineer who is taking a lot of the pressure off me. I now focus on Server deployments/migrations and recently did a base metal hyper v based solution for a larger client of ours that runs SQL and is backed up via a backup exec agent on the bare metal install.

Devilry

I'm glad that things are starting to look better for you. That is some good news, don't worry too much about the 649.. you'll get it next time!

mr2nut

Devilry wrote: »

I'm glad that things are starting to look better for you. That is some good news, don't worry too much about the 649.. you'll get it next time!

Thanks buddy. This forum has really helped when I've been down after exams. I do think that this exam in particular is stupid, I loved the simulation stuff on some of my previous exams. That's actually testing your skills in the real world, and not just forcing you to remember a ton of very specific syntaxes and commands that you could quite easily run a /? switch for and research etc.