Help Desk Rookie

Nategliscz

Fellow IT Professionals,

First, thanks again for all the feedback on my previous post about keeping fit behind a desk. It has been a great help! My next question is more Help Desk related. What are some pointers, tips, hints or "secrets" if you will, that you would give to a new Help Desk Analyst? Phrasing it differently, do you have any.. "Gee, I really wish I knew that going it this job," thoughts or experiences? Anything to help a CSA III new guy. Thanks again for reading and your feedback.

Nate

FiR3x

No offence

Let me google that for you

Akaricloud

Something that I never thought to actually study/learn that has really helped me since is how to better communnicate with others. It's really surprising how a few books enlightened me to new techniques that allow me to get what I want while making friends and improving the social aspect of my work environment.

The difference between a liked helpdesk person and a hated one can be all in how they communicate with their users.

BobbyDC

What book would you say helped you the most? Communicating with others is something I need to work on.

Akaricloud

I would say the good classic How to win friends and influence people helped me out the most.

There's a lot of good information on how to handle people, make change happen without being offensive, and become liked by your peers that can relate to the IT world pretty well.

J_86

Have kind of thick skin. If you are going to be working for a help desk, you are probably the first point of contact for end user and some of them will not be nice. Some are just frustrated and will calm down, others are just that way and will not appreciate anything you do.

If you have any downtime, read over any documentation you have available about your role, the network, whatever you can find. Never know when you might need it, just been a sponge and soak up and new information and skills that you can.

Oh, and Google is your best friend when it comes to weird Office, IE settings, and the help desk in general. You will be amazed at what end users managed to mess up sometimes!

Qord

Look at your organizations goals and see how your daily duties match up with and help achieve them.
Stay as positive as possible, laugh often.
Learn to effectively and efficiently use Google.
Don't take it personally.
Document everything. Everything. Seriously.
Don't be afraid to ask questions, be proactive in your learning.

That's all I've got for now.

tecke

keep a good attitude and remember this is not your final destination in your it career. You will deal with a lot of people and some people are emotionally stressed out and they will take it out on you. Just try to be understanding and sympathetic, get the job done and keep moving!

good luck

the_Grinch

I would take a class on public speaking as I think that would probably help you out the most. Aside from that, be prepared to talk people off the ledge. I was once ripped by a sales manager at a remote office for 45 minutes about a phone system that was going in place and that I had no hand in (they threw it to me when I started, but had selected and planned for it a year prior to my coming). He called me every name in the book, said his wife believed I should be fired for causing him undue stress, and how I was the most incompetent person to ever work at that company. I merely replied that I had relayed his requests to the phone company who assured me that all of the options he wanted were in place and would be working when they went live. He called me a liar and hung up to call the VP of Operations and continue to belittle me. A week later we had a conference call with the phone company and him, where he was nice as pie to them and they explained (to the letter) the request I had put in for his office and that once they completed the office training they would know how to use those features. All I got was "hey sorry about that."

You'll ultimately only really learn through experience. Your first two months you are going to screw up and believe me everybody does. Shortly after though, you'll work into a groove and find out how to handle each situation. Once you've been there a year, nothing will surprise you and you'll actually really know about your "customers". You'll talk about their vacation, their family, who in the office is ticking them off that day, and all the normal banter you would have with someone in person. Your go to phrase should always be, give me a couple minutes while I do a little research on this topic. Very few people will expect you to have an immediate answer and when I was doing it, most were more surprised that I fixed things so quickly.