How did you feel when you took your first (non support) position?

N2IT

I'm just curious to see how that impacted your quality of life. Abusive customers and ridiculous request are a thing of the past.

It must of been a great feeling. I went to a manage service company so technically I had a customer, the people I was supporting, but it was as a team lead not dealing directly (usually <5% of the time) with customers. Oh and it was a great feeling it was like a whole new chapter of life started. Work was STRESSFUL, but in a positive way and growing and learning. It was an amazing feeling and I'm excited about getting back to that type of role. This is my last week of support and then two weeks off and back to strategy and design.

Snapping back into a support role for 8 months has given me a greater appreciation of strategy and design. I am going to work so hard because of this experience. It was a blessing in disguise, at least from my vantage point.

N2IT

VA I was being somewhat sarcastic. I should type it in blue next time.

Keep in mind kats is dedicated he is going for his voice certification. That to me indicates a true passion for VoIP.

RouteThisWay

I don't know, I'll let you know! I start my first non-support role on Aug 6th. Moving into the design/implementation realm for a Fortune 500 company from the "I support anything with a power cord and anyone who uses a computer" small business realm.

I am pretty excited. When I interviewed, I walked by their Help Desk and Desktop Support Teams... and I sighed a big breath of relief knowing that is not my game. Even though I am a Sys Admin now- working for a small business, you still do Help Desk and Desktop Support.. just on a T2/3 level.

I may be a bit naive, but I am ecstatic.

EDIT: And just to contribute to the conversation, I hate VOIP too.

N2IT

Route congratz on the promotion! That sounds like a much better gig than getting hammered on the phone. Don't get me wrong I think support is a great start but the natural evolution of a IT professional is to get into management, design, strategy, implementation, etc.

There will always be a small portion of support in most IT positions but less than 10% is ideal.

the_Grinch

I can't seem to get away from support and I loath every minute of it....

Iristheangel

I worked at banks and customer service gigs for 7 years before I got into IT. When I got my first IT job, I was just so happy that I didn't have to wear a headset 9 hours a day that I didn't mind running around fixing employee's computers. My only complaint was that it got boring very quickly and there was only so much I could learn in that position. The next position I got, I didn't even have to deal with end users so I was even better.
I also did contracting gigs through Onforce and Workmarket. I never gave out my cell phone number to customers but from time to time, I would get someone who would call the client than hired me weeks later and try to get me to come out for free to fix their computer that they broke again or provide tech support whenever they run into problems. I usually flat out refused to take those calls if they were calling < 1 week since I performed any service for them.

N2IT

Nothing against support it's just that IMO there is a major burnout phase. I never was on phones until I did helpdesk. My first 2.5 years were fine, I felt I was going and moving forward. However after that, the next 1.5 was tough. I had a 6 month break from the phones in that period doing QA and process refinement for a 6 month project but once that ended back to the phones. It was rough, very rough. I then took a team lead position and I was loving it. It was stressful and very challenging but I was learning a lot and I didn't have to do support. I love customer relationship management so that position is fine for me, but support to end users takes it toll on you. I am now doing tier 3 support so now I am not answering phones but I am still doing remote end user support and it's wearing on me big time. I have the end of this week and then back to a team lead type position. It hasn't been completely defined yet, but one piece is process capturing and improvement, something I am very good at and enjoy. I will still support end users, but in a different capacity.

So I hope support folks don't take this post wrong I respect everything they do I just know the job can be tough and after awhile you end up going backwards because it's hard to stay motivated.

VAHokie56

whoops looks like my comment was a little to raw...sorry Mr.admin

veritas_libertas

I'll let you know when I get there.

I have to say that it's wearing on me at this point. I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one that has felt this way.

shodown

I was kinda shocked. I wasn't in the IOS all day. I thought I was suppose to be doing something. I found that being a Engineer vs being a operations person was a different world. I found myself on GNS3 a lot more during work. I found myself reading more books trying to figure out how to use the technologies to solve problems. Also a lot more work was in documentation, presentations, meeting with vendors and actually having some control over what was being used. My IOS time dropped in half.

paul78

I think for me its too late and a lost cause. My career will always involve some aspect of customer support. I suppose ultimately there is always a customer to support whether its internal or external customer. I can't really envision any job where there is no customer to support. Generally speaking, I prefer to support external customers.

N2IT

Paul you are absolutely correct customers are everywhere.

The company I work for now the end users are termed customers at least that is how they are defined. That element of support I have grown weary of.

In the new environment I work for the customer is the management of the company we are providing managed services too. The employees who receive support from us are users not customers. IMO a customer is a company or person who purchases goods or services. Therefore the hiring body is the customer and the employees who recieve the purchased service are users.

I've been schooled on this time and time again. ITIL teaches you differently but ITIL doesn't pay my paychecks.

paul78

N2 - Yeah - I hear you. I can appreciate that in a lot of environments, it can be hard to be 100% customer support. Especially the individual works on a service desk with extremely formalized procedures and limits the staffers from creative solution solving. I suspect that's what burns people out. Perhaps a motivating factor in improving service desk productivity and even reducing attrition is to find some balance where the staffers have some level of autonomy and feel empowered.

I guess I can't claim to really do support as my interaction with customers are not with the users. Although, sometimes I wish it was since its less complicated - I guess the grass is also greener on the other side

N2IT

You are absolutely correct.

I guess the fact I am switching environments in a few weeks and will be heavily into strategy at the operations level has me excited. Ever since I left my post I haven't felt right. I've learned a lot in my support position I am currently in, but really want to get into the operational supervisor and project coordination role. Besides I really miss my mentor and will get to work with him again. You remind me of him. He is an good ole boy from one of the big big service provider companies and high level to boot, but family duties brought him back to St. Louis. He is a C level working as a PM, so the company is getting a lot of value. His experiences are overwhelming but I learn so much from him, I can't wait. A lot of what I bring here is directly related from his experiences he shares with me. The reason I did the RMP was because of all the risk management and business continuity planning I learned from him.

O well I went off tangent I just miss that more than anything.

MiikeB

I personally love doing support, but not working in a call center. Face to face and helping people can be very rewarding, but the problem is most help desks have so many policies and procedures and limited access that the customers end up just getting frustrated at them and making everyone miserable.

One important thing I will note for everyone still looking to get out of helpdesk. When you interview, never mention that you are trying to get out of help desk work because you don't like it etc. This can send warnings to a boss that you are not a people person, a team player or you don't like to be helpful. Just say something like you believe this is the next step in furthering your career etc.

the_Grinch

I always found the kicker with helpdesk type jobs is you eventually see just about everything and that's when it truly starts to wear on you. At some point when working on your 1000th "my printer isn't working" ticket you suddenly realize that you are getting burnt out. The move to more desk side support has definitely helped, but at some point I need to get out of the support side of things. Obviously, you will always be supporting someone or something, but I'm looking more to get out of the "my printer won't print" and "the internet is slow" tickets. I have found that I really enjoy supporting programmers. They're the only "customers" who seem to respect what it is that I do.

N2IT

Grinch exactly

My support tickets are now more around my Outlook looks different than before (after a reimage) or my nested if statement isn't pulling the right data from my spreadsheet.

After a while I'm like you it gets rather old. I'm moving on and I have 3 days left including today. I'm looking forward to my new adventure.

the_Grinch

3 days? Oh I think they are going to drag lol. All kidding aside, glad to hear you are moving out always good to see people bettering themselves and their situation.

RouteThisWay

Exactly Grinch, it wears on you. The burn out.

I think the biggest difference in doing traditional support vs operations/design is who you are supporting.

I'll be "supporting" other admins/engineers- storage teams, *nix teams, Windows teams, Network teams, desktop teams etc. Basically- my team fills the gap between everyone to really manage and bring together a cohesive virtual environment. This is a big change from supporting users.

I would like to think it will be a bit different dealing with other tech savvy people vs people who don't know how to log off of a computer.

But on the flip side, it will be much harder to BS another tech guy/gal. When supporting users, if you really don't have the time to explain or you know they don't have the technical capacity to understand what you are talking about, just throw some technical jargon with the words "server" or "firewall" indiscriminately in there and they nod and you go on. It almost feels like a one sided relationship. I am hoping that by working with other technical teams it will be a bit more of a two-way street where I can actually speak intelligently about my job and them theirs, and we can both learn something from the collaboration.

I could just be really naive though, ha!

the_Grinch

When dealing with the programmers they don't ask me the how's and why's, just fix it and they are happy. Plus I find they are way more understanding, when something goes wrong they don't look at it as if somehow it is my fault. They acknowledge that they don't know how to fix something and I in turn acknowledge that I can't program. Thus far it has been a great working relationship.

N2IT

The how's and why's really do add up! Like I mentioned in an earlier post, a lot of support is PR. Making the user feel good about themselves and the situation. ***Not that there is anything wrong with that, but it is what it is. I would like to believe we are all trying to ascend in our IT journey. End user support IMO is phase one of that journey.

Crikey

RouteThisWay wrote: »

I think the biggest difference in doing traditional support vs operations/design is who you are supporting.

Agree. You always have a "customer", it just depends on who/what you support. I work on government contracts - my "customer" is a large federal agency, and I do sometimes have to handle "end users" who can't access their data. I still get phone calls!

glenn_33

the_Grinch wrote: »

I can't seem to get away from support and I loath every minute of it....

I hear that...Unfortunately I don't have enough experience to do anything else

N2IT

I think people are missing the point.

Direct 100% support is a lot different than managing, leading, supervising, etc. As mentioned throughout the thread already, everyone deals with customers, (that has been determined) However, direct support to end users is not a function that everyone within a company performs. Data analyst have a customer/s but they don't directly support others. Same goes with BA's, PM's, Designers, Developers, DBA's, modelers, etc. Yes they have "customers" and yes they perform support but not direct 100% support. A lot of what these other positions requires is proactive behaviors like planning. These are non support task that take up a large part of your day. Also relationship management is a lot different than end user support.

The point of this thread is the enjoyment of modeling, designing, developing, strategizing, planning, CRM, and a whole host of other task other than direct support.

veritas_libertas

N2IT wrote: »

The how's and why's really do add up! Like I mentioned in an earlier post, a lot of support is PR. Making the user feel good about themselves and the situation. ***Not that there is anything wrong with that, but it is what it is. I would like to believe we are all trying to ascend in our IT journey. End user support IMO is phase one of that journey.

We were discussing this on our morning meeting today. 50% of what I do is make our users feel like they are important and that we care about them. Nothing wrong with this, but it is what it is.

N2IT

VL

That's great your team had that discussion. It is what it is, is exactly right!

I spoke to my old/new boss (he was my boss before leaving and will be again). We are capturing ideas on how we can streamline the ticket flow into automated request. There are several tools in place that can designed to create self service request we just need to have the developers code the request into the module, of course getting buy in from the customer and going through the proper change process.

I am thinking we can get 30% of the request that come in now to go through a self service plan. How to's will be directed to a how to site that will have a business owner that will be responsible for updating the site as the need comes through trending and reporting via help desk.

My goal is to take as much mundane nonsense off the techs plate and allow them to fix problems and not hand hold and do other silly cost wasting activities. That's where problem management comes into play. Instead of running everything from the past off of historicals and only leveraging a incident management process we want to create/develop problem management processes to stay out in front and control the risk associated with high call volumes, staffing, utilization, costing, etc.

paul78

veritas_libertas wrote: »

50% of what I do is make our users feel like they are important and that we care about them.

I agree with you you and N2IT. My only caution is to not go too overboard with it. Otherwise it can seem a little disingenuous. For example, where I work, the service desk staffers and a few teams address me as "sir" or "Mr xxx". While I tend to prefer formality, it feels a bit odd since that's not the natural culture in the corporation. So to me it's clearly an attempt by the management of that group to instill a sense of respect within their staff. I don't object to the effort but it's not culturally appropriate.

N2IT wrote:

You remind me of him.

Shucks Thanks for the kind compliment. Makes me feel old though, even if it's true.

NT2IT wrote:

Direct 100% support is a lot different than managing, leading, supervising, etc....

Very true and well said. And I would add that direct customer support isn't always a penchant that everyone enjoys. For me, I really want to have some aspect of my job always to include "touching" the customer in a direct way. It doesn't have to be support although I sometimes do it because I find it refreshing to work on challenging technical issues. I often feel a stronger sense of adding value to the corporation if I am able to influence the customers sense of satisfaction or what is normally in my role to protect the corporation's interests in the relationship.

RouteThisWay wrote:

I think the biggest difference in doing traditional support vs operations/design is who you are supporting

Again, very true. And I also suspect that the monotony of certain support functions can get weary.