Working at an ISP

So I've been at this ISP for over a month. The people that I work with are pretty cool and laid back.
I kinda like it there and I hope this job helps me move up into things that I'm interested in.

The only major thing that I don't like so much is dealing with people's money and accounts. I've never really been comfortable with dealing with others peoples money. Helping people work out their problems with connection or mailbox issues is something that I like to do because I like to help people get on their way or work towards their goal. I don't get to do anything with the DNS records or T1 lines yet

It always amazes me how people can be rude and disrespectful over the phone. I don't like people that "act tough". I'm sure these people wouldn't come to the company and yell and scream at me. The main reason why they do that over the phone is that they have "protection" even though I have their address in the billing system lol. But I'm sure I'm going to get some more grey hair because of these customers.

It's rare to get the people that are understanding and kind. I try to relate that I have computer problems too and that kinda works. I try to share my experiences with the problems that I've had so they don't feel like they're the only one who's been a victim of their computer, router or modem lol.

I'm still trying to learn how to do things but it seems that it's taking for ever because I don't work full time there.

Some of the major things that I do there is:

Password resets
DSL connection troubleshooting
Billing
Outlook: express and 20XX troubleshooting
DNS lookups
E-mail troubleshooting (usually users went over quota)

For the DSL troubleshooting, I get to actually test the circuit but the customer
has to go outside to the NIDS for a full test.

So over all it's been alright. I like what I'm doing and I hope to be able to do DNS and T1 stuff later on.

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Comments

Mike-Mike

I would think being in a NOC for an ISP would be cool

jamesleecoleman

I think that being in a NOC or SNOC/SOC would be cool too. I'm hoping to move in that direction. I found a bilingual NOC position for a Chinese owned video game company.

rensational

I am in my last week at an ISP, and I can't wait to leave, haha. I work for a small, local ISP, which I guess doesn't always mean the products are crappy but in this case they really are. It makes the job harder, and the training was non-existent, basically. People being rude, disrespectful, yelling over the phone--THIS. Imagine how bad it is when the services provided really do suck. A lot of the time, people have legitimate beefs. I have never heard of so many email problems in my life. I have taken good email service (since getting away from AOL and Yahoo) for granted. It's just not my fault, but that's of no consequence.

I do similar things as what you do, jamesleecoleman, it seems, and I do dns records (love it, in comparison to other stuff) and troubleshoot T1s. But I don't do any billing--just hand those calls off to the billing dept.

Most of the people I work with are great, but there's one person I work with who has been a total nightmare. My supervisor actually asked me yesterday why I'm leaving, and I basically told her my issues were with the lack of training making me not feel confident in doing my job and that co-worker. I'm not leaving because of her, but she has made it so hard to do my job. It's a team work environment, and she is competitive, doesn't relay important info and I think just tries to sabotage, at least, me or, at least, point out everything I do wrong. My supervisor already knows how she is, so she wasn't surprised--just said she doesn't know what to do about it. She has talked to her before about this stuff.

Just noticed you live in Michigan--used to live there too (attended UM-AA) and would love to find an IT job up there that paid enough for me to move back and live off of it. I will be starting next week at a position that is combo IT support/system admin and pays way more money than I make now, plus bonuses. Not excited to still be dealing with people, but I've been told it's not the same as where I work now because they're all in-house employees at the company vs being dumb workers at various companies.

YFZblu

I had to post in this thread simply to say SUP to my fellow Michiganders.

traceyke

YFZblu wrote: »

I had to post in this thread simply to say SUP to my fellow Michiganders.

Ditto!! "Pure Michigan"

ehnde

I worked in a NOC at an ISP. The only customers I ever talked to were network admins for businesses that had internet service with us. Definitely the way for you to go.

jamesleecoleman

I'm glad that there are more people from Michigan here.

It can get stressful working at the ISP because when I need something I can't find it. When I don't need it then I can find it. Then I get the rare calls and I don't get enough practice. I'm not used to having to get a ton of information. Usually its a few things and then I can fix the problem.

For some reason, I don't think I'll make it in this job before I'm finished with school

I just really hope that this job helps me move up into troubleshooting things that I'm more familiar with. So hopefully when I get my CCNA, I can apply for a level two position some day or a junior network engineer position. I've always wanted to do network infrastructure work.