Weird IT Job
Whistlestop
Member Posts: 20 ■□□□□□□□□□
Organization I work for is quite well known in my country(UK)
a tad over 4000 users in public healthcare.I work as IT Support with this organization. I've worked here for the last 6 months and have never encountered such strange usersbefore. I have about 20 years customer service experience but this seems to be on a totally new level. I thought i'd relay a few scenarios to you because i'm keen to find out whether this is normal in IT?
This is not my first job in IT by the way.
When any type of phishing email is received we receive phone calls from users, logged tickets, emails asking what they should do about it. Even when an email is sent out by the IT Dept advising users what to do i.e. the usual phishing advice.Some still need to be hand held through the process of deleting the email and removing it from their trash folder.
It is normal for many users to log as many as 70 trouble tickets in the space of 6 months? this seems to encompass things like password resets, blocked websites etc.
Many users have to be given help in using the call logging system despite the fact that three emails have been sent out (in last 6 months) to all staff advising them how to log their own tickets.Each day we speak to a few people that need us to take remote control of their PCs to be shown how to create their own helpdesk ticket. Information requested such as contact phone number is usually met with confusion so have to explain to them they need to type in the contact number they can be best reached on during office hours. This is common sense i'd have thought.
I spoke to one user who was trying to pay her gas bill and she was presented with an error message stating that her login credentials were invalid. She phoned us. I explained to her politely she should be speaking to her gas company as this is non work related.
Another user tried logging into the IT helpdesk reporting system using their personal email address (hotmail)
In many departments, if network connectivity goes down, at least 2 people from the same department in the same room (sitting next to each other) try phoning IT to ask whats happening. Me and colleagues working in IT have on a number of occasions found ourselves talking to 2 or 3 people in the same room about the same issue. I think this is weird because whenever i've been an end user in a company, my colleagues and I have always had the sense to realise its the same issue and that only one person needs to log a ticket with IT about it.Why on earth, Tom, Dick and Harry needs to ring up at the same time about the same issue is beyond me!
User has joined the company and logs into his PC for the first time but he doesn't know how to access his email so he phones us for help. I helped him access it but then asked him whether he sits near anyone. He confirmed he sits near 4 other people which prompted me to ask politely why he didn't ask his colleagues to show him which icon to click on to open up his email program. Apparently he didn't think they would know the answer to his question.
User (actually a Dr) phones up saying that their screen has rotated. I attempt to talk them through fixing it. It's an easy fix but she runs out of patience (she was on phone less than 90 seconds) and says she is going to just turn the monitor on its side (yes physically turn it). One week later her PA phones up on her behalf and I help her reorient the desktop screen the correct way via the HP software.
One user phoned us up 3 times in one day as she kept forgetting her login password to her PC
Users frequently cannot answer basic questions such as what Team do you work in? what is the model number of the printer? I've spoken to one user who when asked to spell their surnames phonetically answered "B for Apple"
User has a problem with a healthcare reporting program but an email has already been sent out about this on-going issue advising user's to restart their PC for the updates to install. She phones up, waits in a queue for 45 minutes and I advise her to reboot her PC. She does so reluctantly but finds out that this has fixed the problem. I mention to her about the email that was sent out but she seems oblivious to the fact she wasted so much time. It has been noticed on such busy days that users seem to relish hanging on the phone waiting in the call queue only to be told common sense fixes to problems. It's been commented on by more than one person (even non IT staff) that many workers enjoy phoning IT as they use it as an excuse not to do any real work.
On average we receive 120 phone calls a day.On a couple of rare days we have received as many as 250 phone calls. We are a team of 6.
When software is rolled out, whether it be anything from minor updates to new OS, this is barely tested before deployment. This is the normal behaviour of the powers that be.
very little is documented and there's no talk of change management.I think this doesn't help. isn't it odd that having 4000 odd users and there's very little testing to ensure deployment goes to plan?
I will be looking to move on from this job but I can't help but think this type of behaviour from both users and the upper echelons within IT is not normal ?
a tad over 4000 users in public healthcare.I work as IT Support with this organization. I've worked here for the last 6 months and have never encountered such strange usersbefore. I have about 20 years customer service experience but this seems to be on a totally new level. I thought i'd relay a few scenarios to you because i'm keen to find out whether this is normal in IT?
This is not my first job in IT by the way.
When any type of phishing email is received we receive phone calls from users, logged tickets, emails asking what they should do about it. Even when an email is sent out by the IT Dept advising users what to do i.e. the usual phishing advice.Some still need to be hand held through the process of deleting the email and removing it from their trash folder.
It is normal for many users to log as many as 70 trouble tickets in the space of 6 months? this seems to encompass things like password resets, blocked websites etc.
Many users have to be given help in using the call logging system despite the fact that three emails have been sent out (in last 6 months) to all staff advising them how to log their own tickets.Each day we speak to a few people that need us to take remote control of their PCs to be shown how to create their own helpdesk ticket. Information requested such as contact phone number is usually met with confusion so have to explain to them they need to type in the contact number they can be best reached on during office hours. This is common sense i'd have thought.
I spoke to one user who was trying to pay her gas bill and she was presented with an error message stating that her login credentials were invalid. She phoned us. I explained to her politely she should be speaking to her gas company as this is non work related.
Another user tried logging into the IT helpdesk reporting system using their personal email address (hotmail)
In many departments, if network connectivity goes down, at least 2 people from the same department in the same room (sitting next to each other) try phoning IT to ask whats happening. Me and colleagues working in IT have on a number of occasions found ourselves talking to 2 or 3 people in the same room about the same issue. I think this is weird because whenever i've been an end user in a company, my colleagues and I have always had the sense to realise its the same issue and that only one person needs to log a ticket with IT about it.Why on earth, Tom, Dick and Harry needs to ring up at the same time about the same issue is beyond me!
User has joined the company and logs into his PC for the first time but he doesn't know how to access his email so he phones us for help. I helped him access it but then asked him whether he sits near anyone. He confirmed he sits near 4 other people which prompted me to ask politely why he didn't ask his colleagues to show him which icon to click on to open up his email program. Apparently he didn't think they would know the answer to his question.
User (actually a Dr) phones up saying that their screen has rotated. I attempt to talk them through fixing it. It's an easy fix but she runs out of patience (she was on phone less than 90 seconds) and says she is going to just turn the monitor on its side (yes physically turn it). One week later her PA phones up on her behalf and I help her reorient the desktop screen the correct way via the HP software.
One user phoned us up 3 times in one day as she kept forgetting her login password to her PC
Users frequently cannot answer basic questions such as what Team do you work in? what is the model number of the printer? I've spoken to one user who when asked to spell their surnames phonetically answered "B for Apple"
User has a problem with a healthcare reporting program but an email has already been sent out about this on-going issue advising user's to restart their PC for the updates to install. She phones up, waits in a queue for 45 minutes and I advise her to reboot her PC. She does so reluctantly but finds out that this has fixed the problem. I mention to her about the email that was sent out but she seems oblivious to the fact she wasted so much time. It has been noticed on such busy days that users seem to relish hanging on the phone waiting in the call queue only to be told common sense fixes to problems. It's been commented on by more than one person (even non IT staff) that many workers enjoy phoning IT as they use it as an excuse not to do any real work.
On average we receive 120 phone calls a day.On a couple of rare days we have received as many as 250 phone calls. We are a team of 6.
When software is rolled out, whether it be anything from minor updates to new OS, this is barely tested before deployment. This is the normal behaviour of the powers that be.
very little is documented and there's no talk of change management.I think this doesn't help. isn't it odd that having 4000 odd users and there's very little testing to ensure deployment goes to plan?
I will be looking to move on from this job but I can't help but think this type of behaviour from both users and the upper echelons within IT is not normal ?
Comments
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Xyro
Member Posts: 623
Sounds exactly like both support roles I've held. I did like the "keeping the monitor on its side" story though.
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mokaiba
Member Posts: 162 ■■■□□□□□□□
Sounds similar to my situation at the help desk I work in.
200+ tickets daily.
Example day:
200 tickets from calls, emails, and chat systems
150 are from people who cannot take a photo in my companies software. You would think people would know to place the camera in front of them for the photo.
30 are just general issues (passwords, how I do dis, etc)
10 are completely pointless calls (why'd you even contact us types)
10 are actually technical issues.
I frequently have callers from india saying I for India, K for Kyrgyzstan, R for rajasthan, etc all in a heavy Indian accent or they say nothing but 'hello' and 'yes' every five seconds in the call.
What is your name?
Hello
Hello
Hello
Yes
Name Here
Hello
Hello
Hello
Yes
Hello
Hello
Hello
Yes
How can I help you?
Yes
Hello
etc -
ScrawnyRonnie
Member Posts: 112
I work in a ~250 user healthcare center and I get the same types of calls. I love when I have to drive across town to another location to plug in a single cable or push a power button for someone who doesn't want to break anything. At least I get mileage reimbursement
I'm the lone help desk guy and some days it's slow and others I can't get off the phone. Took 2 calls while trying to type this too haha 
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TomkoTech
Member Posts: 438
This behavior is fairly common when end users have no technical background. One of our biggest clients has 150ish users over 6 locations. We field on a good day 15-20 calls from them. On a bad day 20-50. Most of these are simple "Check to make sure this cable, or that cable is plugged in correctly" and it's the same people for that same issue every other week. Common sense would tell them to try what we walked them through the last time. However common sense is not very common. People typo email address and will argue till they are blue in the face that the email address is correct. 80% of the time it's not.
I would say that out of the 500 or so people my company deals with there are maybe 5 that I could be confident when they call with a problem, they actually tried the fail safe resolutions prior to calling.
Most of my work is supposed to be sys/admin related work, and I end up getting called to a different location often to fix stupid things.