Something starting to drive me nuts at work - Helpdesk

As some of you know, this is my first helpdesk job. I am coming up on the third month working here and I still am learning new things. There is however, one matter that is starting to annoy the hell out of me. We have these people called "Tech Leads" here and as part of the troubleshooting process, we are to utilize (in this order) our personal knowledge, the KB (Knowledge Base), the internet, and the "tech leads". Well there have been several issues where I know the problem needs to have field services come out and work the issue. Upon submitting the ticket to field services we are required to get permission from one of these tech leads. Well, one of them seems to be a "spaghetti chucker"... Here are two of the examples:

I go to get permission to submit a printer issue to field services. The problem is that this printer is having a POST error and isn't booting. Mind you I mention this in my request "Printer failed to POST" and one of the "tech leads" comes at me with nonsense like "who is getting this error?? is everyone? Or is it just this one person? what troubleshooting have you done?? Is anyone able to print??". That is one example and it really annoyed the HELL out of me. For one thing this particular person acted like I had done no troubleshooting at all, and two, they didn't even seem to know what POST was asking all the wrong questions like this.

And today, oh man am I glad there were two other tech leads around... I submitted another request for another printer issue to get taken care of by field services. The issue was that the printer was not feeding the paper properly and the customer had to always open the printer himself and manually feed the paper through. So I post the request for field services and the same person comes asking "have you reinstalled the drivers?? Have you rebooted the printer?? Does this happen to everyone? Does it happen to you? What troubleshooting have you done? " and here is one that I thought was really irrelevant to the issue "Have you restarted print spooler??" Again, acting like I did no troubleshooting. I was sooo glad when another tech lead saw this nonsense today and just said to send it to field services and not waste my time or this customers time. Seemed like spaghetti chucking to me. Only thing is, I don't think I'll say anything about it to this person because they have a little authority over me and if I get on their bad side, well it could prevent me from moving forward with the company. What should I do? Should I put up with the bullshit or say something??

Sorry for the rant but it's driving me insane

Once I learn all I can from this place I think I'll move on immediately to a different position...

I've heard people use the saying "Helpdesk from hell" but I didn't think the "hell" could come from the inside... I thought that part came from the people calling in.

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Comments

rep21

Wow, those leads sounds annoying. At least you are getting experience and will move on to something better later.

I just accepted my first IT position: help desk at the local power company. I might have my work cut out for me if its anything like what you are going through.

baseball1988

I wonder if you work in the same company as me? And no, there aren't any new employees in my department for a while so it's not you.

I have a similar job like what you described. Over time you will get exposed to all of the troubleshooting steps and you won't have to worry about the Team/Tech Leads. I get questioned all of the time and I'm being monitored for everything I do. I guess it's normal especially in any help desk environment.

As you can see in my other threads/posts, I'm already trying very hard to find a better opportunity.

snokerpoker

My first IT job was a bit like what you are describing. I worked in a tech support/ helpdesk role at a web development company. We had an entire managed services department above us. A bunch of the guys in that dept used to ask us similar questions about our troubleshooting process even though we clearly stated what the issue was and what needed to be fixed. I found it VERY frustrating and annoying. I hated that aspect of the job. All I can say is; pay your dues and move on! It does get better. It took me about 5 years to finally land a job where I want to stay at for a while.

elTorito

In my experience (having worked as help desk, desktop support and systems administrator), the best way to forward a ticket to the next line is to include a summary of what you've already done to address a problem. This way, the next person to look at the issue already has an idea what the root cause of a problem may be, without having to perform all the standard troubleshooting steps again.

If you include all these details in the ticket, and the overzealous tech lead comes at you again, simply refer him to the ticket. Saves time for everyone involved, and shuts him up quickly.

WFMAH

Definitely document your toubleshooting steps taken. As you are "new" and they are "leads", they are going to question things you do until they are sure that you are competent. I kept a text file with common tasks to copy/paste if the situation was common.

Now, if they are asking you all these questions after you document, THEN you have a real problem!

Mojo_666

Just say "Yes" to every question they asks then invite them to take a look at it themselves once they have failed to fix these issues a few times they will stop going on.

Turgon

CodeBlox wrote: »

I don't think I'll say anything about it to this person because they have a little authority over me and if I get on their bad side, well it could prevent me from moving forward with the company. What should I do? Should I put up with the bullshit or say something??

You should put up with the bullshit. The guy is senior to you and simply trying to his job badly. He probably thinks you are not helping. Learning to handle these situations to your advantage is part of working life and if you do it well expect a great career. It's learned in the field, not at college or in the testing centre.

Meanwhile make sure you type up **** notes about what you checked in your trouble tickets. That should solve a lot of spaghetti chucking as you put it.

blargoe

I think this tech lead is accustomed to working with helpdesk people who want to just take calls and pass everything up the chain without bothering to troubleshoot appropriately. But he doesn't need to be such an a$$hole about it.

Hang in there... this will pass.

Turgon

blargoe wrote: »

I think this tech lead is accustomed to working with helpdesk people who want to just take calls and pass everything up the chain without bothering to troubleshoot appropriately. But he doesn't need to be such an a$$hole about it.

Hang in there... this will pass.

I agree he doesn't need to be such an a$$hole about it, but yeah there are helpdesk people who are singularly useless and the leads have to keep on top of it or it will sink them too.

VAHokie56

My first job in help desk for an ISP had "leads" that where very similar. The ones who where about as clever as the worlds smartest hamster I just ignored and never asked them for a dime. I was able to find some good ones and strictly worked with them. Its funny to look back now on that place and recognize how poorly it was managed, rekon that's why they got bought out not to long after I left

CodeBlox

haha, sounds bad :P The job isn't bad at all. Granted, it feels like they have me in the "easy queues" some days and other days they put me in all sorts of stuff. At first I was getting nothing but account activations and password resets and it was bugging me because that stuff was sooo easy. I mentioned it to one of the leads and I'm not sure if they passed the word along or not but some days it feels like the "heat" has been turned up, which is what I want. Now I get way less account management stuff(activations, unlocks, password resets) and I actually get stuff to troubleshoot.

I do document my tickets though, and they say they don't want a life story behind why we are requesting field services so I leave out the details and just give the problem and request permission to send.

Also, the person mentioned in my origional doesn't seem to ever want to talk to me either. Seems like they get "annoyed" when I even say "hi". I always see them joke with all the other new people who started with me but they never want to even say hello to me...

VAHokie56

Its possible he see's you moving quick and can tell you will surpass his hamster brain very soon. I have said it before ...haters gonna hate...keep on keeping on and you will be laughing at him from the NOC while getting to play with the big boy toys soon enough

W Stewart

CodeBlox wrote: »

As some of you know, this is my first helpdesk job. I am coming up on the third month working here and I still am learning new things. There is however, one matter that is starting to annoy the hell out of me. We have these people called "Tech Leads" here and as part of the troubleshooting process, we are to utilize (in this order) our personal knowledge, the KB (Knowledge Base), the internet, and the "tech leads". Well there have been several issues where I know the problem needs to have field services come out and work the issue. Upon submitting the ticket to field services we are required to get permission from one of these tech leads. Well, one of them seems to be a "spaghetti chucker"... Here are two of the examples:

I go to get permission to submit a printer issue to field services. The problem is that this printer is having a POST error and isn't booting. Mind you I mention this in my request "Printer failed to POST" and one of the "tech leads" comes at me with nonsense like "who is getting this error?? is everyone? Or is it just this one person? what troubleshooting have you done?? Is anyone able to print??". That is one example and it really annoyed the HELL out of me. For one thing this particular person acted like I had done no troubleshooting at all, and two, they didn't even seem to know what POST was asking all the wrong questions like this.

And today, oh man am I glad there were two other tech leads around... I submitted another request for another printer issue to get taken care of by field services. The issue was that the printer was not feeding the paper properly and the customer had to always open the printer himself and manually feed the paper through. So I post the request for field services and the same person comes asking "have you reinstalled the drivers?? Have you rebooted the printer?? Does this happen to everyone? Does it happen to you? What troubleshooting have you done? " and here is one that I thought was really irrelevant to the issue "Have you restarted print spooler??" Again, acting like I did no troubleshooting. I was sooo glad when another tech lead saw this nonsense today and just said to send it to field services and not waste my time or this customers time. Seemed like spaghetti chucking to me. Only thing is, I don't think I'll say anything about it to this person because they have a little authority over me and if I get on their bad side, well it could prevent me from moving forward with the company. What should I do? Should I put up with the bullshit or say something??

Sorry for the rant but it's driving me insane

Once I learn all I can from this place I think I'll move on immediately to a different position...

I've heard people use the saying "Helpdesk from hell" but I didn't think the "hell" could come from the inside... I thought that part came from the people calling in.

This lead who keeps questioning you. Does it happen to anyone else? Does it happen to you? What troubleshooting have you done?

No but seriously if he's just coming after you maybe there's something in your case notes that isn't being logged properly. Find out what is required in the notes to dispatch service to a customer. If he's singling you out for nothing find out why. If he does this to everybody find out what everyone else does to deal with the bullshit.

Akaricloud

If I were you I'd definitely document any troubleshooting steps that you've taken for tickets. If you do this properly and then the lead comes in asking all kinds of nonsensical questions then he's going to be the one looking bad.

If after a while it doesn't stop then go to who ever is in charge of him with documentation in hand and have a chat.

I was in a very similar position when we hired a new tech that was classified higher than I was but really lacked skills. After talking to his supervisor we worked it out and he quit questioning everything I did.