Should I start looking for another job?

Okay I came in to work to a surprise this morning and it pissed me the **** off. I work on a helpdesk as a tier 1 and I had NOT been getting QA'd. I need a QA average of 94% or greater (which is considered passing) just so that I can get file server management rights or to even be considered for a position with HP switching over from a god damn "sub-k" (contractor). I brought it to someones attention that everyone else was getting QA'd but me. People had several QA's while I had none(until this god damn morning that is). So I got QA'd yesterday apparently and do you wanna know the ******* score??? a 66%

It will take 5 QA's with passing scores just to bring this to a passing average... And at the rate it seems that they QA me (like once in 3 months) that will take forever while everyone else seems to get QA'd much more frequently. Whats more is that THE SONS OF BITCHES PICKED THE WORST CALL OF ALL THE CALLS I HAD YESTERDAY

. They claim these QAs are totally random yet I am seeing consistent patterns, far beyond just coincidence. I am on the verge of saying it was sabotage for them to pick my worst call out of 52 might I add but I wont even go there... I'm just really mad. Now this will set me wayyyy back if I even wanted to convert from sub-k to direct hire with HP nor can I now get the server rights for more servers any time soon either. Should I just start looking for another job?? I really don't want to go to another helpdesk either. It's going on 4 months since I've been here now so I'm getting experience. I'm willing to hold this place out for a few more months but is the general consensus with the idea of starting on the helpdesk to move up within THAT company?? Or could I just have the helpdesk experience and try to get a job elsewhere?

One awesome thing today though. It probably doesn't matter to you guys but I thought this call was awesome because I didn't think I was going to be able to fix the problem. The guy was trying to access a file that opened with a microsoft office application called "infopath". I had NEVER heard of this application and had no clue where to begin. Well I started with what the error message was. When he tried to access the file, it said something along the lines of "the file could not be opened" and then another part of the error was "the file [filename] could not be read because it does not exist". This file that was "missing" was being referenced to a location in a totally different users profile. So i had him go check with someone else to see if they had this template file that was missing and they did so we copied it to his machine and in notepad I simply changed the target to the template file that he copied to his machine, and he is now able to access his document. It may sound trivial, but i took that call blind. I had no clue what infopath was yet I was able to fix that!!! Amazing how much just taking the time to READ and observe what is happening can do for you. I actually felt like I fixed something when I did that call instead of doing something that was repetitive and known already by all. And I actually enjoyed it too! That was the highlight of my day, that call. The customer was happy and I was happy that I fixed the problem.

Anyway, folks, please give me advice on the whole getting another job thing.

haha, I will remind you guys of my thrilling thread almost 4 months ago: http://www.techexams.net/forums/jobs-degrees/65930-got-helpdesk-job-omgomgomgomg.html

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Turgon

CodeBlox wrote: »

Okay I came in to work to a surprise this morning and it pissed me the **** off. I work on a helpdesk as a tier 1 and I had NOT been getting QA'd. I need a QA average of 94% or greater (which is considered passing) just so that I can get file server management rights or to even be considered for a position with HP switching over from a god damn "sub-k" (contractor). I brought it to someones attention that everyone else was getting QA'd but me. People had several QA's while I had none(until this god damn morning that is). So I got QA'd yesterday apparently and do you wanna know the ******* score??? a 66% It will take 5 QA's with passing scores just to bring this to a passing average... And at the rate it seems that they QA me (like once in 3 months) that will take forever while everyone else seems to get QA'd much more frequently. Whats more is that THE SONS OF BITCHES PICKED THE WORST CALL OF ALL THE CALLS I HAD YESTERDAY . They claim these QAs are totally random yet I am seeing consistent patterns, far beyond just coincidence. I am on the verge of saying it was sabotage for them to pick my worst call out of 52 might I add but I wont even go there... I'm just really mad. Now this will set me wayyyy back if I even wanted to convert from sub-k to direct hire with HP nor can I now get the server rights for more servers any time soon either. Should I just start looking for another job?? I really don't want to go to another helpdesk either. It's going on 4 months since I've been here now so I'm getting experience. I'm willing to hold this place out for a few more months but is the general consensus with the idea of starting on the helpdesk to move up within THAT company?? Or could I just have the helpdesk experience and try to get a job elsewhere?

One awesome thing today though. It probably doesn't matter to you guys but I thought this call was awesome because I didn't think I was going to be able to fix the problem. The guy was trying to access a file that opened with a microsoft office application called "infopath". I had NEVER heard of this application and had no clue where to begin. Well I started with what the error message was. When he tried to access the file, it said something along the lines of "the file could not be opened" and then another part of the error was "the file [filename] could not be read because it does not exist". This file that was "missing" was being referenced to a location in a totally different users profile. So i had him go check with someone else to see if they had this template file that was missing and they did so we copied it to his machine and in notepad I simply changed the target to the template file that he copied to his machine, and he is now able to access his document. It may sound trivial, but i took that call blind. I had no clue what infopath was yet I was able to fix that!!! Amazing how much just taking the time to READ and observe what is happening can do for you. I actually felt like I fixed something when I did that call instead of doing something that was repetitive and known already by all. And I actually enjoyed it too! That was the highlight of my day, that call. The customer was happy and I was happy that I fixed the problem.

Anyway, folks, please give me advice on the whole getting another job thing.

haha, I will remind you guys of my thrilling thread almost 4 months ago: http://www.techexams.net/forums/jobs-degrees/65930-got-helpdesk-job-omgomgomgomg.html

You have been 'cubed' by the piechart people. Find another job.

CodeBlox

Do you think the 4 months of experience will be enough to find something that isn't helpdesk?? I am willing to stick it out for a few more months while I finish with CCNA to supplement my resume. I just feel like my chances of moving up here have been crippled now. Also, this is the only IT experience that I do have.

Turgon

CodeBlox wrote: »

Do you think the 4 months of experience will be enough to find something that isn't helpdesk?? I am willing to stick it out for a few more months while I finish with CCNA to supplement my resume. I just feel like my chances of moving up here have been crippled now. Also, this is the only IT experience that I do have.

I think you have a lot going for you actually. The length of your post tells me you are a guy that puts a lot into your work and cares. You are wasted there working for the borg. Don't be assimulated. Contact all the service providers in your shop and work for an outsourcer that needs hardworking guys like yourself that will throw themselves in to learn whatever it takes. Get the yellow pages out and get punting for a job!

Avoid the helpdesk cube. Inside 5 years it will all get outsourced. I saw this happen in Spain..it moved to Chile or Hungary. For US support it moved to the Phillapenes. Assimulated.

CodeBlox

I am going to do just that too. Now only to find the time to go to the interviews somehow (if I get called back). They have me working the day shift pretty much the whole day (8:30 - 5:00). I had high hopes for this place and now thats been shattered in an instant by that QA. Seems I now have something to really work towards (again haha). Thanks for the advice! I eventually simmered down my "silent rage" today at work by the time noon got there but I was extremely mad up until then. Funny thing though, people couldn't tell that I was mad either.

I would like to add that there are these "test" that we can take to prove hour knowledge of the helpdesk. There have been soooo many people to tell me they simply dont do them and that its a waste of time. I have spent a lot of time doing many of them!!! seems like that was all for nothing now.

NetworkingStudent

CodeBlox wrote: »

Do you think the 4 months of experience will be enough to find something that isn't helpdesk?? I am willing to stick it out for a few more months while I finish with CCNA to supplement my resume. I just feel like my chances of moving up here have been crippled now. Also, this is the only IT experience that I do have.

I currently work in printing(I’m looking for a help desk job) and we have a help desk but it’s located in INDIA!! One time I had to call to reset my password and the people seem pretty clueless. I had to get a pay stub for work and forgot my password, so I needed a reset. Well I called them and told them I needed a password, and then they asked if it was urgent or not, I was thinking of course it’s urgent. Anyways, they asked it was “1” for urgent, or “2” for not urgent. I said one and then they gave me a ticket number and told me to wait, I think up to 24 hours to get a response, and to call back with a ticket number if I needed further help. I had to call 3 times and ask for the manager to get password reset after waiting ten hours. I needed the pay stub, so that I could show proof that I was working, so that I could qualify for a car loan. I hope all help desk jobs aren’t this impersonal.

Just my thoughts on what Turgon said:

This is my insight….You sound like a person that really wants to learn and grow, and so far after reading a bunch of help desk stories or Te and other sites, I have formed my own opinion on this IT role. My interpretation of the help desk is that it’s a perfect fit for those that just want to do the same thing over and over. How fast can we fix that same outlook issue, or how fast can we do a password reset? The problem is how do you let your team grow if they solve the same problems over and over again? Also, some customers need more time, because everyone learns things differently. You can’t just tell everyone click here, there, and go. It sounds like it gets old really quick.

It’s hard to say what to do, since I don’t work in IT. My only advice is no matter how bad things get, keep doing your best.

the_Grinch

First, any pursuit of knowledge is never a waste of time. I am sure a lot of people told Newton not to do things, it's just a waste of time, and look what he has to show for it. Second, yup I would start looking to move on. I've never like shops that use metrics, as usually it gets totally skewed. My job is starting to move in this directions (I've been told since I am on nights I don't have to worry, but we'll see). But even on days, if you looked at the number of tickets I took/completed, it wasn't a ton. I've never been high on the list, but most of the tickets were ones that took a long time to fix and were fairly complicated, no metric will show that. Finally, you're probably going to end up on a helpdesk unless you get a deskside or field type position. Accepting this now will make things a lot easier. You have to remember that every helpdesk is different. In our helpdesk, sure we get our fair share of password resets and simple user errors, but at the same time we get full blown server issues that have to be fixed or tweaked. A good interview question to ask would be "why type of tickets do your front line staff work on?" Good luck and sorry you're getting screwed!

snokerpoker

At my first job I worked very hard and always stayed late, put in extra hours, and did a great job to be a "team player" for the company. I would even cover shifts when people were out on my days off. Not trying to say I was the perfect employee or toot my own horn but I feel confident that I did a good job for the company and always put in extra effort to make sure things were running correctly.

After about 8 months, a new COO arrived. He seemed to like me and always took me aside to assign me tickets and ask for updates regarding the overall status of our department. One day I had an urgent phone call from my wife and had to step out. I normally did not take personal calls and step out at all but this time I had to as it was regarding something extremely important and it was not terribly busy. I was on the phone for probably 10-12 minutes and sure enough, during that time a SEV1 emergency has to happen. On my way back to the department, I run into the COO as I am putting my phone away. He looked annoyed with me that I was away from my desk. I didn't really think much of it at the time and went back to my desk. We ended up resolving the issue and things went back to normal. A couple of days later we have our normal weekly meeting and he talks to us about how there seems to be a lack of dedication within our department and how he needs employees who are dedicated to the company, for instance; staying at their desks to work SEV1 emergencies along with lecturing us how SEV1 emergencies impact our clients. The whole time he is spewing this out he is looking at me more than anyone else. I was so pissed I could barely contain myself. I wanted to walk out that day.

Long story short, I know how you feel. These situations can be extremely aggravating.

In your case 4 months isin't that much time but I would start looking for other opportunities right away. Some experience is always better than none!

VAHokie56

I have noticed your post trending towards not favoring your job very much over the last 4 months. As mentioned before I recommend posting a flag in the market and getting you resume out there again. Ill start keeping my eye out for you again if you like and shoot whatever I see your way...think I still have your email

jakecitrix

how many times do i have to say this helpdesk is not the way into i.t its plain and simple.

jakecitrix

snokerpoker wrote: »

At my first job I worked very hard and always stayed late, put in extra hours, and did a great job to be a "team player" for the company. I would even cover shifts when people were out on my days off. Not trying to say I was the perfect employee or toot my own horn but I feel confident that I did a good job for the company and always put in extra effort to make sure things were running correctly.After about 8 months, a new COO arrived. He seemed to like me and always took me aside to assign me tickets and ask for updates regarding the overall status of our department. One day I had an urgent phone call from my wife and had to step out. I normally did not take personal calls and step out at all but this time I had to as it was regarding something extremely important and it was not terribly busy. I was on the phone for probably 10-12 minutes and sure enough, during that time a SEV1 emergency has to happen. On my way back to the department, I run into the COO as I am putting my phone away. He looked annoyed with me that I was away from my desk. I didn't really think much of it at the time and went back to my desk. We ended up resolving the issue and things went back to normal. A couple of days later we have our normal weekly meeting and he talks to us about how there seems to be a lack of dedication within our department and how he needs employees who are dedicated to the company, for instance; staying at their desks to work SEV1 emergencies along with lecturing us how SEV1 emergencies impact our clients. The whole time he is spewing this out he is looking at me more than anyone else. I was so pissed I could barely contain myself. I wanted to walk out that day. Long story short, I know how you feel. These situations can be extremely aggravating. In your case 4 months isin't that much time but I would start looking for other opportunities right away. Some experience is always better than none!

Ur boss has every right to go at u like that, when ur at work u r there to do work no personal stuff.

snokerpoker

jakecitrix: I tend to agree with you to a certain extent. However, every situation is different. Like I said in my post, this was the ONLY time I ever stepped away from my desk so for my boss to bring it up in a meeting and talk to the whole team about dedication and how emergencies impact the company is crap. He could have asked me about it and I would have told him that my f**king brother in law almost died, and that was why I had to step out for a bit. It's not like I went outside to talk about how I really wanted to have a chicken sandwich at lunch.

W Stewart

jakecitrix wrote: »

Ur boss has every right to go at u like that, when ur at work u r there to do work no personal stuff.

\

You know there's a such thing as emergencies and any decent employer is going to understand if there is a family emergency. Nobody deserves to be put on the spot like that for taking care of their family.

Psoasman

jakecitrix wrote: »

how many times do i have to say this helpdesk is not the way into i.t its plain and simple.

Help Desk is the way a lot of people get their foot in the door. Unless you have excellent connections of are perhaps just coming off of your Masters in IT, you will probably start at the entry level areas, which are usually Help Desk.

jakecitrix

Psoasman wrote: »

Help Desk is the way a lot of people get their foot in the door. Unless you have excellent connections of are perhaps just coming off of your Masters in IT, you will probably start at the entry level areas, which are usually Help Desk.

that is totaly false i skipped helpdesk all fine and well cuz i had skills and i knew what i wanted.

Excellent1

jakecitrix wrote: »

Ur boss has every right to go at u like that, when ur at work u r there to do work no personal stuff.

As a boss, I do not have the right to "go at" my people until they've demonstrated a pattern of behavior that requires me to address it. To call people out without first having bothered to ascertain the specifics of a situation is irresponsible and counterproductive.

jakecitrix

Excellent1 wrote: »

As a boss, I do not have the right to "go at" my people until they've demonstrated a pattern of behavior that requires me to address it. To call people out without first having bothered to ascertain the specifics of a situation is irresponsible and counterproductive.

well he still broke the rule, if u dont break the rules at work u wont get into trouble like that. What snokerpoker caused money loss and showed immaturity.

jakecitrix

Excellent1 wrote: »

As a boss, I do not have the right to "go at" my people until they've demonstrated a pattern of behavior that requires me to address it. To call people out without first having bothered to ascertain the specifics of a situation is irresponsible and counterproductive.

well that may be for u.

jakecitrix

Excellent1 wrote: »

Your experience does NOT mean that is normal for everyone. Psoasman's comment was and IS correct.

its called working hard and not giving up thats how you skip helpdesk

Armymanis

Help Desk is not all that bad guys. I am loving every minute of it

erpadmin

snokerpoker wrote: »

After about 8 months, a new COO arrived. He seemed to like me and always took me aside to assign me tickets and ask for updates regarding the overall status of our department. One day I had an urgent phone call from my wife and had to step out. I normally did not take personal calls and step out at all but this time I had to as it was regarding something extremely important and it was not terribly busy. I was on the phone for probably 10-12 minutes and sure enough, during that time a SEV1 emergency has to happen. On my way back to the department, I run into the COO as I am putting my phone away. He looked annoyed with me that I was away from my desk. I didn't really think much of it at the time and went back to my desk. We ended up resolving the issue and things went back to normal. A couple of days later we have our normal weekly meeting and he talks to us about how there seems to be a lack of dedication within our department and how he needs employees who are dedicated to the company, for instance; staying at their desks to work SEV1 emergencies along with lecturing us how SEV1 emergencies impact our clients. The whole time he is spewing this out he is looking at me more than anyone else. I was so pissed I could barely contain myself. I wanted to walk out that day.

As a young man, I would have done the exact same thing you did under the circumstances.

However, speaking as someone who had an emergency as I was on my way to my office, I know exactly what I would do today knowing what I know now.

Tell your supervisor the situation. You're not asking his permission; you're letting him/her know that something has come up. This way they don't try to find you while you're tending to your emergency. If they try to pull some crap about having it wait until after hours and/or give them at least an hour or so, if the situation warrants it, a simple GFY may have to suffice. That would only be warranted though in the most extreme cases, of course. My biggest emergency would be my parents. The 5-10 minutes I spend informing my boss and his boss the situation will not get me to the airport any quicker nor would it impede what I'd have to do to get there. This is also why I keep vacation days in the hole....because bereavement time doesn't exist for me. Some places may not charge time and all that, but for me that wouldn't be necessary...I shouldn't have to be on the company time to attend to extreme personal matters.

However, letting management know what the deal is is very important and professional. Emergencies are a way of life and management understands that. They just want to know where you are/what happened to you, and that's not unreasonable.

CodeBlox

VAHokie56 wrote: »

I have noticed your post trending towards not favoring your job very much over the last 4 months. As mentioned before I recommend posting a flag in the market and getting you resume out there again. Ill start keeping my eye out for you again if you like and shoot whatever I see your way...think I still have your email

That would be much appreciated... Same email address. I'm not sure what is going on here but one of the guys who started with me got yet another passing QA. I'm not saying that he didn't deserve it, and I'm sure he did deserve it but its really looking like they will leave me with this single failing QA making my average mega failing. Most everyone else who started with me have several QAs, all passing. If I come in monday with another failing QA sitting in my email I think I'm going to lose it. I treat every single call as if it's being QA'd and sometimes, the customer just doesn't allow you to "follow the call script". The particular call was about a GAL update. I wonder if helpdesk was always so scripted completely because it sure as hell is now. So for the time being, I will "follow the call script" regardless of it makes any sense or not. I was so mad I forgot to even ask to listen to this call replay. I will do so on monday though its probably too late to do anything about it since they were really quick to get me to sign the evaluation sheet about an hour after I got in, while in the middle of a damn call.

Also as far as this job goes, it seems to be getting repetitive outside from the "company specific" and legacy application stuff. There are a lot of call ins about common problems. The only thing I struggle with is blackberry and usually then they just want you to do a wipe and reactivate with a lot of problems.

Psoasman

jakecitrix wrote: »

its called working hard and not giving up thats how you skip helpdesk

So, are you saying that people who work in Help Desk don't work hard? I have worked very hard to get my AAS and MCSE in the last 4 years and am currently working as a technician who does Help Desk. Some people enjoy working Help Desk and you shouldn't be putting them down.

MentholMoose

jakecitrix wrote: »

well he still broke the rule, if u dont break the rules at work u wont get into trouble like that.

What rule? Unless you're in prison you can't be chained up at work. I'm sure there are even rules about that at prisons. Employers are legally required to allow breaks. At a minimum, people need to eat, use the restroom, and just unwind/recharge during the workday.

jakecitrix wrote: »

What snokerpoker caused money loss and showed immaturity.

Any problem that resulted from snokerpoker taking a break for 10 minutes is entirely the fault of management. If coverage is that thin, management hasn't properly planned for such situations. What if his relative had died and he went on bereavement leave, which he would have had the right to do? A manager blaming an employee like that is unprofessional and shows poor leadership skills.

jakecitrix

Psoasman wrote: »

So, are you saying that people who work in Help Desk don't work hard? I have worked very hard to get my AAS and MCSE in the last 4 years and am currently working as a technician who does Help Desk. Some people enjoy working Help Desk and you shouldn't be putting them down.

i am not saying that,

just saying that if you work harder and try different things you could skip helpdesk, i see too much ppl get the impression that helpdesk is the only way in.

jakecitrix

mmm snokerpoker should have told his boss first aye.

Armymanis

from the sounds of your thread it sounds like your help disk is really high strung. My help desk all we have to say is thank you for calling ________ this is ____ how may I help you. Then we enter the ticket information after asking questions and escalate the ticket. The only troubleshooting we do is password resets. Sorry to hear that help desk is not working out for you.

CodeBlox

We troubleshoot anything that comes in at our tier 1 level. I mentioned in another thread that some of the leads crack me up too. They urge you to come to them when you're stuck. Well one day I was "stuck" and decided to consult the "lead". The guy had a public folder shared in outlook and wasn't able to delete items in it. I checked his permissions and ownership level and they were just fine. I really didn't know what was wrong. So I consulted a lead on some advice and they were talking to me like I hadn't checked his ownership and permissions which I told them I had already done. So they ask for a machine name and remote in. I was already remoted in and they just took a quick look for like 2 seconds and clicked here and there and left. Then told me "looks like a possible permissions issue" and I was thinking, thats what I told you exactly before I got you to remote in... So, they just told me to escalate that ticket. Me wanting to fix that because I was sure it could be fixed at our level with a bit more digging decided to just google and see what I could come up with. An article suggested deleting them in OWA. So I had him sign into owa and he was able to delete them there. It's made me wayyyy more INDEPENDENT of the leads because stuff like that just waste time (with the SLA's and all). When I first got there I relied on them heavily now, I almost try to avoid going to them because of the sheer amount of time they sometimes waste. I understand they're there to help but man... Like I said, stuff like that has made me almost completely independent. If I can't fix it I try and do as much research as I can to understand the problem, asking more questions. Now there have been times where SOME of the leads have saved me but the bad far outweighs the good. And as for that problem, I'm not so sure what caused that, maybe some server data was cached or something somewhere.

jakecitrix

just look for a better job while working there aye bro?

hackman2007

CodeBlox wrote: »

We troubleshoot anything that comes in at our tier 1 level. I mentioned in another thread that some of the leads crack me up too. They urge you to come to them when you're stuck. Well one day I was "stuck" and decided to consult the "lead". The guy had a public folder shared in outlook and wasn't able to delete items in it. I checked his permissions and ownership level and they were just fine. I really didn't know what was wrong. So I consulted a lead on some advice and they were talking to me like I hadn't checked his ownership and permissions which I told them I had already done. So they ask for a machine name and remote in. I was already remoted in and they just took a quick look for like 2 seconds and clicked here and there and left. Then told me "looks like a possible permissions issue" and I was thinking, thats what I told you exactly before I got you to remote in... So, they just told me to escalate that ticket. Me wanting to fix that because I was sure it could be fixed at our level with a bit more digging decided to just google and see what I could come up with. An article suggested deleting them in OWA. So I had him sign into owa and he was able to delete them there. It's made me wayyyy more INDEPENDENT of the leads because stuff like that just waste time (with the SLA's and all). When I first got there I relied on them heavily now, I almost try to avoid going to them because of the sheer amount of time they sometimes waste. I understand they're there to help but man... Like I said, stuff like that has made me almost completely independent. If I can't fix it I try and do as much research as I can to understand the problem, asking more questions. Now there have been times where SOME of the leads have saved me but the bad far outweighs the good. And as for that problem, I'm not so sure what caused that, maybe some server data was cached or something somewhere.

I'm not sure what kind of SLA your company has with the clients, but do keep in mind that just because you can research something doesn't mean you should. If I can fix the problem in an hour, but the person that handles the escalated ticket can fix it in 10 minutes, that's a significant difference. But if you can fix it by searching for a couple minutes, I personally don't see a problem with that. But I'm guessing because they didn't immediately know the fix to the problem, they didn't want to waste valuable time on it. I'm not saying you did anything wrong (and I completely understand why you did it), I'm just trying to point out a potential reason the lead tech told you just to escalate the ticket rather than trying to find the root cause.

CodeBlox

Lol I see what you're saying, but around here, odds are that an escalated ticket wont get touched for days. There are some times where they get immediate attention, usually when its a whole site issue though. Why is that? I'm not so sure, could be because of the great number of tickets that should have never gone there to begin with. We have a pretty big help desk so it could just be because of the great number of tickets that get sent there period. It took me maybe 3 minutes to find that solution using google though. In that case, maybe I was wrong for not doing the google search first. It's just that all the "normal" things seemed to be correct in this particular problem. It was one of those things I thought could get resolved at our level so I sacrificed the extra 10 minutes to do what needed to be done. Customer was happy and if that ticket got escalated he probably wouldn't have been. I say that because these customers always seem to want to know exactly when a ticket will be taken care of by the next tier up. We don't have an exact time frame so I can't even tell them when (per policy).