Which is a better perk: no customer/client interaction or no on-call time?

I'm curious as to hear what those here think. Suppose you have the option of two jobs where the only difference was:

1. one is exactly 40 hours a week, but your main function is dealing with clients/customers
2. the other is not customer-facing in the least and internal only, but you spend time in on-call status.

Which would be preferable to you?

Find more posts tagged with

Save $250 on 2025 certification boot camps from Infosec!

Book now with code EOY2025

Button

Comments

dave330i

On-call.

NetworkVeteran

I'd take the client-facing position, in a heartbeat. I want to be well-known, not a hidden cog. And yes, I like talking to people more than staring at cubicle walls.

Roguetadhg

I like to think people are generally good minded individuals. If my one temporary job has taught me anything - Show people that you're giving everything to help them, and they'll be more readily available to be helped.

You never know what knowledge and viewpoints you'll find talking to people. Although, knowing that my insurance agent has 3 purse dogs and a white fat cat may have drawn the line...

I'd choose talking to clients than sitting in a room, on-call. Keep me busy, I'll be happy.

networker050184

NetworkVeteran wrote: »

I'd take the client-facing position, in a heartbeat. I want to be well-known, not a hidden cog.

Hidden to who though? I couldn't care less if the customers know who I am. The work I do is too high level for most of them to understand anyway.

My peers and management structure on the other hand will definitely know who I am regardless.

As far as the original question, I'd much rather be on call than have to deal with customers.

NinjaBoy

I choose "Other/Don't know". I've done both, and to be honest, both have their good and bad points, as well as good and bad days... So I can't really choose

the_Grinch

What type of on-call are we talking about? once a week? every weekend? one week a month? That would be the deciding factor to me, I like being a cog, but not if the on-call is crazy.

NetworkVeteran

networker050184 wrote: »

Hidden to who though?

From the source of income of your company/corporation.

The work I do is too high level for most of them to understand anyway.

In my experience, most customers want to understand what they're paying large sums of money for, and most laymen are capable of understanding v4/v6 MPLS VPNs at a basic level if you're patient.

I couldn't care less if the customers know who I am.

Well, it's a big field, and we're all different! I really enjoy directly seeing how my efforts make someone's day brighter, and I do like it when VPs and CEOs remember me by name for a good reason.

networker050184

Sounds like you belong in sales my friend!

nhpr

With all the posts regarding help desk and compalints about users, I thought this would be skewed towards on-call as the lesser evil. It appears that I was rather mistaken, with them being quite even.

YFZblu

What do you mean by customers? I would avoid end-users at all costs.

Devilry

I prefer no customer reaction. I feel better working together with like minded people on solving issues instead of trying to interpret what the heck the customer is trying to tell me their computer is doing and saying 'doohickie' twenty five times.

okplaya

nhpr wrote: »

With all the posts regarding help desk and compalints about users, I thought this would be skewed towards on-call as the lesser evil. It appears that I was rather mistaken, with them being quite even.

Customer facing isn't limited to help desk. There are tons of customer facing jobs (Sales, engineering, etc). Operational type jobs dealing directly with end users is the least desirable by far! Trying to sell the newest Cisco gear to enterprise customers isn't as stressful.

demonfurbie

users can be more of an issue than waking up at 3am and remotely rebooting a server

Hypntick

Unless you have the user standing over you while you rebuild said server...

paul78

I didn't vote since I do a bit of both.

But I did find it interesting that the predominant answers was on-call. Internal customers can sometimes be more demanding especially in large enterprises. For one - as an internal customer, I have a lot more influence over internal IT if I think you are not servicing the business effectively.

m3zilla

If I ever decide to leave IT, it would be because of the on-call rotation. I have no life when I'm on call.

For those who voted for the less/no customer or user interaction, I'm interested in how often you guys are on-call, and what "on-call" means to you?

Hypntick

On call for 1 week every 2 months currently. On call for me means being within 1 hour (SLA) of being able to be on site to resolve a critical issue, we also get end user calls who have opted for 24/7 support desk. I've done everything from waiting on a power company to restore power to a site (4 hours) to resolvi9ng exchange issues at 3 am and well into my next shift where I was expected to work a full day. I essentially do not sleep for that entire week, and i'd rather do that than deal with some of our end-users.

YFZblu

m3zilla wrote: »

If I ever decide to leave IT, it would be because of the on-call rotation. I have no life when I'm on call.

For those who voted for the less/no customer or user interaction, I'm interested in how often you guys are on-call, and what "on-call" means to you?

I voted no to the customer interaction - I'm actually end user facing, and on call...sort of the double negative. I'm the sole desktop support tech for about 75 users spanning three cities. I'm on call 24/7, and unfortunately my users know it. And take advantage of it. For me 'on call' could mean I get a call any time from one of our many remote users who love to work at funky hours. It could also mean that a router went down at a campus 75 miles away on a Saturday morning and I need to go check to see if it's a legitimate problem or if a cleaning lady lost her mind momentarily and started unplugging things from the MDF.

paul78

m3zilla wrote: »

For those who voted for the less/no customer or user interaction, I'm interested in how often you guys are on-call, and what "on-call" means to you?

Good question - since on-call generally varies by job role, company org structure, and job level.

For me - I'm considered always on-call since I'm a management escalation point. I rarely get paged but when I do - it's because something really bad is happening.

N2IT

I'd take on call in a New York second

XiaoTech

On call. I'd kill for a job where I never have to deal with an end user. Honestly, working as 3rd shift stock clerk was the best job I ever had. No customer interaction 95% of the time (except the end of the shift when we're cleaning up and the store is opening), got good exercise, got to listen to my music, and didn't have to deal with much bullshit. I'm putting my time in now with help desk...this time has to pay off! I can't wait when the day comes and I can just work with a team internally and don't have to spend time trying to translate wtf some of the end users want me to help them with.

NetworkVeteran

YFZblu wrote: »

I'm on call 24/7, and unfortunately my users know it. And take advantage of it.

The issue, then, is not being on-call or dealing with customers. It's agreeing to ridiculous ToS. A close contact of mine used to be on-call 24/7, 365 days per year. He was rarely bugged on holidays or in the middle of the night. The deal was, if it was that critical he was all over it--at triple rate!

Of course, if you're new to the field and lack technical experience, you may have to agree to unreasonable terms your first couple years. This is called "paying one's dues".

My customers generally treat me courteously and respectfully. I'm surprised so many here seem to have primarily negative experiences when interacting with their clients.

ptilsen

I voted for customer-facing. No, I don't like dealing with customers. In fact, I hate it. But, the post was really not too specific, and I didn't interpret "main function is dealing with clients/customers" as "helpdesk" or "answering phones". I would definitely take on-call over helpdesk any day. But I'm not afraid of people, and I would rather deal with people than lose my free time and sanity to on-call. As YFZblu said, end-users and customers can be very different. I would take external clients over internal end-users any and every day of the week.

Of course, it's really not a simple binary choice. On-call 24/7/365? Hell, I'd rather take helpdesk. On-call once every, say, 12 weeks? Sure, I'll take on call once every three months if it gets me away from customers.

When it comes down to it, either factor would be relatively small in my decision, so long as they weren't extreme (e.g. 100% helpdesk or 24/7 on-call every other week). I would take career growth, good benefits and amenities, high salary, training or education/certification reimbursement as much bigger factors.