Is Help Desk a Launchpad or a Dead End?

Tracy Mayor writes "Is a gig on an IT help desk really the career death it's always assumed to be? Not always, this Computerworld writer found out, just don't get comfy and stay too long. "

Comments

Lessons learned ....

[johnlcallaway]

After 30 years in IT, here are some things I've learned about advancing a career.

• Never stay at a job too long. Raises don't keep up, jumping ship for more money does
• Never say "I don't know how to do that". Instead, say, "I'm not sure how to do that, it will take some time for me to read up on it"
• There is no such thing as wasted time. You get paid the same whether the project gets tossed or not. Learn something from it and move on. It's the company's problem they are going to waste money, not yours.
• Get rid of the ego and listen, you might learn something
• Ask questions instead of dictating. 'My way is better because' arguments aren't received as well as "I'm not sure I understand, can you explain why doing x is better than doing y??"
• Never be the last one out of a sinking ship, your loyalty will probably not be rewarded.
• Learn something new all the time. When you understand networks and databases and telephone systems and several languages and how business works and how investors operate, you become valuable. Only knowing how to code Java makes you a code monkey.
• Accept the fact you don't know everything, and question your knowledge in everything you think you are an expert in.

I think these work regardless of whether someone is in a help desk, development, systems, or management role.

Re:Lessons learned ....

[elrous0]

Learn something new all the time.

That's the best advice you can give for ANY job, not just IT. Nothing pisses me off faster than a worker who doesn't know how to do something and refuses to learn. A human being who is lazy and incurious is absolutely worthless.

Every IT person should start at the helpdesk

[Alzheimers]

Frankly, I think every person who wants to work in IT should spend at least a year on the helpdesk.

In my experience, the number one problem with IT is that the programmers and managers really don't have enough interaction with the end users to understand their side of things. Every time there's an outtage because someone kicked the cord out of a server, or every patch that breaks usability in the name of some wizzbang feature, it really falls on the helpdesk to manage and do damage control while you're out "on break".

To the rest of the company, the helpdesk is literally the face of the IT department. They're the ones who get to deal with irate customers, desperate password seekers, and the social manipulators.

On the help desk, you learn every quirk of every system your company supports. You learn all the "unofficial" tricks that get things done, regardless of policy or procedure. Most importantly, you learn who to call when situations arise you can't handle. You know *everyone*, so that when application Z is causing catastrophic system failures on your server farm you know exactly who to go to to make it stop.

Re:Who knows

[techno-vampire]

If you look around one day and realize that you're not one of the youngest or least-tenured people in the room, it's time to pull the cord.

I did help desk for an ISP. I was never one of the youngest people there and by the time my job was outsourced, I was senior to most of the people in the company. I was still doing help desk, at top level, because I'd come to realize that I actually liked doing it. The trouble-shooting was a constant challenge because no matter how fool-proof you make your software, nature keeps coming up with fools who can manage to mess things up, and with the constantly-changing OS issues of Windows, there was always more to learn. For me, at least, it was a very satisfying job because every day I could go home knowing that there were at least twenty or so people who's days were a little better because I'd helped them. Not everybody can think that way, but if you can, the help desk doesn't have to become the hell desk.

Re:Help desks that push call times and scripts ove

[JJNess]

My "Help Desk Support" position is so much more, like you said... and I'm making a good bit of money more at this new position in an engineering firm than my friend who manages IT for a local TV station for 3 years! So while it says "Help Desk" on my resumé, I'll be able to prove it was oh so much more than that.

Re:Don't think of it as just Help Desk

[JoeZeppy]

So, what exactly is an "Infrastructure Library process framework"? How do you define "service management"? Why are you capitalizing random words as if they are divine concepts, such as "Incidents, Problems and Changes?" We Slashdotters tend to appreciate posts that contain information, not management buzzword doublespeak. Do you have a 6-Sigma black belt, too? Ahh, you must not have had the pleasure of being indoctrinated into the latest Six Sigma-ISO9000-Corporate Bullshit buzzword land of ITIL. Basically a way for large Independent Software Vendors to come in and sell you a shiny new helpdesk ticket system, (because your old one isn't ITIL compliant) and charge you for a half-dozen Cognizant or Infosys contractors to customize it to the point where you can't figure out even how to open a ticket, making you wonder why you ever got rid of the old system which you used to think sucked until you got a look at this new abortion.

See, users used to call you with problems. that's your first mistake. What they are really calling about is Incidents. After you Identify and Record the Incident, you send it off for Investigation and Diagnosis. Then if you're lucky, you can move it to Resolution and Recovery. If you can't fix the Incident, it becomes a Problem. After you identify the Problem, you can schedule a Change.

This explanation was all mixed up with some analogy about cars and car companies in the class I had, that confused me a little. And there was no demo of the software at the time because the QA environment kept crashing, and we couldn't log in, so when it went live no one had any idea what the fuck to do with it. And the user interface has more tabs in it than agent Mulder's filing cabinet, and they make about as much sense, and the program won't let you open a ticket unless they are all filled in correctly, but it doesn't really tell you what to fill in, it just keeps giving you incomprehensible error messages.

Re:Who knows

[Missing_dc]

I hear you. I started out as a telemarketer- inbound, working at a huge call center in Omaha. After many customer service jobs and a few years at an automobile insurance claims handling call center, I wound up with a help desk job. Great experience, it really fleshes out your troubleshooting skills. I tend to work a job for a while to learn the ropes, then move up or over. I jumped between desktop support and help desk positions and contracts for a little while, and 6 months ago I got a Sys Admin job for a local branch of a large company. I love it. I'm not on the phones, I have control over what priorities are set on problems, my own office, the boss is not onsite and I only talk to her once a week, I am a corporate employee and have no one to answer to at the branch office. It's great. I think that working the help desk got me here. I don't intend to stay here more than a few years, again, moving up or over, but I really appreciate the time I spent working the help desk. So I'd have to say its a launchpad, just not usually within the same company.