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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. "
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- 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.I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
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.
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.
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