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Is Help Desk a Launchpad or a Dead End?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the or-just-hell-on-earth dept.

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. "

1 of 206 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Who knows by tinkerghost · · Score: 0, Troll

    because I'd come to realize that I actually liked doing it

    You are one sick masochistic nutjob.

    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

    Why yes, after you read off 5 minutes of scripts & calmed the customer down because the 3 HD people in front of you just slammed them off the phone as quickly as possible, it was possible to find the problem & solve it as one of the basic 3:

    1. The customer's stupid
    2. The customer fucked it up
    3. One of the previous 'techs' fucked it up before realizing the customer is stupid

    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.

    Gods I wish it was 20 people - 10 minute target times on the call w/ a 15 deep queue all day - probably half of them repeat calls because people got them off the phone to meet the 10 minute target time. As for better off, most of them would be better off if they boxed up their computer & got out a deck of cards, a pencil & a piece of paper - some I think would be better off counting money on a corner in Brooklyn at midnight.

    Not everybody can think that way, but if you can, the help desk doesn't have to become the hell desk.

    As long as people are allowed to call up after using super glue to plug the modem port to keep kids from surfing porn & scream at you that it's your job to get them back online; help desk is going to be hell desk. As long as people are allowed to call up in the middle of disasters & scream at you that the modem is slow (Manhattan customers on 9/11); help desk is going to be hell desk. As long as CxO's look at help desks as a cost center to be staffed as minimally as possible with the cheapest people possible, help desk is going to be hell desk.