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Getting Beyond the Helldesk
An anonymous reader writes "I've been working as a helpdesk monkey for over a year in a small-medium sized law firm of around 200 users and I don't know if my patience and sanity can last much longer. I'd like to remain in IT, but in less of a front-line role where I can actually get some work done without being interrupted every five minutes by a jamming printer or frozen instance of Outlook. There isn't really any room for progression at my current employer, and with the weak job market it seems I can only move sideways into another support role. I've been considering a full-time Masters degree in a specialized Computer Science area such as databases or Web development, but I don't know if the financial cost and the loss of a year's income and experience can justify it. Do any Slashdotters who have made it beyond the helpdesk have any knowledge or wisdom to impart? Is formal education a good avenue, or would I better off moving back home, getting a mindless but low-stress job, and teaching myself technologies in my free time?"
Ahh, message got cutoff. (AJAX is overrated )
I was going to say that getting a BSc is definitely worthwhile (if you don't have one), and a MSc will definitely help you stand out when your resume lands on someone's desk. I'm having a hard time understanding how someone with a CS or Software Engineering degree could end up in your position though. (Maybe I'm ignorant...)
Two other things:
1. A masters may not help as a developer. I have a masters but it's in Astronomy and I did it with no intention of taking on Astronomy as a job. Every time I add the qualification to the list, HR takes it back off. I'm not even sure certain HR staff know the difference between Astronomy and Astrology.
2. You might find it easier to get your foot in the door somewhere else rather than try to move into a development role in your current company. If you're already doing a job well, the company has less incentive to move you elsewhere (until they realise you'll leave otherwise, by which time it's too late). It'll be tough in this market.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
It depends on if you want to be a database one trick pony or a programmer or a sysadmin.
A help desk job is where you cut your teeth for being a sysadmin. If you want to be a dba or programmer, you don't need any experience in the real world. You just go to school and hope it's real life.
If you are interested in being a sysadmin, then understand that you are supporting users, and there are sysadmins supporting you.
Hang out with them and ask them to show you how they do their jobs. Learn about the stuff schools can't and never will be able to afford to teach you. SAN's, Fiber switching, the proprietary tools for HP, Sun, IBM, Dell. Use lunch, free time, smoke breaks, after work- whatever.
Sysadmins always have job offers or know people at other companies with job offers that may not be at their level, but at yours. There is no downside.
Secondarily, you should take advantage of their education program. If it's a law firm, they have one. Put in for your RHCE or LPI or MCSE or whatever the hell it is you're working on. Buy or download the book and make them pay for the tests. A cert will get you more pay than a Master's in anything. Unless you are bucking for middle management or want to write obscure code, a Master's won't do dick.
If you really want to leave though- and you know this because you go home, lay in bed, and literally say "I have to get out of this place" every day- then leave. You ain't gonna learn shit. Follow your gut first, head second.
School is a fine fallback if you have money, but if you don't then guess what. This is your school. You won't ever forget working help desk. People in pain learn their maximum threshold for bullshit, so it's good to learn yours early so you don't spin out when you get a job that actually pays the bills. Helpdesk is hell by repetition. DBA, Sysadmin, and maybe Programmer are hell by catching shit from all sides.
I can't tell you what to do. I can tell you that I, and many of the people here, were in your exact position. If you don't want to kill yourself yet, then you aren't finished. Take advantage of what's around you and then opportunities will open up.
you could go back to school & work at the university while you're there. Generally, the IT Departments at universities are pretty big and they give you a good idea of anything you're going to encounter. At my university when someone shows initiative and they're competent and not a douche they pretty much always get the chance to prove themselves - ymmv, but I get the impression that quite a few universities are like this.
If you get on as a student, that's cool, part time, focus on school, show some initiative and try to get a full time job
If you get on as a full timer - awesome for you - most universities offer pretty good benefits, a lot of them include stuff like tuition wavers (full or partial - either way, you're going to end up paying less.)
and finally, working at a university IT department doesn't necessarily mean being in a support role -
our it department has an application development group, a services group (support), a project management group, a system administration/network admin group, a business group that handles contracts & such with other departments/companies, a research computing group (super computers), a dedicated security group, an administration group (payroll), and an HR group. Of those, sysadmins, services, and app devs have to do support. Everyone else is only rarely customer facing. The likelihood that you're going to get into the non-support groups right away is pretty slim, but movement has a tendency to be really fluid.
In case you didn't get the main point of this - the important thing is showing initiative. Show that you're interested in doing something new and interesting - show it by talking to people who do it already and trying to shadow them. Work with your bosses to get involved in projects, do things to get noticed. =)
Um. If you are on the helpdesk - unjamming printers and unfreezing outlook is your job. Your work isn't being interrupted every five minutes, but rather you are being called on to do your job every five minutes.
To be fair, in a 200 person shop, he may also be expected to do sysadmin duties as well as helpdesk. It tends to get lumped together a lot. But even as a sysadmin, your job is ultimately to serve the company and it's clients, and in a small to midsize company, that means rebooting the boss' PC every now and then. Try to take pride in the fact that you tangibly made his life slightly better.
My role in a similarly sized company is basically sysadmin without the title, so I feel for you. There are days I'd love to play with the tech and roll out cool things, and it does get annoying to handle the level 2 stuff (fortunately, I have a part-time helpdesk guy for the basics).
One tip would be to get an intern, and dump some of the support tickets on them. Honestly, I'm not sure how viable a solution that is (I'd be eager to hear others experiences), because I don't know if a CS person will want an internship like that. But maybe someone from a business background would be intrigued; you likely touch every part of the business, and there could be appeal there.
If you're interested in web development, heck, just do it! Do your own site. Do your friends' sites, though set some clear boundaries. This will get you estimating experience, and you can play with whatever strikes your fancy. Then hit up some local small businesses and do their sites. Use that experience to get your next job. A CS Masters seems like overkill for web development. I can't say I know one, but then again, see my second paragraph. :) I do know many web folk without masters, though.
The last thing I'd suggest is to get yourself involved on larger projects in the company. I don't always think to ask my helpdesk guy to help out, but I'm glad when he volunteers. This is a way to learn the tech, the business, and all those fuzzy skills that we don't think should matter but really, really do.
HTH,
CC
IT is a support function, yes, but that's not to say that all IT people keep getting calls every five minutes when someone can't print an email.
I would go as far as to say that the folks we have here on the IT helpdesk are very tech un-savvy. They follow simple flowcharts to get resolutions and do very little actual IT work. I also work in a 200,000 employee company at the head office which has 4,000 staffers. I would say that to get into the IT field, you need to either jump out into a side role and get yourself known, make friends with developers (if you have them in-house) or simply look to maybe even join a helpdesk in a larger firm.
Having said that, I don't really see why you cannot study while being at the helpdesk. It's not a stressful role, you answer calls, you help people with stupid things when they are clueless. Yes, it's numbing, yes it's boring - and it's perfect to use as a job while studying for something else or learning things on the side.
Not to be rude, but be prepared for a LOT more stress than a helpdesk if you do get seriously into the IT field. Developers are ALWAYS being pushed for quicker and cheaper developments, project managers get sizings and then shave off time for an action if it doesn't fit into the time constraints - and I ain't even going to start on the business users and what you will have to do for them during the warranty phase of developments when they start changing requirements left right and center.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
That was really well written. Might I suggest a more poetic way of saying the same thing:
Work is love made visible
And if you cannot work with love but only
with distaste, it is better that you should
leave your work and sit at the gate of the
temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference
you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half
man's hunger
And if you grudge the crushing of the
grapes, your grudge distills a poison in the wine
And if you sing though as angels,and
love not the singing, you muffle man's ears
to the voices of the day and the voices of
the night.
-Kahlil Gibran
(The rest of this particular bit can be found here: http://www.sfheart.com/work.html)
I am officially gone from