Getting Beyond the Helldesk 474
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?"
What degree do you have? (Score:4, Interesting)
But that said - What degree do you have that left you stuck on the frontlines of an IT helpdesk? If you don't have a BSc, speak now... (Formal education IS a go
Re:What degree do you have? (Score:5, Interesting)
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...)
Re:Distractions normal. Support is part of other j (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
A few more options (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Define what your job should be (Score:3, Interesting)
You work at a help desk, so it seems your job is getting in the way of whatever you prefer to work at. From your description it looks like you want to move into a managerial role of technical decision making. You can accomplish this by championing projects that you prefer to work on, or starting your own company. All an advanced degree will get you is a different entry-level position, where you'll still be interrupted every five minutes by something.
At some point you'll need to show independent leadership to get your preferred kind of job.
Re:That is your job. (Score:2, Interesting)
work at a university while going there (Score:5, Interesting)
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. =)
Re:That is your job. (Score:5, Interesting)
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
Re:That is your job. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Learn a UNIX (Score:4, Interesting)
To become a competent unix sysadmin, do what this guy says
The problem is that there are no certifications for linux that actually mean much of anything, unlike the windows world where you have the MS cert. Sure, there are a few companies that offer certs for linux but anyone who knows anything in HR will sneer at them as the meaningless drivel they are.
I actually don't know how people get involved in being sysadmins on unix systems, since it seems you need experience to get it.
Find a new career. Or don't... (Score:2, Interesting)
1) work hard and learn continually
2) always look for a better situation and be prepared to get out of your comfort zone to obtain it
3) be receptive to new experiences in different areas that might later bear fruit
4) work hard and learn continually.
Re:Learn a UNIX (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:What degree do you have? (Score:1, Interesting)
The problem is that many companies won't hire without an education or experience. If you're absurdly good, highly motivated, lucky, have family connections and/or got there a decade ago then you can have that experience they're looking for. Otherwise you're stuck in a catch-22 and if you're lucky you'll only need to endure a couple years of hellish jobs before getting a non-mind numbing entry level position. Even then you better be very good and lucky if you want to advance.
The thing is that if you're highly motivated and good then education still provides advantages. You can be out at 22 with a Masters, three internships from large companies, tons of industry contacts (at high levels in large companies) and a pretty piece of paper. A starting salary of $150k in someplace like the Bay Area is then quite possible if you play your cards right and anything under $100k would be considered barely worth consideration.
Re:Ugh (Score:1, Interesting)
Graduate school and sex don't go hand in hand (no pun intended - yeah right...)
Nailing that hot 18 year old is a relatively rare occurrence. Also, with OP's money concern, staying on dorm - which increases the chances of sex - isn't a really good option - even with funding.
What he should do is try to do work and classes, maybe just one or two a sem. It is a lot of work (I'm a full time grad student) and may take 2.5 to 3 years (less if he does summer/winter sessions as well).
Re:That is your job. (Score:4, Interesting)
I never understood why this is supposedly frustrating. In short, ineffectiveness is job security. I remember having a self-drawn roadmap at my last job. Every time I'd be called down for must-do sales support quick fix project, I would tell them how much time this would take off of accomplishing my larger projects. I t was all the same to me, just as long as nobody could blame me for missing deadlines I wasn't allowed to abide by.
Eight hours is eight hours. If I'm not the one prioritizing my projects, I'm not going to sweat the results of those priorities.
Re:That is your job. (Score:1, Interesting)
Hi,
Having reached a similar point in my life as the writer, I've found your remark very helpfull.
I already tried a lot of things in my career... Personally, I like explaining, discovering things and being 'active' , that's why, after a number of years working as a programmer, I became educator (enjoyed it very much) but the low wage and uncertainty of high-school teaching made me leave for a steady job in IT Support.
The "Reason" why? I thought of 'teaching' and 'IT support' as a 'service' to people -but something is different: in IT support , you're more an outsider the the caller's problem. They'll probably get to know you, but you rarely get to know them. You're job stays 'problem solving'.
In teaching, you get more feedback and you'll integrate more in a community. Teaching is also a good way to get to know yourself, if you're willing to let your guard down.
That's the reason for me to go back to teaching, despite the wage and uncertainty.
Re:A few more options (Score:4, Interesting)
I happily share my knowledge with anyone who has a genuine interest and appears to be capable of retaining the information.
That's not to say that I want to be bugged 24/7, but as those who came before did for me, I like to help the smart, driven members of the support team when I can so that they have a chance to escape and do something more interesting with their careers.
Some simple truths (Score:1, Interesting)
The below are generalizations, but are generally true.
1. In the IT field, education is good. But in most cases experience is even more important. Companies like to know what you can do, not how many slips of paper you have. If you had an M.S. in something IT-related but only had helpdesk experience on your resume it would look a bit funny (from the infrastructure side of things, not as much from the programming side of things).
2. If you've been on the helpdesk for a year, you're not going anywhere. Helpdesk is an entry level job. Most people start there and only stay long enough to demonstrate competency, then they get promoted or switch jobs and move up. There are some people who are helpdesk lifers. They either don't have the minimal amount of skills required to move up, or they really, really like working the helpdesk. I've met examples of both. If you don't move up fairly quickly, you run the risk of looking like a helpdesk lifer.
Re:That is your job. (Score:3, Interesting)
Then business got bad, every department's budget got slashed, and I was the IT person whose lay-off would be "least disruptive". My career's been pretty much stalled ever since.
I'm not saying my outlook was wrong... just that no good deed goes unpunished.
Re:A few more options (Score:1, Interesting)
I happily share my knowledge with anyone who has a genuine interest and appears to be capable of retaining the information.
This.
I'm more than happy to teach anyone on our tier 1 or 2 staff anything they actually want to learn. Some of it has a tangible benefit to me because I can ask one of them to do any of those tasks if needed e.g. how to make cables, how to assemble our servers, configuring hardware RAID, etc; some is purely for their benefit since our management would never actually let them use the knowledge in their current roles and there are few opportunities for advancement, e.g. how SANs work, zoning, LUN masking, building/configuring ESX servers, deploying VMs, etc.
One thing I like to do is when working on any project is ask the helpdesk if they have any interest in shadowing me when they have time. Earlier this year I did a deployment of Office Communications Server and one of the tier 2 staff worked with me pretty regularly on the project. Now he gets to be his team's expert on any related issues and gets to be seen stepping up and taking initiative and I get to not answer questions on how to do routine administrative tasks and troubleshooting. If there's ever an opening on our team he has a good chance to move up, or if he decides to go somewhere else he can put something beyond helpdesk experience on his resume.
In my personal experience, working hard and showing a desire to improve yourself even outside of your job will eventually pay off. I started at a Fortune 100 helpdesk 5 years ago after interrupting my B.S. in Comp. Sci. to help out with a sick parent. My first position involved nothing beyond entering user e-mails into the ticketing system. Within a few months I moved to the call center and within a year I moved to a position on the tier 3/engineering team because I was spending almost as much time helping other agents close calls as I was on the phone. I currently work as an architect/designer with occasional sysadmin responsibilities at a medium-sized company after moving up from a sysadmin/engineer position there.
You say there's no room for progression where you're at. If that's because they don't maintain any IT admin staff beyond the helpdesk then I would say just start looking somewhere else. If there are admins but just not much turnover then try to learn what you can from them and move on. I'd also like to reiterate what many other people have said that you really never get away from support in IT. It may not be end-user support, but you'll still be getting interrupted to answer your fair share of questions from lower level support and upper management.
Re:What degree do you have? (Score:3, Interesting)
Find a medium-sized 3'rd party tech support operation - go to school too - but contemplate broadening your skill set beyond pure IT - take a year to go to the Vancouver Film School and earn one of their computer-based degrees (animation, sound recording/transformation) and lateral into the production industry.
As a person who went to school for computer animation and now works in IT...
Good luck with that!
Really, unless you are doing animation for yourself or live in California, then you're not going to make a living on it.
However, you could learn video and go into taping weddings... There is never a shortage of work for that.
Re:That is your job. (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [sfheart.com])
As someone who has worked in the advertising... (Score:1, Interesting)
- Advertising, which tends to be about making a product, company, or political cause look better than it really is.
Not necessarily. Advertising is a lot more than just large companies trying to brainwash people with the latest cheesy tv ads.
I used to work for a company that dealt with Internet advertising (Ad Words, Search Engine Optimization, conversion management, analytics consulting...) and employed about 25 people. We had some rather large clients (countrywide and even some international companies and one political organization) but many were a lot smaller.
I met a lot of people with nice and new business ideas that I couldn't have even imagined myself. I knew that there were a lot of people who honestly could have benefitted a lot of their service but had never heard of it or even realized that such might exist. I took great joy in helping them.
I also left the business because a lot of my job involved interacting with the customers who could sometimes be real assholes. Some just forget that companies they make business with consist of real people and aren't just faceless entities.
Re:What degree do you have? (Score:3, Interesting)
I quickly figured out that I had some services that were not started but were set to start automatically. Then I found out that they logged in with my local account. So it was these services on boot up that were sending bogus passwords and locking my account out. After the reboot, and an account unlock, everything would work.
Since I obviously didn't NEED the services (hey, they hadn't run in months...), I set them to manual start, and the problem went away.
Here's the upshot. I saw all 4 help desk guys in the elevator shortly after fixing the problem. I said, "Hey guys - I figured out my account lockout problem"... They said "Good for you!" and the got off at the next floor. Not one of them asked me what the problem was. Later I saw them again, and I said "Hey, you know it wasn't lost on me that none of you ASKED ME WHAT THE PROBLEM WAS OR HOW TO FIX IT..." They all laughed and got off the elevator again, without asking the question...
We recently outsourced our Help Desk. All these guys had to re-interview for their jobs. Most got rehired, but at MUCH lower salaries. I shed no tears for them.
Re:That is your job. (Score:3, Interesting)
Depends on the business. Smaller outfits may have the all-in-one manager/admin/R&D guy that has no other possible future opportunity (although I'm betting a large number of those people are more victims of their own "not my job" mentality than lack of potential opportunity), but larger companies with some IT-savvy folk in management branch that stuff out. Hell, my entire job is now evaluating future tools, when we don't kludge something together, to provide solutions that we usually identify ourselves as being needed and/or beneficial instead of waiting for edicts from on high.
I spent years in support, first in a call center and then doing help desk/desktop support. I busted my ass and did everything that I could to work myself out of a job by automating and documenting everything in sight. While that was an unrealistic goal since the business will always require hands-on support, it did accomplish two things:
1) Helped me to develop a wide variety of IT skills
2) Showcased my capabilities to the business
When an engineering role finally became available in my current company, it wasn't even a contest with any other applicants since I had already proven time and again that I fit the role perfectly and had the business' interest at heart. Most IT folk won't ever get past help desk level roles because they live with a reactionary mindset and expect rewards to fall in their laps if they just maintain the status quo. The reality is that IT personnel who think that way are nothing but overhead that the business would sooner be able to dispose of altogether. It is only when someone in IT can demonstrate that they can be something far more than a low fat substitute for the Google search engine that most business folk will recognize that they possess real value to the business as a whole and consider adopting strategic IT roles rather than relegating them all to tactical support elements.
So, to answer your question, "Since when do I do BlackBerry support?" At the moment that one of your customers needed help with their BlackBerry, that's when. Because almost inevitably that was just going to be the first of many requests for help with that particular product, which meant that it was either, a) a pain in the ass that you'd rather not deal with because you didn't feel prepared to handle it, or b) an opportunity to get a jump on some new tech coming into your environment and develop some proactive solutions for preventing problems and improving the overall experience of your customers. Given your response, I guess you went with option (a) which is actually highly consistent with our experience with the work ethic of consultants that have come on site over the years, so it sounds as though you did indeed find your niche.