"Help Desk" is an oxymoron.
Yeps..right up there with "Business Professional"…
So in the words of Allen Curtiss…Bite Me.
Let me tell you about some of the Help Desk folks…
(Now PLEASE notice that this is NOT ALL of them…but a lot of them)…
The ones still left in the USA, are usually level 1's (tier 1's), which mean that they get to take your call, and usually due to some jackwipe metrics ratio scheme, have between 6 and 8 minutes to find out what is wrong with your system…(and believe me, it's usually never that easy).
1: Users seem to have a "I've never done anything wrong." mentality. Even when we find pc's loaded with illegal software, (I found one with 11 pieces of unapproved illegal software), the user "mysteriously doesn't know how they got there"…but we have to deal with it…go figure…So in this essence, we have to clean up your crap…again…
2: Users seem to have this idea that we have "a magic wand" and can wave it and *bip!* everything will be fixed and works 100% just the way it did before… Sorry folks we don't. Tier 1 Tech support folks are only given enough tools to usually do THE VERY BASIC remedies and application fixes because of the call ratio, and the fact that "the more advanced stuff" is for the Tier 2 and 3's, (thus the ticket system they have). But users don't seem to want to understand that.
3: Helpdesk techs have to "translate what you are saying"..ie…"When I turn on my pc thing, and I go into my you know…the thing that does the application thing, and I try to print from my other thing…it's not working…"
And they expect you to know EXACTLY what they are talking about…
4: Everyone seems to think that THEIR problem is more important than everyone elses. Bosses in California telling their little admin assistants that "They have a problem with Excel and to open a ticket", and then going to their golf game, expecting Help Desk to know exactly what their problem is..is a good example…Sorry pal, but my crystal ball is in the shop this week and accounting borrowed my Ouija Board…While we understand that people have problems with computers, we can only take one call at a time, and assist and try to help as much as possible.
5: Many times the problem with applications and computers isn't the PC or the Application; it's the person sitting in the chair, hence the term PICNIC, (Problem In Chair, Not In Computer). People forgetting their passwords 3 and 4 times a week, (or day), people not writing their passwords down, or keeping a copy of their trouble tickets numbers, people expecting the help desk guy to know exactly what they mean when they say "Well I called about this three months ago"…
People not checking to see if their printers are online, or having paper in them, not making sure they have internet connection, or downloading unapproved software for their pc's…(But they NEVER do that..it's just "shows up" ya know…) People taking their laptops to the pool party, or letting their dog eat their blackberry or pee on their keyboard…or leave sexual fluids on the keyboard or water their plants on top of their CRT monitors…but we have to come in and clean up your mess…again….
6: Help Desk guys are pretty much unappreciated. We get yelled at by the client when a storm knocks out their ISP and they can't get on the internet. We get yelled at by the client when they are running Windows 2000 and saved all of their outlook files to their C drive and then deleted them, (sorry folks, once they are gone, they are gone). We get yelled at because people are in "email jail", (refuse to get rid of anything in outlook, so it fills up and locks up). We get yelled at for power outtages, system downtime, server issues, problems with the phone line, or the fact that the user can't understand simple instructions such as "DO NOT INSTALL IE8, or ADOBE Active 10X" and they still do…but it's our fault…
7: We get slammed by management if our call ratio isn't high enough…and we get slammed by Tier2 and 3 IF we mis-scim a trouble ticket…sorry folks, we are human too and make mistakes. We get slammed by the customer because they had a ticket created a whole whopping 15 minutes ago, and it "hasn't been fixed yet". We get slammed by users who have had a problem with their computer for three months, six months, sometimes a year, and was just "too busy" to call the helpdesk and now they are either going on vacation that day, or the boss is needing something from that, and they "NEED IT FIXED…NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!"
8: We get slammed by the customers because some of them are just lazy sacks of 
that won't do their jobs when they need to, and when they find out their butt is on the line call us and want us to do their work for them…(An example was the chick that called me last year wanting me to add over 600 people to a sharepoint group within 30 minutes, because she had "blown it off" and then forgot about it…) But its our fault.
9: We get slammed by all sides because we find out usually at the last moment that servers are coming down, programs are being pushed remotely and the programmers are once again "making changes" and "initiating new applications" without informing us…usually 2-3 days later, after we have received about 6 DOZEN problem calls….
10: We are usually thrown to the wolves to figure out new applications that we didn't even know we had, until someone "higher up" realizes "oh yeah….we should've sent the info out to the helpdesk crew about them taking over this application last week…"
11: We usually don't get hour lunches and breaks, etc…most of us eat at our desks and work during lunch to track on tickets.
12: We can't get users to understand that "YES you CAN work WITHOUT your Microsoft Outlook being up!"
13: We can't get users to understand that we work on the Eastern Time Zone and that we don't care if it's only 3:30 pm in California, it's 6:30 at night here our folks have gone home, deal with it…everything on the site says "ALL TIMES IN EASTERN TIME ZONE"…
14: We are constantly being held to ever changing standards and metrics and our field is one where you MUST keep taking courses, schooling, education, and training just to keep up with the technology…since Microsoft loves to change things each time they release a new OS, we essentially are forced to reinvent the wheel..again.
15: People call us and with their problems. Sometimes this requires us to tell the person…Okay here is my direct # and my email addy, please contact me the moment your pc loads it's desktop." And they don't…so then I have to play phone tag with them because their "uber important computer problem" is now not so important because they went to lunch or on break…But it's my fault (according to them), if it isn't fixed….
16: And finally…if you have a ticket or an appointment for a field service tech to come install something on your pc and some "techie" calls on the phone, and you really REALLY don't want him to do this…you can always say "No thanks…I'll just wait for the fs guy…thanks for your help…" and hang up.
And these are just a few of the things that helpdesk people have to deal with…
So the next time you say Help Desk is an oxymoron, you might want to say "Computer User is an oxymoron…"
Sorry if I sounded a bit p*ssy, but I get tired of hearing this…Yes we have jerks in our field, like all jobs, but you know what? We're people, we have lives, we don't live for you to your computer up with stupid and then get to listen to you rag on us because "your magic box isn't working right…"
And yes we get tired of dealing with human stupidity because a lot of our problems are "human error" not applications or hardware…and because our managements at our level ONLY gives us so much access to be able to do what we can…
So lighten up on the helpdesk folks…We're not all idiots or jerks, (just like we know that not all of the users are slackers, morons, and just stupid people that can't remember their names, or follow simple instructions…)
Thanks for listening…
Murph
*A helpdesk tech who is watching 175 qualified good people lose their jobs to Malaysia and Panama because a CFO wants to look good on her stock report earnings…*
