IT Jobs - Life at the help desk

I worked for a year supporting the help desk among other things. Not first level support but our team came into the picture when the first level help desk could not solve the problem.

Standard problems that could be solved by the help desk would be solved with standard solutions. The ones that could not be solved were forwarded to us and we were required to clear these within half a day to 3 days, depending on the urgency of the problem. Some users contacted us directly as they had our phone numbers. Top management would also contact us directly and those problems had to be attended to immediately. Most of the other problems would come from the first level help desk.

There were hilarious moments. Like a user who jammed the CDROM with a floppy disk. The CDROM had to be replaced. Another mistook the CDROM for a holder for his cup of coffee. Yet another said his printer was not working. What happened was, he placed the document against the computer screen, and pressed enter, expecting the printer to duplicate that document like this!

Not all problems were so straightforward. Some were complex. Like why the application does not work even though the configuration and every thing else appeared in order. In such cases, we could take days to solve, even with the help of our colleagues.

In this line of work, you need to deal with all kinds of people. From the computer phobic, to the know it all, to the angry user and more. People skills are definitely needed. That, and lots of patience and decent communication skills. We would often try to solve the problem over the phone, so you would need to be able to guide the user over the phone.

Initially, you do get a wide exposure to all sorts of applications and different things that could happen. The basics were things like installing applications, formatting the hard disk and re installing all the drivers from scratch, killing viruses and knowledge of basic applications used by the company.

After a while, it becomes routine. You go auto pilot then. Many people get really bored and quit then. Those who stay really enjoy interacting with people.