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Thread ID: 54041	2005-02-02 20:57:00	Is this now a standard response for Helpdesks? You must have.....	Chilling_Silence (9)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
320923	2005-02-03 05:25:00	Well done drcspy - you've made our evening - lotsa reading ...	TonyF (246)
320924	2005-02-03 10:18:00	Dont get me wrong, helpdesk work is a laugh at times but stressful as hell other times. The way I figure it is you only get the *******s and the dumbasses calling, mostly due to the fact that the people who are smart enough not to call have worked it out for themselves..... :D	Chilling_Silence (9)
320925	2005-02-03 11:09:00	Ugh . I hate having to do this, but I'm gonna defend helpdesks . Not all helpdesks are terrible . The one I work on has a first contact fix rate across the board of above 65%, and the other 35% are generally issues we don't have the rights to resolve (e . g . UNIX, database, server config stuff) . In my opinion, thats not half bad . I'd be confident in saying from all of my dealings with ISP's (Xtra, Ihug, Paradise) that the majority of the "helpdesk's" are callcentres, log and flog, and the call takers are not even trained to offer the support, merely to log the tickets . I'd be interested in hearing opinions or defence from anyone who works or has worked on an ISP helpdesk . Sounds familiar, which company are you with? Cland/eds/econz/fujitsu/datacom/sytec? hmmm that's about all of the big ones in our region . . . /edit: Forgot Gen-I I'd like to back this up here, just because it has webbed feet and floats on water doesnt mean it is a duck . A helpdesk is not a helpdesk is not a helpdesk, they're not all created equal . Some will sort you out at the first tier, some will just log and flog, some will blindly skip through flip cards . You've got to know which to call and how to deal with them to your advantage . In the case of an ISP helpdesk, the first tier generally speaking are often log and floggers, they use the digital equivilent of flipcards, try to extrapolate as much information (hopefully) and pass it on to the right people to work towards a resolve . The other thing is they have fairly erratic guidelines, for example at my work I can spend several hours helping a user nut out a fault if I deem it worthy, but then again I'm not exactly first tier either . . . Xtra's helpdesk on the other hand are allowed ten minutes per contact and 8 seconds between each contact . So there's often not a lot of time if you have a tricky fault . A) They're normally first level of support, not IT Uber stars . B) They are often constrained by their own company's policies on how to respond to calls, which are usually monitored . C) They have limitations in their knowledge, just like everyone else here . D) They usually aspire to better things and a helpdesk job is as good as anything else as a stepping-stone to getting into higher level IT work . If people are so damned clever that they can criticise helpdesk helpers, what the heck are they calling up the helpdesk for anyway? I think point A tends to be more of a trend for ISP desks . . . in corporate support the entry requirements are a bit higher so you get a lot of qualified people in the first tier, which brings us to point D - they're there because it's the only realistic industry entry point available to them (as happens with a saturated industry like IT . ) No experience? Tough . My work wont let you breathe in the direction of our datacentres unless you have a minimum of 2 years server experience . You wont get to work extensively in the datacentres unless you've got a minimum of 5 years experience . I get to go into the datacentres and do a few things, thank the IT gods . Gets me off the phones you see ;) Experience has to come from somewhere, and often starting on a helpdesk and then tagging along with the engineers in a junior admin/reactive tech role is the way to get that experience . Consider it the apprenticeship of IT (and I've been an apprentice spraypainter and butcher) Unfortunately you get three main kinds of people on a helpdesk: The numpties (log and floggers) the techies (like me) who are in IT for the interest/passion and are only using the helldesk as a career launching platform, and the money hungry bastards who have managed to fumble their way through some nightschool course and have nonsensical notions of grandeur and 6 digit paycheques . Not any of them particularly enjoy being there - the first group simply because they're abused beyond reason, and the second and third groups because the role is or apparently is (yes, read this literally) beneath them . Customer service takes a back seat . Helpdesk staff tend to get a lot of crap thrown at them by people who don't think . It ain't the person you are talking to's fault that somethings happened, however callers tend to like to make it personal and scream/yell/insult the person answering the phone . Callers want to vent . I've found that the trend is that women are often very hard to deal with - the fault takes away their pathetic powerbase no matter how insignificant, and equally difficult to work with are middle management men, who have let the politics of their role make them insanely stupid ("Management is where geeks go to die") . Some very basic logic has won me a lot of arguments with these idiots . Now to the ladies here, dont get up in arms, it's a trend and statistics dont lie . Sad but true . The other thing I hate about both of the aforementioned groups is that they think it's their position to decide the urgency of the fault . Sorry, but the person helping you has to keep an SLA in mind - it is up to them to decide the urgency and appropriate resolution . So kindly, when you want the stupid doggy helper in MS Word instead of the stupid paperclip, dont demand that it be logged as urgent . I'm too busy dealing with several Telco outages and a server farm fault, I'll decide what priority your call gets . In saying that there are a lot of women who thankfully are down to earth and will say brilliant things like "I dont really care if the network's broken, it means I get paid to sit here, read the womens weekly and drink coffee . I'm not complaining in the least" Best . callers . ever . CEO's are equally brilliant to deal with Exactly . The number of callers I'd get that started 'I'm a technician' or 'I'm a professional web developer' which were followed by 'which button' or 'ftp???' You're calling because you can't work out what to do, a little respect towards the person having to help you is a good start . Preach on brother . Or the really bad "I have a friend . . . " Sometimes I just want to say "wow . . YOU have a FRIEND?!" If you need to slip in the words "I have a friend who has a <insert meaningless qualification here> / who knows computers . . . " then kindly tell your "friend" to shut up . Somebody " . . . with years of experience who knows how to fault diagnose" would probably prefer to work in a job which (a) pays what they are worth, and (b) offers some intellectual challenge . Being trapped in a cubicle trying to get ignorant users' computers going by remote control (with only the lusers as the remotely activated tools) is not my idea of technological heaven . Or even Valhalla . Nail on the head . It gets a lot better when you step up to a corporate environment with well laid out Citrix/Tivoli/Dameware/etc setups and you can shadow/remote the users and see first hand how they're stuffing up . Now you folks who call helpdesks on a regular basis, let me ask a favour of you . When you get good support, someone helps you out, and you are pleased with how you were treated - give them that feedback . You have no idea how appreciated it is, especially when 90% of your calls have people . . . Definately agree here . I remember when I first started, one of my mentors was reduced to tears by one caller's good feedback . For the briefest moment (until the next whiner/hot head/wrong end of the genepool calls) it's all worth it . I just think it would be better if they passed over to a higher level helpdesk sooner . Sorry, politics prevents that . The upper tiers dont sit idle twiddling their thumbs all day, they have REAL work to do keeping infrastructure up and rolling and paving the way forward . They cant be wasting their time talking to idiots, though I wouldnt mind being paid 150 to 350 bucks an hour to tell people to restart their pc's (which amazingly will fix 80+% of all faults I've dealt with . Go the legacy windows systems and their crappy mem management!) ;) The point is, a well oiled first tier is supposed to take in as much information as possible, compare it with an SLA and decide on the correct course of action . If they can resolve it, so be it . If they have to pass it up to the next tier, so be it . If they have to pass it directly to an engineer, so be it . It should never be up to the user to decide the priority of their fault . I dont want to be setting you up with the stupid doggy assistant in MS Word when I should be calling <insert random Telco name here> to get a layer 2 IPNetwork fault resolved, or an NTU in Singapore restarted . . . Unfortunately, there's a lot of desks that have a bunch of numpties on the first tier, and this is where this thread stems from, what I'm trying to do is contrast that and say that all helpdesks are not created equal . I also find it rather hard not be be honest and just admit that I don't know what is going on (although usually I do some quick research to find out) . I don't think this is how the helpdesk "pros" would do it . "Sorry, I dont know much about that/I havent done that in a while, I'll log a job and pass it on to a higher level technician/engineer" Works wonders, you can go and do your homework and get back to the user later on, keeps them happy because they think you're bending over backwards ;) It just scares me to think waht the average home user would ring an ISP about (all those stories about helping people install an OS) Ahh the joys of being in corporate support . "we dont support home pc's, goodbye" :D What really amuses me is when I first started at my work, one of my mates told me he'd done a degree in IT . "It was part of my travel & tourism" . It's these kind of people who often end up being the "friend who knows computers . " The ability to print from ms word does not make you a guru . Ultimately it boils down to this: Dont knock it till you've tried it . Take a few deep breaths before you call, answer the questions you've been asked and dont be a cocky arrogant prick . The person you're calling has had more than enough idiots call him/her that day . And if you're really fortunate you'll come through to a really seasoned and jaded bastard like me, and if you get on my bad side, you'll pay for your crimes . I've been in the game long enough to know how to buckle the politicians to my advantage, so if you scream at me, you may be lucky to get a formal warning from your boss . Yes, I have been a BOFH from time to time . Being screamed at gives me no incentive to help you . Being treated with a basic level of respect that every human being deserves will get you helped . Karma is cyclic, remember that ;) Treat the person well, they'll reciprocate, treat them badly, they'll reciprocate .	whetu (237)
320926	2005-02-03 11:18:00	Was looking good untill the waffle at the end.	Metla (12)
320927	2005-02-03 11:27:00	I've had minimal luck with helpdesks, but at least they hire some nice sounding girls, can't get too frustrated over that . One time I rang up helpdesk to cancel the flat rate plan of dialup because my client had jetstream and shouldn't be paying for flat rate dialup as well as jetstream, because they no longer use dialup, All I was asking for was to cancel it, which they couldn't or at least put it on hourly so they didn't pay additional . He told me it was not allowed to be done, somehow out of the conversation he gave me a number to call, turned out that number did not even exist . I'm glad I took down his name and conversation that went on, usually I would only take the relevant information to help my situation, but nothing was relevant except for when I placed the complaint against this . I emailed my mate (I went to Uni with him) who worked for Xtra at the time, he said sure he can do it, but it has to go through (can't remember who he said, something like the account ops) so he did that, a week later I asked him how it went and he checked and told me they haven't done anything about it so he did it himself . In his position he is allowed to do that, so he wasn't getting himself in trouble, but their protocol must mean they have to go through other officials, which is understandable, but not understandable when nothing was done about it (unless they're busy of course, but if others can do it, then why not use them?) . Now my client is happy, and I'm not facing the aftermaths of apologising because the helpdesk didn't help . Helpdesk do nothing but make me look bad in front of my clients . I now log each conversation I have with helpdesks over these situations, as I'm not impressed by their level of expertise . I'm currently going through a similar situation with another ISP via email and it looks like I'm just about ready to take it to someone higher because there doesn't seem to be any results happening . KK	Kame (312)
320928	2005-02-03 11:34:00	Was looking good untill the waffle at the end. I love how constructive you are metla, truely your input is valuable :thumbs: I'm adding you to my ignore list now, as your sole existence here on pressf1 seems to rotate around irritating me. Helpdesk do nothing but make me look bad in front of my clients. I now log each conversation I have with helpdesks over these situations, as I'm not impressed by their level of expertise. I'm currently going through a similar situation with another ISP via email and it looks like I'm just about ready to take it to someone higher because there doesn't seem to be any results happening. A job ticket/reference and a distinct knowledge of your SLA will get you far...	whetu (237)
320929	2005-02-03 11:44:00	I would imagine most of my input is valuable. Apart from that which is fluff. Anyhow,your post was worth reading, The bit at the end about watch out,im the help desk and i'll tell your boss,shiver your timbers..........meh, Maybe thats something you will grow out of, or perhaps thats an attitude they install into those on high level help desk positions Wothwhile insight anyhow. Why did you fade out your announcment to put me on ignore?, You don't think claiming my sole reason for visiting this forum is to irritate you was a trifle arrogant? Lmao.	Metla (12)
320930	2005-02-03 12:11:00	Boths of you girls blouses drop it alright.....	Chilling_Silence (9)
320931	2005-02-03 15:24:00	It started off with a phone call to the helpdesk, that didn't go so smoothly, asking to hand over a password straight to the helpdesk to setup my account, I think not, so she told me of an alternative, in fact it was the quicker way of doing it. So after doing that, I requested to switch my internet connection over to them, currently I'm with another ISP. I shouldn't have an expectation of their SLA as it's first time trying to get switched over to them. Well I've got the job ticket for this request, this has been going on for 3 months now, they gave me an estimate of 3-4 weeks due to high demands, so you can see where I'm coming from, and now they've responded again saying it'll happen in 2 weeks from now. I lost it on my last email saying something along the lines do you want me to wait another 3 months? Well, just put a bit more anger and rage into it, and probably make it out in an essay form and you might have a clear picture of what I may have said in it or wanted to say for that matter but I kept it nicely worded. What I'm annoyed about, the response was a one liner saying what date it'll happen. In fact now that I think about it, none of the emails I recieved from this person were longer than 2 lines. I have little faith in thinking it's really going to happen now. Why I think it's not going to happen, A) I'm not a customer of theirs, and probably won't be after this. B) I have no authority over the Telephone account, so if they think Telecom have set a date to do this, they should think again and should have gotten back to me on this. C) Information I requested in my very first email was not sent by email or snail mail. D) As I said, the matter has to be brought up to someone higher, I probably have enough emails to make whoever sees them shudder at the nonsense/lies that went on. KK	Kame (312)
320932	2005-02-04 08:25:00	A few weeks ago I was having upload speed problems with Fedora Core 3 and a 56kbps modem (since solved). Decided to try the ISP help and got the standard response - "sorry, we do not support Linux". No sign of any attempt to help or understand what might be going on - just an excuse to get out of doing anything I suspect. Strange thing is that many ISPs use Linux to run their services - but they won't support it for their customers.	johnd (85)
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