Berrycakeness

I was struggling to think of a topic to discuss today until I went to the pub after work and met a man (named Brod) who asked questions that were so relevant to my job that it invoked thoughts I’d forgotten about. So, here we go:

IT Support doesn’t truly describe my job. I’m a Technical Support Specialist (which means senior since I’m in charge of the UK team) who spends most of the day assisting with various levels of severity driven issues. Sure, I reset my fair share of passwords, but I also make sure that people are paid on time.

I help keep the employees of our company employed because without support, you can sell your mother to the devil but no one would hear her cry…However, I know that every department of a company works towards running it – if you remove resource from one department, others will suffer. But when you’re low in the chain (i.e. your day job doesn’t create revenue), unless you’re told that you’re doing a good job you tend to feel worthless after a while (from experience, that takes about a year).

That’s where my current company bucks the trend. Support is well looked after in that sense – If we do a good job, we’re told. My ego is so huge that I could probably share it with a few folks and still have some to spare, but it keeps me both sane and happy. Give me a decent living wage and a few high fives, and I’ll stay working until I fall asleep.

I don’t have an IT background (unless sitting in front of a computer since the age of four counts), so my technical knowledge is either self taught or via a job. To be a good software support person, in my opinion, you need to have an interest in the history of IT – how things have changed – to be able to appreciate the unknown. We know where we’ve come from and what we’re dealing with now (5 years ago, Ipads didn’t exist), so the future is easy to learn since it’s only going to be a slight step up. If you don’t want to know the amazing difference between a dial up modem and a 100MB fibre optic connection, don’t ask me for a job. What I’m trying to get across here is that I would employ a school leaver over a trained IT expert if the right questions were asked. I want someone to look at a problem and start their sentence with:

How? or What?

Rather than never asking questions. I’m constantly learning in a industry that is ever evolving, so the day I stop asking questions is the day I will change my profession.

xoxo