Helpdesk

I hate the entire concept of a service desk, tier one , help desk  or whatever you call your first line of defense against the assailant of password changes, “how do I’s” , and the classic “my Internet is broken”. the service desk or helpdesk is usually the first line of defense of the IT department , they answer the phones ant record the problems, but usually they do little to actually resolve the issues. 

 

While it is true that most issues called into your It department are common, annoying, simple problems. there are several reasons why you should not build your typical “front line” deferse out of straw .

 

A technician behind a service desk is roughly the equivalent of Veal.  Strapped to their desks, they are grainfed only the ability to resolve the simplest issues, mostly password resets  and pre-prescribed solutions to common errors or requests.  the service desk technician is never given the opportunity to grow, roam free amongst the users, Identifying patterns of errors and developing pre-emptive , pro-active  solutions to make the environment easier, safer and the user’s more knowledgeable. they never get the ability to engage higher level critical thinking skills, you are roughly taking those who are aspiring to be technicians and reducing them to be just another user.

 

Because of this they make a lot of simple errors when entering information into the tickets they give us. his largely due to a lack of experience with he environment they are asked to support, rather than a lack of talent or ability.  these errors  further extend the amount of time that the technician spends on the problem. this nullifies the primary argument for service desks, that they make the overall department run more smoothly and save time for techs who would otherwise have to enter the information themselves. 

 

It managers  would argue that it is cheaper, to keep a service desk.  But you are paying someone 3/4 as much as a fully qualified and able technician to do work that requires 1/4 of the ability.  At that price lets just go back to Secretaries, pretty ones, like the old days. they’ll come at a discount and focus on getting the facts straight , they’ll be an added incentive for the actual technicians.  Screw the googleplex’s unlimited food , or generous amount of stylish and ergonomic furniture, I’d much rather have a sweet piece of eye candy for the office social.

 

 

Service desks are songbirds, they just repeat what the user said for the most part.   I need a crow, something with a brain, something stubborn.  If you have such a large collection of password resets that you still feel the need to justify a service desk. Why don’t you just work at addressing the issue instead of walling yourself behind a line of overpriced secretaries? If you think your user-base is so stupid that you are constantly fixing the same problems again and again, WHy not channel some of that money towards user education? Make an investment in your environment, instead of passing along the buck and outsourcing your frustration.

 

USERS!

“Users”, that’s we they call them. We do not call them “people” or anything else remotely humane or respectful, just “users”, as if they had no purpose other than to “use”.

Within our cubicle walls we cry that name in anger or in  frustration. They only bring us work, and our work is the things they can’t figure out. Like a janitor for an exclusive prep school that only accepts bulimics in denial, I have to constantly clean up their messes instead of actually confronting the problem.  There is something fundamentally wrong with a  society that believes in the act of providing public education yet once these people are actually put in employment there is an entire division of other employees remarking constantly about how stupid they are. How they cannot actually come to terms with the tools given to them , as if all that education is seemingly worthless once placed in front of a small hundred dollar device.

 It confounds me that either the computer is the single most mentally disabling device in the world, like some kind of intricately designed Kryptonite shethed in plastic, or the user just is not superman. 

Most of those in my field , like to keep it that simple. “the user is stupid”  however, has been bandied about so often in front of me I can’t take it’s patronizing pedagogical pablum any more. No, users are not “just stupid” ,  I agree that users are not superman either, I just refuse to believe also that they are inherently any stupider than I. It is impossible that I am inherently more intellectually capable than anyone  else because I have decided to use one particular tool to my advantage. Tiger Woods may be a sports legend , Mario Andrei may drive a fast car yet no one ever believes that they are inherently more intellectually superior than us. But just because I know that the little button “shift” and the “a” button pressed one after another in quick succession selects all Items on a page , I am heralded as a “computer genius”. I am a user like all others, I just pay attention , look stuff up and refuse to be discouraged on the first or sometimes forty-fifth try.

 

Users don’t have to be so aimless, people have a purpose , each person has goals, ideas and dreams. I am sick of users, they disgust me. I don’t want to work with them anymore, I want to work with people. But that is practice, this is theory.