IT Support

Have you ever noticed that the more senior people in IT don’t like dealing directly with end users? It’s because users can be so difficult to deal with and don’t fit into the neat patterns that IT should have. Every single person in IT should be on user support for a day.

You need real social skills to be a good support guy. You don’t need a lot of technical skill. The user often doesn’t know the difference if you tell them the motherboard needs to be replaced to fix a problem in Word. In fact they think you are a genius for figuring that out. Every single internet problem can be blamed on the firewall.

There is also a strange symbiotic relationship. A lot of users are bored and frustrated by their work. An IT problem creates a welcome distraction that is not their fault. It suits the engineer as it keeps the call rate up and keeps him employed. Removing the cause of these problems is a bad idea, as it would make him unemployed. Doctors need patients. Policemen need criminals. IT support people need users with problems.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.