What does IT support do??
 

At the moment im thinking about what job i want to do and ive been looking around and IT support has popped up.

So what does a average IT support person do in a big company (at the moment im talking music company but i think this will be support more for the finance devision)?

I take it that it will be a lot harder then maintaining a home network but how much?

What would i need to understand?

Indian.

He's not joking..

I work for a very very large IT company and they've shipped of loads of depts. to India. It's bloody impossible. We just sit on the phone not understanding each other and having to use MSN instead.

Depends on the quality of the end user; support usually consists of helping people on any app they happen to have installed, setting up mailboxes on exchange and giving priv levels for network share directories.

Working for people in finance is a total arse, not to put you off or anything but be prepared to work for the dullest muppets on the planet who believe their job is more important than that of God himself.

At pretty much every company I've worked for they always have bespoke apps, like reporting programs, app's that can be accessed over the web + VPN, Citrix etc etc

That's easily the most infuriating thing to do, especially for home workers as you can't dircety see what they're doing.

Sorry I'm rambling.

you dont need to know about computers thats for sure, most of them read it off the screen, as it tells then what to say to check, what it could be, etc,etc
And indian[rofl]

i would say its not what you already know, but how good you are at problem solving

I recently transferred over to my new parent company so had spent a lot of time to the company's IT support in Bangalore.

Problems were mainly due to Outlook mailbox config and it was easiest just to let them drive via remote desktop sharing.

Best thing was that my PC account was limited so that I couldn't remove some shitty software from the PC (yahoo toolbar, etc. [cursing]) so I asked that they send over local support to uninstall them. The guy tried for a while to remote uninstall it via desktop sharing which I knew wouldn't work.
After a few tries, he gave up and just gave me the password to the PC's admin account.
Obviously, my account is no longer limited on the PC... and it looks like it's a generic password too http://discussworldissues.com/forums...ies/devil1.gif

Learn to say "Have you rebooted your pc?".

[rofl][rofl][rofl][rofl]

lol, i do software support for a company. i do as little as i can as the pay is crap so i am having words about that

also learn to not trust what the user is saying

I hope this guy's not a friend of yours (besides the fact that he gave you the admin pwd), because he's a moron. I would never ever under any circumstances without prior approval from the CIO/CTO and my direct mgr give out the admin password. I mean, not under torture or duress or anything, but it's such a PITA to clean up after some user who got themselves admin privileges (though not saying you're one of them).

If you have a barrel handy, starts practicing you’re bending technique.

Oh and the only question you will need to help them is the difference between there ar$e and there elbow.

But dont be put off

Ok, so, here's my general take on this... I think it depends largely on the company you work for and it's size and age. Newer smaller companies may mean that you're the only support staff or certainly just one of like two. Don't bother with this unless you know AD, Exchange (or their mail server), servers, permissions, and troubleshooting, as well as networking. Basically, you need to have had years of experience before doing this. I've been doing computers for like five years, and almost two in a professional capacity, and I wouldn't do this. Maybe in five years I'll consider it.

If you're in a larger or older company, you'll be one of at least three people, and then your responsibilities can be less (but your job is still important and your presence or lack thereof will be noticed). This will likely see you doing desktop troubleshooting which is probably 95% software issues. Know how to locate and clean up an offending program, spyware, viri, and to whip Windows into shape. I recommend learning how to use Ghost and Sysprep if your duties will include desktops and deployment. Both are invaluable, and if your new company doesn't already use this method (many don't!), you could be considered godly. Note that this is only useful for homogenous or at least reasonably homogenous environments. If you have three Dells, two HPs, four Gateways, a couple Macs, and all of them are different models, save yourself the time and trouble and just learn to reinstall XP on the drop of a hat.

For specific examples, in my previous job, I was just one of three Help Desk techs that dealt exclusively with desktop and software issues. We got minor training in higher level stuff but only so we could hopefully move up down the road. The second situation applied, and within a month of being there I learned Ghost and Sysprep, and revolutionized their deployment systems. They were using Ghost and Sysprep at the time, but I consolidated it, updated all the images, corrected some known issues, and by the end of the month would've been a golden boy if it weren't for my big mouth. Anyway, just hope that if it's a bigger or older company, they have a ticketing system. It makes life easier to keep track of, and helps for historical diagnosis.

In my current job, I was thrown headlong into server stuff and was immediately given full control of the BES. In addition to handling almost all the Help Desk stuff (lower level), I was also responsible for deployment and user/computer maintenance. Within three months, I've made several new GPOs (I never had any experience before with that), and I regularly add and remove users, as well as all sorts of other admin-y goodness.

I do strongly suggest that if you don't have any formal experience that you either get an internship on a Help Desk, or look for a very entry level position, and do NOT lie about your experience or knowledge. If you know how to do something, or have some other special useful knowledge, then say so, but otherwise, keep to the facts. You should probably get your A+'s if you can spare the cash, and consider the XP MCSE or something.

It sucks starting out low, as I did only a year and a half ago, but between jobs I made a 15k jump in salary and am now making excellent money and have a ton more experience. If I get more in depth Exchange experience and can learn to build my own domain, I could probably take one of those "Lone Techie" jobs.

Oh, and last piece of advice: Get used to being **** on. And I don't just mean like your older brother or sister bugs you. I mean, users will almost assuredly get pissed at you just because of the computer, they will do everything up to and including insulting you, and depending on who they are, you can't do much but sit there and take it. When you have a CEO who is a techno-phobe and they're yelling at you while you're trying to fix their problem because there's a client crisis, it's either take the heat or quit.

Start in a simple Help Desk job, get used to it, bone up on your diagnostics skills, get used to fighting spyware and viri without having to reimage the PC, and make friends with the domain admins so you can get training on that end of things, and you'll do just fine.

Umm, doesn't matter how crappy the pay is. For the first year of your first job, you smile, say "yes sir, may I have another, sir," and deal with it. If you can't stick out your first job for a year, nobody will want you. After your first year, renegotiate, but don't hesitate to hedge your bets and start looking at other jobs.

As to the user's word, ignore them at all costs, and if you get a hesitant or unsatisfactory answer, then ask them again in that calm "I know you're an idiot, but I know you can answer the question" tone (without sounding blatantly insulting), until you get a straight answer. I was on the phone with one of our users the other day, and they were complaining about their home router not working properly (we support home equipment here).

When I asked her about resetting the router, she goes "I already did that" in a snippy tone (she's a PITA who is too big for her briches). Knowing how she is, I replied in the above tone, as below:

Me: "When did you do that, and what effect did it have?"
Her: "I did that last time I called."
Me: "And when was that?"
Her: "A couple months ago."
Me: "Ah..."

Suddenly she was 'busy' and had to go, even though she called about it. Being careful about how to leave the conversation so that she couldn't say that I didn't try, I just said "Well, I need you to go ahead and reset the router before you call back, that way you don't need to hang on the phone while we wait for that." She hasn't called back since, and she certainly didn't say anything bad about me.

Make sure you're providing internal support for a company, rather than supporting the general public (ie ISP call center). In the latter scenario, you'd be surprised at where these people crawl out from and call for support. With internal support, people at least need to get through an interview process and get hired.

Nice advice, I'm lucky that my industry requires a certain ammount of savvy but when it comes to computers even they can be tiresome.

I try not to get involved with the shitty jobs and I don't accept phone calls that havn't been vetted by our helpdesk but they still get through.

1-You need a lot and lot of patience...you will be dealing with the dumbest people on the planet

2-Take control of the conversation

3-Problem solver

Pretty much. It's getting to the point where I am actually surprised if I talk to someone that even knows how to use the internet. http://discussworldissues.com/forums...ies/wacko1.gif

Good advice all around. Again, my main point is that unless you're sure you have the knowledge and will to do this, I'd advise trying an internship. Quitting a job 3 months in doesn't look good.

I have worked some form of IT support for 6 years and I can say that all it takes is problem solving skills, patience, initiative and a sense of humour. Because if you don't have all of these then either you aren't going to be good at it, or you will get extremely pissed off with people for being users.

Typical things that IT support would do it answer helpdesk calls, create new users, audit existing users, manage network permissions, roll out new PCs, update existing PCs. That's really about all for your typical IT support role.