I'm a geek, I speak a dialect of geek called helpdesk. I don't care if I'm called the helpdesk, as long as it's known that :
A. I like my career, I have no homework, little if any after work commitments.
B. I make very good money for not having career shattering responsibilities
C. I like customer service. Let me be more specific I like delivering good customer service in complex systems with multilevel technical and or organization challenges.
D. I'm going to become wealthy doing my other projects. I do this because I'm good at it, and It's good for me (structure in someone who worships at the altar of chaos)
There is an attitude people seem to have about this line of work (that I have been doing for 11 years). Mainly it's that this is a stepping stone into something else . Those are the people I see burn out. Now Helpdesk Managers well the ones that aren't frustrated but not burned out 'stepping stoners' who got promoted, are often ill- suited crossovers from a non technical area or bygone technology. Rarely do you get a manager who is a technical professional who knows the managerial level of helpdesk technology. Then there is the fourth type ,what I have currently is a promoted call center helpdesk person who is out of their depth a lot of the time because they were promoted into not one job but two managers jobs worth of work to replace a retired manager who was a technical guy and did the work of two people. In effect we got a standard call center type manager crammed into a position meant for at least two.
At least I got to give them a nickname.
We call them The Mountain. It's not an indictment (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=indictment) of physical characteristics, but it a metaphor for the management style. Sending suggestions, asking process questions, or submitting problems to The Mountain is like trying to climb a mountain for the first time. Usually without a marked and clear way up climbers may fail or find they need to start over using a different approach. In this case we find they we always need to follow a second or third approach or wait for another 'climber' to make a successful approach.
It makes the job more challenging than it has to be wondering if even basic communications sometimes never seem to get answered, answered correctly, answered satisfactorily.
The most damning part about The Mountain - not a geek
A. I like my career, I have no homework, little if any after work commitments.
B. I make very good money for not having career shattering responsibilities
C. I like customer service. Let me be more specific I like delivering good customer service in complex systems with multilevel technical and or organization challenges.
D. I'm going to become wealthy doing my other projects. I do this because I'm good at it, and It's good for me (structure in someone who worships at the altar of chaos)
There is an attitude people seem to have about this line of work (that I have been doing for 11 years). Mainly it's that this is a stepping stone into something else
At least I got to give them a nickname.
We call them The Mountain. It's not an indictment (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=indictment) of physical characteristics, but it a metaphor for the management style. Sending suggestions, asking process questions, or submitting problems to The Mountain is like trying to climb a mountain for the first time. Usually without a marked and clear way up climbers may fail or find they need to start over using a different approach. In this case we find they we always need to follow a second or third approach or wait for another 'climber' to make a successful approach.
It makes the job more challenging than it has to be wondering if even basic communications sometimes never seem to get answered, answered correctly, answered satisfactorily.
The most damning part about The Mountain - not a geek
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