I actually want to get into IT. I like tech, don’t mind dumb situations, and enjoy helping people, and doubly so if it’s sarcastically helping people. Fucking shame every company wants like fourteen degrees and your first born for a level 1.
So I’m going to go against the grain here and say to get some college under your belt. A 2 year degree and a cert or two (which can even be part of your degree program, or sometimes will allow you to skip some classes saving you time and money) will easily get you into a helpdesk job, and from there you can go into whatever specialization ends up tickling your fancy.
I’ll also say, helping someone with their nth password reset doesn’t have to suck. Sometimes there’s a root cause that you can help with which makes you far more helpful than the tech who just helps them reset it 10 more times. One of my proudest achievements in a previous role was successfully teaching all of our users who’d email us a scan of a printout of a screenshot of an error message how to send us the screenshot directly, and we went from 1 ticket like that per week to none for my final 6 months. All it takes is some compassion and meeting the users where they are without judgment for the common goal of getting both of our jobs done a little easier.
Unfortunately I’m already dealing with student loans and two degrees under my belt. So certifications and a shotgun approach to applications might be my least stressful path. I’ve always been tech support for friends and family, have built several computers, and good lord the micro Chernobyl event that was a PC I left with my parents and younger sister when I went away for several months. “Oh that? It just stopped working one day.” Did you know that back on I think Win7 you can bypass some start up errors by mashing the backspace key like you’re a triple expresso’d up Sonic? Cause that was the only way it’d even let me scoot into the actual boot process once I did what I could in safe mode.
Ah so a very different point in your career than most of us seem to have thought. Probably your best bet is to get an easy cert that shows basic PC knowledge and/or start throwing applications out in all directions. If you can get 6-12 months on your resume at a slog of a callcenter or other shitty entry level support role that should be enough to kickstart you into an IT career if that’s the direction you want to go. Get onto a corporate helpdesk and use that time to figure out what you need to learn and go from there.
I’m a hiring manager for a tier 1 help desk and soft skills and being able to deal with users who are bad with technology are way more important than any certification at that level. I can teach someone to do the technical stuff if they have a good attitude. If they have a shitty attitude and get frustrated on every call where the user has trouble following instructions there’s not much I can do for them. Don’t let your lack of certs/degree stop you from applying. You may end up someplace that’s desperate to get asses in seats (usually for good reason) for a bit but once you get some experience on your resume you’ll have an easier time finding someplace better.
I have zero issues helping people, I love it. What I won’t do it help people with the same issue over and over because they won’t pay attention and refuse to learn. Nothing pisses me off faster than repeating myself over and over and having to keep resetting your password and setup your VPN because you keep going into the settings and fucking with it instead of just connecting like we did when I taught you how.
Currently dealing with a guy with 2 Mac’s, a mini and pro and everyday one of them isn’t working because he keeps going to the VPN and changing shit rather than clicking “connect” from the task menu. Jesus fuck it’s annoying.
Others have said here but for a help desk job it’s definitely more based on customer service ability. I came in from an admin job with a very long time in customer service prior to that but no other actual certs other than just being the person that people go to in the office for help and was told by my hiring manager it’s much more about ability to handle clients.
Now the next steps in my career I’m more worried about because it’s all very competitive at least where I am and everyone seems much more involved and knowledgeable of technology than I am. I know I can learn but it is pretty overwhelming.
The majority of people are genuinely thankful for your help. Sometimes they put off asking for help until they are very frustrated and you catch some of that heat but they calm down quickly. They also really like it if you have to sit down and work on their computer because it means they have an excuse to not work and have some coffee. There always seems to be that one person though that you dread helping because they are always pissy and sarcastic and blame you for everything.
I have had an IT role and been a controls engineer for many years now. There is a fair amount of overlap in duties and you only need one degree for that. Basically, a lot of it is IT for machinery. I have a hell desk support team who keeps most of the basics at bay and every time they all get sick at once I remember why I love them.
I like how you skipped the preludes and just call them the hell desk. I am 100% sure that isn’t a typo and I’m never going to check to see if you edit it just in case.
Certifications certifications certifications. Get your A+ or net+, apply for shitty remote help desk jobs like support.com. They will suck and you’ll get back to back calls, but keep your ears to the ground and a few months experience should be all you need to hop to something else. A lot of places are desperate for competent techs. Degrees don’t prove anything, I’m fact it seems like kids are graduating with these technical degrees and zero actual practical knowledge.
Source: My decade long IT career off just an associates degree.
I can confirm this. I was able to get a decent job right out of highschool with my certs I got at a technical college. Really as long as you can prove that you’re a fast learner, passionate about tech, and have the skillet to back it up it’s not hard to find a job. In my experience at least, which to be fair is only 6 years
Absolutely correct. Every single place outside of giants like Google take equivalent work experience instead of a degree. I dont even have an AA but I have 16 years experience and 11 certifications and make low 6 figures.
I like you. You have the right mindset. The main motivator for working IT support is helping people. The tech usually takes a back seat to soft skills.
On top of that, you’ll figure out that, as long as you know the fundamentals of how things work, all the details are something you can google. Figure out the fundamentals and you’ll be able to work on anything. Convincing prospective employers of this skillset is a bit more difficult.
I wish you luck and I hope I have the pleasure of working with you some day.
I’ve been dealing with hardware and software issues since my first computer years ago. Like many of us it was either do, or take the PC out back and mourn its passing. I do lack the certifications, even if the knowledge is there. It seems I have some work in front of me.
I do appreciate the words of encouragement. Barring the rare toxic frequent ticketer, most people who have issues just don’t jive with tech well and are yet forced to use it, oh and the stubborn ones. That majority who need legitimate help are the ones I like most and even more I enjoy the challenge of finding ways to explain things to them in a way that clicks. Maybe save a support ticket in the future.
I worked at an office once where the wifi legitimately got worse when it rained. It was because the buildings internet used an antenna instead of being wired, and the building was just barely in range of the source signal. When it rained, it was enough added distortion to make it noticeably worse.
I have to constantly explain to my wife that if she can’t reach a website it is likely on their end and there is nothing I can do until they fix it. I explain there is a chain of connections involved and me sitting and staring at her laptop for an hour isn’t going to fix it.
But seriously folks, you can survive without Google Play Store. While it definitely is sometimes not easy and there are obstacles put in your way, after a certain time you learn to accommodate. And I have a peace of mind knowing that no one is selling my pictures to data foraging companies God knows where.
at this point you can get a pixel 6 (dunno about other models) and really easily unlock the bootloader and install lineageos, then with microg and aurora store you can install any apps you need from gplay, with an absolute bare minimum of proprietary code running on your phone and with most of the conveniences people expect.
it’s amazing how little how you have to sacrifice.
It will just be a warehouse full of CCBs (Certified Cyber Bully) screaming into a microphone training AI models. It will be glorious. All aboard RageAI™ train!
It’s just odd, anything ever made with a user interface since the 80’s has had a calculator app. Apple just remove features and charge more for something that is inherently similar to everything else they’ve ever done.
Except there are tons of free calculator apps, so they aren’t charging more in this case. Your criticism of Apple, in general, is warranted. Just not in this case.
I’m all for choice or whatever, but a simple system-provided calculator should be benign and lightweight enough to be there and coexist with any competing calculator app without much drawback. Like a clock or web browser.
Mostly with ads. It’s easy to argue that a calculator is more fundamental to a functional tablet than a web browser is, and Apple includes one. By all means, there ought to be a market for calculator apps, but it’s pretty fundamental to cover the basics. Also, Apple already has a calculator on iPhone and iPad runs pretty much the same software, so where is it?
You can use the search bar for quick calculations. That doesn’t escuses Apple from adding an calculator app on iPad! Most calculator apps have ads or are paid
Tech bros just reinstall Arch a thousand times, IT workers actually know how those OSs operate in an enterprise environment and how to fix all of the services that they correlate to.
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