Xanis,

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.

Trainguyrom,

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.

Xanis,

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.

Anyway, I digress.

Trainguyrom,

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.

lightnsfw,

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.

Thermal_shocked,

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.

garbagebagel,

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.

SocialMediaRefugee,

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.

afraid_of_zombies,

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.

tuxtey,

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.

afraid_of_zombies,

You are correct. It wasn’t a typo. I stole it from the BOFH (bastard operator from ) Which if you are in IT you should read and laugh.

jury_rigger,

What machinery do you mean? Industrial machinery of some kind?

afraid_of_zombies,

Industrial, government, chemical, even residential if the place is big enough.

alekwithak,

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.

makunamatata,

I vouch for that. That’s how it is done. Good job laying down the steps; want to add that job hopping is important too early on.

  1. Get a phone help support job 1.5. Keep applying to get other better paying support job, within or outside the company
  2. Work in parallel getting trained and certified in A+ etc 2.5. Keep applying to get other better paying support job
  3. Get more certificates 3.5 Keep applying to other jobs of interest and desired pay
  4. Repeat step 3.5 until retirement.
MasterNerd,
@MasterNerd@lemm.ee avatar

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

ademir,
@ademir@lemmy.eco.br avatar

I bet find an IT job is a lot easier when you are called MasterNerd

Seasm0ke,

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.

MystikIncarnate,

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.

Xanis,

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.

EmperorHenry,
@EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

When they tell you that they know how to use a computer, it’s like someone saying they know to play chess when they only know how the pieces move.

WanakaTree,

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.

MystikIncarnate,

Oh, so the WiFi was fine, but the internet sucked when it rained. Cool.

WiFi != Internet.

CephalonKappa,

No one said that wtf

SocialMediaRefugee,

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.

Guajojo,

Ive had to explain this soo many times to users that I’ve gotten tired and just roll with them with the misconception

MystikIncarnate,

I still live in hope. It’s a dark dreary place.

nossaquesapao,

You could just get a rain-proof router! /s

OttoVonNoob, (edited )

Fun story, I worked IT for an American Telecom company. One day I recieved a phone call from a guy who was setting up his router. We were maybe five minutes into troubleshooting. He asks if he can eat his dinner while we troubleshoot and I say “no worries”. Within thirty seconds, I hear a bang and panicd screaming. He informs me he dumped soy sauce and rice all over his router and work space. I sent a field tech to replace the router and set it up.

Edit: This comic is the norm not the unusual…

SocialMediaRefugee,

I hope they installed the waterproof version

Twelve20two,

Were you talking to Frank Reynolds?

Thcdenton,

The empty eyes are so relatable

LemmyIsFantastic,

For every “I’m the bottom 10% of tech users” there is another 70% of the user base bitching about inept prioritization and service desk people who couldn’t troubleshoot process issues if their life were dependent on it.

Different people different skills.

SocialMediaRefugee,

Googling problems with Windows I find the majority of the results are MS support telling them to reset the OS. No attempt to debug the issue just nuke it and see if that fixes it. Then you read the next comments and inevitably they say “Nope, didn’t fix it”. I really dislike scripted responses like this.

Buddahriffic,

Yeah the MS support forums are very hit or miss. And even the hit ones usually start with a response that doesn’t appear to understand the question very deeply, followed by a “that didn’t work”, “I said in my post that I tried that and it didn’t work”, or maybe a “that’s not what I’m trying to do, I want to do x”, and then a reply with useful links.

Though to be fair, problems can come from software the user installed or fuck ups they’ve made to settings along the way. Or quiet sabotage from another user.

Once upon a time I provided phone support for Comcast and had a caller call in unable to access Facebook. I did the usual script and found her internet was otherwise working. Narrowed it down to a dns issue. I was aware of the hosts file because I was using it for ad blocking at the time so had her open that up on a whim (which I would have gotten in trouble for since it was off script). Sure enough, it was there. Someone didn’t want her accessing it.

Who knows what kinds of methods people have used to discourage other things on shared PCs. Is edge really broken or did the user’s kid get tired of everyone clicking “make it the default browser” when it begged each time it was opened so they wrote a small program that kills it as soon as it starts?

netwren,

My first fucking thought. I’m still waiting on helpdesk to respond to an issue I’ve already chased down to a registry key because I’m not allowed workstation admin privileges. 🙄. Which I’m fine with but more than a week to respond to a ticket? Come the fuck on

c0mbatbag3l,
@c0mbatbag3l@lemmy.world avatar

How many seats are they responsible for? Could be understaffing.

Lesrid,

It’s always understaffing.

c0mbatbag3l,
@c0mbatbag3l@lemmy.world avatar

That’s because IT management theory currently holds that the more processes/workflows you standardize and consolidate the fewer things there are that break. Which means you can hire fewer help desk personnel.

Unfortunately the people usually tasked with performing this standardization is the help desk, so they don’t have the time to decrease their own workflow through standardization when they’re already filled to the brim with a backlog. At that point you’re just giving them more of a backlog.

MystikIncarnate,

As someone who works in IT support, I have yet to find any significant number of support people who can’t troubleshoot process issues. What I have found in spades is management making it impossible to make any meaningful process improvements.

There’s a nontrivial number of management type folks that just want it done a specific way, regardless of how that impacts worker performance or how difficult it makes my job.

The number of times I’ve suggested improvements only to be told that the existing methodology works, is too damn high.

TheWizardOfLimes,

Somehow, my phone number got printed on an ISP provided router that services like trailer parks in Arizona. So I get calls randomly asking “Hey is this ____ Internet?” & I go “No sorry, this is just some dude. But hey, where did you find this number? I just wanna know why people are keeping calling me”

And fuck if it isn’t like pulling teeth. I literally just want to know where it’s printed.

“Uhh, so this isn’t Blank Internet?” Click

“It’s the Internet number” “yeah but like where are you reading it from?” “The internet” “Oh like a website?” “No, like the internet… so you can’t fix it?”

Voicemail: “Hey this is Joe Oldman. I live at 113 blank drive. My social security number is 0000005. Can you send someone down to fix my internet? Thanks”

Finally someone under the age of 40 called me and finally said “this is the number on the back of the router” but even when I asked “So what router is it? Like where is it printed?” “Idk”. Like dude, you literally just read this number and typed it in your damn phone. What are you looking at.

Rootiest,
@Rootiest@lemmy.world avatar
SecretSauces,
@SecretSauces@lemmy.world avatar

Funnily enough, i think this might actually work to a degree

pifox,

Just make sure your on one side of the room.

Skates, (edited )

Also IT guys:

I have no idea why things don’t actually work and when presented with a core dump or any previous debugging the user did I panic like a little girl, so I restored to a previous system restore point, because fuck the changes you made since then and the fact that if you do them again the issue will come back, I’m just supposed to close this ticket, not actually fix things.

Yeah, I don’t call IT anymore.

c0mbatbag3l,
@c0mbatbag3l@lemmy.world avatar

and the fact that if you do them again the issue will come back

Damn, answered your own question. Have you tried not doing the thing that breaks the computer?

Skates,

Yeah, let me not do my job anymore, so you don’t have to do yours.

Goddamn IT, man. Every single time.

c0mbatbag3l,
@c0mbatbag3l@lemmy.world avatar

If it’s ACTUALLY part of your job I’ll care, if it’s some bullshit thing a wannabe IT user did to fuck their shit up that has nothing to do with their job (99% of the time it’s this) then fuck you.

It’s a business machine, not your personal test lab. Goddamn users, man. Every single time.

shiftymccool, (edited )

Your job is to break computers? If not, my guess is that you can do your job in such a way as to not break the computer. If not, the company really needs to reassess how your job is done

michaelmrose,

The implied problem you aren’t understanding is scope. Restoring your machines functionality and determining that if you do blank the universe breaks IS AN ACTUAL SOLUTION TO YOUR PROBLEM that is in scope and highly efficient. The company probably doesn’t pay you to piddle fuck around nor does it pay the IT guy to make you piddle fucking around work out.

Digging in to the problem and figuring out an exact reproduction of the bug so that a bug can be filed with the appropriate owner of the whatever code and a fix instituted at some point would be far more interesting and fun, even more so if its in code you actually control and you can actually fix it but its likely not actually productive unless you can make a strong case for it.

The cost of fixing your stuff in 15 minutes and having you back in action is about $12.50. The cost of spending 3 days on it is $1200. Surely you understand why it works the way it works.

c0mbatbag3l,
@c0mbatbag3l@lemmy.world avatar

The implied problem you aren’t understanding is scope. Restoring your machines functionality and determining that if you do blank the universe breaks IS AN ACTUAL SOLUTION TO YOUR PROBLEM that is in scope and highly efficient. The company probably doesn’t pay you to piddle fuck around nor does it pay the IT guy to make your piddle fucking around work out.

Fucking THANK. YOU.

This is exactly what I’m talking about, we don’t get hired so that we can accommodate some bullshit that an individual user just thinks they need. We are hired to keep your machine working in the capacity that your job requires it to work. Nowhere in our job description does it say that we have to be your little errand boy making your fuck-ass decisions function in our environment.

Skates,

The company paid me to do exactly the actions I did before the system restore, which I had to redo after the system restore, and then I had to continue debugging and fixing the issue myself. Your cost analysis is fair in some cases, but it doesn’t really apply here. It wasn’t a “undo the changes so they can get back to work” situation, it was a “fix the issue so they can continue working” situation.

Also, restoring the machine to a previous state was not a fix for my issue. I wasn’t in a position where I did not have access, nor was I in one where I couldn’t revert the changes myself (even without the system restore). This was a lazy/incompetent tech, who finished their ticket and went home for the day having done nothing but inconvenience me even more, and cause me to spend even more time on the issue.

I only wish this was the only interaction I’ve ever had with IT where they proved to be more trouble than it’s worth, but sadly that’s not the case.

michaelmrose, (edited )

Well there are shitty folks in every profession

random_character_a,
@random_character_a@lemmy.world avatar

You don’t need to be in IT, you just need boomer parents.

hakunawazo, (edited )

I see it as a fair deal. They paid my absurdly high phone bill as I fell for dial up scammers in my youth while experimenting with fresh new internet, and so I abandon all hope of lazy free time and help them with their unresponding printer now.

Uglyhead, (edited )
@Uglyhead@lemmy.world avatar

Fun thing is,… the cycle repeats.

~20% of Boomers had good working knowledge of the technologies of their age, similar to today.

dingus, (edited )

Idk. I’m not in IT, but I’ve always seemed to have a tendency to try to troubleshoot tech problems.

I help out my coworkers, parents, and even my younger sibling on occasion (he’s in his early 20s). If it’s solely an age thing, then you’d think I wouldn’t be doing it with those similar to my own age or younger than me.

At work I even figured out why our headsets (vital to our job) would intermittently fail and stop working, absolutely destroying our workflow. Our IT department couldn’t manage to figure it out. But I eventually found that it intermittently conflicted with a program on the computer (Microsoft Teams).

I’m absolutely no genius and my knowledge is probably rather minimal. But I think it’s a difference in attitude and affinity for the stuff.

_lilith,
@_lilith@lemmy.world avatar

Yeah no. Most of em just decided they don’t have to learn anything anymore and have this learned helplessness with technology. I have seen 70 year olds trouble shoot a computer like champions but a dude in his 50’s just “isn’t good with computers” and can’t change the font size in word without his hand held

Agent641,

Ill never lose touch with tech. Except fucking ticktock. Or temu. Or that other one.

Uglyhead, (edited )
@Uglyhead@lemmy.world avatar

I’ve had people close to me say the same thing.

A person who knew thoroughly how to install software and get computers up and running in the 80’s and 90’s, now had no interest at all in learning how to use a cellphone. Cognitive decline/brain shrink inevitably started happening at age 40 or so and it made it more and more difficult to understand the new tech.

Similar thing happens with music, and keeping up to date with new artists and so forth. As you get older I guess you just start to not give a shit as much at all about the newfangled jibjabs and doohickeys.

Meme incoming (oh I found the clip!) —-> youtu.be/BGrfhsxxmdE?si=A76DPdg4z4ZMxQL7

random_character_a,
@random_character_a@lemmy.world avatar

If the day comes that you have deal with your personal matters or bank business through those services, I’ll put a bullet through my brain.

TimewornTraveler,

bruh you cut out half the story

kamen,

I can see the pain in the eyes of the support fella.

OttoVonNoob,

My coworker had a customer shoot his router. So, yes alot of American small business owners are Frank Reynolds.

Asafum,

“My computer says no wifi, so anyway I started blasting.” Such Murica lol

elbucho,
@elbucho@lemmy.world avatar

At one point in a former life, I was one of the trainers for the incoming helpdesk technicians. One of the practical exams we put them through involved us doing creative things to fuck with their computers before they came to class, and then having them figure out what was wrong and how to fix it. Plugging the mouse from one computer into its neighbor’s USB port and vice versa was one of my favorite tricks. For whatever reason, it had a 100% success rate in effectively fucking with them.

jasondj, (edited )

That’s lame and easy to figure out.

Switch to wireless mice. Maybe Logitech Unifying. Then one day pull all the dongles out and put them in a bucket.

First person to figure out how to download and install the unifying software and re-pair their mouse without using it gets a bonus.

But most people nowadays are lost without mice so they’d probably cycle through all the dongles on the laptop plugged into the projector and all move their mice until they figure out which is whose.

CheeseNoodle, (edited )

In defense of ‘the computer forgot my password’ guy I’m sure we’ve all experienced the following sequence.

  • Incorrect password
  • Go to change password
  • New password cannot be the same as the old password
MycelialMass,

Truly maddening

dgbbad, (edited )

**

  • Go to change password
  • They also don’t know the password of the email address the reset email is sent to

*idk how to format

jasondj,

This struggle is real. Except I forget which email address I used because I use a lot of aliases.

Normally my password manager would handle it but sometimes there’s re-branding and a new domain and the password manager can’t figure it out.

Throwaway4669332255,

deleted_by_author

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  • kattenluik,

    I’m sorry to tell you this so hastily but everyone else is a bot, it is just you and everything you’ve experienced is completely unique to you.

    AdrianTheFrog,
    @AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.world avatar

    I would interpret ‘the computer forgot my password’ as someone accidentally getting logged out of their password manager

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