(no subject)

[the-paco.livejournal.com]

Being a first-tier tech sucks.

I got into it late. I was getting out of school in 2000 and just getting my shit together when everything went kaboom. Four years and 6-7 temp and shit jobs later, I'm back at it. So while I'm still holding the headset 3 inches from my ear and trying to talk some jackass off the ledge (because suicides lead to more paperwork), the few/the proud/the lucky who managed to avoid repeated axings are up the ladder.

Wouldn't be so bad if every time I tried to tell them something, they treated me like the customer themselves.

Paco: "I've got two customers who are both getting errors trying to resolve off of this DNS server. Both can route by IP, everything in the two situations is different, the only constant is that DNS server IP. When I force it over to #2, they work fine. Is that server or surrounding network equipment reporting any errors?"

Level 3: "There is nothing wrong with the network! Don't question that! It's the computer! It's always the customer computer! Our servers are pure! Ignore the fact that our website goes down once a week, email goes down once a month, and the entire island of Manhattan loses service in chunks or whole every day! Don't call in here again with that bullhockey! You know nothing! It's a Java issue!"

Paco: "Dude, wtf does Java have to do with resolving IP's?"

Level 3(Hunter S. Thompson wannabe?): "The entire web runs on Java! Without java virtual machine, the customer cannot surf the web! I know what I'm talking about!"

Paco: "..."

It sucks being the first line of defense against the customers.... everyone else thinks you've gone native.

Comments

[fragbert.livejournal.com]

I hear you.

Right now, my main issue is that I just re-escalated a case after waiting NINE days for the 2nd level dorks to say, "Oh, that's not our problem...send it to [other 2nd level support desk]."

[pacotelic.livejournal.com]

More people in IT need to be wearing codpieces.

[jacobine.livejournal.com]

I'm just glad that after four years, our network techs know that I generally know what I'm talking about if I tell them there's a problem.

[ravenshrinkery.livejournal.com]

Dude. Customers are allowed to be stupid, they are paying for our intelligence. Techs... we pay them to be intelligent. I usually don't hold them responsible for the asshattery. There's usually someone in HR that can be quite adequately blamed for it, some pencil-pusher that doesn't know which side of a CD goes down in the drive.

In the case of my office it's pressure from the client to bring in a bunch of warm bodies that knew where the power button was. Why? Cause we pay jack shit for the work and anyone who has any meaningful experience/education can likely get better elsewhere and will. We're shitcanning them on a weekly basis as they fuck up badly enough. In another month we'll have some fresh techs off another desk to replace them (and have been verified to have a clue). In the meantime, so long as they are being appropriately smacked when needed all is as well as it can be.

In your situation, that's when you insist on transferring the customer to them and let THEM explain the problem. Doesn't this class act have a manager you can escalate this to?

[110billion.livejournal.com]

I want to know how he made it to level three.

[geekgrrl-ca.livejournal.com]

He knows kneel and bob to an artform?

[the-paco.livejournal.com]

hahaha! You are teh WINNAH!

I think he did. His throat sounded really tore up.