What to do when the Helpdesk doesn't?

[andygates]

I work second-line support.  I rely on the Helpdesk to log calls, deal with the chaff, and send me reasonably intelligble problems which are within my remit to fix. 

So why isn't that working?  Sure we have occasional screwups but that's not the problem.  The 'desk have an unsavoury mix of jobsworthiness and slack ("you must provide usernames or we won't log the call" and forgetting to take a contact number, for example).  Various personality clashes ensure that every questioned call goes to petulance and ass-covering, and management vary between indifferent and dead.

I want to just work around them.  It's strictly naughty, but they're so bloody slow and hopeless that I can't see an alternative.  Requests reach us malformed and slow, even if they were sent well-formed.  Stats are being frigged to skirt around the problems despite the SLAs.  And this isn't punters failing to get their porn, it's people trying to do their jobs, which, by the way, are your tax dollars at work.  Healing your Mum. 

It's not uncommon for a temp to be hired and to leave a week later before getting access to the stuff they were hired to work on.  And then people are surprised that account-sharing takes place!  Gah!

Just... gah!

I do this job because (apart from it being easy and paying okay) I like helping people and fixing things.  It really hurts to tell users to call those numpties.

Comments

[jonnycowbells.livejournal.com]

With you there, dogg. Even when I do what I perceive to be a sligtly terrible job, I usually manage to get a "Gosh, it's so nice to work with IT and have someone listen to us and give us what we want" which just makes me weep for my profession. And we all get tarred with the same brush as well. Drives me crazy, it really does.

I always feel like there's something fundamentally broken with IT. Broken in a way you just wouldn't see with accountants, lawyers, architects, engineers and other professions that IT should aspire to. I long for the day when employers won't even look at you unless you've done 3 years post-graduate training to gain an accreditation from a respected society (BCS doesn't quite cut it at the moment), but I think the profession probably has to bed in for another 200 years yet.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

You're not wrong. In IT the general attitude is "have a decent go, screw up, click 'unfuck' and carry on" - but IT is the only profession that has an 'unfuck' option. Appeal and redesign don't cut it and resurrection is a way off yet...

[(Anonymous)]

Am I right in thinking you turned down a chance to manage this lot?

(Rejected, marked WONTFIX.)

Note that if you _do_ get a chance to fix it, if you fix the reporting then you should ensure the data is available to retrospectively fix the previous reporting so it doesn't look like you took over and it went to hell in a hand basket. Either clearly mark "reporting process fixed" or even better say "and here's what the last six months look like if you don't lie on the stats".

Typically, the only decent measurement is end-user satisfaction, not number of calls closed over time.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Turns out that - unsurprisingly perhaps - it's a manager thing. They're not training the churn properly, and they're instructing the regular staff to do this.

Alas our stats are broken from cover to cover, there's nothing meaningful in them. Not even number of calls - for micromanagement reasons some teams (but not others) have to log calls rather than reassign them, so a call that passes into their orbit may fragment into an arbitrary number of call logs. Smart huh?

[jonnycowbells.livejournal.com]

Hey, this wouldn't be endemic throughout the functions of the NHS would it? I'd be really upset to find out that stats were being fiddled so waiting lists looked better.

Oh, hang on...

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Heh.

It's an endemic *helpdesk* thing. I've seen it in other companies and it pisses me off. Basically, if your users are not happy, then only stats can save your ass, so you make up some stats.