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...