Found out early this afternoon that my few peers and I will be adding IT support to our regular tech-ing duties. There are only so many seats available in our game of musical chairs and we're full up. We may get another genuine IT person the next time someone steps down. In the meantime, we have the head IT honcho to guide us and I plan to take detailed notes whenever possible.
And so the wheel turns. Over 25 years ago, when it started to be impossible to run any kind of an office without a computer network, my department was doing IT support by default. Our employer brought in an IT specialist and firmly told us to go back to our soldering irons, videotape machines and high-power vacuum tubes. These days we're out of the tube business, all but out of the tape business, still doing a little soldering and as of today, we're back to explaining to people that the computer probably didn't eat their missing file and no amount of force will fix a broken mouse. Oh, and "Password123" might not be the best choice for security.
This means I will have to face one of my recurring terrors: talking to people I have never really met, about things I'm only kinda sure about but that they don't know at all. It does no good at all to be honest in such circumstances; you've got smile and radiate confidence, or they won't listen to a word you say. I don't like doing it and I have a terrible memory for names, but this snake oil won't sell itself.
BUILDING A 1:1 BALUN
4 years ago
2 comments:
"It does no good at all to be honest"
Just follow my example (or not, if you're smart).
I was sent out of state to replace a consumable on a machine I had never seen.
I'm establishing rapport with the customer who is positively exuding doubt over my ability to perform the service:
Cust: "You work on a lot of these?"
Me: "Nope. First time."
Cust: "You sure you can do this?"
Me: "Yep. Where is it?"
C: "You're leaning on it."
Me: "Oh! Um, how do I open it?"
C: (stares) "You SURE you can fix it?"
Me: "Absolutely" (please dear god don't let me mess this up).
It was a piece of cake. Yeah, I'm an idiot.
Everyone on our small staff has been the IT department since the beginning. We have one person that specializes in it, but I do my share of user assistance, besides taking care of everything from transmitters to toilets (the latter only in emergencies).
I too, have trouble with remembering all of the names. I consider myself poor with people skills, but I think my beside manner has slowly improved over the last 20 of my 43 years doing this. I don't yell at people that dropped their camera any more. I let someone else do that and keep my blood pressure lower as a result.
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