Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I think you are the squeaky wheel. I have been doing IT for around 30 years. I still have to help people clear jams and troubleshoot desktop stuff from time to time. It is part of the job. It is part of being the "computer guy".
If you do not like the position I would not speak with anyone. Who do you think will do what you are doing even if they agree with you?
I would just leverage this situation and look for a better job. But you should consider that you should change your expectations a little. IT is customer service.
Which is part of why I generally dislike it.
In IT, you never get thanked when you save the day or things are just humming along, but as soon as there's any ripple, you're the problem.
In IT, you never get thanked when you save the day or things are just humming along, but as soon as there's any ripple, you're the problem.
So unless you are special you should look at another field. Because I am in networking and it is always that way. I am a utility. Nobody cares about their power or water until it is gone. Same with network data.
What do you have to offer in IT that is special or unique? Educate yourself. Learn to program and work with web based apps or implement cloud solutions. There is a lot of free stuff out there is you wish to improve yourself.
I started a new position as an application administrator in an IT department six weeks ago. So far, probably 25%-50% of my time is spent in desktop support duties - PC moves, printer repairs, AV assistance, imaging, etc. I spent half the day today moving PCs and equipment, moving cables around on the patch panel and switch, and another hour helping a user provision mobile email. Yesterday I spent an hour troubleshooting a printing issue in Word at someone's desk. Between the desktop support and meetings, I'm barely learning anything about the applications I am supposed to be the administrator of, and the other administrator is taking a week of vacation soon. I don't feel anywhere near prepared for it and have no one to ask while this person is gone. The pay is commensurate with administrator position, not desktop support.
Nowhere in the job description was this amount of desktop support for routine COTS issues specified. Had I known this, I wouldn't have taken the position. I did routine support for years and want out of that, and took this position because it was an administrator, not support, position. We did hire a tier 1 support person and she is helping, but it still appears there's going to be a ton of this support expected overall. This is a four person IT team, supporting about 150 staff with about twenty remote users.
Overall, the role just appears to be a bad fit. How long should I wait before discussing this with the manager? I feel like the position was marketed as more senior than its actually working out as. I'm thinking of waiting until the six month mark to see if this washes out, but we are scheduled to move an office into another building in the summer, which is going to require at least two weekends to do with no comp time. I don't mind to help on an emergency basis, but desktop support has probably become the biggest focus of time at this point, and it feels a bit like I was baited and switched.
If you want to never have to clear paper jams and never have to troubleshoot printing issues you need to either (1) hire on at a very large company in a department that doesn't have any IT support duties whatsoever or (2) learn how to write code so you can move up the IT ladder away from administration/support roles.
What you're experiencing happens in every job where you work in a small company or a small department within a larger company. You have to be a jack of all trades because at some point you have to do the grunt jobs because you're the only one available who can get the grunt jobs done.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
