IT BS thread

A user calls and says their printer is broken. It's obviously personally your fault as is made apparent by the user. She's remote so you can't just go fix her computer. How do you prevent hanging up on her?

 

We do group interviews and use a peeling the onion technique. The questions' purpose is to direct the conversation and based on how you answer we will ask deeper and deeper follow up questions. Once we are satisfied their knowledge is sufficient for the job or the BS gets too deep we move to the next question.

Here are a couple we use:

• We are going to do a roleplay, I'm a user and you are here to help me. We are in the room together and the computer is a windows desktop machine. Are you ready to begin? OK "my son, who is really smart with computers, was helping me yesterday. When I came in today my computer doesn't work."
  • The answer I'm looking for is two fold. How does the tech talk to the user? Are they friendly or condescending? Do they talk in terms that a user will understand or rattling off a bunch of jargon. On the troubleshooting side I'm looking for a logical step by step process. Do they check the obvious stuff first or go straight to replacing the computer? Usually the "problem" in the roleplay is pretty simple, a borked driver, bad motherboard, bent vga pin, stuff that always seems to happen after that "smart" son has been in the office.
• Describe a situation where you had to balance competing priorities and work independently.
  • The correct answer here is something where you put the customer facing user first. (that the culture around here)
• Describe your knowledge of computer hardware and software
  • An amazing, to me at least, number of applicants have never seen the inside of a computer. Another amazing number of potential techs have never poked around under the covers of windows or OS X. Obviously more is better, but for my team this isn't a deal breaker, that is if they are willing to learn.
• Tell me about your greatest flaw.
  • Miss the answer to this question and you'll get kicked out of the interview room
    • Just kidding. I hate this question and IMHO interviewers that still use it are lazy. I used to use it and I was looking for evidence that the person recognized that they were imperfect and were working on improving. It is best to have an answer in your back pocket for this. Something work related, something not directly related to the job you are applying for, and how you are improving upon the problem. Oh, and all of it needs to be true, no bs. Mine is "I'm terrible at remembering meetings, and I hate being late. (true) What I've done to overcome this is to be absolutely religious about maintaining my calendar. (true) I set alarms on my smartphone to remind me ahead of time, so now I rarely miss or am late to a meeting." (also true)

Be friendly and approachable, treat every single person you meet with respect, try not to be nervous and you'll be fine.

 

What do these entry level positions pay on average?

 

It depends. I started at doing desktop support in a warehouse at $15/hr, but today I see my company hiring entry-level tier 1 server support people at like $60-75k. I'm talking people that don't know the basics. People that try to rdp to a VMware host, then can't, and then escalate the ticket because "the host is obviously down if you can't rdp to it".

 

Sounds like decent money for an easy job.

 

Easy?

 

If they don't know the basics, and still have a job...

 

Well it depends, nobody deserves to work in a hostile work place. If she's crossed that line you can politely tell her I can see you are upset right now and I'll call you back after you've calmed down. Then get yourself to your bosses office or HR. Definitely not the best option, and it can lead to its own shit storm, but I know HR departments take hostile work place issues seriously.

My take on this when it happens to me is to think about what is driving the user. Is there a report due that their boss is getting on them about? Are they having bad day because something at home is going wrong? Are they a screw up and looking to pass the blame to others? Did you treat them badly and they are just reacting? Etc, etc, etc. I give them the benefit of the doubt even if they don't deserve it. It also helps to have skin as thick as an alligator. Mine used to be pretty thin, but after a thousand cuts the scar tissue builds up.

The other thing to do is go straight to the ITIL handbook. When the primary service is interrupted find a work around. Is there another printer to be used? Can somebody else print it? Is there a tech support service that can be called in locally? Can they email the document to you so you can print it and fax it back, etc, etc.

 

The correct answer is to work hard enough to never have to talk to end users.

Most of the time, the user has messed with the broken thing for a while and are already mad when they call. If they are doctors, nurses, or lawyers, they tend to be pissy. I used to deal with a ton of nurses. They are usually under a time crunch and your technology is just slowing them down.

 

They know where the mouse and keyboard are.. And sometimes how to follow directions.

 

This is the goal.

 

Call HR because the user violated the company security policy by allowing an unauthorized person to use the computer.

Second depending on how the system is setup (ie Windows Domain, Windows Workstation, Roaming Profile, Folder Redirection GPO in place, etc..) the fastest resolution with the least downtime and lose of productivity would be to replace the computer with a spare. Once the user logs in they should have everything they did on the old computer.

Then take the computer back to your office/workspace and figure out what is wrong with it.

 

this. when i used to do desktop stuff, i had a timer in my head for how long i'd actually spend on an issue. i knew i could backup a user profile and ghost a machine in under 30 minutes. we always had spares computers laying around that were identical, so it was always just as easy to copy their profile over to a new computer and then go back and fix the other one.

so when family members ask me to help them with their desktop computers, i tell them that i was never in the business of actually fixing desktops because really corporate IT is not in the business of fixing desktops. especially today, desktops are more and more just terminals that users use to access web apps and citrix apps. i'm an engineer and i barely have anything installed...office, notepad++, and a handful of admin tools.

 

Ghost! loved that product. absolutely saved my ass i don't know how many times.

 

Ghost, Acronis, and Clonezilla are my go-to's

 

Do most large organizations purchase or lease all their PCs?

 

Yes

It depends on the organization and the mood of the CFO. I've leased servers and bought end user computers at one gig and the exact opposite at another. There are pros/cons to both methods of purchase.

 

Thanks for all the replies. Interview went well and now I have a 2nd interview!

 

Some people are happiest when they bitch. Feel sorry for her and get on with life. If you get mad, she won, you lost.