Monday July 11, 2005

Super Support Girl -Vs- 100 Other People Applying for the Same Joblash

It's been a while since I have had to endure interviews. Luckily the last time I was searching it only took two interviews to find my perfect job (this one) and also be given a better salary than I was on before. That was fantastic, as I was rather desperate to move on and was willing to take a pay cut. The interview I remember was excellent, one of the pleasantest experiences of my life (I know that sounds strange). The two guys really put me at my ease, and we had quite a laugh. There was a test involved then a bit of a chat followed by some support call roleplay, which I quite enjoyed. After that good experience, I feel quite positive for the interviews ahead. All you need to do is relax and be yourself! Of course, this whole theory is going to come crashing right down when I get some evil pointy-haired boss interviewing me next week. Well, we shall see. It's all good practice. I must point out how incredibly weird it is to be not hiding my 'looking' status from my employers. I can't imagine many circumstances where that will ever happen, so I am making the most of it and will document my progress.

I haven't really been looking very hard, as I will still potentially be working here until February, but if I can find something good before then so be it, but I would rather stay on as long as possible as, well, I like it here. Currently most of the options appear to be UNIX admin, or Windows support. Don't really want to do either. I am not a fan of Windows, certainly not supporting it, and I actually think I would be a bit wasted in an admin role. I like helping people. I do not want to be stuck behind a screen writing perl scripts to automate all my work so I don't have to do anything while the unsuspecting boss thinks I'm worth all that money. Well, that's probably an exaggeration. What I'm getting at is, one of my favourite things about this job was the interaction with customers. Some of them are mean, but mostly they are lovely and I enjoy fixing stuff for them. I am trying to look into other fields to get in to, but I am caught up in the tech world now and I find it a hard place to get out of.

I was reading this earlier, which seems to have sparked off a bit of a debate about support in general, specifically Sun's. I'd say I was an authorative voice on how it actually works, and a lot of the speculation here is incorrect. Yes, I am first line support, and yes, if the issue is too complex for us to resolve it gets passed upwards. How else would you manage it? A highly qualified well paid engineer taking memory error calls along with complex kernel issues? And the call routing IS actually quite efficient, certain departments only deal with certain things.

The thing is, if your issue is very complex, you can't expect the call logger to be able to get it all down and understand what you say well enough to pass on to a high-level engineer. Therefore it makes sense it comes to us, as we know enough to be able to at least understand what you are talking about and get all the details needed from a technical perspective so that when we pass it over to the escalation engineer, he doesn't have to waste his time making further calls to the customer asking for basic information. He can just look at the stuff I give him and make a diagnosis. Well, in a simple world. If it were all that simple we wouldn't need support centres.

I just get a little tired of customers who get uptight when I've spoken to them for about 5 minutes and have been perfectly nice and helpful, and certainly not dumb. A lot of the time they seem to assume that I know nothing before I even say anything. Well, after my name that is. It can be frustrating but then that's what we deal with every day, it's not like it bothers us. Getting angry will get you nowhere guys, being nice will make us work on your call a lot more efficiently ;)

That argument was not very succinct but I can't be here all day trying to change the minds of /. nerds. Support! It is a great world. Frowned apon by most it seems, well, looking at the comments in that article. It's a shame. It's not so bad. If everyone has such a negative view of the job, how do they expect anyone good to want to work in it? So, when they call us up, how can they expect an expert on everything? Round and round we go. Treat us with a bit more respect and maybe you will not have so much cause for anger.

The fact it's all now moving to India (well, not ALL, but a lot of companies are doing it) is interesting. I don't know if I'm for or against it. In thoery, I see the point here, it's cheaper. It's a no-brainer. If they can do the job (and I am assuming being Indian, or indeed any race other than American or British, does not make you stupid), then why shouldn't they be allowed to? Let's hope they can, I trust in Sun's decision, I am sure they looked into it in great detail before making it. At the same time I think I may be slapped by a few of my colleagues, afterall we are losing our jobs. The business world is an unfair place, if you choose to work within it you can't be suprised by such things really.

I for one am looking forward to the future. I am sure Sun's support will fare just as well, and if it doesn't, maybe they will call the SSG hotline to come sort things out. I shall be crossing my fingers for them. I feel sad I won't be working for Sun anymore, it seems such a great community to belong to. Even if I didn't strictly belong to it, I feel very welcomed by everyone and all I've done is write a few silly words. I feel as if I will be losing something quite special. Still, there is no point worrying about such things, I am sure good stuff is in store for me. I have interesting future plans, I am thinking of starting up my own business, which is a daunting task but I will not be held back! I would be grateful for any advice my readers can give on that front. Or capital ;) I am researching my need for hardware currently, and I've logged a request with Sun Sales to help me out with some specs. So if a Support Engineer trusts Sun stuff, even when they see nothing but it breaking all the time, then it must be good eh ;)