Super Support Girl Saves the Day Again

I have had quite a few e-mails and comments now, and blog entries I have noticed about me, of all people (here, here and here, for example). I feel quite suddenly famous. And so I feel a little sad and responsible for painting a 'bad' picture of a career in support. All the comments have been very nice, and thank you, but many of you seem to think I view my job as low or worthless, which is far from the case.

It is, however, very common among my peers to view a 'support' job as the worst job you can get. Whenever someone asks me what I do, or hears I work for Sun Microsystems, they get quite excited, until I shyly admit that I do support. However after being a Windows Sysadmin and web dev for a year prior to this, I consider this quite a large step up in the world. What a hellish job that was...

Basically what I mean by residing at the 'bottom end' of Sun is that statistically, I'm probably one of the least recognised, least paid of their employees. I welcome corrections if I am wrong. I enjoy my work very much and actually look forward to coming in every day. I don't think many other people can boast that much. So, quite the contrary, I am not negative about the job, I'm merely making the most of a negative vibe about support in general which would hopefully spark some debate or attention, and it has ;)

Comments:

Negative? No way!

This is written perhaps from one of your many "fans" out there :-).

No, by no means that I think you are painting a 'bad' picture.... but we all know that being in the support role can have many rough days. It really encourages me that you can still keep your humour and energy up (probably a very important ingredient for a successful support person... esp. need to play the role of "Super Support Girl"). We need ya to save the day (again) ;-)

As written in my blog, you are a fellow "leaf-node" and .... I don't think you are the least paid employee ;-) (I welcome correction on this too).

Please continue to write... and thanks for pointing out Planearium. It was really fun... BTW, James have use it to create some interesting comics on Java and Star Wars III. Quite funny :-p Might want to check out http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/jamesk/20050515

Your faithful fan,
Paul Ho

Posted by Paul Ho on May 16, 2005 at 02:52 AM GMT #

As I've read elsewhere on blogs.sun.com, you guys are "SUN". I've never had a bad support call, and if the support wasn't top notch(it always is), I wouldn't be renewing my platinum support contracts every year...Keep up the good work.

Posted by Anthony Spina on May 16, 2005 at 04:01 AM GMT #

I'd like to repeat here what I said in my own weblog. Someone in Sun's client solutions just follow other people's guides. To do a good support, you need instinct, you need to know the complete architecture of the product so you can understand where it is failing and taking apropriate action. More than that, you have to react with an instant notice, uphold the SLA and bring the solution back up in record time. Even when facing a previously undocumented problem.
Even if I hadn't been so many years in support, this sure doesn't look simple to me, ...
I guess I was one of the guys that misunderstood you but, even if I think there should be some strong changes in Sun's support, I never loose an oportunity to compliment people in support.

Posted by Jaime Cardoso on May 16, 2005 at 06:34 PM GMT #

We all do customer support. That's the job.

Posted by Torrey McMahon on May 17, 2005 at 12:02 AM GMT #

Support by nature is not the sexy developer or Architect roll. It is a job that requires a deep knowledge of our products as well as the best customer savy and communication skills of any job out there. That said after nearly 18 years where most of my job has been support for Sun, Apollo/HP we are still viewed as sub-professionals. Anyway I have done the pre-sales SE postiion too and I like it better, however you can't get a more rewarding job than support. Thankfully our customers are outstanding and keep us sane. By the way I support SunCluster, our E12-25K products as well as dabble in the Kernel world.

Posted by Dave Cosio on May 17, 2005 at 12:25 PM GMT #

Let,s be friends!

Posted by Jack on July 04, 2005 at 10:13 AM GMT #

True, support is not glamorous, but support is a critical function and it is one that many in perhaps more glamorous jobs would have trouble doing. It is a hard job and yes people in it tend to be under compensated for their efforts. I am in software development (Programmer/Systems analyst) myself and am in awe of those who do some of the "less glamorous" tech jobs such as support, testing, and training.

Posted by Stephen on September 10, 2005 at 09:37 PM GMT #

sexy girle

Posted by arman on March 24, 2006 at 12:43 PM GMT #

my is 18cm and i want avery sexy girke

Posted by tonny on May 19, 2006 at 01:07 PM GMT #