1

Hi, I’ve posted before and mentioned this, but I am new to IT. Not new in the sense that I don’t know anything in IT, but just straight out of school thrown into the job world and no experience in the field other than school.

So now, I’m working at this company and managing 300 users and troubleshooting and fixing issues, but I feel overwhelmed sometimes and of course since it’s only day 2 of week 2 of work, I am still getting into the swing of things.

Any help/tips or advice you can give me would be appreciated. I just feel stressed at times in regards to prioritizing and managing time spent on certain problems/issues.

What can i do to better myself and help myself along, so I can be a great IT person in the field?

17 Spice ups
2

Where are you finding your biggest faults? Are you doing 10 things at once and not getting one done? Or are you doing 1 thing at a time while things are piling up? What do you think is your own personal flaw?

3

You should be asking your boss this. If you were hired with no experience and your supervisor is not helping you to adjust, then let them know you need help here.

General tips:

Tackle easy problems first. (Assuming they are the same priority.) Getting issues out of the way can make you feel a little less like you are constantly stuck.

Don’t waste time on complex issues. If you are taking too long to fix something, ask for help. Unless you are told to invest a lot of time in something that may be fixed with more experience, it’s just frustrating for you and others to waste time.

Always keep people updated. Even if you are buried, people are more understanding if they know where they stand with regards to problems. Don’t wait for them to come to you asking why things are taking so long. Send updates before they are upset. This can give you a lot more breathing room.

6 Spice ups
4

A. Use the community to help answer questions and learn best practices.

B. Buy “Time Management for Systems Administrators” by Tom Lemoncelli immediately.

C. Ask people to enter help-desk tickets, for those that refuse, do it for them.

2 Spice ups
5

@Ray, it’s not that I don’t have experience, it’s just that no experience doing it other than working in the labs at school doing similar issues.

I should elaborate on my job. I work as in house IT person, with there being an outside help desk I can call for issues , as I have been using them quite a number of times as I am new here in the company. They help but my goal is to sparingly need them and be able to tackle the problems myself.

What seems to be the biggest issue is that, I need to prioritize. I get things done, but being new it’s not done as fast as someone who’s been doing this for a long time. That’s what I feel is the biggest cause of my stress. The fact that I am not as fast and they want me to be more speedy on taking care of problems.

I don’t want to let them down. I want to show them I have the confidence in doing my job and I can handle it.

1 Spice up
6

Let me introduce you to the world of beer.

3 Spice ups
7

Anthony, While the book is on it’s way, here are some free videos from the Author. Check out Episodes 15/16 for prioritization.

1 Spice up
8

If it’s just prioritizing and managing customer expectations then that isn’t too hard to do.

Stick to the same basic guideline I mentioned before. Focus a LOT on communications. I assume you have a ticketing system. Don’t be afraid to post the list of what you have on your plate, and where people are in the queue. 100 things to do with patient, understanding users is less stressful than 10 things from impatient users that are screaming while waiting.

The only extra thing to do is to look at what people expect for response times. If I come to you to ask for a password reset I’m less likely to want to wait as long as if I ask for a file restored from backup. Even if I have backup software that makes it just as quick, you’ll have happier users by meeting their expectations.

2 Spice ups
9

Anthony,

Can I guess that you are responsible for maintaining just a few different things (like servers and PCs)? WRONG!!! Your responsibilities extend to all of the different technologies in each of these things AND all of the products that run on these things - as well as other stuff they haven’t introduced you to yet. Each time you are asked to troubleshoot some new (well, new to you) product or technology, you will be faced with learning what it does, how it works, and what isn’t working now. This will go on to some extent for months. I can almost guarantee that two years from now you will still be asked to work on something that you know nothing about. After 30 years in the business, it still happens to me from time to time.

The good news is that troubleshooting is a standardized process, and you should be able to use the same process with every thing you need to troubleshoot. The bad news is that the first rule of troubleshooting is that before you can correctly diagnose the problem with something that isn’t working you need to know how it works when it is working properly. That takes time, and you may not always have that time.

Let me be the voice of experience. Nobody, but NOBODY will fault you for relying on the Help Desk unless your reliance on said help desk becomes a habit that lasts months. That being said, I suggest you cultivate a relationship with the help-desk folks. As long as they know you are just starting, they will be very patient and supportive. Don’t be shy about asking for tips from them. It won’t take long for you to be able to do without calling them every hour; then every day; then every week. HOWEVER, it is rare that someone NEVER needs to consult with others on a problem. Accept the fact that you cannot know everything and enjoy that fact that you know a whole lot more than the users.

When I first started out, I was reluctant to admit defeat and would try everything I could think of before giving up and calling Tech Support. Although it sounds admirable, it cost us in the area of customer trust. Customers saw me banging away on a server or printer or whatever, and assumed that I did not know what I was doing. Do your due diligence in gathering the facts, and do your best to fix it. If you find you haven’t gotten to the bottom of a problem in [for instance] 30 minutes, pull the trigger and call the Help Desk.

It is quite likely that you are dealing with some issues outside of your field of expertise. I constantly hear things like “Why do they want me to fix the [fill in the blank]? That is not a function of IT.” Well, that is not how THEY see it (I know, this is pretty generalized). As far as “they” are concerned, you are the go-to guy for all things they have trouble with. When you run into these questionable requests, verify with your supervisor that this is your responsibility. Don’t be shy about relying on outside support (the Help Desk) for these issues.

So why do I harp on this “Don’t waste time, pull the trigger and call the Help Desk?” It’s because time is money. For almost everything you work on, someone will be on permanent coffee break until it is fixed. Getting it back up to running condition is a good goal, but getting it back up to running condition FAST should be the primary goal. Trust me on this; the people waiting on you will appreciate it, the department supervisors will appreciate it, and (most important) YOUR SUPERVISOR will appreciate it.

I wish you great success in your new career.

-jonH

3 Spice ups
10

Thanks Jon H, I appreciate your help as well as everyone else. It’s going to take some getting used to, as far as working in the job, but I will be able to do it.

Had a meeting with supervisor earlier and I am setting up another meeting with the help desk, so as I can meet them and they are going to give me some “training” on a few things that are new to me. I was a bit nervous on this meeting, but after the meeting I feel like a new person. Supervisor sees that I am a hard working, diligent person that is doing my best and working up to the new potential I will gain when being with the job for some time. She assured me that she is here to help me and wants me to be the best I can be, so i feel relieved.

Anything else that you come across for someone as new to the field as myself, keep the advice coming. There is never enough advice you can give a person. More is always accepted with open arms.

1 Spice up
11

I started at my current job back in 2009, luckily i had their existing IT staff with me for about 3 months, before i was given the whole network (100+ users, 150+ devices, 10 servers, 4 buildings, private healthcare practice). This was my first true network, everything else had been ultra small business (<5/10 emps) By far the 2 biggest issues to overcome for me were managing priorities and managing expectations.

The first goal, priorities:

  1. make people use YOUR helpdesk, refuse to help them otherwise.
    a) get management involved, have them send emails to everyone telling them to use the helpdesk
    b) make it easy, icons/shortcuts/email, remove the CAPTCHA if possible (deal with the little bit of spam)
    b) answer text messages/phone calls/ etc… with “can you send me a ticket so i don’t forget”
    c) thank those that do use it, a simple “thanks so much for using the helpdesk, it makes my life so much easier”

  2. Once you’ve got everything in the helpdesk, you can then prioritize tickets, like everyone else has said on here, easy & Quick go first, just make sure to set a time for the more complex tasks. I like to tackle the difficult tasks first thing in the morning and try to spend at least an hour on them (get a few done), i can always shrink my hour lunch to play catch-up if needed. since you’re still struggling with learning their software/practices/etc… i would agree with jhodges said, after a set time, pull the trigger and send it to the helpdesk, be sure to ask for details on how to fix it next time.

  3. if your helpdesk has a priority field, take time to review your existing tickets and set those priorities, then start at the top of the list and go down, 1 at a time, don’t look at the “big picture” it will only overwhelm you.

the second goal, expectations

  1. users only care about themselves, if they send a ticket in, they think it’s the only one you’ve got. communication is top priority, shoot them a reply in between other tickets “hey, i got your ticket, but i’m working on something for XX right now, i’ll be in touch shortly” goes a LONG way to letting them know you are not ignoring them, and it’s in the queue.

  2. set your expectations, you can’t do it all at once, so if a user calls in about X, address just X, don’t try to do A, B, C things that you noticed while you were at their computer unless their critical/security threats. put it on the “long term to-do list” that you should be reviewing monthly and setting blocked off time for 1 task at a time (i.e. review pc descriptions, and update with new hires).

2 Spice ups
12

Just a heads up to some of you writing very good lengthy posts chocked full of information. You should submit those to Elise for a Spotlight on I.T. Articles. Good Stuff.

13

always carry your laptop and/or notebook (paper) to write what you achieve and remember what you achieved in the past.

14

I prefer to keep my phone on me and iPad. I can do 50% of my job from those.