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Dear community,
From where i start…

I’m in my late 20s and after a kind of IT community college diploma in my country (and a lot of passion and curiosity) i got my first IT job 5 years ago at this big public education institution in my not-so advanced european country.

I didn’t have high expectations, in my country it is well known that these kinds of places are a management mess, but pretty chill and money always comes because the job is governmental.

From being the IT “janitor” that gives people their asset and move boxes around, i become full time support and helpdesk while getting hands on helping our “backend” guys setup things and enjoying it, while taking a break from the constant support calls and walk-in of users not opening tickets.

Fast forward now, i’ve been slowly and shadly promoted to something that is not really clear to me contractually. That probably is part of the problem…
I’m on a team that develops solutions, usually from top down and deliver it to other low level technicians to implement it. More like a solution architect in the Microsoft and office365 world, but also some linux.

I’m constantly plagued by duties such as middle management and second level supporting of on-field tech.
When i was solving problems for the end users, it was easy for me to plan things and keep it organized: Please open a ticket, and i will gladly solve you the problem.

But now i can’t tell my own technical colleagues to do the same, and our team gets constant noise and walk-in request from people of other departments like SOC or NOC, not negotiable on the spot.

This is getting out of control and the last few days i can’t even sit at my desk in the morning that people pop out of the walls with request and sometimes also by our supervisor. Like the day he hired a consultant without telling us that we need to work with this guy on something else for the entire same day, or keep us tangled on purely commercial matter.

  • How do I convince my upper management that in order to survive in the long run we must use tickets internally as well? At least to start making order in this mess.
  • Do you have any other advice for a junior sysadmin like me? All i want is to work and solve the problems that arise with serenity and peace of mind, not as if we were always at an emergency room.

I’ve gained a lot of experience here, but I’m seriously thinking of quitting.

Thanks for your help,
Mark

10 Spice ups
2

I’m fairly sure we all wonder this.

Sometimes when you’re in IT, you help your colleagues without tickets, because one day you’ll need them too and when they ask for a ticket, the delay it creates can also be a delay for other services and sections.

I understand the logic here, but it’s not always that easy.

Take me for example, I’m better called directly to get something done, than having it come in as a ticket - as I simply wont see it or get round to it.

Love what you do, if you don’t, find what you love and do it. Perhaps given what you’ve posted, this ‘promotion’ isn’t right for you because you preferred the organization of drop-ins vs the chaos of moving up the ladder. Maybe in the future things will change or with time you’ll adapt, but only you know this.

Repeat… of the previous reply. If this isn’t right for you, see above moving back. Perhaps you’re not ready for these new changes.

Once more for clarity:
Love what you do, if you don’t, find what you love and do it.

10 Spice ups
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Thank you Rod for your point of view :slight_smile:
I love what I do, but not in the environment I’m in right now, if that makes sense. And I would like to try to improve it (and improve myself).

Unfortunately, there is no turning back.
Now all helpdesk activities and what I used to do have been outsourced to the delight of users.
Let’s say that no matter how biased one may be “always against management,” I have the perception here that there is just a big gap here.

2 Spice ups
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Remind them in an email, what your responsibilities are, and that with ticket control you can show what was done and why. If it’s anything like US public institutions, you can use the ticket control to justify higher budget request. In USA public institutions you can’t document why you need an increase you will be summarily denied.

2 Spice ups
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The point is, every company, every team and every job has it’s own gaps and improvement opportunities, some will succeed and make changes, some will get by. If the latter isn’t for you, while you’re young, look for what you love (expanding on above). Don’t stick something because you feel this is where you will be, because this could seem like a prison sentence, with no bail.

While not everyone is open to changes, especially not from those new to the team. Ask if you can at least discuss your views on how change may help the team, put forward your ideas, but don’t be disappointed if there is no movement - take that as you will and if that assists your decision to look elsewhere, at least you asked.

5 Spice ups
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Maybe see if you can convince them to use a project management software instead of tickets within the team. It has a similar effect, but doesn’t make them feel like they are lowered to an end user. Upper management especially does not like that. It sounds like they need to get another person on the team, or officially give you a job title with job descriptions. I wish I can say I had a similar experience working in a school, but it seem to go with the territory.

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5 Spice ups
7

Using “tickets” internally is a good idea (depending on your company). A lot of times people only think of “tickets” as “incidents” or “problems” and that is the case in a “Help Desk”, the next step to that is a “Service Desk”, which handles not only incidents but also other services. The other services are generally referred to as “services”, “requests” or “tasks” rather than “incidents” or “problems”

Keep in mind that having a service desk does not stop “emergency” requests (that is just a part of IT). Do the emergency, but document it in the service desk after the fact.

Then you can use reporting out of the service desk to show, that you get too many emergency requests, that there are not enough engineers, or whatever other metric that could help.

5 Spice ups
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I would suggest being the change you want to see. Using the internal tooling you already have in place, can you create some order to your own work?

For example, my company use ServiceNow for incidents, requests, changes and problems. But, to my knowledge, there’s no formal requirement/usage of Task Boards, which are essentially KANBAN boards, or auto-generated boards, based on filtered criteria e.g. Open Tickets assigned to Support Team X. For any multifaceted, multistep work I was given i.e. Mini Project, Team project, Cross-team project, I’d create a board and manage all items there. If there were no formal Incident tickets, I’d create tasks that only exist on the board and had no defined SLA. No-one else used these boards, as other teams used MS Project or M365 Planner BUT it made my life easier AND it provided a central place to direct management to when asked about workload or progress. Eventually, I migrated across to M365 Task and Planner ecosystem, as it evidenced that anyone in the organisation could agree a framework/method of working, it just needed mamagenement buy-in/enforcing. Eventually, my manager created and M365 List to track work (Because glorified spreadsheets are the only way to report to C-Suite…). It wasn’t as good and eventually failed. However, it did mean my influence effected change and highlighted the communication and management gaps. Sometimes, just getting an admission of the failure can take the edge off your frustration.

If you don’t have suitable tooling already , you could try spinning up something like: https://plane.so or https://www.openproject.org on an old PC or sever and try using that yourself. You don’t need to become dogmatic. Just show the positive benefits, such as better visibility, planning potential, all at zero cost. Obviously, self-hosting has downsides of maintenance overhead, but there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

Lastly, removing the technical element, it’d help for you to try and understand why your team evolved to work this way. My assumption is that they’re given no support, time or adequate funding but are expected to “make it work!”. No-one intends to work poorly and inefficiently. You can’t change the downward pressure on your boss, only help shoulder some of the weight. Start by asking “Boss, is there anything I or the the team help you day to day?”.

3 Spice ups
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This is a great approach—taking initiative and structuring your own work can often highlight inefficiencies and drive change within a team or even across an organization. Sometimes, it’s not about waiting for management to enforce a process but demonstrating how small improvements can lead to better visibility, workload management, and efficiency.

Your experience with ServiceNow, Kanban boards, and the M365 Planner ecosystem really resonates. Many teams struggle with inconsistent tooling or fragmented processes, and just having a centralized space for tracking work can be a game-changer. Even if others aren’t using it at first, the value becomes clear when leadership starts relying on it for updates and reporting.

I completely agree with your point on understanding why teams operate the way they do. Many organizations don’t deliberately create inefficient workflows—they evolve from lack of support, budget constraints, or resistance to change. Sometimes, just offering a simple, low-friction solution (even something self-hosted like OpenProject) can break down those barriers.

If structured incident tracking and compliance are a focus, something like ConvergePoint Incident Management Software on Microsoft 365 SharePoint platform could also be a strong fit. It integrates seamlessly with existing workflows, making it easier to log, investigate, and resolve incidents while maintaining visibility for leadership.

Curious—after your move to M365 Planner, did you notice better adoption across teams, or was there still resistance?

2 Spice ups
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Ticketing solutions help make the IT work visible to management. You are able to run reports and show the types of work you are constantly doing. In many cases this will help you pin point common issues that you can work on automating. In other cases it will help you track trends. Spice Works has a free help desk ticketing solution but there are others that you can purchase that tie in with remote management software. At first in many places I have worked where they did not buy into a ticketing system I just deployed a system and started using it internally just for my to do list. Then I started using the reports with managers. Being able to see the IT work helped sell the use case. Once management has bought into the idea you can push it out to your area of influence. Now I’ve got techs working for me… tickets ensure that staff are not getting missed in the endless pile of emails and phone calls. We can prioritize our work based on the types of issues. Good luck!

1 Spice up
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One of the most important parts of being an adult is standing up for yourself.

  • Start saying no. Walk-in requests will automatically get a no. Submit a ticket so their task can be discussed and planned and prioritized. Otherwise, outright refuse to do it.
  • Prepare a daily or weekly plan for what you are going to work on and send it to your manager regularly. Its far easier to push back if you have something already setup for your day and this makes your manager responsible for your scheduling.
  • If management threatens to write you up or fire you, tell them you need a structure to do your job and if they won’t back you up, you are leaving.
  • Polish your resume and start looking for other work. Even if you stay, its good to have an escape hatch.
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For every request, if it is someone you can’t just tell to submit a ticket, the response should be “Hang on while I submit a ticket for you.”

1 Spice up
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First you should be behind a locked door with a Security Code to enter. Your phone should be on Answering Machine mode. Ask whether they want the Free Ticket submission, or the $50.00 Upgrade ticket where you will then get back to them a whole lot sooner :sunglasses:

1 Spice up
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I say do what you were doing before. Request that the requestor, regardless of position, submit a ticket and give the reason why it is best for them to follow that process. I’m in the same situation you are in. I say something like “Could you submit a ticket for that please, that way we can keep track of it and make sure it gets done because I have to manage multiple tasks that can cause things to be forgotten or lost in the mix of other requests that pop-up or that already exist. This will ensure that it gets done by myself or someone else.” I have to keep repeating it in order to train the ‘pop-up’ people to follow the procedure. You’ll start to notice the repeat offenders lessen after a while. The other thing is just relax. You’re only one person and there is only a limited amount of time in the work week. Prioritize and do what can be humanly and healthily done. If there is blowback, layout the things you’ve been doing and show that you are doing all that you can. Any reasonable person will understand. Most people in an organization have the same type of work life where pop-up requests come in while they are completing their job tasks. The problem is that they forget that I.T. people are doing the same. They see us and have no idea what we are doing and assume we’re always fee to help.

1 Spice up
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I have been down this road too. My director listens but not really… He says he will take care of the issues that arise. But, not really. Some issues have been on-going for several months. Frustrating as all heck to say the least! You will have to grow a thick skin, or you will wash out really fast.

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Adoption was poor, so I stopped pushing after a point, as I moved into a different team with different tooling. Now mostly using GitLab to track work and operating under a slimmed down version of Agile/Kanban. It isn’t perfect but the main difference is the new team lead accepted the criticism, then put some thought and effort into adopting a new way of working, which is reviewed and revised periodically. The old team did no such thing and continues to fragment and stagnate.

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We convinced management to open tickets internally for tracking larger projects so that we all had a central place to go and get an update as to where we stand. It is helpful, but what I found out made me successful prior to that (and continuing today) is to create my own method of staying organizes and prioritizing tasks. It sounds like your going to need to do this too. In the end people may see how well your keeping organized and getting things done, that you may be able to get that ticketing system implemented cause now you have concrete proof that it is needed, and that it helps.

1 Spice up