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TECH FADE
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TECH FADE
MY COMPUTER IS RUNNING SLOW
One would think with all the advancements in hardware that the software wouldn't still run like shit. There's a reason for that. Now-a-days, companies seem to think it's a good idea to include bloat... lots and lots of bloat... in their software. Lets use your smartphone as an example. Go to your app list. Do you even use HALF of the apps on your list? If no, you're not the only one. If you're like me, you're probably looking at shit like -AR Doodle- and -Bixby Vision- while saying to yourself "Why the fuck do I have this on my phone?", You can TRY to get rid of it, but you can't. Apps like those are hardcoded into the Android OS. The worst part... they are also running in the background, even though you've never touched those apps in your life. So the most you can do is disable them, but they're still on your phone, taking precious space.
Same thing with Operating Systems on computers. Windows 10 (and now 11, which is its own headache) is a prime example of that kind of situation, except far worse, if you can believe it. Everytime you open the start menu, you have a bunch of apps being shoved into your face, some of them (again, just like your smartphone) you've never used and/or will never use, is running in the background even though you've never opened them, and can't be removed due to being baked into the OS. So now you're probably asking "O.K., so is there any way I can speed up my computer even with all the bloat?", and the answer to that is yes... yes you can.
Before technology and the industry in general became retarded? Fun! All my I.T. jobs were Level 1 Support. The companies I worked for had multiple I.T. people that did different things.
WHAT EXACTLY DO YOU DO?
Believe it or not, Level 1 support isn't just sitting at a desk answering tech calls all day (I.E. the kind of shit huge American companies are importing third worlders to do). You do multiple things, although some of them really aren't interesting, and ironically, the calls are NOT the thing that's the least interesting. As a Level 1 techie, you are the first line of defense... like the Pawn in a Chess game. Someone has an issue, you get in and make shit work (sometime better than how it worked initially) while using Google to help you out like 50% of the time. No, really... sometimes the fix is just that easy.
Rarely will you be taking apart a computer to replace the parts. As fun as that sounds, the I.T. department has a fuck-ton more desktops available (not new... old ones that get re-used like a crack-whore in the bad part of town) that will replace the broken one at any person's cubicle. Worst case scenario, you'll work for a company that uses those VMWare boxes thats running a virtual instance of Windows (see also: "No Fun Allowed"). All I.T. departments have some sort of contract with the big companies like Dell or Lenovo that if the specific device is under warranty they will send a service guy out to your office to fix whatever hardware issue the computer is having. With laptops you will wind up having this scenario happen more often than desktops, because while people do indeed abuse the fuck out of desktops (constanly kicking them and putting things on and/or next to them that don't belong there suck as space heaters and their entire shoe collection... don't ask), at least they are sturdy enough to not break as easily as laptops, which now-a-days seem to be made from the cheapest shit imaginable.
Majority of the complaints that come your way will be related to something with Windows not working, and yes, the "try turning your computer off and back on again" is a thing that does indeed work. In fact, that's usually Step 1, so if THAT doesn't work, then you move on to other options. Once in a while you'll be thrown a question or two about a specific piece of software being completely retarded (usual suspects being anything MS Office or Adobe related) and that's where Google usually comes into play. Eventually you'll learn from experience what department uses which piece of software the most and how to fix the issue(s) if they even come up again. You'll also be sitting in front of other people's computers (or if you're lucky, doing it remotely from your own desk) installing other programs for them. This will happen more often with new hires, as the supervisor of the department is not going to tell you everything the new person needs, but rather wait the day of to do that.
Speaking of installing things, doing fresh installs of Windows for new/old computers is also a thing you will be doing. Some I.T. departments utilize a thing called PXE Boot, which means the OS is being installed through the Ethernet cable from the server. Other times you'll format an ISO file on a USB stick, with said ISO file being one you create yourself with something like PowerISO. Either way, they are simple tasks that anyone can do. Account creations and deactivations will also be something you'll be tasked to do. Not only does this mean creating accounts on the server side via Active Directory, but also with emails via Microsoft Exchange. Don't be intimidated though, you'll be taught all of this stuff step by step and eventually if you do enough acount creations it'll become second nature to you. The BORING stuff comes in the form of clean-up and inventory. By clean-up I mean stuff like going through an excel spreadhseet to look for accounts that haven't been touched in like 3 years and deleting them on the server in order to free up space on the server's disk drive. Inventory is what it is... spend an hour or two in the supply closet, and mark the shit that you have in total and reporting back any shortages. It helps if the closet is clean... which if it's not, I'd suggest you do give it a good organizing job so it makes your work easier.
One last thing... DON'T BE AFRAID TO ASK FOR HELP! As stated earlier, not everyone in I.T. knows everything. In fact, you might run into a ticket or support call that will ask for something that is WAY out of your league of expertise. Most of the time it'll be a network related issue that will puzzle the fuck out of you. Send those inquiries to the network guy, that's what he's there for. God help you if you're the poor sap that has to get your hands dirty trying to figure out why a specific printer keeps dropping off of the print server (seriously... fuck printers, fuck spooling, and fuck the drivers that are "supposed" to work for them). Think of it this way... you know how filters in an air conditioner are supposed to trap the dirty shit from going to the other side? That's pretty much your job... to filter out the easy shit that you can do, while sending the more difficult shit up the chain. The worst mistake you can do as a Level 1 I.T. guy is send something easy up the chain. That will easily piss off people and make them wonder why you were even hired in the first place. It's a good idea to take the initiative, but at the same time you should also know when to not do that. Basically, use your better judgement.
CUSTOMER SERVICE
This is what makes or breaks people. Like it or not, I.T. is a "Forward Facing" job that requires you to be at your best when helping out other people with their computer issues. Unfortunately, when it comes to I.T., it has a bad reputation of having bad people skills, almost to the point where one could mistaken the entire department for suffering with Autism... and you'd be right considering the majority of people that work in I.T. are autists to a certain degree. Regardless, if you can be the one shining exception, it can make a world of difference.
Think back to when you first started to use a computer. I'm sure there were tons of stuff you had no idea about and even after trying solutions, it not only didn't work, but made things worse. You felt helpless and defeated, like everything in life fucking sucked now because your OS decided to be an asshole for no reason, or you had a hardware issue/failure that was preventing your computer to do the thing it needed to do. Those are the same feeling that the other person is going through, so in a way, you need to be relate-able to them so they don't feel alone and scared. Essentially you have to be sympathetic to the other person. Not everyone is tech-literate, and sometimes the issue can be something that's completely out of their control. By having great customer service and social skills, along with great work ethic, you'll go from "that weird guy that works in I.T. with the other weirdos" to "oh yea THAT guy, he's the fucking best! I have his number on speed dial!" in like a week to a month. Sometimes you might even unintentionally be their new best friend, or their personal psychiatrist/psychologist (Office jobs tend to have majority women working at them, and they love to talk, so there's the reason).
For example, lets say you get a call from someone that's having an issue with one of the plugins/addons to Outlook (some team meeting/scheduling software that keeps dissapearing/crashing) that are usually used by the supervisors. Obviously, they are annoyed at best, and pissed off at worse. Luckily it's also an issue you've been working on for the 15 bajillion other people at the company, so it's an easy fix. In this situation (after listening to everything they had to say, of course) you would be reassuring and give them a little piece of mind that it's not an isolated incident. if they're going to rant, then let them rant, and don't take anything they say personally. If its not a common issue, then tread lightly, but go in with a positive attitude like you're willing to help.
Don't get me wrong, there ARE going to be people that will just ruin your day for whatever dumb fucking reason, but believe it or not they are far and few between. Majority of the time they will be old boomers that have been working at the company for like 10+/20+ years that don't even know what the ICONS on the desktop are (I'm dead fucking serious about that), which makes you wonder how the fuck they've been scraping by all these fucking years. The last time I had one of those was for an elderly woman whom owned an iPhone and didn't really know how to use it. The issue she was having was in regards to a company-issued password reset app that was linked to her Windows account. I.T. had sent mass reminder emails on a weekly basis for like a month or two straight to let everyone know they needed to set-up the app and reset their password through the app the first time. The email also came with idiot-proof step-by-step instructions on how to do all of that. Of course, as predicted by litertally EVERYONE in I.T., a BUNCH of people ignored the email and now had their accounts perma-locked, including this elderly woman. I read the instructions to her over the phone. I explained in detail which Icon she needed to press, what they looked like, and where to go from there by reading out the exact option menu screen. It wasn't clicking in her head, and she got lost and mad. I explained everything to her husband so he could help her out his way, that didn't help either, she got even more lost and mad, which made HIM mad. An hour later, my supervisor got involved after not only hearing what I was saying over the phone but getting pissed that the old lady was giving me such an issue to begin with (apparently she was one of "those" custermers that was so well known, NO ONE wanted to deal with her... lucky me), the old lady gave up, then called back a half hour later and SOMEHOW she was able to understand everything and get it working. Next day she calls again complaining that it wasn't working anymore. Turns out she touched a button she wasn't supposed to, and didn't want to admit it. I had to go into Active Directory and reset her password for her just to get her to never call again.
GOT ANY STORIES?
One of the companies I was doing I.T. for had their server room OUTSIDE the office... as in out in the hallway of the building across from the public restroom. The server room itself was about the size of a bedroom closet (small enough to fit one or two people inside) which as one would expect was VERY prone to overhearing very fast, but luckily it had direct access to the AC vent that was puning cool air to it at all times... except for the one day it decided NOT to do that. Everyone in I.T. got the alert around 4PM and as soon as we all got to the room, the temperature inside was in the high 90's. For the record, if the temperature got to 100+ degrees, the server would just fucking die. We immiedatiely stuck those big fans inside (e.g. Lasko 20" box fan) to blow the hot air out to decrease the temp as much as we could, while my supervisor called the owner of the building to check what was wrong. But that also meant someone had to stay in front of the door till the owner showed up... guess who that lucky person was!
Like an hour or two later the owner shows up, says the AC needed to be refilled, had to call someone to coem in. As the hours pass, everyone in the company has gone home to where it's just me and my supervisor sitting in front of the door with me dicking around with a laptop just to kill the boredom of staying there. The AC guy doesn't show up till like an hour or so later. He comes with an Orange tank, hooks it up to the AC by going into the ceiling of the server room, the AC isn't taking the shit from the tank. Dude sticks the tank in those rolling yellow mop buckets janitors use filled with water, waits a while, then tries again. Half hour goes by, the dude can't figure out why it's not taking, until suddently he says "OH SHEIT, U NO WAT?! I GOT DA WRONG COLOR TANK! IT'S SUPPOSED TWO BE BLUE!!". At that point in time, I finally understood why a man would want to take another man's life. The guy leaves and my supervisor is on the verge of calling the company that does emergency backups to take the server out of the room and give it to the company to let them store it in their building. it's now 11pm... the dude comes back with the CORRECT tank, and the AC starts working again. My only consolation was that this happened on a Friday, so I could go to bed (hungry by the way, didn't eat anything while I was waiting) and stay in bed for the entire weekend.
SO WHY IS IT HARD TO LAND AN I.T. JOB?
If you were to ask this question to the companies that are "looking" for work, they will tell you because there are not enough qualified/skilled people for this position. That's a flat-out lie. There are PLENTY of skilled/qualified people ready and able to work in I.T. but the barrier for entry, for some fucking reason, is so goddam high, that even after you go through the hurdles and loops, you STILL might not even get the position (technically that's ANY office job now these days, especially thanks to COVID, but that's a COMPLETELY different rant for another time). One of these requirenemtns (the main one commonly seen on every job posting online) is an A+ Certification. Do not waste your money on this. In fact, the ONLY time you should take this is if the job you're appying for is offering it, because at that point it's their money that's being used for it and not yours. CompTIA is the company that offers these certs, and I'm completely convinced that the people that offer the courses and tests for this cert live in a completely different reality from the one everyone else inhabits. They expect an ENTRY LEVEL to know things that in an actual job you would either have no use for, would NEVER happen to you IRL, or there would be far better people to handle the job for you in the same department. For example: