Am I in the wrong job?

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I am currently working for an IT reseller/ storage solutions provider specialising in backup and recovery solutions.

I am providing 1st and 2nd line support for Attix5 backup solution, which I have had some limited training on, but I'm expected to support 1st, 2nd and 3rd line EMC Networker, Tivoli Storage Manager, Netbackup, IpStor issues with zero training. I'm just told to escalate to EMC, and when EMC explains things most of it makes little sense as I don't understand the bigger picture.

I'm also expected to participate in a 1 week in 3 support rota from 5pm till 9am the next morning supporting 1st and 2nd line calls from customers about systems I have little knowledge on, as well as doing monitoring for a TSM customer environment throughout the night, WITHOUT any overtime pay whatsoever. Is this a joke??

They promised all this fantastic training, but all I had was a couple of 2 hour sessions of one of their customer environments in a classroom and that's it. I feel like a big fool trying to talk customers through problems without having the knowledge or experience to know what I'm doing is right.

Even my manager who hired me said he knows little about Networker, and they just try and "bs" the customer when they need to.

Basically it's a small company who have taken on too many managed services contracts, and refuse to train their staff or hire more staff as we're extremely overworked (only 4 guys in a support team covering LEA customers and private sectors up and down the country), just so that they can maximise their profits.

What should I do?

 

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Also I forgot to mention, I have to travel 1.5 hours each way to work, and at random with very little notice they'll ask me to go to Derby, or Manchester to sort out a customer problem (which again I have no training on whatsoever), or the datacentre and I have no choice but to go. I don't get a car allowance or company car, and I'm not insured to do that travelling.

 

If i were you will start training myself like undergoing personal studies and also write a couple of certs starting with N+ because when s***t hits the fan you will have somewhere to take cover... Cheers

 

....How long have you been there for? and whats your previous experience / knowledge like?

 

Tidy up your CV and start job hunting, no serious though. The good thing is that you've acquired brilliant experience and that's a marketing tool for you to get on to the next promising role. Best wishes

 

I have been here for 4 months now, and I'm beginning to feel overworked, under extreme pressure being on call throughout the early hours and not really learning much.

I have 2 years previous IT support experience working as an IT hardware configuration engineer with lots of hands-on IT build, configuration and support experience working with HP, IBM, Dell and Toshiba laptops, servers, desktops doing builds/installs/upgrades.

I'm not sure I want to work on a helpdesk anymore after this bad experience, I would prefer a more hands-on support role if possible. What certs would you recommend I do?

Thanks!

 

Most companies won't take the time or spend the money to allow employees to get trained. Time in class, particularly for an IT services company, is lost revenue... or worse, translates into dissatisfied customers if there is too much work for too few techs to handle. So while they might have had every intention of providing training to you... sometimes reality rears its ugly head. In truth, most IT services companies are understaffed, as the small ones try to stay as "bare bones" as possible in order to survive.

So what should you do? Do what we all do: stay up late and study on your own time.

If the workload is killing you, then by all means, start looking for another job. Obviously, you don't want to turn in your notice until you have another job offer firmly in hand - I've seen too many people leave a job on blind faith that they'd have another job soon... and ended up unemployed for far too long.

That said, realize that on-call work is just part of life when working for an IT services company. Some companies offer a token amount of money to be on call, but ultimately, it's rarely worth it. It's just part of being an IT tech... gotta weigh that into your decision-making process.

Best of luck in your decision!