Whats your typical day....?

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

I know this is a really old thread but I think its still a useful one so I would like to add to it...

I work as an Apprentice for a local council, currently working on 1st line....

8:15. turn on my Wyse box (sarcastically I love these things), make a cuppa while I wait for it to load up.

8:20. Load up cisco call agent, RMS (call logging software),VNC remote, exchange advanced, outlook, and open IE as it takes a few minutes to open any program on my whyse box so I like to make sure its open before I need to open it when I have a customer on the phone.

8:25. check outlook for any alert messages that have been send ie. a server problem that will be effecting multiple users, check If I have recieved any replys from customers who I haven't been able to contact by phone the previous day ect.

8:30 the phones go live, so there will instantly be a queue of calls, the first few calls are usually customers who have locked their account and/or need a p/w reset (untick account locked in AD, right click select reset p/w). We also get alot of calls early on with customers who have been locked out of PGP (I go to a website search for the users device and It gives me a very long ass p/w to read out to the customer to unlock them).

9:00-12:30 we receive very varied calls, still a lot of locked accounts, users unable to print (re-install printer usually does the job), We get a lot of calls for a program called Paris (we do not have a CRB check so calls to do with this are passed on to a dedicated team, so we book the call for the customer and then pass it over to the Paris team). They are the most common and easiest calls we receive but we do receive new faults and problems everyday for example on Friday I can remember a call from a line manager saying a user had gone on maternity but not put there outlook into out of office, is it possible for me to access their account and set this up. another call was for a customer who had created a folder they needed securing so only 2 users could view the contents.

12:30-1:15 LUNCH!!!

1:15 back on calls, more of the same from the morning, customer said someone had emailed a distribution list they had set up, can I restrict it so only x,y&z can use this distribution list Latter in the day the day the calls become less frequent so I have time to go back to other calls I have had but not yet been able to resolve for example if I need more information from a user in order to do something for them, so I will chase these customers up for the info I require.

5:00 Home Time


The majority of calls on 1st line are very simple things the hardest point by far is learning what the hell the customer is jabbering on about! I've been working on 1st line for about a month now and the most important thing I've learnt is not to trust the customer when you ask them if they have done something for example plugged something in. (so many times a customer has told me they have plugged something in, I have asked them to double check it is definatley in correctly, had to go and visit the user to find out its still in their laptop bag!).

Another thing that I'm finding a little tough is permissions in a large corporation, for example what permissions I have set up on my account some things I expect to be able to do (like the customer who added a folder on a shared drive and wanted it to be secured, I expected that to be something very easy which I would be able to do only to find out that I didn't have correct permissions on my account to do so, so had to get our server's team to do it).

 

I'll add. I'm 1st/2nd line at a large pharmaceuticals company in Switzerland.

5:50am Get up, get bus then train to office.

7:30: (ish) get in, say good morning to everyone in office (as is the custom here)

7:45: Boot up laptop and sign into helpdesk software.

7:45 - 11:00: Emails/calls start rolling in, we support the whole company which is spread over Switzerland, London & Manchester, Japan, India, France and the US, so the issues are fairly varied as you can probably imagine.

11:15: Much needed smoke break

11:20: Normally delivery time some days, so I may get a few laptops/desktops to setup with various OS' and lab software.

13:30: Lunch time.

14:00: Back on helpdesk, because of all the different software we use, not to mention extranet, there's so many account passwords that need resetting/been forgotten, generally get a load. Lots of hardware issues, monitors, keyboards etc, network stuff, all sorts really and if it gets slow I read my cert books and just generally research stuff and broaden my knowledge.

17:30: Home time