Tech in the Trenches

Carl T. Holscher fights for the customers.

Job Hunting Tips for Techs

By

On March 12, 2013

In Observations

Job hunting is hard. There’s no way to sugar coat it. I’ve worked at some great places and I’ve worked at some where I knew I had made a big mistake my first week there.

There are a lot of factors to consider when looking for a job. The obvious ones are money, commute time, insurance and paid time off. However, there are many other intangibles that can make or break a job.

DOE

This stands for Depending On Experience. This is how much you will be paid. It’s very hard to consider a position that pays DOE because if the position doesn’t pay anywhere near my current rate, I am not going to consider it.

I don’t expect every ad to have an exact figure posted. But at least put up a range. It can even be a large range. Give me a $10,000-15,000 range of payment. Are you looking to pick someone up cheap for $25,000 or are you looking for a seasoned professional at $50,000?

Company Culture

The fluff on web sites doesn’t offer any real insight to how a company operates. Are they innovating or standing still? Do they care about customer service or just provide technical support? Is the company a post-collegiate experience with games and rides and endless activities? Or does the company understand that people have families, children and lives outside of the working hours and digital tethers?

Sometimes a company will represent itself well on its website and in the want ad. Sometimes you realize too late what they actually meant by the optimistic sounding words on their website. There’s no way to tell what a company’s culture is until you’re in that culture. And by then it’s too late if you’re not a good fit for it.

Where do I go from here?

When I got out of college, I followed the siren’s song of “Temp-To-Hire” every time it was sang to me. I wanted my contract gig to become something more. I wanted to be a full-time employee. Not a necessary IT worker but exempt from the company’s benefits, perks and insurance.

I wanted to move up. I still want to move up. I can’t work the same job in the same place for more than a two years without needing a change. I want to learn. I want to advance. I don’t want to keep doing the same thing I was doing eight years ago, only for a different group of people.

The problem with IT contracts and even IT companies is there is very little room for advancement. Even a lateral move to another group or division would give a much-needed break in the monotony of running tickets daily.

Seeing the same problems over and over. Fixing the same bugs over and over again. Explaining the same procedures over and over again. It gets old. It gets maddening.

Investment

When I go to work for a place, I give it my all. I become as vital to the company as I can because I am passionate about my work. I help people win their battles against technology. I am their ally in the digital age.

I commit to a company and I commit hard. I am loyal. But what does the company give back to me? Yes, I get a paycheck. That’s a requirement. But is there anything else?

Are there training opportunities? Will they reimburse certifications or other educational classes? Do they require or even encourage it? The truly good companies realize how valuable hard work and dedication is and will show the same in return. The companies who lose their best people don’t give back as much so their talent moves on.

Call Me Reznor

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On March 7, 2013

In Observations

Recently, pomDeter put together a mashup of Call Me Maybe and Head Like a Hole. He put Nine Inch Nails’ lyrics with Carly Rae Jepsen’s music and it works surprisingly well. In response, AmishWarfare has released a mix with Carly Rae Jepsen’s lyrics over the music of Nine Inch Nails’ Head like a Hole. I’ve embedded both versions below. They’re both well done and I can’t stop listening to them.

Carly Rae Jepsen singing Call Me Maybe over the music to Nine Inch Nails’ Head Like a Hole

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/82176427″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

Nine Inch Nails singing Head Like a Hole over the music to Carly Rae Jepsen’s Call Me Maybe

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/81761778″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

The Long Road

By

On March 5, 2013

In Introspection

Working in customer support means relying on a variety of skills. But at the root of it all, my job is to solve problems. Sometimes a problem has a simple solution and other times the solution is far more complex. Then there are those times where the journey to get to a solution is far longer than the solution itself. This week was a good example of that. Twice, I took a long road to a simple fix.

No Network. No problem.

The first time was a customer had a problem accessing anything on the network from his laptop. The customer called in to the help desk and saying this is a critical issue because he had meetings to attend later in the morning and couldn’t access anything on the network.

This meant no internet. No email. No shared network drives. The customer could log-in only due to the laptop caching his credentials.

I opened up the network connections and saw the laptop had a valid IP address for our wired network. And I also saw an active VPN connection. This was strange since I had just booted the computer and had not connected to the VPN yet.

I attempted to close the connection. Access is Denied. I attempted to disable the connection. Access is Denied. I tried to launch the VPN client and got an error stating it was already open and running. It was not.

I could not access either my network account nor my administrative network account due to the computer not being able to access network servers to authenticate me.

I could not access the local administrator account because the password is scrambled for security and the laptop is encrypted so none of the password reset tools work without decrypting the laptop. Decryption takes 6+ hours and encryption takes the same. Not an option for my customer.

I did have access to a program called Privilege Manager which enables my customer to run most applications with administrator rights. This was my way in.

I had the customer enter their password and opened a command prompt. From there, I typed explorer /separate to open a new Windows Explorer window.

I then opened network connections and disabled the VPN connection. As soon as I did that, network connectivity was restored. I opened Outlook and new mail flowed in. I opened Firefox and the start page loaded.

My customer was thrilled. I had fixed his problem in time for his meeting.

But I didn’t stop there. I noticed the VPN client was out of date so I took a few moments to download and install an updated VPN client. I ran an automated tool called PatchMyPC and updated Java, Flash and other common applications automatically.

I resolved my customer’s problem in the time he needed it done and I proactively upgraded Java and Flash to close security holes. The tool also upgraded Acrobat Reader which was a couple of versions old.

A bit of prevention goes a long way and prevents possible calls in the future which means my customer can keep working and not have to call me in the future for something I could have prevented.

Part of my job is to limit the number of times my customers need to call me for help.

Virtual Private Networking.

The second time was a customer needed to use the company’s VPN connection from home. This story has a great moral to it and is a clear case of making a Rookie Mistake and an example of thinking outside the box to find a creative solution.

I installed the VPN client for the customer and tested its interaction with the ID cards we’re required to use for accessing the VPN off-site and everything worked beautifully. The two-factor authentication was authenticating. The PIN card was being read and authenticated with the VPN servers.

The customer took the computer home to test and was still experiencing problems. The computer in question is a 1st Generation MacBook Air. This computer has one USB port.

This would not be a problem in most cases. However, in our environment the wireless on site does not work with the offsite VPN because it’s redundant. In order to test the offsite connection from on site, I needed to plug into our network. Again, not a problem most of the time but the MacBook Air has no network port.

In order to test this computer with the customer I would need to connect the USB ID card reader and a USB network dongle to plug into the network. I needed to plug these two devices into a computer with only one USB port.

I did not have a USB hub to connect to the computer. Nor does it have any other ports to plug into. The computer has only 1 USB, 1 Micro-DVI and 1 headphone port on it.

I tried a variety of keyboards with USB ports on them but they didn’t have enough power for either the network dongle or the card reader so while one would work, the other would fail.

As a last resort, I tried an aluminum Apple keyboard. I didn’t hold much hope as I had tried older Apple keyboards and been unsuccessful each time.

However, this time it worked. I plugged the keyboard into the MacBook Air with a network dongle plugged into one USB port and an ID reader on the other USB port. It all worked.

I wired into the network and got a connection. Then I inserted the customer’s ID card and it read the card and requested the PIN which the customer entered and the VPN client connected.

Then I explained to the customer to connect at home she would only need to connect to her wireless network and open the VPN client then insert her card into the reader.

And this is where my Rookie Mistake occurred. After we had done all of this, she mentioned she was trying to get access to the Remote Desktop environment from the laptop.

This requires a network connection and then launching the Mac version of Remote Desktop to a virtual Window environment with her username and password. She had no need for the VPN client, the ID card to log-in or anything of the elaborate testing setup.

I thought I understood what she wanted. But as it turns out, I did not. Just because a customer asks for something such as “I can’t access the VPN from home.” Be sure to clarify and make sure you’re fixing the problem the customer is actually having instead of fixing a separate problem that the customer wasn’t even aware existed.

We’re all human

By

On March 1, 2013

In Observations

Apple has a reputation for stellar customer service and Chrisg shared his story of The Coolest Experience I Had as an Apple Store Employee.

He talks about assisting a group of students who were all communicating in sign language with each other and their teacher.

And then it dawned on me that all of these students were all speaking to one another in sign language.
They were from a school for the deaf.

The story continues later in the day when he came upon the same group on the mall’s food court and learned it was an assignment. The students were all pretending to be deaf to see how they were treated as they visited different stores in the mall.

The next part of her story made me feel awesome inside: She said that I was the only person they worked with all day that had treated them like real people, and actually tried to be as helpful as the situation allowed. They had all been impressed with my idea of using TextEdit to communicate, because nobody else in the mall had even bothered to grab a pen and some paper.

You never know who will get to help everyday. Every interaction you have with a customer is a chance to make their day a little better. In this case, Chris got to make these kids feel good in contrast to everyone else they had met. And in return, he got the great feeling of making their day better through great service.

This reminded me of a time when I worked for Best Buy over the Christmas holiday. I was in college and needed the extra money so I was a seasonal employee with Best Buy working in the PC/Home Office department.

One day, I had an older gentleman come into the store. He was looking to buy a printer and I quickly realized he was hard of hearing so talking out.

He wasn’t deaf so he didn’t sign and neither did I, but I did have a pen in my pocket so I pulled a sheet of paper from a nearby printer and we had a long conversation about printer features and costs. How many pages would this printer hold? What did I recommend for pictures versus documents? How much was the ink going to be when it ran out? What was the most reliable machine?

I “talked” with him for a half hour answering all of his questions and at the end he thanked me and made his choice and wished me a Merry Christmas.

It made me feel great that I could take the time to help him get exactly what he needed and he didn’t feel neglected.

The best feeling in customer service is when I can give great service because the reward is how you feel afterwards.

Rookie Mistake

By

On February 22, 2013

In Observations

I was reading A Rookie Mistake over at Support Ops today. Chase talks about an exchange with a customer that went like this.

Me: Where are you logging in at? I’ll take a look and see what’s going on.

Customer: My desktop computer.

This got me thinking about the assumptions we make with our customers. In the course of my job, I find myself in similar situations all the time.

For instance, the newest version of the VPN client we use at work was updated and VPN is no longer in th name. It is now called Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client.”

A computer savvy person wouldn’t find a huge problem with this. However, when I’m trying to explain to a customer they need to click the VPN Client icon and they don’t see anything that says VPN they become confused.

Along with the name change, the icon also changes from a padlock icon to a generic looking bubble. So the customers who are creatures of habit and have learned what they need to click by name and icon are not completely lost.

Working with customers who have varying levels of computer savvy and varying understanding of the English language means my job is part translator and part computer technician.

Sometimes I must translate geek to human, other times geek to English, sometimes just plain English in terms my customer can understand.

I try to keep a rule in mind when I am going to help a customer and that is simply to assume nothing. Don’t take anything for granted. Don’t walk into a situation assuming your customer knows anything. Start with simple questions and see where they take you.

If the customer is computer savvy, you will quickly find out and can elevate the conversation. However, if the customer doesn’t know anything about their computer you don’t frustrate them further.

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