5 Reasons I Hate Technical Support Jobs
Working in the field of technical support is something I hopped into after college. I recieved a degree in web design but it seems most entry level technology positions are based on providing technical support. Now after working in the field a few years, it has driven me to the point I want nothing to do with the office/cubicle world. Actually, I want something that is as far from it as possible.
Why? Well here are a few reasons I absolutely hate working in the technical support field:
1. It’s Always Your Fault
It seems like no matter what the problem may be, it is always the “IT Guys” fault. If a hard drive crashes or a monitor stops working, people immediately feel the need to point fingers. They will then ride you until you have them back up and running. It creates a great deal of stress when it happens over, and over, and over again on a daily basis. I have learned to ignore this but it still gets me down from time to time.
2. Every Incident is a Priority
When users are not busy pointing fingers, their busy preaching about how their issue should be the main concern and nothing else is nearly as important. This is one of the things I hate the most about my mundane office job. What really makes it difficult is when you have a handful of people all telling you they need their issue resolved first and your left trying to prioritize it all. It ends up creating chaos in my head and then nothing gets done. So please people, just be patient and your issues will be resolved.
3. People Ask Questions About Personal Computers
This is another thing that just pisses me off. People will come over to my desk and either ask me some questions about a computer problem at home, or literally drop off their personal computer. Now I have no problem helping others out, but do you have to do it while I am at work. It is hard enough keeping up with all the problems and projects I need to get done. Throwing personal problems on top of it all just overwhelms me to the point that I do not even want to get up and come to the office in the morning.
4. It’s Very Repetitive
At first, I used to enjoy the repetitivness of working technical support. It made it an easy job because I always had to resolve similiar issues. Having worked in the field for a few years now, I can honestly say it now drives me insane. I cannot handle doing the same things over and over on a day to day basis. I believe Einstein once said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Well I also believe that doing the same thing over and over will eventually lead you to insanity. I know this because I am a few weeks away from going insane myself…
5. People Ignore You Until They Need You
This is something that makes my job boring, non-rewarding, and makes me straight up hate it. It seems people really do not care much for the IT department unless something goes wrong. They will walk right by my cubicle without even muttering a simple hello. Unless of course, a problem arises. Then a thousand people show up thinking they need to remind me of a system outage that I already knew about and am in the process of trying to fix it.
Conclusion.
Do not get me wrong, their have been a lot of nice people I have met that treated me very well. It is just those few that can really put a damper on your day. And when it starts happening on a daily basis, it really puts a damper on your job as a whole and eventually your life.
Anyone else work in the IT field? Or dislike their job for various reasons? I would love to hear about it.
Published on April 9th, 2008. And don't forget to check out my book, Life After the Cubicle.
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Well, I know in my former department people hated your job too! They were always complaining about IT problems and the long waits and delays with the support line, but wouldn’t think that since all of them are constantly calling IT for help with minor issues it obviously slows everything down.
Personally, I loved calling tech support. I was able to take a nap while I was on hold and then would have some awesome conversations with the person on the other end because I wasn’t demanding and accepted responsibility when it was my fault. In fact, out of 30-40 calls for myself or the work area (mostly for myself forgetting one of my millions of passwords) I only blamed IT once and it was their fault for losing my e-mail during a transition from Lotus Notes to Outlook. I was without e-mail for about a week but other than that one incident I took responsibility and didn’t yell or anything.
I know I’m the exception though, as even the IT people would tell me horror stories about other callers.
Start an IT tech support firm and outsource everything to India, Justin?
yeah i know how you feel i used to do the same sort of thing it done my head in good luck to you lol
“It is hard enough keeping up with all the problems and projects I need to get done. Throwing personal problems on top of it all just overwhelms me”
Uhhhhhhh, where do you write this blog again? Lol. Or are those “projects” such things as SEO and social marketing, hehe.
Spot on – great post! Now all I need to do is forward this to all the muppets that think tech support is a piss-easy job where you get to sit on your butt all day and do nothing.
I’m a web developer but have to provide support to both colleagues and clients and find that anything/everything even remotely IT connected gets dumped on me and if it doesn’t get sorted ASAP no questions asked, it’s all my fault. Clients don’t understand that sometimes we have to wait on 3rd party companies, and like you said.. everything is a priority.
Of course, don’t even get me started on how people treat female tech support, because I’d be here all day!
Sucks to be us I guess
HaHa Jeremy, this is true. I do use some of my time to write this blog, only because getting fired wouldn’t bother me
PS. Did you ever figure out the header you were f*cking with for a week straight?
Justin – if you can handle those 5 reasons and avoid going postal, I see a very bright career path ahead for you.
Just get some ITIL-related certs and begin the climb up the greasy pole away from tech support’s bleeding edge.
Being able to describe, define and defend all these control and change management structures to the great unwashed stakeholders who are paying for it will be a skill much in demand (and very portable internationally too).
Ya think I’m kidding?
Good luck in whatever you decide.
mark mcclure
japan
I got started in Technical Support and I loved it. What I really liked was learning about how our customers used our software. And they truly were appreciative when you helped solve even basic problems. Yeah there are the bad apples of customers out there but they were few and far between.
I would say tech support is one of the worst possible jobs out there – worse than a janitor or a truck driver. You have to work with things that by default don’t work (computers) and are very complex (software) while people complain to you. Programming is better but I would never be able to do it because I hate working with numbers – very boring and sad to me.
Must say I agree with you . It’s a shitty job. It’s so true how people call you only when they need you. If something goes wrong, they will easily point finger at you.
Everyone looks down on you.It’s just so pathetic. Tbh working at a glocery shop seems more nices than working in some shithole financial company where you have 400 users treating like a total crap. Total disrespect.
IT Support Junior and hating it!
Technical support is a job which will kill human spirit brutally. Since modern technology develop so does enduser’s demand. People having problem and they think just call 1-800 and fix it. Ask those how many issue they solve in their life by one toll free call. If people think all are fixable by just dialing 1-800 then world would not have so many problems like resignation Of Huseni Mubarak, North American recession , Palestine issue, divorce and so on.I quit my Tech support job because they used me as a number not as, a human being. I found self-employment is the best even its pay $1500/month compare to shitty tech support. First of all, you do not have to take a shit from a lazy supervisor( fat Albert kind), call monitoring and on the top of that caller shits. Give me break !! let the corporate pets know you do not own me because you pay me only $15 to $18/hour.
Right on Sammy!! I agree with you. Once upon a time I used to work as tech support, one day supervisor get into my nerve and guess what? I showed him my “M” Finger and walked out and Thanks God I did it. Now, I am running my own small business and making much better than whatever they used to pay me. I have no regret including showing finger.
Totally agree, well said. Fuck those whinny bitches – reboot the fucking thing.
I work as a one man IT department in a small company. I’m working here for 4 years and counting but I left a few months ago to try a new IT job in another company, mainly because I was burnt out of IT and though that it would be better. This new job bored me as much as my previous job plus I was paid less. On a monday morning, unhappy customers were yelling at me that things weren’t working properly so I just took my tools and got away. I phoned my previous employer and asked them if I could come back. Without any hesitation, they took me back.
But now I realize that the same pattern is occurring : I find myself in my office/cubicle browsing the internet all day and not doing my workload because it bores me. Coworkers are dumb and don’t know how to use their computer properly. They are not able to find solutions by themselves, they just phone the “IT GUY” (me) as soon as a problem arise. Since I’m the only male here, they ask me to do various stuff like the garbage!
It’s so boring, I’d like to move, walk, run, I don’t know. Anything but sitting in front of a damn computer all day ! I’d like to be a cell tower technician, driving to towers in remote areas all over the country!
I hate most people. In IT, you’re always talking to people you don’t care about things you don’t care.
I totally agree with you.I am currently working in IT support in a comapny.It gets really repitative and you dont get any value or work.I got 5 months left to complete my placement.I will never go back doing this sort of crappy job again.:)
Thanks for this article Justin. It helps me to feel I am not alone suffering burnout in my tech support world. I work for a reseller that supports software. We have thousands of users. Some are “frequent fliers” that are either uneducated or are too lazy to look up information on their own. Some don’t have any business working in the field they are in. Lately, I’ve found myself getting increasingly irritated with the stupid questions. Some of the customers are belligerent. Others can be told the same thing a million times and they still don’t get it. Some refuse to take training because they don’t have the time, yet call every day and force me to train them over the phone. This entire time I must be polite and accommodating to the customer. I’m really trying to find a way around this entire burnout phase. Unfortunately, I simply do not know if it is possible.
It’s like that in any cubicle job. Same with clinical trials, I sooooo hate it! I cannot wait to go to medical school next year. I know for a fact I will never be bored of medicine. It’s not repetitive, I love patients, and I am a science-geek. Not a secretay/slave!
IT Support/PC Support/Desktop Support, call it what you will, has to be the worst IT job going. It’s the real butt-end of IT. You can do a million things right in the job but get just one thing wrong, regardless of whether it’s your fault or not or somewhere in the middle, that is ALL people will remember. Apart from that you have to do very demeaning tasks and crawl under desks so you feel like a total brainless Chimp! Any graduates looking at this post DO NOT enter this field. As if all this wasn’t enough, thanks to rampant immigration and because everyone and their dog can do this role, you find yourself working for less and less money every year. Stear clear of this job!!!
Well, I have to agree.
I do however believe that just about every field, one must start at the bottom and work their way up. Every tech support person’s circumstance is different. I’m in tech support because I find many perks. I’m currently doing remote support for machine that cost upwards of 30K.
Since the user-base for our product is relatively small, I only find myself taking 8-10 issues per day. Because issues can become repetative, each issue really only takes 10 minutes to resolve. That’s about an hour and a half of actual real work per day. I spend the rest of my time at work in freelance website developing and getting my MS. I would have to also say that because I litterally am a support guy for IT people and their company, the people I talk to are competent regarding their product, they are kind, and they show respect.
I guess I would be my exception.
1. Have the world’s biggest computer manufacturer on resume.
2. Only do about 2 hours of actual work per day, 3 hours tops when people call out.
3. Double the income by freelance web developing in the same timeframe while acquiring real-life experience.
3a. Full, unlimited access to the internet w/freedom to bring any personal equipment to the office for the purpose of honing skill.
4. Attain necessary education credentials while being reimbursed by employer.
5. Have access to any technical class/certification literally known to man in IT.
Adding this up( 40K employer salary / 35K freelance work/ free education / Benefits / = Pure Sanity)
Adding all the time(most valuable asset) saved per year = priceless