Greetings friends!
I’m a long time lurker and it’s about time I share one of my most recent stories. I apologize for the length!
I started a new IT help desk job just two weeks ago this past Friday. The previous lady that was there for 30 some years ended up retiring and they had to replace her. I’m going to refer to my coworkers as A and B. I asked coworker A why they didn’t hire someone to shadow her before she retired, they said it was due to funds. Now, I’m no stranger to IT help desk, but I’ve been shadowing two different people just to learn their damn finicky as fuck processes.
First of all, when I started they did some basic setup but as I was starting to learn their processes, they kept realizing they forgot to give me access to basically everything. They were not prepared at all for my onboarding.
So as I’m shadowing each guy every other day on my first week (they rotate wfh) they’re showing me how their process works. Here’s a small sample:
First, they’re wanting you to log every minute of how long it takes on each ticket. If it’s a call, they want you to figure it out at least 99% of the time before handing it off from a team of 3 (soon to be 2, stay tuned) help desk people to a team of 4 analysts. Which by the way, one of the analysts put their notice in, so it’ll soon be a team of 3.
Next, they have these request forms that people fill out for new hires, changes, or people leaving. Seems harmless right? Nope, they want you to create a “master” ticket then each check box in this document will force you to make sub tickets. Ok ok, that doesn’t seem so bad, right? Nope because I was shadowing coworker B and he ended up making 5 tickets from one form with no check boxes so I asked “how do you know if it’s going to create tickets if there’s no checks?” He replied “you have to be smarter than the people filling out the form”…. Ok.. that’s all fine for someone that’s been there for 15+ years but.. for someone new uhhhhh that’s kinda bullshit.
So the first week breezes by and I was only shadowing. They did not tell me to start doing anything quite that week yet but they had me fill out a couple of these request forms. Here’s where it gets kinda weird, coworker A decided to give his notice, so now only 1 week in, I’m seeing 2 people jump ship in the department. I asked both coworker A and the analyst as they were chatting on why they were leaving, they gave various excuses besides blaming the workplace. Well lol as I started working my 2nd week, I’m starting to overhear how overwhelmed and overworked the department is.
So, my boss decided since coworker A was jumping ship that I should start going on the phones, creating those work request tickets, and taking tickets right away the 2nd week. Coworker A is also the only one I could shadow my second week because Coworker B was on vacation for the week.
So I started that process all by myself (coworker A didn’t really come over to help). Keep in mind I still only know about 20% of their system along with my basic IT knowledge, so I couldn’t understand how to answer certain emails or calls. Nothing is documented very well either. Anyway, I’d either leave the emails in the bin for someone else to take or create the call ticket then ask what to do for the tickets I didn’t understand. I was really proud of myself for doing not a ton of tickets but enough to feel a little confident that I was helping.
I thought everything was going OK considering the circumstances they put me in until my boss (that’s been away basically this whole time) called late in the day last Friday. Now, he is a decent boss and a real genuine guy so I don’t have much of a problem with him. He asked how everything was going and I told him it was busy and I took what I could but disclaimed that I still didn’t know how they ran their place and didn’t want to scramble their processes they have set. My boss said that was great and he was happy to see I was taking some tickets already. How ever… he said coworker A that I had to shadow all week told him I was going slower than they thought. My boss followed up with “but quality is better than quantity right now anyway”. Boy did that sting me. I was hurt. I’m doing my best and it’s not good enough?? I’ve only been here for two weeks people. Give me a fuckin break.
So the last hour of the day my (coworker A wasn’t even there to help) I started taking tons of tickets and emailing each one I didn’t know what to do “hi, how do you handle this here?” to coworkers A and B. There was about 15 total emails by the time the day was done. Coworker A came back saw these emails I sent and said “wow, looks like you have a lot of questions coworker B can teach you” and I said “well yeah, someone’s going to have to” all annoyed.
They want me to go faster? Ahh fine, but be prepared for an email shitstorm from the newbie on top of all the other shit flooding in!
To top it all off with sprinkles and a cherry, they want me to start on call 3 months in (when it’s supposed to be 6 months in) and they have me 2 weeks back to back! Then, they also are making me park in this ramp that’s like 15 minutes away from my actual work instead of giving me the nice parking passes the whole IT department has. For some reason, I can’t have coworker A’s, the analyst’s, or the retired lady’s pass! Shit even the contractor and the intern has one which allows parking in the section not even a 1 minute walk away from the department. (This one makes me extra salty).
TL;DR: been at my job for two weeks, shadowed 2 different people for a week, sat me down at my desk on week two (on my own w/ no one watching me work) and said “start working”. Boss called and said a coworker said I was going slower than they thought.