New Job, Day One...
Apr. 27th, 2004 10:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vaxjediToday was the first day of my new job.
I think it will work out well, but it's going to take some serious shifts in thought on my part.
It's a small company, maybe 60 people total. Although they are owned by a much larger comapny, they are pretty self-contained. I got to meet everyone today. Literally, my new manager took me around to EVERY cube and office and introduced me to everyone - sales, tech support, customer service, IT, HR, Development, etc.
The environment seems to be a lot nicer than Stream. There are people who have happily been working tech support here for 8 years. And there seems to be a lot of room for advancement - my manager said "And this person started out in tech support" at least 8 times during the tour. No security checks at the door (not even a receptionist, actually) - so I can bring in my PDA in my bag. Hell, one of the programmers had burned copies of Starcraft pinned to his cube wall. I won't be allowed to synch up my Visor there, however. And I saw AIM on a few computers.
As an aside, I will not be putting AIM on at work for a long time - I need to focus on getting into the job. And when I do, I MIGHT use a different S/N in order to cut down on the amount of people I would get messages from during the day.
On the down side, there is no real training. There is a trainign period (3-4 weeks) but as far as I can tell, no actual training. My training schedule for tomorrow, for instance, is actually scheduled for about 2 hours of my day. The rest is unscheduled. I spent a few hours today looking for something productive to do so I didn't feel like I was slacking.
And there are no training materials. At least, not for internal use. I will be attending some customer training sessions in a week or two, however. Also, I think my OS skills are pretty rusty - I don't know very much about XP or Win2k networking and there seems to be a lot of that. And work with Windows Terminal Services and EDI technologies.
The problem is, I don't think I'm going to get coherent information on all of that unless I pry it out of the technicians myself. There is a lot of 'tribal knowledge'. And NO knowledge base whatsoever.
This is the first change I'll need to make. I'm used to being quiet and absorbing information when I start something new. I'm not going to get an opportunity to do that - if I'm quiet, no one will tell me anyting, just because they won't think about it.
Second change is I'm going to have to rethink how I think of tech support. First, the same people call in again and again. So much that they know the techs by first name. There is no getting away from the customers - no 'that guy was a jerk, but at least I'll never need to talk to him again'. You'll probably talk to them time after time.
Also, there are no call times. No need to try to fit things into bite sized chunks for Average Handle Time. I've spent so much time under the "help them then get them off your phone" mindset that the idea working all day with a customer just seems alien.
And I'll have to rethink the way I do troubleshooting. I was listening to a call with Mike, who I used to work with at Stream. I was thinking what I would do, what questions would I ask, like "Do you have this and this setting set?" Instead, Mike just set up a desktop-sharing session over the Internet and just fiddled with the guy's system until it worked. I was really floored. I did know they had that, but it didn't even occur to me that I'd actually have a chance to actually SEE what the customer was seeing.
And it's so laid back there. The techs were making mistakes I would have ripped apart as a call coacher for 'being unprofessional'. But it seems standard - and the customer's had no problem with it. No 'customer is always right' and no cowtowing to make the customer happy. They weren't so much being tech support, but rather remote mechanics - and they acted like mechanics.
It's just serious cognitive dissonance. I'm going to have to rebuild a lot of my notions of how a call is run, while building in things that I think are important, like standard troubleshooting.
But it seems so relaxed. People were chattering all of the time. It wasn't hectic. One of the people from my former team at Stream who has been at this company for a year said that this really felt like a vacation after working at Stream. And I can see why. It's so relaxed that I'm having trouble dealing with not being under the gun. It's almost too stressful being so relaxed at work. Work is where you PUSH and PUSH MORE and then PUSH AGAIN. I'm afraid that if it really turns out to be this lax, I'm just going to melt into a puddle of slackitude and never be able to get myself to do anything.
I mean, are workplaces really supposed to not be that nasty? I dunno.
It's going to be different. And I think the transition is going to be tougher on me than I expected. It's just such a different way of working.
I think it will work out well, but it's going to take some serious shifts in thought on my part.
It's a small company, maybe 60 people total. Although they are owned by a much larger comapny, they are pretty self-contained. I got to meet everyone today. Literally, my new manager took me around to EVERY cube and office and introduced me to everyone - sales, tech support, customer service, IT, HR, Development, etc.
The environment seems to be a lot nicer than Stream. There are people who have happily been working tech support here for 8 years. And there seems to be a lot of room for advancement - my manager said "And this person started out in tech support" at least 8 times during the tour. No security checks at the door (not even a receptionist, actually) - so I can bring in my PDA in my bag. Hell, one of the programmers had burned copies of Starcraft pinned to his cube wall. I won't be allowed to synch up my Visor there, however. And I saw AIM on a few computers.
As an aside, I will not be putting AIM on at work for a long time - I need to focus on getting into the job. And when I do, I MIGHT use a different S/N in order to cut down on the amount of people I would get messages from during the day.
On the down side, there is no real training. There is a trainign period (3-4 weeks) but as far as I can tell, no actual training. My training schedule for tomorrow, for instance, is actually scheduled for about 2 hours of my day. The rest is unscheduled. I spent a few hours today looking for something productive to do so I didn't feel like I was slacking.
And there are no training materials. At least, not for internal use. I will be attending some customer training sessions in a week or two, however. Also, I think my OS skills are pretty rusty - I don't know very much about XP or Win2k networking and there seems to be a lot of that. And work with Windows Terminal Services and EDI technologies.
The problem is, I don't think I'm going to get coherent information on all of that unless I pry it out of the technicians myself. There is a lot of 'tribal knowledge'. And NO knowledge base whatsoever.
This is the first change I'll need to make. I'm used to being quiet and absorbing information when I start something new. I'm not going to get an opportunity to do that - if I'm quiet, no one will tell me anyting, just because they won't think about it.
Second change is I'm going to have to rethink how I think of tech support. First, the same people call in again and again. So much that they know the techs by first name. There is no getting away from the customers - no 'that guy was a jerk, but at least I'll never need to talk to him again'. You'll probably talk to them time after time.
Also, there are no call times. No need to try to fit things into bite sized chunks for Average Handle Time. I've spent so much time under the "help them then get them off your phone" mindset that the idea working all day with a customer just seems alien.
And I'll have to rethink the way I do troubleshooting. I was listening to a call with Mike, who I used to work with at Stream. I was thinking what I would do, what questions would I ask, like "Do you have this and this setting set?" Instead, Mike just set up a desktop-sharing session over the Internet and just fiddled with the guy's system until it worked. I was really floored. I did know they had that, but it didn't even occur to me that I'd actually have a chance to actually SEE what the customer was seeing.
And it's so laid back there. The techs were making mistakes I would have ripped apart as a call coacher for 'being unprofessional'. But it seems standard - and the customer's had no problem with it. No 'customer is always right' and no cowtowing to make the customer happy. They weren't so much being tech support, but rather remote mechanics - and they acted like mechanics.
It's just serious cognitive dissonance. I'm going to have to rebuild a lot of my notions of how a call is run, while building in things that I think are important, like standard troubleshooting.
But it seems so relaxed. People were chattering all of the time. It wasn't hectic. One of the people from my former team at Stream who has been at this company for a year said that this really felt like a vacation after working at Stream. And I can see why. It's so relaxed that I'm having trouble dealing with not being under the gun. It's almost too stressful being so relaxed at work. Work is where you PUSH and PUSH MORE and then PUSH AGAIN. I'm afraid that if it really turns out to be this lax, I'm just going to melt into a puddle of slackitude and never be able to get myself to do anything.
I mean, are workplaces really supposed to not be that nasty? I dunno.
It's going to be different. And I think the transition is going to be tougher on me than I expected. It's just such a different way of working.
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no subject
Date: 2004-04-28 06:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-28 06:28 am (UTC)Soon you won't miss that stress a bit.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-28 06:53 am (UTC)People really are capable of self-motivating. It's workplaces like Stream that stifle that. I'm sure you'll be just fine!
no subject
Date: 2004-04-28 07:21 am (UTC)I went through a change very much like that when I moved from Gateway to Unisys. It's all good! I learned so much more from Unisys; there, the chatter you describe would frequently turn to tech topics, and was often INCREDIBLY informative. It was so much nicer to be able to hash out tough problems with the group.
I much prefer the hive-mind approach to a tech support staff. And "Average Handle Time" is pure, unadulterated EVIL.
Mind you, it does take some adjustment, but it is a WONDERFUL thing, once you get used to it.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-28 10:01 am (UTC)It sounds to me like your old employer's approach to customers was pretty sick. The customer is always right approach really doesn't help them. If they were right, they wouldn't be calling you! Of course, you don't want to argue with customers, either, but professionalism doesn't require submission. Remember old Hagbard Celine's aphorism: communication is only possible between equals.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-28 10:11 am (UTC)Ryan
no subject
Date: 2004-04-28 10:22 am (UTC)May it continually be better for you.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-28 10:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-04-29 07:29 pm (UTC)I'm very happy for you, hon. Yes, this is a big change, but it's a good one.
***HUG***
Love you.
Gessi
no subject
Date: 2004-05-11 02:28 am (UTC)Where I work we have exactly that issue.
We've got a bug list that our new tech can search, and a bare bones "FAQ-o-matic" but other than that just about nothing.