But it wasn't on a regular basis, right? Just once in a while?
Yes, only once in a while...
It's not just the phones, but moreso having no means to provide support by remote access or even dispatch a technician to the client's or customer's location is what added to the frustrations.
I didn't have any of those problems when I did my Internship.
Your internship was at a highschool?
so you literally walked up to desks? all the users were in the same building and none were remote?
the thing is, businesses aren't like that. most places are going to allow people to work from home, and there is a chance that they'll have IT issues with their machines, that do fall under support, and you may not have a remote access solution, and may have to provide phone support...
also, some schools are not going to be like that so much any more, with schools grouping and pooling resources you may find yourself sat on one site, expected to help the guy trying to connect to the network by phone...
I guess more or less schools or very small business with no work from home opportunities are where you will want to look?
I did apply to a local Internet Provider
but the only time most people call their ISP is when they cant connect there is no possibility of remote support as there is no connection, and you can't send an engineer to every customer!
But, I got nothing back. I believe it had to do with my lack of connections with the Internet Provider companies, and also possibly for not having an A Plus certification. After that I had looked for other work instead, as I can't keep waiting, unemployment checks would eventually run out. I just know that I really would not want to work in the call center type of support again.
sometimes jobs are not what they are advertised as.
As an example I used to work at a university, I decided I needed to move, and applied to work at a different university. I had experience in IT, I had experience in the specific sector. I got flat out rejected. no worries, I got a different job.
a few months after I started another guy started, much less experience, etc.
he had been offered the same university job I applied for they just offered him 5K less than they were advertising it as!
Don't think that there is a certain job anywhere, in that story I applied for a job I was more than qualified and experienced for... what they wanted was an unqualified guy that they could beat down on salary negotiations.
Sometimes things get really difficult to explain over the phone, and then when there's no remote access abilities for support that further adds to the frustrations in my job. I can't see what's on their end, compared to when it's completely direct when I did my internship.
Yep, that's sometimes how it is.
at my first job we had to install software in different languages, (stuff like chinese (double width characters) and hebrew (reads right to left)
sometimes you need to be able to provide support without seeing the screen, sometimes even if you see the screen it might not be helpful. when using different language versions for example, I just had to know where to click, I new what positions the buttons would be in.
when providing remote support, I literally used to close my eyes, try to picture the screen, then say, the third tab along will say "x" you need to click that, etc...
providing that kind of "blind" support is a pain, but it is something that if you can do well you'll be in demand to do it!
You lost me there, why are internal IT not recommended compared to what rulezero suggested?
you said "There was no room for growth and it was a dead end"
I used to work in internal IT, at a small company, you'll likely report to the CEO, maybe 1 guy between you and the CEO. where will growth happen? - there is also a skills issue I'll elaborate on in a bit...
But there's always going to be monotony on the job unless there is a lot of creativity needed right?
I disagree, right now,
I'm sat in a customers office, today, I've touched/configured.
2 Cisco ASA firewalls, 3 Cisco switches, MS Hyper-V core setup, MS server 2012, a couple of Linux squid proxy servers and a syslog server
and I'm in Ireland for this project (I live in England)
this year I've been deploying IT solutions (by travelling) in North America, South America, and Europe, I'll be heading back to North America in a month...
configuring remotely... I've also deployed stuff in Asia, and eastern Europe.
I rose through support to be working on project deployments, and I was at an exciting time product wise.
I was in 3rd line support from 2009 - 2014 sort of time.
and in that time, I touched/configure trouble shooted, NT4 (yes really) windows 2000/2003/XP/Visata,7, server 2012 and the R2 version, and various flavors of linux and UNIX (proper unix)
I've done support on all SQL servers version since version 6.5
and all the exchange versions,
and all the versions of Citrix from metaframe3
and various switches and firewalls, (Cisco/Checkpoint/Watchguard/nokia/Stonegate)
and that's because I don't work for just an internal IT company. I work for a company providing outsources support and consultancy... so today I'm in a windows Centric customer site. next week I'll be done here, and deploying something else somewhere else.
when I was in the support teams, I'd work through tickets, flipping between different server versions and different software versions. possibly looking at multiple combinations in a day...
Not at all monotonous... but not creative either!
How can doing the same stuff day in an day out be completely bad?
it's not bad, it's just not for me...
and as i said your skills get dull.
there are companies out there still running windows 2003 server.
when the tech guy from there wasn't a new job, he may have spent ten years there, but he has no currently relevant experience at all!
you don't want to pigeon hole yourself in a job that you can't get out of because some cheap *** company took all your relevant skills and never developed you.
I do see 2 available open positions that are relevant to IT at my local community college. They could be a similar type of work to my first internship experience.
Do that then! it sounds like you can be enthusiastic about those roles!
But I haven't applied to them yet, and I would rather get up to date and take at least 2 or 3 courses first at this point since I haven't been working in anything relevant to IT for about 5 to 6 years now.
then when you get around to it they'll be gone!
just apply, emphasis your previous relevant experience with your internships. and your customer service skills. and apply...
if you take a long course then the job will be gone by the time you finish, take a short course and it won't make a difference.
you could always write on your CV/resume that you're working towards certification. (and this would be true from day 1 of the course!)
if you find a job that you think is good for you, apply for it.
if you think your CV/Resume is lacking, write a cover letter explaining how enthusiastic you would be for the role.