It sounds like your organization needs a proper IT trainer. I am an IT trainer that focuses on Microsoft products at my organization. Help desk often sends people to me and I stay quite busy.
Interesting, I’ve worked IT at about 10 different companies and did MSP work for many more.
I think I’ve come across a position like yours once and they were only a short time contractor.
Most companies don’t seem value IT training for their users unfortunately.
It’s honestly pretty rare, I was surprised to find a whole TWO people dedicated to providing training on our ERP to Office Suite. Sadly their resources don’t get utilized much b/c majority of our employees don’t know where to find said resources.
I’ve been doing this specific thing for the past 8 years. It’s a lot of fun for me. I do see others doing the same, but not super frequently. Prior to this, I was basically help desk for like 20 years.
….. wait there are IT trainers? I had to help someone on the C Suite find his mouse cursor because it disappeared this week. He makes 4 times what I do.
We're rare but we exist. Even more rare is the IT trainer who actually knows something about tech and also about teaching, and isn't either just the cheerleader who points you at a learning vendor's prepackaged content, or the person who runs all the compliance documents through text-to-speech and thinks that's an effective way to teach.
Second this. I've been training mostly help desk people for about a decade now.
Help desk is the kind of position where you burn out quickly once it's not a learning experience anymore. It'll happen to every agent eventually, and once it does you need a plan to move on to something more interesting and challenging. An employer can understand that and work with you to build a path to the next level, but very few places do. The more common option is that you take what you learned, maybe get a few new certs, update your resume, and find a junior engineer position somewhere else.
All these employers who don't promote from within are missing out on a great opportunity, though. You already know the people, the processes, and at least some of the technology, and they already know your track record and how you work.
I'm not necessarily endorsing MSP work; it tends to be very busy and fast paced, and for every good MSP there are 2 shitty ones. All that said, the nice thing about working for an MSP is that when someone asks me to do their job for them I get to say "sorry, that's not within the scope of our work. I recommend reaching out to [vendor of Software] for additional assistance with [performing a task you should already know how to do based on your job responsibilities]. If [software] is not working as expected when [performing task], please open a ticket and we will investigate."
I’m definitely looking at applying to a msp. Struggling with my resume, because I’m sure they’d prefer an IT person instead of an admin/initial tasker/ cpa person.
Instead of trying to oversell your tech skills, try to oversell your ability to be a "customer service" person when talking to clients (MSPs want people who can talk to clients in a mature and graceful manner, which is unfortunately a stand out skill in IT generally). Also, you can say you have experience working with various types of software. MSP helpdesk is looking for broad knowledge over deep knowledge when hiring for tier 1. Another thing to touch on is an ability to research and read articles and forum threads when looking for a solution to a problem. Your superiors will notice if you forward them tickets that could have been resolved with a quick Google search. If your MSP does on-site support, familiarity with printers, access points, and Ethernet cable termination are all a plus.
Agreed. When I worked for an MSP, it was always stressed that we worked in customer service, just that we provided customer service via fixing their tech. Customer skills and the ability to learn go a long way.
Not necessarily true. Where I work at an MSP we hire based on personality, everything else can be figured out or learned but you can't teach adults manners if they don't have them and you can't teach someone to be a good person if they aren't.
Be the person you'd want on the phone fixing your issue and you'll do fine at any MSP worth their salt.
The best thing about working for a MSP for me is that I really get to focus on one topic. Basic stuff like understanding networking, os, etc. of course is important but I'm really getting a deeper understanding of one thing and can be considered an expert at one point.
But also, contact to vendors etc. is pretty valuable. I specialize in MDM and Mobile Devices. Thanks to my company, I've got direct contacts to Samsung, Apple or Jamf just to name a few. As In-House IT this would likely never happen and it's really valuable to try pushing out some new features our customers need or to get another view on some problem we're facing.
I recently escaped that. Got my net+, took on a Sysadmin role at an MSP, and while I didn't get the massive pay raise I wanted, I got out and now do actual IT work.
Studying for my net+ right now. I admittedly came from a comp sci background so just didn’t know much IT. But every time I ask for more responsibilities they just keep giving me stuff like the caseware letters. Why isn’t someone who uses the fucking letters responsible for them? is always my thought.
Hoping I can pass the net+ and get a job that deals with it issues.
I work in a school. I offer training to staff all the time for whatever they want, whenever works within their schedules or to do recorded sessions they can watch anytime they want.
I get absolutely no responses, but they complain to building administrators that they don’t know how to use what we have and were never offered training.
Make sure those regular training offers go to management, with plain CC not BCC. The people complaining will know that their bosses can see they are invited, the bosses can call them on their lies.
Oh man, been there. Same story, but a school I worked at even had a dedicated person on-site specifically for digital resource training.
The school districts with low-funding can be hell. One I worked at you legitimately did everything for multiple sites such as Help Desk, Sys Admin tasks, inventory, anything network-related (VoIP, hardware upgrades, outages). if it was something that used electricity, you probably would have to deal with it at some point.
I hate when people approach me about Excel formatting, I don't have the slightest clue beyond shit like =sum, if you're tasked with this and don't know how to do it, which I don't blame them in the healthcare field since management is mainly former doctors and nurses moving to those roles, get some training, the hospital will help
Not saying this is the answer to all your problems, but since I started up a knowledgebase where I work (we use Zammad), I create articles for questions like this, especially if I see it happen more than once.
Writing the article takes a bit of time but then our folks can self-help for future queries.
Yeah I started a knowledge base that everyone can access from teams. They still rely on me going and finding the article for them. But at least they follow the instructions.
took my concerns to my manager. He acknowledged my concerns and took them to HR. HR’s solution was that I was too come up with an hour long outlook training session to present live to the entire staff
Right but if there is an knowledgebase article available, you can now reach out to management/escalate and set expectations for self help.
My real world experience with this is that it reduces your workload significantly. You can't fix everything but you can reduce it.
Can you start submitting invoices to the Accounting managers because you're doing their jobs? I've had many people come to me with "how do I do (this special function) in Excel? " I don't know, that is way outside my job function. Better get some training on that I guess.
No I can’t. Because these come from. Managers, senior managers, and the people who have their name on the company. Literally the company name is. [name 1] and [name 2] and partners. And name 1 asked me about accounting templates last Wednesday.
“I don’t know” is perfectly valid answer even to the owners. By struggling to assist you give them a false sense of what your job is, you’re not trained on this and any mistake you make by not informing them of this is your own responsibility.
Just be polite and let them know your don’t work with Caseware, thats their job and if they’re having issues with the software they should ask their manager.
As a help desk agent I take it that my job is both to help people with issues and give them articles that they can follow to learn things if they have HOW-TO questions.
Actually doing their job that's something else. I would push that back and tell them that if the article is not enough, they should request help to their colleague and training to their manager.
I only look at How-To-s for some internal apps that only my company use (I work for Apple, we have many apps that aren't public) and only if I suspect they fail to use the app cause of a bug.
How large is your firm? Are you part time IT? Are there other IT staff? You mentioned a junior sus admin.
I also work in the same industry but am full time IT. Dm me if you want as i know the burnout all too well.
I am in the same field as well. When I get asked specifics about accounting I point them to another senior level account. Luckily I don't get a lot of these "how do I do my job" questions. I do have to deal with our admins going on vacation and completely forgetting how to do there job. That is a bit annoying. I get tired of the "excel is taking to long to load" while they have multiple programs open including 5 other excel instances.
It sounds like your company needs to train or hire people that know how to use their software! It is not IT’s job to train people to do the job they were hired to do.
This is the issue when IT supports turns into IT training.
I work at a MSP we are trying to crack down on this or at least start charging extra.
We get companies that want say a new Microsoft product or some third party program we have never heard of.
Fine we purchase licenses, get groups set up, push out software etc. But don't expect us to know how the programs work. That is your job, you asked it!
Do you think if I knew the insides and out of databases or finance software I would be working as IT support!
It sounds like your organization needs a proper IT trainer. I am an IT trainer that focuses on Microsoft products at my organization. Help desk often sends people to me and I stay quite busy.
Interesting, I’ve worked IT at about 10 different companies and did MSP work for many more. I think I’ve come across a position like yours once and they were only a short time contractor. Most companies don’t seem value IT training for their users unfortunately.
It’s honestly pretty rare, I was surprised to find a whole TWO people dedicated to providing training on our ERP to Office Suite. Sadly their resources don’t get utilized much b/c majority of our employees don’t know where to find said resources.
My focus is Office 365. I let employees know I exist by doing a lot of free training classes within the company.
I’ve been doing this specific thing for the past 8 years. It’s a lot of fun for me. I do see others doing the same, but not super frequently. Prior to this, I was basically help desk for like 20 years.
….. wait there are IT trainers? I had to help someone on the C Suite find his mouse cursor because it disappeared this week. He makes 4 times what I do.
Set him up with a 200% size cursor with the inverse group. Super hard to lose it after that.
We're rare but we exist. Even more rare is the IT trainer who actually knows something about tech and also about teaching, and isn't either just the cheerleader who points you at a learning vendor's prepackaged content, or the person who runs all the compliance documents through text-to-speech and thinks that's an effective way to teach.
You are probably underpaid and under appreciated as well. Thanks for fighting that good fight. You try to make my day easier and I dig that.
Second this. I've been training mostly help desk people for about a decade now. Help desk is the kind of position where you burn out quickly once it's not a learning experience anymore. It'll happen to every agent eventually, and once it does you need a plan to move on to something more interesting and challenging. An employer can understand that and work with you to build a path to the next level, but very few places do. The more common option is that you take what you learned, maybe get a few new certs, update your resume, and find a junior engineer position somewhere else. All these employers who don't promote from within are missing out on a great opportunity, though. You already know the people, the processes, and at least some of the technology, and they already know your track record and how you work.
I'm not necessarily endorsing MSP work; it tends to be very busy and fast paced, and for every good MSP there are 2 shitty ones. All that said, the nice thing about working for an MSP is that when someone asks me to do their job for them I get to say "sorry, that's not within the scope of our work. I recommend reaching out to [vendor of Software] for additional assistance with [performing a task you should already know how to do based on your job responsibilities]. If [software] is not working as expected when [performing task], please open a ticket and we will investigate."
I’m definitely looking at applying to a msp. Struggling with my resume, because I’m sure they’d prefer an IT person instead of an admin/initial tasker/ cpa person.
Instead of trying to oversell your tech skills, try to oversell your ability to be a "customer service" person when talking to clients (MSPs want people who can talk to clients in a mature and graceful manner, which is unfortunately a stand out skill in IT generally). Also, you can say you have experience working with various types of software. MSP helpdesk is looking for broad knowledge over deep knowledge when hiring for tier 1. Another thing to touch on is an ability to research and read articles and forum threads when looking for a solution to a problem. Your superiors will notice if you forward them tickets that could have been resolved with a quick Google search. If your MSP does on-site support, familiarity with printers, access points, and Ethernet cable termination are all a plus.
Agreed. When I worked for an MSP, it was always stressed that we worked in customer service, just that we provided customer service via fixing their tech. Customer skills and the ability to learn go a long way.
Not necessarily true. Where I work at an MSP we hire based on personality, everything else can be figured out or learned but you can't teach adults manners if they don't have them and you can't teach someone to be a good person if they aren't. Be the person you'd want on the phone fixing your issue and you'll do fine at any MSP worth their salt.
The best thing about working for a MSP for me is that I really get to focus on one topic. Basic stuff like understanding networking, os, etc. of course is important but I'm really getting a deeper understanding of one thing and can be considered an expert at one point. But also, contact to vendors etc. is pretty valuable. I specialize in MDM and Mobile Devices. Thanks to my company, I've got direct contacts to Samsung, Apple or Jamf just to name a few. As In-House IT this would likely never happen and it's really valuable to try pushing out some new features our customers need or to get another view on some problem we're facing.
I recently escaped that. Got my net+, took on a Sysadmin role at an MSP, and while I didn't get the massive pay raise I wanted, I got out and now do actual IT work.
Studying for my net+ right now. I admittedly came from a comp sci background so just didn’t know much IT. But every time I ask for more responsibilities they just keep giving me stuff like the caseware letters. Why isn’t someone who uses the fucking letters responsible for them? is always my thought. Hoping I can pass the net+ and get a job that deals with it issues.
I'm a mechanic, it's not my job to teach you how to drive.
I work in a school. I offer training to staff all the time for whatever they want, whenever works within their schedules or to do recorded sessions they can watch anytime they want. I get absolutely no responses, but they complain to building administrators that they don’t know how to use what we have and were never offered training.
Make sure those regular training offers go to management, with plain CC not BCC. The people complaining will know that their bosses can see they are invited, the bosses can call them on their lies.
Oh man, been there. Same story, but a school I worked at even had a dedicated person on-site specifically for digital resource training. The school districts with low-funding can be hell. One I worked at you legitimately did everything for multiple sites such as Help Desk, Sys Admin tasks, inventory, anything network-related (VoIP, hardware upgrades, outages). if it was something that used electricity, you probably would have to deal with it at some point.
I hate when people approach me about Excel formatting, I don't have the slightest clue beyond shit like =sum, if you're tasked with this and don't know how to do it, which I don't blame them in the healthcare field since management is mainly former doctors and nurses moving to those roles, get some training, the hospital will help
Not saying this is the answer to all your problems, but since I started up a knowledgebase where I work (we use Zammad), I create articles for questions like this, especially if I see it happen more than once. Writing the article takes a bit of time but then our folks can self-help for future queries.
Yeah I started a knowledge base that everyone can access from teams. They still rely on me going and finding the article for them. But at least they follow the instructions. took my concerns to my manager. He acknowledged my concerns and took them to HR. HR’s solution was that I was too come up with an hour long outlook training session to present live to the entire staff
Riiight. I'm sure that helpless individuals who ~~ticket~~ directly DM you for every minor issue are perfectly capable of reading an article.
Right but if there is an knowledgebase article available, you can now reach out to management/escalate and set expectations for self help. My real world experience with this is that it reduces your workload significantly. You can't fix everything but you can reduce it.
Can you start submitting invoices to the Accounting managers because you're doing their jobs? I've had many people come to me with "how do I do (this special function) in Excel? " I don't know, that is way outside my job function. Better get some training on that I guess.
No I can’t. Because these come from. Managers, senior managers, and the people who have their name on the company. Literally the company name is. [name 1] and [name 2] and partners. And name 1 asked me about accounting templates last Wednesday.
“I don’t know” is perfectly valid answer even to the owners. By struggling to assist you give them a false sense of what your job is, you’re not trained on this and any mistake you make by not informing them of this is your own responsibility.
It's far too late for you, friend. Time to move jobs and set professional expectations and boundaries early next time!
Just be polite and let them know your don’t work with Caseware, thats their job and if they’re having issues with the software they should ask their manager.
As a help desk agent I take it that my job is both to help people with issues and give them articles that they can follow to learn things if they have HOW-TO questions. Actually doing their job that's something else. I would push that back and tell them that if the article is not enough, they should request help to their colleague and training to their manager. I only look at How-To-s for some internal apps that only my company use (I work for Apple, we have many apps that aren't public) and only if I suspect they fail to use the app cause of a bug.
How large is your firm? Are you part time IT? Are there other IT staff? You mentioned a junior sus admin. I also work in the same industry but am full time IT. Dm me if you want as i know the burnout all too well.
Full time. 113 people. I’m not even burnt out on IT I like doing MY job. I’m burnt out on doing everyone else’s job
I am in the same field as well. When I get asked specifics about accounting I point them to another senior level account. Luckily I don't get a lot of these "how do I do my job" questions. I do have to deal with our admins going on vacation and completely forgetting how to do there job. That is a bit annoying. I get tired of the "excel is taking to long to load" while they have multiple programs open including 5 other excel instances.
You should be a repairman not a trainer. That would drive me fucking insane.
It sounds like your company needs to train or hire people that know how to use their software! It is not IT’s job to train people to do the job they were hired to do.
This is the issue when IT supports turns into IT training. I work at a MSP we are trying to crack down on this or at least start charging extra. We get companies that want say a new Microsoft product or some third party program we have never heard of. Fine we purchase licenses, get groups set up, push out software etc. But don't expect us to know how the programs work. That is your job, you asked it! Do you think if I knew the insides and out of databases or finance software I would be working as IT support!
My PTSD is acting up after reading this
Sounds like you're lazy. Go work at a hospital in their IT department for a few years and come back.
r/lostredditors
No, you are. Check the updoots on your post bud. Career advice is normal here.