Have you ever felt like Help Desk has killed your IT aspirations?
### Struggling with a Loss of Drive
– Did you start out in IT with big dreams of certs like A+, CCNA, and Security+?
– Have you found yourself losing passion and drive after working in a help desk role?
– Are you feeling burnt out from the treatment you’ve received while trying to help others?
### Mental Health Concerns
– Is your mental health suffering as a result of your job in IT?
– Have you experienced a breaking point where you lashed out at a customer or supervisor?
– Do you worry about losing your job and how to explain this experience to future employers?
### Moving Forward
– Wondering if it’s worth continuing in IT or if it’s time to pursue a different path?
– Pondering how to navigate finding a new job with only help desk experience on your resume?
Have you ever been a factory worker or car mechanic? Hopefully you have any ideas about other jobs so now you can complain about.
My problem at my help desk isnt the users treating me like garbage. They are actually quite appreciative. My problem is that after 10 months I don’t get enough challenges. 90% of my tickets I solve in 15 minutes if not less. And then if I get stuck I escalate to our systems admin. Which is fine, but I am supposed to bill 30 hours in a 40 hour work week. And I’ve told my boss I cant control how many tickets come in, and he says come to me for more work. So when I do that he takes multiple days to come back with more work to do so I am still not billing 30 hours on the week which leads to more talks with the boss. I feel like I am doing too good a job at times and there is no room for promotion here.
Theres a lot of people in here being like “things can be worse” which is true but I totally get you, i have worked in warehouses , fast food, and still the more I work help desk the harder it is to want to move up. I used to love messing with computers and my home lab, now I never touch it. Seeing how the sausage is made really made me feel different, its just a big hamster wheel with no tangibles to show for it, going to school for geography and will probably take a pay cut to pursue that but i realized my goals and plans and money isn’t a large part of it. All this to say, look at what your goals are and work backwards, if you want a big ole house or want to FIRE then yeah suck it up and get certs and push through, but that’s not what everyone wants and thats okay too.
It’s a right of passage. We all work the desk in some capacity. Keep grinding so you can grow out of it.
In IT there is always a layer of help desk style support whether it be you communicating issues with VPs or you communicating with Joe shmo. You’ll always be getting some kind of kick back or bad treating customers.
The thing is that if they mess up and cuss at you or treat you so poorly all you have to do is stay professional and then end the call. Escalate that to your manager and they’ll have the person reprimanded by their manager, typically, if it’s an employee of the same company.
If it’s a customer then that’s another thing but there’s always escalations. As a manager of someone comes to me with this I’ll set that person straight professionally myself and then notify their manager toot sweet. No one is being mean to my guys for one minute.
Most of us had to wade through and survive help desk swamp. There is no easy path. I took the same route you’re on and after 8 years at 29, I’m 150k plus senior engineer.
Helpdesk should never last longer than 2 years
Sounds like an awful work environment rather than IT being bad. I haven’t really ever had customers/clients treat me badly, at least not on a regular basis. It could also be that there is something wrong with the way you’re handling your support though, hard to really tell without watching you work. Humility goes a long way, and as another commenter suggested, it’s possible that you helping users do (what you think are) simple tasks is something you see as beneath you.
To answer your question though, it’s possible to get another IT job without a reference in your last IT job, I should know since I’ve done exactly that. I was basically asked to leave the company upon asking for a reference, and I explained that to my new employer and they accepted other references instead. Fortunately, I did good work at the new place and was able to get a good reference for my current job.
Dude I work as a security guard at a corporate site a bunch of rich assholes. These people treat me like shit to my face rude as hell your human. But I’m assuming you’ve never been in a shitty job until now lol get those certs. Also learn to not snap on employees I know it’s easier said than done but at least you can move up. The job I’m at you can’t move up you just getting treated like shit and have to deal with it. Don’t let others discourage you from doing better this isn’t going to be the last time you deal with this in life.
Im help desk at a state school and honestly, super chill. I maybe have 1 hour of real work throughout my day.
I didn’t hate help desk, but I will say it gets much better after you leave regardless. This is your motivation to grow, not back away from growing.
As someone who worked 20 years in a kitchen before moving over to IT…. Settle down bro. Your job now until YOU get your certs and experience is to help Karen get her password changed and teams loaded correctly.
We all start somewhere. Work harder than everyone else, be humble, and get that money
Get your certs and get out of hell desk. It sucks and its no secret.
If you are willing to power through and move up to more technical roles you will make alot more money, not take support phone calls, and generally have a much better time.
Source: I started off in a shit 40k helpdesk job to now making 120k working from home in Security.