Help-Desk Diary.
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| Title: | Help-Desk Diary. |
|---|---|
| Language: | English |
| Authors: | Carlson, Scott |
| Source: | Chronicle of Higher Education. Jun 2003 49(41):A27-A28. |
| Peer Reviewed: | N |
| Page Count: | 2 |
| Publication Date: | 2003 |
| Document Type: | Journal Articles Reports - Descriptive |
| Descriptors: | College Students, Computer Use, Computers, Debugging (Computers), Helping Relationship, Higher Education |
| ISSN: | 0009-5982 |
| Abstract: | Describes how, at the University of Denver's technology services office, electronically savvy students solve problems from sticky keyboards to lost passwords. (EV) |
| Entry Date: | 2003 |
| Accession Number: | EJ669962 |
| Database: | ERIC |
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| FullText | Text: Availability: 1 Value: <anid>AN0010107036;crn20jun.03;2003Jun26.17:07;v2.0</anid> <jsection id="AN0010107036-1"> INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY</jsection> <title id="AN0010107036-2">Help-Desk Diary </title> <sbt id="AN0010107036-3">Tech-savvy students learn people skills and patience by solving campus computer problems</sbt> <p>Dateline: DENVER </p> <p>THE PHONE RINGS. It's an urgent electronic chirping, and it announces the start of the workday at the University of Denver's University Technology Services help desk. Andrew Chan began his shift only one minute ago, and has barely had time to dig into a plastic foam tray filled with pancakes, melon cubes, and hard-boiled eggs.</p> <p>"See, this is what happens," he says, looking at the clock above his desk. "It's 8:01 and we're already getting calls."</p> <p>"I love it when they start calling at 7:59," says Theresa Johnson, who sits in a nearby cubicle and is on another call.</p> <p>Mr. Chan picks up the handset and his voice goes from cynical to silky smooth: "UTS help desk, this is Andrew. May I help you?" The caller has forgotten his password, a problem frequently handled here. Mr. Chan calls up the student's file. He can see the student's name, identification number, and Social Security number, and he could examine the student's mail and computer records if he needed to.</p> <p>This is a problem easily fixed. Mr. Chan's spidery fingers race across the keyboard, and in seconds the student has a new password and is sent on his way. It's one of the first transactions completed in a fairly easy day, in which help-desk staffers will answer 82 phone calls and meet 12 walk-in customers.</p> <p>At the help desk, which is staffed by students, calls come in all day long from other students, professors, teaching assistants, and the aides to top administrators. The problems are myriad. Pick any kind of computer crisis you can think of, and these students have probably dealt with it. Requests to fix, change, or create passwords make up more than half of the calls, but the help-desk employees can also spend time helping desperate professors with PowerPoint presentations and rescuing dissertations from the electronic netherworld.</p> <p>Students and professors also come in to the office with complaints -- laptops with flickering screens, keyboards sticky with orange-juice residue, even mysterious glitches, possibly the work of supernatural phenomena. Many visitors and callers are polite, but often enough, help-desk staff members hear barrages of cussing. "We're the front line, so if something goes wrong, we're the first to know, and we get blamed for everything," Mr. Chan says.</p> <p>Students at many institutions could identify with Mr. Chan. Help desks are frequently staffed by students, who can provide their colleges technological wizardry at cheap rates. All seem to share a common experience with the grind of the job, the difficult calls, and the opportunity to learn both technical and people skills. "A lot of people flip out when a little error message pops up," says Sara Barthol, who worked on the help desk at Susquehanna University until she graduated this spring. "Being able to calm them down really helps, because I can use that in future jobs."</p> <p>The help-desk office at the University of Denver sits behind glass on the first floor of the university's main library, near a bank of computers that students use to write papers and check e-mail messages. The office is brightly lit and spare. The student employees get through their shifts on ramen and instant coffee, stocked near a water cooler in one corner.</p> <p>Shannon P. Valerio, who manages the university's help desk, says her student employees see it as a boot camp that trains them in customer service and pumps them full of technical know-how. Students compete for the jobs for the challenge and experience they offer, although the money is no better than they could find in other campus jobs. They start out making $8 an hour, with nominal raises.</p> <p>The help-desk employees staff the phones from 8 to 5 on weekdays, and offer walk-in help on some days until 2 in the morning. In a month, the office can field 4,000 phone calls and 400 e-mail messages. In addition, more than 3,000 people walk in every year toting malfunctioning laptops and other hardware. On a recent day when the University of Denver was hit by a computer virus and Internet problems, the help desk got about 180 calls and 34 walk-ins. At the beginning of the academic year, when accounts are being set up, the desk can field more than 300 calls a day.</p> <p>As part of the job, help-desk denizens patiently teach students and professors about their equipment, and they absorb some abuse along the way. "Some days they must feel beat up," says Ms. Valerio. "You get angry professors who have a problem and a class in 10 minutes. When e-mail goes down, people will call in cussing. Sometimes they are so bad we will keep the messages on the voice mail and say, Listen to this!"</p> <p>"We're careful when we hire here about looking for people who are going to fit in," she says. She looks not only for students with technical ability, but also for those with agreeable personalities. She needs people who are outgoing but not pushy, confident but not arrogant, and who are willing to admit when they don't know the solution to a problem. She doesn't want employees who will charge in and accidentally erase swaths of a student's hard drive.</p> <p>"That is hard for a lot of these kids, because they don't want to admit that they don't know something," she says. "A lot of them come from cultures where you talk yourself up. You show what you know, and you push your way in. I think that is a warning sign."</p> <p>Mr. Chan, a deft computer-science student from Taiwan, is thought of around the office as a master of people skills. His e-mail messages to clients are clear and polite, and his phone manner is gracious, even under pressure. This morning, those skills are put to the test.</p> <p>The phone rings. Half-eaten pancakes at his side, Mr. Chan turns down the volume of the European techno music streaming from a nearby iMac and snatches up the handset. The professor on the other end of the line sounds like he's near retirement. For many years now he's been using an out-of-date e-mail program that the university doesn't support anymore -- one that Mr. Chan knows little about. The professor woke up this morning and found his e-mail account wasn't working. Both of the university's full-time e-mail gurus are at a conference in Hawaii. The professor presses Mr. Chan for help.</p> <p>"The biggest problem we have is from professors," says James Nguyen, another help-desk employee who is standing over Mr. Chan's desk, watching the call. Faculty members, accustomed to being a source of information, sometimes become peevish when they have to ask a student for help. They sometimes try to bluff their way through discussions of technical details, obscuring real problems that are more difficult. "They think, How could a student know more than me?" Mr. Nguyen says.</p> <p>The professor in this case is a type frequently encountered: one comfortable in outdated technology -- that is, until it breaks. Mr. Chan puts the professor on hold and asks for help from his colleagues. Mr. Nguyen says curtly, "He's going to have to use something that is supported if he wants help on campus."</p> <p>"Why do I always have to be the bad guy?" Mr. Chan moans, but he gets back on the phone and delivers the message in a voice that is direct yet soothing and empathetic.</p> <p>The phone rings. The caller is a student whose Internet account has been shut down by university administrators. "This guy has been a bad boy," Mr. Chan says after looking at the account and putting the student on hold for a moment. Although he has no details, Mr. Chan can tell that the account was suspended for some infraction, like hacking, transmitting pornography, or worse.</p> <p>"He seems a little anxious," Mr. Chan says. "Even if we know why the account was locked, we're not supposed to say anything." Mr. Chan politely plays dumb when he gets back on the phone, even when the student persistently presses him for information.</p> <p>"I wouldn't know what happened or for what reason your account was locked," Mr. Chan says as he prepares to transfer the call to the central computing office. The student keeps pushing. "Really," Mr. Chan continues. "There's nothing I can do for you."</p> <p>Mr. Chan is perhaps the ideal help-desk employee. He works efficiently under pressure, handles delicate situations with tact, allays fears, and puts out fires. He treats people with respect, even when they aren't respectful back. He is especially mindful about respecting the privacy of the callers. Through his job, he could read other people's e-mail, pair names with Social Security numbers and other important data, and even peek at online activity.</p> <p>"Most people don't know that we can get into their account, but at least I know what I'm doing is right," he says, adding that there has been some talk among administrators about limiting this access. If too many restrictions were applied, "from a troubleshooting standpoint, that would create a problem. Everyone who works here has shown that they can be trusted." He adds that all of his explorations into other accounts are monitored, and violating someone's privacy would lead to getting fired.</p> <p>The help desk's code of conduct emphasizes the need for smooth interactions with student and staff "customers." Another afternoon, Mr. Nguyen is pondering an e-mail message the help desk has received from a particularly technology-savvy student. The student sent in an essay on the inanity of the university's requiring passwords to be at least eight characters long.</p> <p>Mr. Nguyen and Gohar Sargsyan, one of the student managers of the help desk, spend several minutes discussing in serious tones how to answer this note. Mr. Nguyen offers an opening line: "We could write something like, 'The policy might seem ridiculous to you, but we can't accommodate everyone."</p> <p>"No, you don't want to give it a bad tone," Ms. Sargsyan says. "Go with something more like, 'Thank you for your feedback. The university has given this policy great consideration, and we have decided that this policy will protect everyone.'"</p> <hd id="AN0010107036-4"> BLOWING OFF STEAM </hd> <p>Help-desk communications, whether on the phone or online, are always polite and formal. "We try never to be informal, except with friends," Mr. Nguyen says.</p> <p>However, when a caller is on hold, or after a call is over, the help-desk employees cut the tension and frustration with dark humor. The practice is allowed, even encouraged, by Ms. Valerio. "We let them vent," she says. "They'll say some sarcastic remark that they would really like to tell a guy in an e-mail. There is nothing wrong with them getting it off their chest."</p> <p>"The fun begins when we put the phone down," says Nitin Gumaste, who has worked at the help desk for three years. "Sometimes it's the simplest things, but you don't know if you should laugh or cry. A lot of frustration gets washed away with humor. It's cruel, but it's the only way that you can deal with your job."</p> <p>The phone rings. Mr. Nguyen answers, and recognizes the voice from a call the day before. The caller is the technical-support staff member for one of the departments at the university, and she is having trouble hooking printers up to the department's computers. Yesterday, Mr. Nguyen referred her to the university's central-computing office, which schedules support visits to the departments. Now, she's calling again, pretending she has never called the help desk before. Mr. Nguyen calmly gives the same recommendation he gave yesterday.</p> <p>He puts down the handset and shakes his head. "That's the most frustrating thing -- people who don't listen," he complains, as sarcasm rises in his voice. "It's like, 'Hi, I'm the tech guy for my department, and I'm totally unqualified.'"</p> <p>Ms. Johnson joins the brewing gripe session. She has recently finished sending an e-mail message to a user -- a message nearly identical to one she had sent to the same user days before. The user simply hadn't bothered to read the first closely. "Yeah," she says, "it's like, 'Hi, I didn't read the whole message. Sorry, but I'm a dumbass.'"</p> <p>Easier jobs at the university pay more -- employees in the copy center, just down the hall, start at $8.50 an hour -- but help-desk troops say they get a valuable mix of training in people skills and technology. "The only way to learn how something works is to break it, and you have a whole university here to break things for you," says Mr. Nguyen, a freshman computer-science major. "People do things I would never think of. There are parts of operating systems that I never knew existed until these people started messing around with them."</p> <p>The help-desk positions are particularly valuable to one segment of the university population: international students. Government regulations bar foreign students from getting work-study jobs, a common source of income for American students. For foreign students pursuing technical degrees, the help desk is one of the few places that they can work and get training at the same time.</p> <p>The office décor reflects the character of the staff. A map of the world hangs on one wall, with red dots marking the countries that the help-desk employees call home: India, Kuwait, Malaysia, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Tajikstan, Vietnam, along with Denver and other places in America. A news clipping taped to a whiteboard carries the ominous headline, "Mandatory international student tracking system to begin in fall."</p> <p>The phone rings. Kristina Petrosyan picks it up. A professor is having trouble with her e-mail program, and asks Ms. Petrosyan to talk her through setting it up, step by step.</p> <p>Ms. Petrosyan, a master's student in information science, holds a degree in English from Armenia, where she grew up. Soon after she enrolled at the University of Denver, she started showing up at the help desk every week, asking about a job. "It's really competitive," she says. As a foreign student, she can only work 20 hours a week, but that's enough time to apply what she learns in the classroom to practical situations. She plans to bring these skills back to Armenia.</p> <p>"In Armenia, unemployment is high and yet the work force is skilled," she says. Technology in her country is just emerging. "Five years ago, only offices had computers," she adds. "Now a family with an average income can afford one."</p> <p>And although her experience with technology will doubtless prove valuable in that market, she says the main skill she is learning here is how to deal with people. "It might be the end of the day, and you don't want to talk anymore, but you have to maintain your professionalism," she says.</p> <p>The call from the professor is putting her to the test. Ms. Petrosyan is on the phone for well over an hour -- far past the end of her daily shift. Halfway through the conversation, she puts the professor on hold so she can punch her timecard and not exceed her 20-hour-a-week limit. But she refuses to rush the professor off the phone.</p> <p>Near the end of the call, when the program seems to be working, Ms. Petrosyan suggests that if the professor has more trouble with her program, she should call again later in the day. The professor asks if Ms. Petrosyan will help her then.</p> <p>"No," Ms. Petrosyan says, and her composure finally cracks with a frustrated laugh. "I'm not going to be here."</p> <hd id="AN0010107036-5">Passwords, Networks, and Hardware: Calls to a Help Desk</hd> <p>The University Technology Services help desk at the University of Denver fields several thousand calls a month on a range of topics. Here is the kind of help those callers generally need:</p> <p>• 50 percent of the calls concern password problems (like creating a new password or fixing a password that doesn't work).</p> <p>• 25 percent of the calls deal with account-management issues (like problems with getting access to an account or dealing with accounts that are running out of allotted disk space).</p> <p>• 12 to 15 percent of the calls are about issues with dial-up Internet services or general network problems.</p> <p>• 10 percent of the calls deal with trouble with Blackboard's course-management software, which is used widely at the university.</p> <p>• A small number of callers request phone help with malfunctioning hardware. A sample question along those lines: "I spilled soda on my laptop computer--is that bad?"</p> <p>SOURCE: Chronicle reporting</p> <p>PHOTO (COLOR): Help-desk staff members at the U. of Denver take a break in the technology-services office.</p> <p>PHOTO (COLOR): James Nguyen, help-desk employee: "The biggest problem we have is from professors."</p> <aug> <p>By Scott Carlson</p> </aug> |
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