Since most (both?)people that read this are at least ex-tech support...

[jimbo_the_gecko]

I am really just not cut out to be technical support.
I mean, I'm a good troubleshooter and all and I'm good at communicating and I've very customer-oriented. But the last time I worked as tech support was a long time ago. SInce then I've actually been "the customer" and I now appreciate what it is like to be stuck on a rough job site, sitting on

Comments

[jimbo_the_gecko]

I just got a haircut, so I have nothing to comb and therefore am not capable of taking the Landon approach.

*sigh* One of the two unsolvable issues I am working with now was looked at over a WebEx by my bossman yesterday with no resolution, and the other issue was being looked at by another guy in the tech support department, also with no resolution. So at least I'm not alone and they can understand why I am having difficulties. This is always a difficult thing when I work remotely 3600miles away from everybody else. People are very quick to assume that I'm just not trying hard enough or goofing off on the company's time.

Yeah I know my PC was being a pain, which is why I was kind of timid about asking you for more help during the process. Not because I didn't think you could handle it in the best way possible, but because I know how demoralizing and frustrating it is to be "guy/girl with the answers" but not have an answer, and I didn't want to burden you with it.

Hey V, want a job? How about J? We are actively looking for more tech support staff and we are also looking for another "me" (somewhere between apps engineer, mechanical engineer, and tech support. How quickly can you learn the basics of HVAC?

[satyrlovesong]

One of things I did when I was just a baby sys-admin was go gather up contact information. Every time I got to go to a class or a conference, I'd openly admit that I wasn't a guru and ask if anyone would like to join my little technical cabal - and I found that a lot of people were just like me. They knew some stuff, but didn't know everything. Then, we could ping one another if we ran into an insurmountable problem - often, if you're running into a brick wall, someone else has as well.

Now, I've got a filter on lj just for tech stuff.

[jimbo_the_gecko]

See the sort of unfortunate part of my predicament is that there are not very many people in the world that do what I do, and we all seem to work for competing companies.

On the other hand, there are people that due technical support in my same industry, and while they may not have the same sort of field experience, they are certainly good to bounce ideas off of.