How I Feel At My Job
My job, though as simple as it is, can be an emotional rollercoaster.
This is how my week went, in no real particular order except for the last few days.
The start of the week is usually one of my busiest days of the week, because I have to answer support e-mails from over the weekend. But usually these are easy enough to process and do. And with the 3 weeks of hell going on in colleges, this tends to be my biggest support days of the year. Thankfully though our system is pretty good and no real major issues.
There is this one customer, who is an instructor at some college or high school. For privacy purposes I will call him Mr. K. Mr. K has had some issues understanding the system. To be honest, he made me want to bang my head against the wall a few times over the last few weeks. But he finally understands and is a really nice man.
Almost every time after I help him or his students out, he always sends me a thank you e-mail for my assistance. It actually made me feel really good at my job to read those, because no one usually appreciates the help that support ever gives them. He is the first person to send me a Thank you e-mail. I sent him one in return thanking him for his politeness. It really does mean that much to me.
In that same week, I have a student e-mail me asking if I had a log of a specific date he logged in. I told him the same answer I would tell anyone else, which is you can check for yourself if the grade posts in your class overview. He sends me a reply saying, "That is not what I asked you".
In the same week that I am appreciated, I also get treated as a dumbass because people look down on someone in the support field. While I understand the misconception because there are some real dumbasses in support... not all of them are the same and I give the benefit of the doubt and I try to be patient. I have gotten some amazing support and terrible, but it is all part of the process.
Then I get an e-mail from my boss and a pretty important client. My boss wants me to teach our client how to get data from our program.
Now, the task wouldn't be as bad except for the fact that I had to write a guide in order to tell this man what to do. And for those who never wrote a guide for a project, it is a long process. Especially if you have to also take screenshots and explain what you can and can't do and how things work.
My boss thought I could write everything the client needed to know in 20 minutes in an e-mail. It ticked me off a little because I felt unappreciated or I didn't know what I was doing. My boss doesn't realize how much time is consumed even on simple tasks because he doesn't do them. Though I know his job is a lot more complicated than mine, I just ask that you respect how fast I can go and if I tell you it will take hours that you trust that this will take me hours.
For the purposes of making our client happy and getting him all set to use the system, I actually worked overtime and before work the next morning. Even though my boss did not grant me overtime so I was not expecting any extra compensation. At least it would get done.
I got the work done and sent it off to the client. I then wrote an e-mail to my boss saying that for billing purposes if he wanted to I worked over 6 hours on the guide. He said there was no billing but it was good that the guide was made. Thankfully I just went over the basics of what the client would need for the purposes he needs the program for. If I had to write a guide for the whole system, it would take me all week to finish it.
Well, the client looked over my work and said that the guide was very good. So all the work I put in went noticed for a few moments and brought back that feeling of worth again. I guess my boss saw the value of my work as well.
For some reason, he gave me the 4 hours of overtime that I put in for this paycheck. I was really happy to get that extra 40 dollars. So next week my paycheck will have that extra money.
Sometimes putting in more effort gets rewarded.
This is how my week went, in no real particular order except for the last few days.
The start of the week is usually one of my busiest days of the week, because I have to answer support e-mails from over the weekend. But usually these are easy enough to process and do. And with the 3 weeks of hell going on in colleges, this tends to be my biggest support days of the year. Thankfully though our system is pretty good and no real major issues.
There is this one customer, who is an instructor at some college or high school. For privacy purposes I will call him Mr. K. Mr. K has had some issues understanding the system. To be honest, he made me want to bang my head against the wall a few times over the last few weeks. But he finally understands and is a really nice man.
Almost every time after I help him or his students out, he always sends me a thank you e-mail for my assistance. It actually made me feel really good at my job to read those, because no one usually appreciates the help that support ever gives them. He is the first person to send me a Thank you e-mail. I sent him one in return thanking him for his politeness. It really does mean that much to me.
In that same week, I have a student e-mail me asking if I had a log of a specific date he logged in. I told him the same answer I would tell anyone else, which is you can check for yourself if the grade posts in your class overview. He sends me a reply saying, "That is not what I asked you".
In the same week that I am appreciated, I also get treated as a dumbass because people look down on someone in the support field. While I understand the misconception because there are some real dumbasses in support... not all of them are the same and I give the benefit of the doubt and I try to be patient. I have gotten some amazing support and terrible, but it is all part of the process.
Then I get an e-mail from my boss and a pretty important client. My boss wants me to teach our client how to get data from our program.
Now, the task wouldn't be as bad except for the fact that I had to write a guide in order to tell this man what to do. And for those who never wrote a guide for a project, it is a long process. Especially if you have to also take screenshots and explain what you can and can't do and how things work.
My boss thought I could write everything the client needed to know in 20 minutes in an e-mail. It ticked me off a little because I felt unappreciated or I didn't know what I was doing. My boss doesn't realize how much time is consumed even on simple tasks because he doesn't do them. Though I know his job is a lot more complicated than mine, I just ask that you respect how fast I can go and if I tell you it will take hours that you trust that this will take me hours.
For the purposes of making our client happy and getting him all set to use the system, I actually worked overtime and before work the next morning. Even though my boss did not grant me overtime so I was not expecting any extra compensation. At least it would get done.
I got the work done and sent it off to the client. I then wrote an e-mail to my boss saying that for billing purposes if he wanted to I worked over 6 hours on the guide. He said there was no billing but it was good that the guide was made. Thankfully I just went over the basics of what the client would need for the purposes he needs the program for. If I had to write a guide for the whole system, it would take me all week to finish it.
Well, the client looked over my work and said that the guide was very good. So all the work I put in went noticed for a few moments and brought back that feeling of worth again. I guess my boss saw the value of my work as well.
For some reason, he gave me the 4 hours of overtime that I put in for this paycheck. I was really happy to get that extra 40 dollars. So next week my paycheck will have that extra money.
Sometimes putting in more effort gets rewarded.