I am a support professional. I have been for most of my 30+ years working in IT. My job is to enable my customers to do their jobs, not tell them how to work or what they need to do their jobs. Don’t get me wrong, I certainly can function as a solutions provider, and I have, but when I hire a contractor to do some work in my home, I trust he has the skills and the knowledge to know what tools he wants to use to get his job done. It isn’t my place to tell him that he should use this tool or that for accomplishing the task at hand.
But supporting customers is at the heart of me. It’s what I enjoy and what I do well. I know my customers. I understand generally what they do and have a good idea of their work styles, so when they need something I can get them what they need because I’ve anticipated their need.
If I worked in hospitality, would be a concierge. A good concierge can have an incredible impact on the people they serve and I can too.
I know a lot of people who think of support roles like mine as entry level or who think I lack ambition because I’ve not gotten into networking or system administration which are often seen as the natural progression from support roles. I make a significant impact on my customers every day, and would miss them if I were not customer facing. And here’s the thing, I’ve been in those other roles. I’ve built servers and authored white papers for IBM, I’ve architected solutions when none existed, I’ve been that engineer on call at 2:00 AM when the mission critical piece of equipment fails, and in none of that do I find the satisfaction of being able to help someone complete a task that they need to complete.
So, if I’m entry level, or if I lack ambition let it be my customers who benefit from that. I’m right where I like to be.
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