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When I started supporting users of Information Technology, there was always another alternative should something go awry. Today, however, it seems that the alternatives have all but slipped away. At one time, we could get along fine without technology; today, we can’t get by without it. For users of technology, it’s their production that’s affected. For those of us who support them, it means a whole lot more.

Computers: This is where it all started, isn’t it? Not that I’m complaining, mind you, but I often consider how much it’s changed my industry (the building design industry). Only twenty years ago, upward of 95 to 100 percent of the design professionals either didn’t use a computer or, at the very least, weren’t that dependent on one. Anything done by way of computer could have easily been done by hand (and sometimes easier). Not anymore.

As time went by, the reliance on computers gradually became greater. It used to be that if someone’s computer failed, the user could do without it for some period of time - even a few days without one was acceptable. But the days gave way to hours, and then the hours eventually became minutes. Today, I keep extra computers loaded and ready to go, fully configured with everything a user needs so I can provide a quick replacement. I’m waiting for the day someone tells me that he or she needs it faster than the time it takes for me to make the swap.

Networks: How many people remember the day you first connected two computers together? I used a device called a null modem and crossover cable, software called ….. dang, I forgot what it was called (but I’ll bet someone will remind me!), and I had to figure out something about a handshake. Then came my DOS version of Lantastic. Then came Windows Server. Today, we have intranets and Internets.

The Internet: Who among us cut his or her Internet teeth on something called a BBS (Bulletin Board System)? And I’m sure there will be some really old-timers (nothing disparaging intended, because in some ways I consider myself one) who recall the days of the Internet that even preceded the Bulletin Board days. CompuServe is one of the oldest on-line services, and it was the first one I used. Baud rates and modems gave way to Broadband and satellites. And speaking of something that’s gone from a novelty to a necessity, I can’t image providing user support without the Internet. (That’s probably a subject worthy of a blog piece in and of itself. Stay tuned — it just found its way onto my list.)

E-mail: This is, I believe, the one thing (a subset of the Internet, of course) on which all my users are most dependent. Without it, many of them are literally dead in the water. Phone calls between our engineers and clients were once the only means of communication; today it seems that e-mail is king. We’ve been transferring data files for a long time, but I can’t recall the last time we had to call an overnight delivery service to ship a CD — or floppy disks.

File attachments to e-mails, FTP sites, and project collaboration sites are not only preferred, but they’re absolutely necessary. Just when I get used to one project collaboration site, a different one becomes the new flavor of the day for a different client, and we have yet another means of file transfer to get used to. Why don’t they all use the same one, or why don’t they all work the same way, I was recently asked? I couldn’t decide if Because or I don’t know was the best answer. (I used both — Well, it’s because, I just don’t know!)

A plethora of devices: Wireless devices, mobile devices, PDAs, hand-helds, digital cameras, flash drives, etc. There’s always something new to learn about and to integrate into our business model. Back in the day, however, I was usually the first one to hear about a new technology; I would evaluate it, and I would be the one to determine the need. Today, it’s just as likely one of my users will introduce something new to me — sometimes welcome, sometimes not. As such, not only do I have to be aware of how to use the new technology but sometimes how to guard against it.

Printers, plotters, copiers, and scanners: It used to be that the buck of support for the dreaded copy machines could always be passed on to someone else. This was usually a guy with the personality of a wet rag. He never smiled, was always short with his answers, and, in general, simply looked like the most miserable guy on the planet. But I could always understand why he was like that — after all, he supported copy machines. I was always content with keeping them outside the realm of something I supported. But not anymore.

We don’t have just a copy machine anymore. It copies, it scans, it faxes, it e-mails, it networks, and it seemingly does everything under the sun. I was just waiting for the salesman to tell me it slices and dices. (It probably does, but I was afraid to ask.) With more functionality and with more networking interfaces, it’s become yet another cog in the wheel that makes our business go ’round. I don’t maintain the inner mechanics of the thing, mind you, but out of the seemingly 1,001 things it can do, I have to learn which ones will facilitate our business, how to best configure them, and, over time, how to teach it to all the users. Gone are the days of a couple of scanners scattered throughout the office — you know, the kind that just got replaced when something didn’t work right.

Even the copy machine technician has changed. It used to always be a guy — like the one I described above. But now they’re field engineers, not technicians, and it’s just as likely to be a woman as a man. While one person used to service all aspects of the thing, today we might see one person service the hardware, and another support the software.

How far we have come: The explosion in our dependency on technology really came to light recently (and how much it’s all changed), when I was asked by a young and new drafting technician about the days of making blueprints. He was amazed to hear me tell him about hand drawing on both sides of a sheet of Mylar and about how the old blueprint machines worked, and so on. I learned about drafting technology with a T-Square, some triangles, and a drawing board. He’s learned everything he knows by way of a keyboard.

Computer technology has accommodated making design changes up until the last minute — and even beyond the last minute. And plotters that, at one time, would take hours to produce one drawing sheet (if the ink didn’t dry up, that is), gave way to wide format, high-speed printers capable of producing hundreds of sheets in mere minutes.

How it’s changed our support role: How much our support role has changed is all relative, I suppose. Like I said earlier, in many ways I’m an old-timer; but compared to others, I jumped on the technology express well after it left the station. Maybe the ensuing discussion will result in some strolls down memory lane, or perhaps it will generate some new ideas about providing support today compared to yesterday.

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By now, most IT folks have heard that Google has released a new Web browser. In fact, I am going to bet that a lot of the support pros that read this blog have probably already had a request or two to install Chrome on their users’ machines. Early opinions on Chrome from the TechRepublic forums are not very favorable, but I think that Google’s new software provides an interesting forecast of where browsers are heading. Chrome gives us an early look at a few browser features that will be mandatory for any browser used on enterprise machines.

Hot off the presses, Google’s Chrome is not aimed at business users, not yet. Some of the choices made in the user interface make that abundantly clear (cf. the “Aw, Snap!” and “Stats for Nerds” screenshots in John Sheesley’s excellent First Look: Google Chrome). This is true to form for Google, though. Both Google’s Apps and Mail were launched as consumer products, but eventually versions were packaged for small business use. Even if enterprise users never widely adopt Chrome, the technologies used therein will spread to other browsers. Google’s decision to engineer a browser for the way the Web is used today will have repercussions for the browsers more popular in the enterprise.

Google designed Chrome to serve as a window optimized for Web applications, as a study of a couple of its main features can illustrate. First, each browser tab/window runs as its own secure process. This addresses a shortcoming that other modern browsers have, especially when browsers are used for mission-critical Web applications. For instance, our university has several of its core applications implemented with Web interfaces. Payrolls, grants management, purchasing — all of these functions require a Web browser. Managers usually have their browsers open all day. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen someone who uses these Web applications have his or her work disrupted by a browser crash. I know it has happened to all of you: something goes wrong in one tab or window and that problem torpedoes the whole application. I am tempted to offer Chrome as an option for my users just to save them from the domino effect that crashes have in other currently available browsers. This is the feature that other browser makers need to implement, now.

Second, Chrome easily lets a user create an Application Shortcut from any Web page. This creates a desktop icon that can be used to load a specific Web site in a stripped-down window without the standard complement of browser buttons and bars. This is called site-specific browsing, and I think it makes enterprise Web apps easier to support. In my experience, I have seen a lot of people tripped up by Web applications when they run them in normal browsers. Users will click the browser’s Back button rather than using the correct link in the Web app interface, and so on. A site-specific browser like Chrome’s Application Shortcut does not bother with all the interface widgets that regular Web browsing requires. This takes Web apps and makes them seem more like regular client-side applications. Training users on Web apps and supporting their use becomes easier with site-specific browsing, since it puts the Web app at the forefront and keeps the browser from getting in the way.

Those two advancements are the game-changing browser features that Google is bringing before the general public with Chrome. We should not be surprised that a company with such visible Web services would invest in a browser that is better suited for those applications. Whatever Google’s motivation, though, Web applications and browser-based computing are here to stay. They may not be right for every situation or even every enterprise, but users will only be seeing more of such solutions. Web applications represent a paradigm shift, and I think that an evolution in browser technology that acknowledges this fact is long overdue. Google’s Chrome gives IT pros a first look at some features that will make supporting Web apps easier and that will come to be demanded by people who use Web apps. Google has started a browser revolution. I am interested to see how quickly other developers will respond.

Under “previous experience” one applicant wrote that she had worked for a riding stable and her duties included “Picking up feses (faeces) from the field.” Not only did she demonstrate her lack of ability to spell or even use a spell checker, but she also made the mistake of assuming that her skill at picking up secondhand horse food would interest an employer. I only hope she washed her hands before attending interviews!

Another gave the reason for leaving his previous job as “having an fist fight with his boss.” While we respected his honesty, I couldn’t help feeling it wasn’t a very positive point to make.

Writing the words “Curriculum Vitae” across the top of the page may be somewhat unnecessary (and there is even more chance to make a spelling mistake), as can using a font that would not look out of place in a Lord of the Rings film.

Simple rules for the CV should include:

Check the spelling.

Be clear and factual.

Don’t try to be too clever –- I remember one that bore the line: “I suppose you are wondering; is there anything this girl can’t do!”

Read the job advert; if the ad states that you must be available to work shifts, it is useless to say that you can only work 9-5. Nothing irritates a recruiter more than reading that the person does not fit the basic requirements, and your application will hit the bottom of the bin before you can say boo to a goose!

For example, the person I was talking to was trying to recruit a temporary worker for the Christmas period. The job advert clearly stated the weeks that the person was needed, but the first application she looked at was from a person who was very keen to start work but could not work the two weeks either side of Christmas, due to family commitments.

Just because there is a section on the application form asking about your interests, don’t make the mistake of thinking that you have to dazzle a future employer, nor should you try to make yourself seem more interesting. I made this mistake once; I have a wide range of quirky and sometimes off-the-wall interests, from writing to sea swimming, reading, building, playing guitars, bagpipes, trumpet, banjo, and mandolin, and doing ventriloquism. I even built and sail my own boat.

While I am no expert in any of these things, I do enjoy having a go at things and derive a great deal of pleasure from these hobbies. I no longer list all of them, because I was told by one prospective employer that all my hobbies sounded as though they were made up to sound more interesting. Now, I edit the list to include a few things that might interest the company I am applying to, having done a little research beforehand to list those things that may fit with the company ethos and the person who I would be working for.

What CV or résumé gaffes and howlers have you seen?

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In his June post for the Windows Insider column over at Redmondmag.com, Greg Shields shares 5 Rules for Managing User Desktops. Greg’s points are good reminders of the best practices for those IT pros who use (or are thinking of using) tools for the central management of multiple computers. It was his fifth rule that really struck home with me: “Moving desktop management from reactive to proactive will initially involve more work than less.”

It is only after a long design and implementation process that IT and the help desk can start to take advantage of central management tools. This is worth remembering, since it is all too easy to get caught up in the eventual efficiencies one can gain from such a project. Any significant change to your environment is going to have its own difficulties.

I noticed, though, that Greg is taking for granted that IT has management buy-in for a centralization effort. In one case I encountered, that was my trouble. The difficult front-end work was not in getting a system up and running, it was in trying to convince my boss of the project’s value. His response showed me there was a limit to where I could go in his organization, and that he had a very limited idea of what a support tech should be doing.

The little company that employed me at the time did not have any automation in place when I started. The network was about as decentralized as it could get. Each user was an administrator on his or her machine, and each computer was run as a fiefdom. Software was installed without regard to licensing agreements, and virus infections were rampant due to imprudently downloaded e-mail attachments. I was hired to be the full-time tech support person, and I soon realized that I was in for a lot of work.

I took this job early in my career, before I learned to recognize the signs of an organization that has let its network go fallow. I was young, though, and I wanted the experience, so I rolled up my sleeves and set about putting things right, or at least “righter.” As I started to look at rolling out antivirus software and putting user controls in place, I realized that it was a prime moment to implement systems management using a Group Policy Domain with Window Server. Such an infrastructure would allow me to tighten up the existing systems and run them in an efficient fashion, all while making sure we weren’t, you know, breaking the law.

I prepared a project plan, priced out a couple small-business class servers to use for our Primary Domain Controller and Backup Domain Controller, and scheduled a meeting with my boss, the organization’s director. I thought I had hit it out of the park with that proposal. I included an accounting of the projected savings we would see from implementing a systems management tool kit. We would see less downtime for users, and I would have more time available to work on forthcoming projects, since I would not constantly have to put out fires. I thought the company would make back the investment in hardware and software in less than a year, due to the increased productivity.

My boss flipped through the proposal, and then looked at me. He said, “This looks like you’re saying we should spend this money to make your job easier. Why would we want to do that? We’re paying you to do all this stuff.”

It was clear to me then that the position I had was a dead end. I started looking for something elsewhere.

Point being, Greg’s article is useful for the tech who’s got the green light to centralize the management of the company’s machines. There are managers out there, though, who see user support and network management as two exclusive disciplines. They won’t be inclined to let their PC tech spend a lot of money on management systems so he can have some more free time.

The adage goes “work smarter, not harder.” Competent managers will help you do this. If you encounter someone who wants you to “work dumber,” you should run the other way.
Source: http://redmondmag.com/columns/article.asp?EditorialsID=2635

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I was recently asked by one of my users, “Why do the computers at the office seem to fend off the malicious threats that always seem to invade my home computer?”

I have a pretty strict personal policy against giving help and advice to people concerning their home computers, but after a brief conversation with this person, I decided to give him a list of things to do at home that would go a long way to securing his personal computer. In some cases, he asked me to recommend brands or products, but instead of giving him any particular product recommendations, I recommended a particular store instead and told him to ask the sales associate. (I didn’t want to get THAT involved.)

Anyway, here’s the list of considerations I gave him. I have, however, expanded on them a bit for this blog piece. And depending on the operating system and types of products a person uses, some of these might offer redundant protection — or another level of protection, depending on how you look at it. While this might seem elementary to a lot of us old-timers, it’s certainly worth a review from time to time.

1. Updated software: Configuring the auto-update to run on a regular basis is the best way to make sure it gets done. Mine are scheduled to run at 3 AM. I know it might pose an inconvenience to find that your computer has rebooted in the middle of the night (especially if you failed to save a document!), but it’s one way to make sure that Microsoft’s regular security updates actually do get installed. It’s too easy to put it off. Updates to the operating system, MS Office, Internet Explorer, and so on are released for a reason. The quicker they get installed, the better. It’s the biggest reason I keep my computer running all night.

2. Anti-virus software: You would think that this is a no-brainer, but I’ve often run across people who either don’t have it or don’t keep it updated. Doing both is an absolute must. We could argue all day about which product is the best, but they’ll be no argument when I suggest that anything is better than nothing. I’ve never been a huge fan of off-the-shelf Norton products, but I’ve had great luck with the corporate edition. Stopping short of recommending a particular product, I did advise him to avoid the suites. And installing it isn’t enough. Make sure it’s also configured to automatically download the vital software and virus-definition updates. I also do this on a daily basis.

3. Anti-spyware software: Again, there will be arguments and discussions about which is the best, but it’s another must-have.

4. Software firewall: Having something like Zone Alarm installed will prevent all sorts of malicious malware from finding its way onto your computer, not to mention preventing those annoying pop-ups.

5. Hardware firewall: For home use, a firewall router is adequate. The person who initially asked me about this had a router, but not a firewall router. No wonder he was getting inundated with pop-ups and such. And while it might be a bit of a stretch (or maybe not), keeping it updated is something that I would recommend. I recently threw out an old Linksys firewall router when I could no longer update its firmware, and I replaced it with a newer Cisco model (Cisco actually bought Linksys). I have the BEFSX41 model, and it’s performing quite nicely.

6. Passwords: I recently wrote a blog piece on passwords. Their proper use provides yet another level of protection for a home computer.

7. Phishing e-mails: The reason they keep coming is because they’re so successful in duping people out of their personal information. Learn to recognize them, and never respond to them. Always assume that any e-mail that requests personal information is a phishing e-mail.

8. Free Internet downloads: I know this isn’t always possible, and I suppose I’m not talking about ALL free Internet downloads, but use good judgment on what you should and shouldn’t download. For example, I have an Internet Poker site that I prefer, one that offered a free download, and it’s perfectly safe and legitimate. But others I wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole. And those free registry cleaners, free spyware scanning tools, and so on, often do more harm than good. In fact, I would venture to guess that the majority of such things are malware themselves!

9. Backup, backup, and backup: My home computer is probably not unlike most people’s, with the usual documents, pictures, music, e-mail, and so on. However, where mine is probably different than most people’s is the presence of a two-tiered back-up system. Do you realize how many home users don’t back up their data at all? I have an extra internal hard drive for storage of a daily backup. This is also an automatic process, just like the Microsoft updates, in which a simple batch file incrementally copies (via xcopy) targeted directories (folders) from Point A to Point B. Point B is, of course, the extra internal hard drive. I also have an external hard drive with a USB interface that I plug in on a regular basis and globally copy my saved data from Point B to Point C.

10. System documentation: In case you ever do need to restore or reinstall, it’s vital to have quick, easy, and accurate access to the software CDs and serial numbers, the hardware CDs and documentation, and so on. I recommend a 3-ring binder with pocket inserts for operating system and software CDs, including the hardware CDs and documentation. Personally, I even go as far as keeping my original boxes, cutting them up so I can put them into a sleeve with the rest of the documentation. I also keep all my configuration information in there.

In the worst-case scenario, if, in the very least, you have numbers 9 and 10, you can restore your system — complete with your current data. But with proper implementation of numbers 1 through 8, it’ll probably never come to that.

Okay, so this may seem a no-brainer, but people have a lot of differing views.

Some people believe that you should work for only one boss. Others think that there is no harm in an occasional freelance job; it might even help build experience and knowledge.

Personally I can’t see that there is any conflict of interest, provided you aren’t poaching clients from your employer. I did a job on the weekend. As part of my drive to save up  for a Gibson Les Paul, I have been working freelance for a while and hope to be placing my order very soon. I couldn’t do this without a bit of extra work, nor do I think it fair to sequester a large lump of cash from the household budget for something that is a luxury.

I understand the value of taking time off and the concern I have is that by working outside of normal working hours, I will not have enough downtime to keep me fresh. I needn’t have worried, because I worked Saturday. Sunday was better, because I had worked, albeit in a more relaxed way, and I really treated Sunday like a holiday. I walked on the beach, had a swim, relaxed with a book, and enjoyed an excellent Sunday lunch.

Maybe it was worth the extra effort. I am £60 ($120 US) nearer my Les Paul, I enjoyed my Sunday far more, but I realize the value of my free time even more now. I would not recommend doing extra work all the time, but if there is a specific goal you need to save for I can’t see the harm in it, provided you don’t affect your day job at all.

As I see it, there are two kinds of private work opportunities that come our way, roughly split into the ones that offer payment and those that want a freebie.

There has been far-ranging discussion about the rights and wrongs of people expecting you to fix their machines for nothing and general agreement seems to be that we help family and friends but draw the line at “friends of friends” getting the benefit of our precious free time.

These people we expect to provide something for us in return, either reciprocal service, like asking our local plumber to fix a dripping tap in return for upgrade work on his PC, which nicely circumvents the rigors of tax law, where cash earned is taxable but there is no such requirement for services-in-kind.

The part I find hardest is the end of the transaction, where the person I have been working for asks me how much they owe me. I find it difficult to ask for too much, especially if it is someone I know well. I balk at those people who hijack me as I travel from one job to another and ask me about their home PC. I don’t like to turn people down out of hand and, unless I have already had a bad experience of the person, I will usually try to accommodate any reasonable request. But I do make it clear that any work I do in my own time will be considered billable. This often leads to an indignant refusal, but that suits me, as I won’t be taken advantage of.

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Last night, the battery cover latch for my BlackBerry Pearl fell out of the phone’s housing. After crawling around on the floor for a few minutes, looking for a spring that was smaller than a grain of rice, I began to panic. I’ve come to really depend on my Blackberry, and I can’t imagine being without it. Worried that my phone was going to continue to fall apart, I started to regret not purchasing handset protection from my carrier. This was a completely crazy notion. In my defense, I was under duress, and I quickly came to my senses.

I didn’t buy the protection plan for the phone when I signed up with this carrier a year and a half ago. At that time, when my head was clear, I figured that the additional cost wouldn’t make sense in the long run. I was completely right about that.

To cover my BlackBerry Pearl under the carrier’s handset protection plan would have cost me $119.80 to date ($5.99 a month for the premium, over 20 months). To file a claim under the damage protection plan, I would be obligated to pay a $110.00 deductible on the policy. So, if I had decided to go for my carrier’s handset coverage, I would have paid $229.80 to get a refurbished phone.

Yup, you read that right. A deductible. For a phone.

Not a very good deal, considering I paid $99.00 for my BlackBerry, new.

In spite of their cost, the fact that people still buy extended warranties should come as no surprise to us. Many consumers are risk averse, and they worry about losing on their investments. Remember the sunk cost bias? It often seems that a small investment to protect a larger expenditure could be a good idea. It’s that idea of easy supplemental protection that lulls people into buying extended hardware warranties.

I’ve found, at least in my work, that warranties are most attractive to the small operator. Large organizations buy so many machines that the cost of insuring individual pieces of hardware against failure doesn’t make fiscal sense. The bigger companies also often have existing arrangements for IT support, so they don’t need access to the call center or the on-site services that some manufacturers offer with their plans. Small shops that don’t have support capacity built-in seem to hope that extended warranty coverage will protect them from needing to contract for professional IT services later. There have been a few occasions where I’ve bought extended warranties for clients. Usually it was because they asked for them. Sometimes it has even felt like they were purchasing extended service plans so they wouldn’t feel locked into needing my help down the line.

Do extended service warranties have any real benefit to the enterprise? Who forms the target market for these products? Let me know what you think in the comments.

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We all have to face — and overcome — any number of challenges in the course of providing support for any number of users. One challenge might seem the greatest at one point in time, maybe even insurmountable, but over time, it’s undoubtedly replaced with another challenge — perhaps even a bigger one — when the circumstances change. I know this has been the case with me.

Over time, I would say that my greatest challenges have generally fallen into one of the following categories:

1. Time: There’s so much to do, and there’s no way I can get it all done within the allocated or desired amount of time. This challenge usually rears its ugly head in the middle of a major hardware or software upgrade, and in the quest to do so without interrupting users’ productivity.

2. People: It doesn’t happen very often to me, but some users can be demanding or unreasonable. Or maybe there’s that one user who just doesn’t get it, regardless of how many times you explain something. Or the one who always wants you to do something after hours. Or the one who always seems to complain about things. Or the one…..

3. Technology: Keeping up with the latest and greatest technology is a never-ending challenge. How do new software requirements comply with our hardware capabilities? What are the latest and greatest hardware capabilities — without breaking our bank? When should we upgrade? What are the new features of the latest version of our production software? What should be passed onto the users, and when?

4. System: It seems that there’s no perfect system for reporting problems, resolving problem requests, and so on. What might work for one, may be inconvenient for another. Should I get to something immediately, or can it be put off until later. How should we prioritize what to do and when to do it, all the while trying to keep everyone happy and productive?

5. Management: Some people have great management. Others, however, well, not so great. Managers might not understand what goes on in the trenches. Managers might not listen. Most managers consider the cost of training, but the really good ones also consider the cost of not training. Some managers love to take credit, the good ones always seem to give it. The good managers accept all or part of the blame when things go wrong, while the bad ones are quick to point the finger of blame at others.

Participate in the poll to determine what the greatest user support challenge might be, and feel free to comment in the following discussion:

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While musing on this theme, I was reminded of a perplexing error that was brought to my attention when I was the go-to guy at a technical college in Reading.
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A student approached my desk in a state of panic: “Jeff, there’s a virus on my computer, and it’s making the printer go mad. Help! Quick!”

I got up and said, “Show me.”

She led me to the printer, and, sure enough, it was pumping out sheet after sheet of blank paper. “What can we do?”

The first thing was to look at the print server and see what was in the queue. Under her userid was a print job running to over 900 pages. This surprised me, as this girl and her peer group were notorious for doing very little work, preferring to sit at the back and chatter. I cancelled the remaining part of the job and fed the blank pages back into the paper tray.

Back at her desk I looked to see why it had happened. On her screen was the blank page of a Word document. I pressed CTRL+HOME to get to the top of the document, this took awhile but eventually I could see the two short paragraphs of which her essay consisted. At the bottom of the screen I saw the page count shown as 1/963.

Deleting the blank pages I advised her to check the page count before printing. She replied that there must be a problem with the computer because she had noticed it clicking. I couldn’t see what was wrong at that point so I returned to my desk.

A little later I was doing one of my regular walk-arounds and saw her back at her desk, deep in conversation with a fellow student. On the screen I could see page breaks rapidly scrolling up the screen. Then the penny dropped.

While she was talking, she had her head in her hand, her right elbow supporting it. Trouble was that the elbow was on the Enter key.

Sometimes the odd problems have a very ordinary solution. I felt like her primary school teacher when I advised her to sit up straight and keep her elbows off the table.

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I have always thought that what most set me apart from other IT support pros was my aptitude for customer service. Certainly, I work hard to make sure that my technical knowledge remains up to snuff, but my philosophy has always been that clients are won and kept with the soft skills. That belief has served me well up to this point, but now I have placed myself outside the range of my usual methodology. My fiancée and I have undertaken a move to the East Coast of the United States, far from our Midwestern roots. Now I am faced with supporting my Chicago clients from several states away. I am finding the transition difficult, because I have come to realize that my customer service style is rooted in the desk-side visit; I am a face-to-face tech.

I am grateful the technology exists to facilitate remote support and troubleshooting. With solutions in place like VNC, Remote Desktop, and VPN access, it is trivial to log in to any machine on the network that needs troubleshooting or service. The difficulty for me right now does not stem from any limitations of the remote access tools that I have to use. The challenge I am facing is that I have to rebuild my service style from the ground up. How do I stay personally connected to my clients from 700 miles away?

When I was in the same office as my users, desk-side visits were my bread and butter, even when the issue might have been solved an alternate way. That was the key to my customer-service methodology: accessibility. By putting myself in situations where I was interacting with my clients on a face-to-face basis, we were able to build a strong relationship. The fact that I knew the organization’s staff and their work so well allowed me to move from a help desk position into an IT management role.

Since I can’t hang out in the coffee room anymore, I am trying to think of new ways to personalize my service. I think it’s going to be necessary, because my clients and I are already beginning to drift apart. It isn’t that I’m no longer getting called on to provide help; I am. I’m just being called for run-of-the-mill support issues. There’s a spark that’s missing. I haven’t been contacted with a pie-in-the-sky hypothetical question that might lead to an interesting IT project. There’s a subjective barrier to communication that’s keeping my users from approaching me as a member of their community. It is as if the distinctions between my services and those of a faceless call center agent are in danger of disappearing.

I am trying to adapt my soft skills to this situation. I have been using follow-up e-mails and video chat to supplement desktop sharing sessions, in order to provide a more personal touch. Fundamentally, though, there’s no way for me to continue to do my job exactly the same way. We’ll see how my support style evolves.