1st Line IT Support -

Raumarik · 9 Jun 2011 at 21:39

MrLOL said:
Thing is I work in a company that's an IT service provider to the NHS. We have one major area which is the supply of clinical software and the infrastructure to run it on. Within that arm there's a major split between the hosted side (where their system in run from our data centre) and the side where the GP runs the software from an on site server (usually a HP ML350)

The hosted side of the business is fully ISO20000 accredited. The LAN based side isn't and doesn't implement ITIL much at all. The hosted side of the business runs much smother because of it. ITIL is a framework, it's not a set of rules that you must follow, it's designed so that you can pick and choose what bits suit you and implement them as you see fit. If your service desk managers are obsessing unnecessarily about stats that's their fault not ITIL's.

I think it's great when it's implemented properly. At the end of the day a first time fix rate is important, because that's the sole aim of the service desk, to get simple problems and service requests resolved quickly and cheaply. But if the management take that to be the only thing of importance you've got a problem. ITIL doesn't state that

Tempted to take a guess at the company you work for, seeing as I work on the NHS IT side and we do love our ML350s

Fr0dders · 9 Jun 2011 at 22:19

I've already linked to the jobs section of our website further back in the thread. You wouldnt need to be sherlock holmes to work it out

Fr0dders · 9 Jun 2011 at 22:26

gettothechopper said:
30k for 1st line? lol! Fujistu pay about 12k a year for 1st line monkeys!

the job description above sounds more 2nd liney to me but different companies seem to have different ideas about that

Our Service Desk staff start on about 14k. For following knowledge bases and doing admin work like creating user accounts, changing extensions and writing reports, thats about right.

Why pay somebody 30k a year to reset user passwords ?

Unless of course like you say, they arent really 1st line in the ITIL sense, and do all the 3rd line / 2nd line stuff as well because they have nobody to escalate stuff to.

But from the sounds of what Ev0 was saying, they pay 30k a year to do monkey work !

weescott · 9 Jun 2011 at 22:38

MrLOL, do you work for Fujitsu? That's what the 1st line SD get in Stevenage (which is right next to Hertford). Depending on what SD you go to there depends on what level of experience you need. There are some complete muppets there but some decent people too.

SoundsGood · 9 Jun 2011 at 22:38

I think you would get a 1st line job fairly easily with those qualifications OP, but the main things they are looking for as already said is communication skills and a high level of customer service.

Despite people saying it's a monkeys job it is certainly useful in teaching you to deal with idiots without appearing unprofessional, and in IT that is a very useful thing!

Fr0dders · 9 Jun 2011 at 22:42

weescott said:
MrLOL, do you work for Fujitsu? That's what the 1st line SD get in Stevenage (which is right next to Hertford). Depending on what SD you go to there depends on what level of experience you need. There are some complete muppets there but some decent people too.

no i do IT ops management for the Emis hosted products (Emis PCS and Emis Web)

SoundsGood said:
Despite people saying it's a monkeys job it is certainly useful in teaching you to deal with idiots without appearing unprofessional, and in IT that is a very useful thing!

Amen to that. You'll spend a lot of your team dealing with eejits in IT. Whether it be your external customers, or your internal management who think that anything can be fixed if they shout hard enough.

Do it wrong, and you end up like Roy in the IT crowd

DJMK4 · 9 Jun 2011 at 22:47

Gotta start somewhere, even out of uni instarted on first line and worked my way up 4 years in one company, came out with experience in networking, data centre tasks, VoIP, joined another company where I am now a network support engineer for a business based ISP who are shortly moving Into a purchased building and were turning it in to a data centre instead of renting out a suite in THN.

Work your way up, gain experience, Choose your path, first line is just The first step

Raumarik · 9 Jun 2011 at 23:38

MrLOL said:
I've already linked to the jobs section of our website further back in the thread. You wouldnt need to be sherlock holmes to work it out

Ha! Hadn't noticed that and it's exactly the company I'm working with a fair amount at the moment - you need more engineers in Scotland by the way

weescott · 9 Jun 2011 at 23:53

MrLOL said:
no i do IT ops management for the Emis hosted products (Emis PCS and Emis Web)

Ah. Fujistsu base there wages on geograghics. IE as little as they can get away with. Wakefield falls in the same wage bracket as Stevenage (Hertford for OP). For the same role in NE Scotland you are talking average of 18k with MUCH better prospects.

SoundsGood · 9 Jun 2011 at 23:54

I know a guy at Fujitsu 1st line in Wakefield.. on 15k and hates it.

weescott · 10 Jun 2011 at 00:02

I don't blame him. They have a few contracts to cover there.

/as much as I can say on a public forum.

Jim.Ow · 10 Jun 2011 at 00:19

Someone on this forum sent me a message in trust about a position at there work place, off the back off this thread. Hope something comes of it!

Fr0dders · 10 Jun 2011 at 00:19

weescott said:
Ah. Fujistsu base there wages on geograghics. IE as little as they can get away with. Wakefield falls in the same wage bracket as Stevenage (Hertford for OP). For the same role in NE Scotland you are talking average of 18k with MUCH better prospects.

Interesting how NE scotland pays so much higher. Quite surprised actually.

Is leeds any different ? We've got one of your former managers working for us who used to work for Fujitsu in leeds.

MagicBoy · 10 Jun 2011 at 00:25

VeNT said:
SD1 isn't too bad but really you want to move to 2nd line ASAP and then onwards.
Sadly the 2nd line department I'm in now is being merged with SD1 (cost savings fs) so I'm back to square 1.

Not uncommon at the moment. They merged our Service Desk and 2nd Line desktop team a while back and it's been a minor disaster ever since. Makes me glad I escaped a few years back into the procurement side!

weescott · 10 Jun 2011 at 00:48

MrLOL said:
Interesting how NE scotland pays so much higher. Quite surprised actually.

Is leeds any different ? We've got one of your former managers working for us who used to work for Fujitsu in leeds.

Leeds/Bradford/Wakefield pay quite low as does Stevenage. Fujistsu recently moved some staff to Ireland to save money. I don't agree with thier pay scale, part of the reason I left.

North East Scotland pay very high wages because of the Oil Industry. The quality of life is much higher than most of the country. The perception that Scotland is poor is very, very wrong!

MagicBoy · 10 Jun 2011 at 01:03

weescott said:
North East Scotland pay very high wages because of the Oil Industry. The quality of life is much higher than most of the country. The perception that Scotland is poor is very, very wrong!

Wages were not so good on the West Coast. I moved up there for a while when I worked for Big Blue and they attempted to give me a pay cut to the local rate in the process. At the time the locals were getting offered 12k for the same job they were paying 14k for in Manchester, and some were travelling 50 miles each way for work!

Unsurprisingly when the labour party grant money for bribing employers ran out all the jobs got moved offshore pretty quickly.

weescott · 10 Jun 2011 at 01:27

Indeed. Birmingham council's [as an example] decision to outsource IT to india was completly wrong. I'm all for saving pubic money but not at the expense of the local community. Totally ironic and self deficating proficy or what?

[insert obvious slur]They come here, take our benefits, cousins take our jobs, sends money back "home"[/end obvious slur]

I'm lucky in the fact I know that is not going to happen in my local authority.

rIcK · 10 Jun 2011 at 05:20

Id like an honest opinion off some of you guys. I was doing a degree in computer games programming, completed my first 2 years and then due to some silly issues managed to screw up my third year ( which was ashame because i had done majority of the work )

I finished my course and was awarded some useless Diploma of Higher Education. Now i wish to actually get a job within IT, particurly in networking and server based roll. I am however happy to start at any level and just wish to get my foot in the door.

1) Should i look at returning to uni and finishing a Course in computer Science?
2) Should i look at doing some network training courses CCNA type stuff?
3) Or should i look for a job and train whilst im in work?

Any opinions good bad or otherwise are greatly appreciated!

Red_knight · 10 Jun 2011 at 06:04

A half-finished degree is going to look bad to an employer, so you're effectively going in unqualified *1, which means bottom line (doesn't mean service desk/1st line - you can also find Roll Out contracts *2 that really just require people to be able to shift boxes, set up a desktop out of a box, maybe migrate a user over, and unofficially do a bit of hand holding for their first 10-15 minutes with the new beastie)

1 and 2 are probably your best long term options.
3 requires finding a company that still gives a flying **** about staff career advancement and things like that - good luck.

*1 I don't mention my attempt at higher education unless specifically asked for exactly those reasons
*2 Obviously no long-term prospects with these but they get you a bit of experience and you can big up the support side of things on your CV

rsatd · 10 Jun 2011 at 06:58

Hellsmk2 said:
A monkey could do a 1st line support.

(Not arsed if this offends some folk... it's true)

Completely true, did 1st line support for my uni it desk while at uni. In fact a monkey would do a better job by throwing poo at the "customers", and thuse no one would ever disturb it again.

My job was something along the lines of messing with printers when they stopped printing, which included going there, restarting it and if it still didn't work, getting someone else to fix it. Refilling students printing card thing, doing stock ever so often, locking random doors and the rest (most) of the time was spent reading bash.org/lolcats (before they became loleverything) or working on assignments. Think that covered that.

For 1st line support, just don't smell bad, smile and be friendly with customers to get the job.