The Two Things About IT Help Desk
2B or not 2B, what is the user’s room number?
I found this Medium article by Haseeb Qureshi about negotiation during the hiring process very interesting. I followed the link at the bottom to Haseeb’s Web site and blog.
When the story of how I landed a job at Airbnb went viral, I was surprised at how infatuated people were with my negotiations. Media…medium.freecodecamp.com
That’s where I found his post titled “The Two Things About Poker”. He also uses a block quote to explain the concept of “the Two Things”.
“You know, the Two Things. For every subject, there are really only two things you really need to know. Everything else is the application of those two things, or just not important.”
It made me think about my trade. What are “the Two Things” about IT Help Desk?
Here’s my answer.
- It’s more about Fixing People than fixing computers.
- It’s OK to say “I don’t know”.
The basis of being a good Help Desk technician is to know the primary skill you need is Customer Service. That Customer Service will save you when you run into problems more complicated than the five minute fix. It will save you when you do something wrong. But it can’t save you from being caught in a lie.
At the Apple Store we had a line we would default to saying when we didn’t have the answer.
“I don’t know. Let’s find out”
