How often do you have to directly interact with users?

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uptimefordays@reddit

Individual end users? Almost never. Internal customers/stakeholders/etc of my platform/services? About 20hrs a week of meetings baby!

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mexell@reddit

Same here. Only if we get roped into very high level escalations, and we didn’t have any of those in quite a while.

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uptimefordays@reddit

I’m not always on problem calls, but when I am it’s like “another engineer and I in a cameras on meeting with our CIO until problem is solved” which is an insane level of hell lol.

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yawnmasta@reddit

All the time because my helpdesk disappears instead of staying at his desk for 2/3s of his day.

Ive found him walking 2 miles away from the office or hanging around the mall.

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WholePossibility7429@reddit

Every single day, only two of us here in the whole organization. So we engage with every aspect of IT. We have an MSP that handles our frontline stuff as well as our Network security.

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Short_Cake340@reddit

Generally, weekly. Could be daily some weeks, could be once on other weeks. Solo sysadmin on the IT ticketing software, so at least once a week I’m interacting with a user (remotely).

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tk42967@reddit

I'm more project based. I rarely interact with end users. I work with Service Delivery who works with end users.

I'm kind of jealous that I don't get to go out and interact with end users.

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I was solo IT for a little while and I really didn't mind most of my user interactions. I got the impression I was trusted there (I put in my 2 weeks and they kept me working until my last day) and there came a point where I knew the answers right away to a lot of the common questions. I found it rewarding to see their faces light up when I fixed whatever was going on. And I'll say it, I think this whole idea that Reddit likes to push about "escaping help desk" and an absence of customer service from the role being a measure of success isn't where it's at for every single IT professional. To each their own.

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operativekiwi@reddit

every day, I'm the solo IT. But everyone is competent and 99% of the time they're asking me for help because I'm the only one who has access to the network equipment.

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Sleepytitan@reddit

That’s nice. I’m solo IT. My boss asked me to unsend a reply all email today.

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okthrowmeone@reddit

How do you take vacation?

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7eregrine@reddit

On call 24/7/365. This is also why they buy my phones and pay my dual sim phone bill and pay international roaming.
They're pretty good on not calling though I have fuekded a call on a beach in Aruba.
One of the savvier secretaries handles the easy shit while I'm gone.

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LetSufficient5139@reddit

Never. I still get a free phone.

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Sleepytitan@reddit

Very carefully, then you answer calls.

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Opposite_Bag_7434@reddit

I’ve been there, it is actually pretty easy if it’s a small organization. Very dicey when it is a bigger company. I personally only took off a couple of days during my last solo IT position.

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7eregrine@reddit

I went to Europe for 2 weeks. Only got 2 calls and a few emails.
They called it 7eregrine appreciation weeks.

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Jarl_Korr@reddit

Vacation?

gif

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Beznia@reddit

Thanks to getting that request numerous times, I already have a script for Purview any time that request comes in (maybe twice a year).

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E__Rock@reddit

Hand him a empty tube of toothpaste and ask him to put it back inside.

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mercurygreen@reddit

Outside the organization? Love those requests!

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Vritrin@reddit

Everyday, very often. I am solo IT for a non-technical company. Everything from legitimate network issues to “how to make capital letters”. Most of my day is probably dealing with users, I do a lot of the system maintenance and updates overnight when it gets a bit quieter.

I do have them pretty good at submitting tickets outside one department that only uses a computer once or twice a year.

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electricheat@reddit

My capital letters used to be smaller, now they look too big and imposing. This worked perfectly before you used my computer last week, can you please undo the change?

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SudoZenWizz@reddit

MSP here and i interact daily with multiple customers

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ccsrpsw@reddit

Too often 😃

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LiteratureThat4566@reddit

My user pool is very high maintenance. Had to help a user recover an item deleted from their drafts folder in outlook the other day, had to walk a user through how to close an app on a phone last week. So the answer is more often then I would like. We have a helpdesk, ticket system and policy but I still get calls and teams messages and since helpdesk is understaffed right now I make tickets and help the users.

Plus I generally like to interact with people when I am in office, and that will lead to them mentioning something "weird" their computer is doing that then turns into a whole thing. On busy days I have to take the longer but stealthier route to the kitchen for coffee.

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FerretBusinessQueen@reddit

Too often lol. In all seriousness though I don’t general mind it, there are just a couple of names that when they come up in teams/email/tickets make me go “god not them”.

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Merdrak@reddit

Daily. And they all think they are owed immediate gratification thanks to Healthcare environment.

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Jeff-J777@reddit

All day every day. People waking into the IT office. Or sometimes it is just easier to call then message people. But I am not even front line helpdesk and I still help people every day.

I don't mind it, helps me keep connected to the company and not get lost behind some screens. It also gets me out of my chair and move around.

For us at the end of the day IT is a service, and we don't want to provide bad service.

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UnleashedArchers@reddit

Too much.

User: The app install failed on company portal.

Helpdesk: must be an intune issue, straight to level 3

Issue is the app was already installed but was corrupt. Uninstall from add remove programs, reinstall on company portal.

No matter how much I try to educate, level 1 support keeps getting Skipped.

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TopdickedEU@reddit

Not for a number of years.

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ThEGr33kXII@reddit

Daily. Constantly.

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SchemaAndShell@reddit

Everyday. It’s one of my favorite aspects of work.

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H0verb0vver@reddit

Same here.

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Impossible_IT@reddit

Same, everyday and when people stop by my office they’re always apologizing. I always just say no worries just my job.

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1d0m1n4t3@reddit

Something about you seems off

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TKInstinct@reddit

Same, makes the day go by faster and makes me happier overall.

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countsachot@reddit

Usually makes the people happier and more trusting as well. In her end, we're all here to get through the day together, hopefully making some money in the process!

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Prudent_Strength223@reddit (OP)

Interesting

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Cuno_wasnt_regional@reddit

Once or twice per month.

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sitesurfer253@reddit

I speak to as few users as possible. Most tickets can be handled through teams messages or text in the ticket.

We have a helpdesk team though, so if I'm working with users it's usually "try again, does it work now?" For some backend system.

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Prudent_Strength223@reddit (OP)

This is my goal 😅

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jspears357@reddit

Mine is near zero. Once or twice a year some usual contact isn’t reachable and something serious is broken and I’ll get a text from a user, but my role these days is server and some app support as a contractor, and the company has internal layers of support for everything, contractors and vendor support for almost everything. I work with five or ten people regularly, doing tasks assigned to me or helping them with their problems, but that’s it unless the CIO calls with a new problem.

(40+ years of experience and they could cut me at any time, so they don’t want to become dependent on me for routine stuff)

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stewardson@reddit

Same here

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bbbbbthatsfivebees@reddit

Once or twice a day. I have a very talented staff of T1s below me that handle 99% of our calls. I only answer the phone when all of them are busy, and I only really make outbound calls when I have to do so because of the ticket I'm working on.

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jesuiscanard@reddit

Every day.

But that's because so little comes through helpdesk. The question is "are things running great or have we become unapproachable and they are trying to do it their way?". Luckily we are at the point where things just work. There's 2 of us.

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chesser45@reddit

Rarely, but instead my end users are IT people so it’s just a different kind of frustrating.

I do think about it a lot going back to a different org where I might need to support end users more directly. It’s not a fear but I do not think I remember my excel questions with happiness.

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Amomynou5@reddit

Luckily, zero. We're an MSP and have a strict "we don't talk to end users" policy for our (Tier 3) team. Most of our customers have their own internal service desk to interact with uers, and for the customers that don't, we have our own service desk who talks to the users.

If there's something we need to communicate to our users, it goes out via the ticketing system / service desk, or the respective account managers / change control teams.

AMA.

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Prudent_Strength223@reddit (OP)

Yall hiring?

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Amomynou5@reddit

Sadly, we're firing... they've been on a firing spree lately thanks to the "AI" excuse, it's only a matter of time till it's our turn. :| As much as I dislike the C-suites here, some of the perks have been nice, like being insulated from end users, full BYOD (so I can use Linux), WFH, not having to deal with cloud shit, beers on Friday etc. Not sure if I can be so lucky at my next job.

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OneSeaworthiness7768@reddit

Almost never.

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Opposite_Bag_7434@reddit

Oh to be back working for a massive corporation where we had over 120 helpdesk around the world, actual desktop support and a SysAdmin could be 100% hermit.

For many of this reality looks different. We (current company) finally have a separate helpdesk and SysAdmin has to occasionally interact with other actual humans. The rate we are growing this will eventually change. Jr roles might still deal with people but the core team (still small) might actually get away with living under a rock. Personally I prefer working from a dark cave where users would never venture. I picked this up from developers at a few places I’ve worked over the years.

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idylwino@reddit

All day. Every day.

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Prudent_Strength223@reddit (OP)

Damn, it seems like being a sysadmin just means help desk but higher tier 😭

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SelfImproveAcct@reddit

It’s just social skills man

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SirLoremIpsum@reddit

Damn, it seems like being a sysadmin just means help desk but higher tier

Well no.

Not really helpdesk as in "they come to me with a problem and I solve it and say bye".

If you're expecting sysadmin work to be "I get an email with an idea and spend a week making it happen then pop out of my cave to have a drink" you're mistaken.

Every day has conversations with people about projects. Testing. Problems that can turn into projects.

A recent project was azure virtual desktops for a new group moving from Citrix. So lots of conversations with different people and then lots of testing with same people.

If you choose to believe interacting with people who use the services you support is a drain on your day or "helpdesk scut work" you're not gonna have a good time in life.

Very few IT jobs never interact with end users.

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Prudent_Strength223@reddit (OP)

100% agree with you. I’m all for interacting with users frequently but with help desk it gets tiring since users are most times more technology illiterate

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joshghz@reddit

Unless you're in a very specific role that's only interacting with technical people (which is incredibly unlikely most of the time), it's going to be the same. Even then, you might end up with a non-technical manager, or having to work closely with a software developer who doesn't actually understand simple operating concepts.

Heck, I regularly deal with Helpdesk people who don't seem to be technical or even use common sense.

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Prudent_Strength223@reddit (OP)

Yeah, I figured.

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joshghz@reddit

Most of the time it pretty much is. Unless you end up at a big company where you get siloed into a specific role (or become an architect or something), you will almost always have to.

And if it's not users, it's other parts of the company or management. You still need the soft skills.

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StrangeReindeer2470@reddit

Yep. Today it was several hours with the same person. Granted, they had a valid reason (OneDrive being a giant pain)

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nme_@reddit

20+ years all in msp/consulting gigs. Early on it was every day all day. Drive 3 hours because a client couldn’t click on their start button, and after showing via remote support tools that could click it was told to drive over and figure out what it was.

Turns out the cleaning lady had picked up the monitor to dust and when she put it down she placed it on the mouse cord and the lady using the computer the next day couldn’t physically move the mouse down and to the left enough to click start.

Anyway, I didn’t murder her, and now have moved on to roles where I have less interaction with end users and work with client IT staff to implement solutions and I’m much happier.

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klosie@reddit

As little as possible 🤣

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triangle_earfer@reddit

Too often

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PixieAttack@reddit

I cant speak for every org but this "im L3 support. i dont deal with end users" never goes over well. Even if your middle manager supports that.. No one will know who you are... Random users will tell folks if you helped them and that stuff gets around. No one second guesses laying off a whole team that no one talks too. Optics are important for both for the team and yourself.

Im not saying start doing basic SD support. Doesn't even need to be in-person or calls. Messages folks if a tickets miss assigned is better than throwing it back to SD (or another random team) without a word or suggestion to the end user.

If you dont talk to anyone; how to you really know what the business or end users really need?

If all you want to do is basic data entry and changes then you can probably get away never talking to anyone but your team.

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PrincipleExciting457@reddit

I kind of disagree. Everyone the needed to know who I am knew me. The way our hierarchy worked made sure we had someone whispering user needs into our ears.

It was pretty easy for front line users to talk to their manager, manager talked to their regional manager, regional talked to execs and us.

If something warranted attention we had a project manager survey the environment, take notes, and show us workflows.

Based on the needs, whoever seemed the best fit would be assigned to the PM. If they were busy, the 2nd best went.

The PM and the admin would meet with one of the analysts that had some vague technical knowledge with deeper experience in the specific work area.

Then we planned. PM would make a game plan. Admin and analyst would meet with vendors and discuss the technical and practical structure and use for the product.

We informed the PM of our findings, they organized it, took it to the money people, and we get a green light or red light for the project.

I never have to talk to anyone other than a handful of people who aren’t complaining to me and I could focus on the work. About the only time the end user got involved was during a POC or go live. Where I/the team would make ourselves available for quick action.

After about a month of solid launch, my job goes back to normal or the cycle repeats.

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PixieAttack@reddit

Thats a fair point. Id say my thoughts are more pointed to folks trying to work their way up than someone already making decisions. Ill assign folks based on knowledge of them, recommendations or what I know they've done. We're big so hard to know everyone. Everyone tells me they want projects or to play with things but rarely follow through. A lot of them are talking to random leaders or whatnot and get pointed my way.. but point is they got more of a chance talking to people. Not saying thats right. I dont care how much someone likes someone vs ability to do the work.

Project work shouldn't require as much end user contact vs major issues. If you're doing all project work, probably not too much. Ops when there's problem.. simple question to the users is valuable data. Instead of going through multiple people that may or may not actually understand how your infrastructure works.

All of this depends on the org and leadership across many levels. Communication never hurts. Just dont bash your other IT orgs/teams to end users. Doesnt matter if they are the issue or not.

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COMplex_@reddit

Never ever. Senior engineers mostly.

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bothra@reddit

never ever in the past 15 years of running HPC clusters. there's a team for that

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Buddy_Kryyst@reddit

A good chunk of my day.

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FarkinDaffy@reddit

When I was IT systems manager, I tried to insulate my employees from interaction with employees unless they were troubleshooting an issue.

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jpnd123@reddit

My last gig, I was a Sr. Sys Eng, maybe one or two a week. New gig, new a consultatant...haven't had to talk to an end user yet...just other IT folks

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Daphoid@reddit

Outside of my team? Daily to Every other Day.

But outside of IT? Rarely these days. Only if escalated too.

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awetsasquatch@reddit

Haven't talked to a user in several months now. I actually miss it to an extent.

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lostread@reddit

Roughly every 3.5 minutes…if I’m lucky

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Prudent_Strength223@reddit (OP)

This sounds like help desk levels, wow

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roboto404@reddit

Every day

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cultvignette@reddit

Almost none of them, usually.

Every one of them, however, has my direct line and understand that if they are working, so am I.

Most requests end up filtering through a select few (team leads) or repeat customers. (ranging from hopeless to idea fountain)

There are several people I work with that I've never even seen before. If they show up in my office for IT help, as long as I see a badge and they look a bit lost, we're usually good. 😂

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HerfDog58@reddit

Not that often, but more than I’d prefer. But they’re actually better than dealing with the helplessdeck staff who don’t actually try to help, just create and pass the ticket to my team.

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Se5ha@reddit

Maybe once week or less. Senior admin with no regular support tasks.

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PrincipleExciting457@reddit

Before the lay off, probably 2-3 times a month. Mostly for project work and rarely for troubleshooting anything. Maybe a handful every 6 months.

Now never. I’m enjoying a little vacation.

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Soggy-Attempt@reddit

Too often?

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AdeelAutomates@reddit

These days rarely. I don't work with end users as I'm out of the support world.

I work with my team, other it departments or project managers trying to design and deploy a system.

Nature of the role.

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jafo@reddit

Been at my job for a good bit over a decade. I might have interacted with users once. they don't usually let me. We are not hiring. 😉

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gadget850@reddit

I am end user support. And advanced support team. And alternate enterprise support.

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RelievedDominance@reddit

depends on how much you've automated and delegated to helpdesk, but yeah probably daily for me too. some days way more if something breaks and everyone notices at once.

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1Digitreal@reddit

If you script it right, never.

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matt95110@reddit

Too often.

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TheOnlyKirb@reddit

Every day. I wear a lot of hats. I like most of the people I work with, and dislike calling them users because of that lol.

There are however many days I wish I had an office and wasn't in the middle of the floor where people can just walk up and bug me.

Truthfully, I'd be a lot more productive if I didn't engage with people as much, but I also think I'd be less content with my job if I never engaged, so I think it's a decent trade off.

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AutomaticGrape9263@reddit

Constantly

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Zaiakusin@reddit

At least once a day every day.

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natefrogg1@reddit

Multiple times per day, that can be the most difficult part of this job, I miss dealing with zero people and having my head buried in a console with the whirrr of the fans ever present

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SirLoremIpsum@reddit

Every day

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Fr4nkyB@reddit

Once in a while, when the helpdesk can't comprehend the problem or doesn't know how to fix it. It's not even escalating because most of the time there's no diagnostic and they send it to me directly. Or some users have me on their favorite list, they know I'll fix it in a second instead of waiting for helpdesk.

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