QUOTE(Polishman @ May 5 2007, 12:14 AM)
You have explained your own decision process very well. You chose the wrong job for you and you were impatient. Well, you can blame the employer for that can you? And what's wrong serving "dumb a s s users"? Remember - in the area of their expertise - you're about just as "dumb a s s" if not worse as they are to you from the IT perspective.
Actually helpdesk experience helps enormously later on in the career. This is when you know how to deal with non technical people and explain different technical aspects in "layman's terms". You also know how to deal with angry people correctly. You may not see the benefit right now, but give it another 5 or 10 years and that knowledge always comes back as very useful and valuable.
Of course Shell and any other big employer has to require some time committment from the staff. Ususally helpdesk staff has to commit for a relatively short periods. On the other hand - 2nd and 3rd line support positions are generally quite well filled, so unless someone moves away - they don't have a spare position to "promote" the helpdesk analyst.
You have to think outside of your own cubicle and take a lot of aspects into the perspective.
right now , i know my own career path ......i never love to be helpdesk and serving dumbass user ...i'm used to be in technical field before, and that's why i never wannabe helpdesk ...
i'm more understanding machines language rather than understanding annoying user.
machines never bragging me ...machine will give error msg in /var/log/messages or syslog.log , and i know how to fix it ...not fixing other ppl problemo .
do you know why i'm working as helpdesk in SHELL before ..? this is because they never stated the word "helpdesk" in job description in order to make it vague , and they also never clear about job scope when i went to the interview.
Maybe other ppl might get the same situation like me ..but life goes on ..and now i know where i'm standing now .
FYI, i got promoted for Full Time Contract but i declined it , because SHELL wants me to be in the helpdesk team for 2 years ...damned ...for the moment i realized the fact , i try to go away from helpdesk department .
p/s i dont know whether u are in helpdesk department in SHELL or not ..but for me , i never love helpdesk field ... and it keeps me down everytime the calls come in .damned
for those who dont wanna serve whining user like call-center in Tmnet , just stay away from it ...