Helpdesk?? Looking for opinions

[Freston]

Executive summary
It's hard to describe me as anything but a dual boot. On the one hand I am a part time Health Care professional. On the other hand I'm a part time freelancer. Now due to a change in government regulations, I am going to loose my revenue from the latter. As a stroke of luck I was able to negotiate a very important contract extending into the mids of 2009... but even with that, it's already impossible to extend other existing contracts, or get new ones.

So I'm looking for an alternative. And I'm thinking something IT related will suit me. But I'm far from having the needed knowledge to build my own company from scratch, and I have to little experience (no experience) to join an existing *nix related business. There are entry level job opportunities, but let's leave it at 'they are not very attractive deals for a 31 year old'.

The case
And then I saw it. The company where I am a Health Care professional has a job opening. They need a Helldesk employee for 8 hours a week. I can easily fit that within my existing schedule (remember my freelance contracts don't get renewed due to a change in government regulations; aka I have free time). In the advertisement for this function, they listed no experience demands other than 'knowledge of XP and Office'.

The job entails:
Manning the Helpdesk
Assisting the installation of new soft and hardware
On-site support

The system is a Citrix with 175 decentralized workstations attached to it (scattered across perhaps 30 locations)
It runs MS Server2003 and the workstations run XP-SP2



Now I'm wondering. Would this be a good stepping stone to get more experience on the server level of computing, and perhaps some company payed trainings??
If I where to apply, what would be a good angle??
I'm also a bit concerned about loosing face in the company if I don't get the job. But I also feel I will be the only applicant, as no IT professional (or aspiring professional) would ever apply for a contract of 8 hours. Apropos, the salary is classed the same as my existing job at the company... that tells you a little about how Health Care professionals are rewarded in the Netherlands

___
I'm just looking for opinions. Or perhaps people have experiences they can share? IRL everyone says I should go for it... but I feel I need some more detailed picture before I can decide. I don't really _need_ an extra job, so it should be fun to do as well as generate income.

[ryokimball]

IRL everyone says I should go for it...

Do you need an imaginary person's opinion? I'm actually a figment of an old friend's imagination... a fragment he could probably do well to have... and I say go for it!
But I've been job-hunting since I've moved and would leap at any employment chance. This job sounds ideal to me --playing with computer soft/hardware installations, tossing spit wads at... I mean, sitting at a desk... wow, I wish some business around here wanted a computer rat.

Sorry. My imaginary opinion is simple: why not? I mean, 8 hours out of a week can't be bad, so take what you can get. Might meet an interesting person or two along the way.

[elija]

Experience is experience. Also going for it shows a willingness to
learn. So I'd say go for it.

You use Linux right?
Well, that shows a willingness to think differently to the herd, which
can be useful in troubleshooting...

It also shows a willingness to learn

Both can be assets you can point to in an interview.

[Freston]

Thnx for your replies! I might have posted a weird question, or a weird story all together... It's just, this opportunity just jumped on me unsought and unexpected.

Do you need an imaginary person's opinion? I'm actually a figment of an old friend's imagination... a fragment he could probably do well to have... and I say go for it!
But I've been job-hunting since I've moved and would leap at any employment chance. This job sounds ideal to me --playing with computer soft/hardware installations, tossing spit wads at... I mean, sitting at a desk... wow, I wish some business around here wanted a computer rat.

Sorry. My imaginary opinion is simple: why not? I mean, 8 hours out of a week can't be bad, so take what you can get. Might meet an interesting person or two along the way.

One might argue that in a metaphysical sense every opinion is imaginary On the other hand, a Dutch writer once said:"Don't be modest about your opinion, it's the only one you've got"
So yeah, 'why not' is a valid opinion.

Experience is experience. Also going for it shows a willingness to learn. So I'd say go for it.

You use Linux right?
Well, that shows a willingness to think differently to the herd, which
can be useful in troubleshooting...

It also shows a willingness to learn

Both can be assets you can point to in an interview.

Thank you! Those are good points.

I was just doubting that angle. Should I or should I not stretch the fact that I've been running Linux for ... oh I dunno ... and MS free for a little over a year now. But I guess as long as I don't make this into an attack on MS (which it's not), then (I hope) they will see it as experience on a deeper level of the machinery involved.

Anyway, it'll be good for the experience-o-meter. I might as well give it a try.

[Thrillhouse]

If you're trying to get into the sys admin/support field and you have little to no experience, then helpdesk is a great place to start, especially if you already have a good knowledge base with computers. One of the head sys admins at the company I work at started in the field by working the helpdesk at his college. If you're competent, the IT people who do the actual work (i.e. not answer phone calls) will trust you to do some of the jobs and that could lead to a more prominent role or even a new job somewhere else.

I'd say go for it. If you end up not liking it you can always quit but it may lead to bigger and better things. Good luck.

[Freston]

Do you need an imaginary person's opinion? I'm actually a figment of an old friend's imagination... a fragment he could probably do well to have... and I say go for it!

Only now I get the Kafka reference of your post... update your charactersheet:charisma +1



I just wanted to say I went for it and I got the job W00t!!!

Today was my second day... it's hard to describe. Two of my three collegues are ex-health care professionals like myself, so that gives enough common ground to walk on. But changing career feels a bit weird...

...for example, we got a call for a XP machine with a read/write error unable to boot. It was a PIII while our whole system is gonna switch to thin clients (running Linux) in tha near future. So rather then repairing the PIII we decided to replace it with a thin client prematurely. I spend half an hour configuring the thin client. It needed a default printer. But for that I needed the printers IP-address. And for that I needed the document with all IP-addresses. And for that I needed read permissions on the IT-share on my account. And for that I needed 'operator-rights' to add my own account to the right group. And I didn't feel like asking. So I did it all myself... all-in-all an half hours work. Slack-style!


Come I to the place where the thin client was to deployed, people look at me as though I have been working in the IT-field for the better part of the last 80,000 years. Heheh... remember it was my second day But I'm rolling out thin clients like there is no tomorrow. And nobody is aware that the things I'm doing are completely and utterly new to me as well. Even as I explain it's my second day at the job I get glances like; your first day _here_ but you're in IT for all of your life. While the truth is the opposite. I work for that company for 8.5 years.... it's the shift to IT that is new.


Hihi... that is funny. I guess it says something about me as well . I tend to act like I know where I don't. I can come across as a bit of a know-it-all (in both a good and bad sense) in first impressions. That changes once people get to know me (also both in a good and bad sense). But my collegues have been great up until now. BOFH-style! They even killed one of the Board of Directors applications for me, just to show that we _can_.... heheh I like it (I know the guy and he deserves the cattle prod).




Well anyways.... thnx for reading. I'm really impressed with the move that I'm making, and I wanted to share. I had a good day... how about you??