Be nice and organized. Please.

The Helpdesk.

It goes by other names. "Service Desk", "Customer Service", "The hotline". I have never heard any of them spoken with enthusiasm. I conducted a short survey today and they both agreed that it was an undesirable business number to call. I believe one person said "it's like violent constipation".

Wow.

To those who don't know what constitutes a helpdesk, it is a phone number you call when you need something fixed, normally electronics. This brilliant, insightful comic will help you understand the process. I myself know people who work, or have worked at helpdesks. Get ready for a shock:

They are nice people.

Why is there the disconnect then? I blame the software. I have used three different "professional" helpdesk software packages. All of them are the logic equivalent of building the Eiffel tower using KNEX made of cooked spaghetti.

When you work on the helpdesk you have angry people who are disappointed with the necessity of calling you; calling you. It isn't your fault they were stuck on hold for 25 minutes, but you're the next one they talk to. It's like being the waiter for a slow chef who makes bad food.

Once you have a description of their problem (filtering out complaints and determining the right symptoms) you must enter it into the SYSTEM. And that, my friends, is as close to purgatory as software gets.

Take something simple, like, a lost email toolbar. You must categorize it, but the categories are not well labeled, descriptive, or logical. It's like trying to complete Zork using Zoolander as a character (he can't turn left after all).

So you select each dropdown in a haphazard guessing game hoping to score pay dirt, which is, to enable the magic button to deposit the ticket into the system. But is email corporate or desktop application? Is it a break, error or data issue?

You must keep moving forward or face starting over. It's like running a maze mixed with a gauntlet crossed with the running of the bulls. It only ends in hitting something, crying and manure. Add to it the pressure to keep the calls quick, solve the problems correctly, and move the backlog of tickets on.

These are not places where people are encouraged to be ingenuous and artistic, fusing passion and energy into technological customer gracing glory. These are places where you must follow the rules and succeed in spite of them.

So please, when you call a helpdesk be patient and organized. The person you eventually talk to is someone's little boy or little girl all grown up and working for minimum wage to listen to you.

And make mention of how they must hate the newest system, they will appreciate it.