Corey Chronicles

lvtc

I was just talking with my wife about how being in a support job is not a money maker.  What I mean by not a money maker is that in the grand scheme of the company a support person's actions do not produce revenue for the company.  A sales person obviously brings in revenue through sales, programmers bring in money by developing new features that the sales people can sell, AR/AP bring in money by making sure people pay.  Support just makes sure that people get their questions answered.  People can argue that good support makes the customer happy and will help guarantee a renewal, but the short term benefit isn't as visible.  That is why it is usually hard to get resources for the support department, if one exists.  Usually support is spread out over the whole company.  Which is fine with small companies, but if the desire is to grow then you need to be proactive with support.  This includes:

1. Beefing up documentation to ensure the user experience is good
2. Monthly campaigns to check in on customers and help them use the product by introducing them to more resources like webinars, new documentation, blog posts etc.
3. Be timely on responses: Nothing impresses people more then getting back to them in a timely fashion...this also helps keep your software at the top of their mind - which is good
4. Thoroughly following up on cases - to ensure the question was answered and to document the result of the case
5. Test the product to ensure for QA (even though there are dedicated QA people, it is good to have fore knowledge of issues)
6. Scan the internet for people struggling with the product - Twitter, blogs, forums etc

I myself love support.  Believe it or not.  Sometimes I have some rough cases, but overall I learn a lot, I get to help people with their problems, and I get to learn a product inside and out.  Many days I just wish I had more time to tackle some of the points above.  

lvtc

I was talking to someone the other day that I had helped figure out a problem.  He had mentioned that he told a buddy about the fix and his buddy asked him if he was going to document the fix, the guy in turn said, "No, then they'll have no need for me if they have all of my knowledge".  This got me thinking about how valuable employees are to companies and if they are expendable if they have the knowledge in order to train someone else to do it for cheaper. 

It gets one curious as far as what to divulge and what not to.  I myself try to document to the best of my ability but sometimes wonder if a majority of my value is based on my abilities or my vast knowledge from my time at the company and how I can recall anything that occured in the past.  I know the company I work for values me as a contribution to the team...but I can understand where other people are coming from when they have those FUDs(Fears, Uncertainties, and Doubts)

lvtc

In a given day I'm granted a certain level of patience which I go through during the day.  Somedays the bar decreases slowly giving me ample time to finish the day with a smile, somedays (cough)today(/cough) my bar drains faster than an SUV gas tank.  I was having a rough day today that caused me to be in a bad mood at the end of the day, now for the Norwegian in me, I apologize to anyone that was affected by my mood.  There are just somedays that I get overwhelmed and just wanna close the laptop, pack it in my backpack quietly, take it home, and go to the beach and mipe my mind clean.   I find that I typically get in these moods after a holiday.  I get a certain amount of time off and it takes me half of that time to get used to the fact that I am off.  Then when I get back I'm all groggy and can't focus.  Kind of like when you are sick and you take cold medicine, you can sleep for a long time, but when you wake up you have medicine head which sucks just as bad, even though you are healthy enough to resume activities. 

I just got back from working out which helped out a ton.  So then I decided to blow off some steam to the Tabulas crowd...you guys just get me.  We should totally have a Tabulas meetup sometime.  That would be awesome!!

lvtc

Someone made a comment the other day about how my generation - the gen x'ers or whatever we are called now, doesn't have the same commitment to work as previous generations.  We are likely to make 5 career changes during the course of our working years where as our parents were more likely to work at the same place throughout the course of their life.  This is tied to levels of satisfaction in my mind.  Our generation knows that life is too short and you need to do what you love, and get paid well for it.  We don't have an submissive attitude with our employers where we felt like they were the parents and we were the children. 

Another thing, it makes me mad with another statement that our generation needs constant praise and we are "more sensitve".  The fact of the matter is, employers need to spend more time focusing on the health, happiness, and overall attitude of their employees to ensure that everything is good and to promote work.  If someone is appreciated then they will continue to do well.  Like in any relationship, you need constant communication in order to maintatin complete clarity.  Sometimes that is the issues with larger corporations, the higher ups don't know how to maintain a relationship, because they only care about the money/success and so do not know how to treat their employees.

lvtc

My wife recently started school again, she is going back for her masters.  This has decreased the time that we see each other as she leaves before I wake up and is working later now.  This has affected my mood quite a bit, especially in the morning, which pushes me to the conclusion that I need to have people around me to keep my happiness up, to a point.  I don't like crowds and I don't like a group of people I don't know.  So the social interaction has to be with people I know and it has to be limited.  Also I need to keep my life constantly changing.  Normalcy and schedule is my kryptonite.  If I have to be somewhere routinely(this goes for downtime not work) I start to not enjoy it as it is too scripted, in my mind.  I've always had issues with things that are constant.  I think that is why I like computers sooo much, even though I am technically sitting at a computer for an extended period of time which can be considered as a constant, I am able to change what I am doing and vary the task greatly.  Plus there is a constant stimulous.  Anyhoo I will have to become accustomed to not having my wife around and get used to a level of routine.