Now Bow And Kiss My Feet

The funniest part about third line technical support, especially when your job mainly involves knowing the organisation and what's going on reasonably well and being able to explain it to even the biggest nitwits amongst your clients, is the amounts of 'Thank you' responses you get. If I had a buck for every Thank You email I've received in the past three years, I bet I could spring for a bowling night for our department. It's kind of bizarre, too - people thanking you for their patience with them, or praising your knowledge, or thanking you for a completely clear explenation, etc. whereas all I really apply is a healthy dose of common sense. I mean, realistically, I'd easily claim anyone could do my job. However, as I explained before, the amounts of people that lack any common sense (not just in technology, but even in general) in a corporate environment can be mind boggling. And with every praising email I have to suppress the urge to email back "Yes, yes, many people have told me before but it never hurts to point out yet again that I am amazing and Great with a capital G. You may praise me some more now. Feel free to do so. I'm framing your reply for my Hall of Praise."
Seriously, all my job requires is a minimal knowledge of some graphical programs, user knowledge of our applications (the rare moments that I get to do any admin work at all are usually very unchallenging), a healthy, down-to-earth common sense, a certain readiness to do your best to figure out what a client is talking about, and a large amount of knowledge of who is who and what's going on, which you can acquire easily just by paying attention to the things discussed around you and on the Intranet. To me this is basically how everyone normally runs their own life, right ? But hey, it pays the bills and gets me Thank You emails. I'm not really complaining, just felt like writing down how strange my job really is when you really think about it. Most of the time I'm merely sort of a traffic cop, making sure things that arrive in my inbox end up with the right people who'll take care of it.
Anywho, back to getting praised. Later folks.