I started a new job this week, after a long 4 months unemployed. I was very picky about where I applied, and I think the results speak for themself. It’s early, but I think I’m going to be very happy where I’m at. It’s a contract position and I’m doing my best to angle for getting picked up as a full employee.
How, you might ask? Well, here’s a little story. The hiring manager made it pretty clear that they’re hiring a temp to help them clear out a backlog of tickets and computer deployments. The team has been overwhelmed with projects and has fallen behind. I’ve taken that to heart; I sold myself as someone who has a lot of experience in both basic help desk stuff and getting computers out the door.
The hiring manager (let’s call him M) has been checking in with me at the end of every day, and before my last call with him on Friday, I decided to take a look at my stats. Wanted to have something concrete for him. I discovered that I had handled 47 tickets so far; 13 of them were still open (waiting for the users to get back to me.) That’s not all that I’ve done, though. I know there are tickets that I’ve passed off to others. I don’t have full admin rights yet, and I don’t have access to all of the tools the other techs have. But that’s the number of tickets assigned to me, closed and open: 47.
I have no idea what that means in context, though. How many tickets do other techs have? What’s a normal day, or a normal week, look like? In my meeting, I mentioned this, and M looked impressed. So it felt like a good thing. Afterward, I checked in with the team lead, L. They said, “a busy week for us is 60-70 new tickets coming in.”
And I’ve handled 2/3 to 3/4 of that number? Oooook, that… yeah, that seems good.
Just trying to make myself useful, here, y’know?