I love the quote “happiness is a journey, not a destination” 🏝️ For me, it reminds me of my very first help desk job which predominantly involved: - unlocking accounts in ADUC 🔓 - expanding mailbox sizes beyond the prescribed limits for those that were kind in Exchange 5.5 📬 - unquarantining semi-sus shareware apps in Symantec Endpoint Protection 👾 Very little about working these 12hr nightshifts was enjoyable beyond the mutually shared experience of helping strangers be productive. Oddly enough, that feeling only amplified for me when I was working around base and received the unexpected “yo, you were that guy that saved my ass while I was trying to do X”. <instant dopamine hit> 🤗 To the customers, the community of help desk geeks in the 100th Comm Squadron were known for giving-more-than-we-take. I can’t help but wonder if the community of geeks that make up the MSP/IT/Cybersecurity world are able to rally in times-of-need because so many of us come from this shared experience of community service? 🤔 As careers progress, most help desk renegades I know graduate into “servant leaders” who then mentor others to be there for customers in their times of need. Whatever it is, I’m thankful for it and the energy I get from these approachable badasses. 🙏 If you’re not feeling happiness, it might be time to step-back and ask: > Am I only producing _output_ or am I delivering valuable *outcomes*? Anything short of the latter makes it much harder to find the shared happiness that accompanies you on your daily journeys 🫶
Totally can relate, SEP unquarantines to submitting samples back to symantec for new signatures when you found inconclusive results. Great post, we are all in this together. Good vs Evil.
Mark Hancock
3w
The dopamine hit from reciving and delivering excellent customer service hits good every time. In more recent years I’ve been getting the same feeling seeing our staff get good feedback due to their excellent customer service delivery. People valuable outcomes every time! ❤️ this Kyle Hanslovan
104th FW Comm Flight rat here (1988 - 2001).. Can't say that I was universally loved - one of my jobs was to rat out O's who had a proclivity to surf porn sites on their office PC's
"am I only producing...output...or am I delivering people valuable *outcomes*" 💯💪
I remember it much the same way. One of the coolest things you and I did was get ghost casting to work across the network for imaging. Who knew that 18 year old I picked up from the airport way-back-when would go on to rule the world :)
Boy, what a Help Desk that was. Still convinced our shops, flight, and squadron were all best in class.
Robert Rich
3w
Those were fantastic times. We truly had a great group of dedicated personnel who gave it their all, and then dug deep and found some more to give.
Loved my time at the 100th and learned a TON about servant leadership from the Airmen, NCOs, SNCOs and Squadron leadership who were there at that time, yourself included.
John Berkery
3w
My brother worked in the Green Zone in Baghdad. The stories he told were crazy.
Director - Australian Cyber Defence
3wI remember my first middle east deployment well, I was basically level 1 help desk too. We were using server 2003 I think, as well as lotus notes (RIP) and symantec backup exec 2010 with the world's most unreliable tapes. Oddly enough, one of the most rewarding parts of that whole thing was getting approval to buy and configure some shitty NAS on which we stored all the "questionably obtained" movies and TV shows that kept everyone from going insane with boredom. That place was such a s*** hole so being able to stave off the insanity for a few hundred people felt really good.