Fifteen years ago I was asked to manage IT support for an operating company within a large company. This included desk top support, help line, etc. at locations in three states. This was in addion to my “real job”.
What a thankless job. PC’s and associated infrastructure are like a utility in that it is expected to operate in the background and to work perfectly all the time. The only time that people contact IT support is when they have a problem. No one calls to say the system sure works good today. And when the operating company president had any problems, he called me direct to tell me about it. He of course could barely turn on his PC.
My company had transitioned to MS Office the year before so most of the calls were how do I do this or that in one of the programs. In self defense I started running lunch and learn sessions. We provided free how-to seminars once a week and I provided a box lunch for free if you attended. This had an immediate and positive impact on our work load.
The Lunch and Learns became so popular that other operating companies asked to be included. I charged the other operating companies for the priviledge and used the money to pay for the seminars and to create more seminars.
We outsourced desk top support two years later, to my personal relief. What a thankless job. My hat is off to all those that provide IT support.