It Won't Be Easy

This is the second week of training for LAT Helpdesk and the first for about 40 other people. What a lot of folks! IBM hired a large number, knowing that some would not be able to pass the voice and accent training. And there is some attrition. They want to make sure that they get off to a good start with enough people to make it through the learning cycle.

There is so much for them to learn. They are all college graduates in IT or other sciences. But they don't all have practical experience with our hardware and standard software. It would be easy if they only needed to learn the specialized stuff. So this week we are covering Hardware and software. The class yesterday was very thorough in covering all the parts of a computer and laptop and what could go wrong and how to fix that. The challenge of being on a Helpdesk is that you have to do this without actually seeing the problem. You get good at chatting with your eyes closed, trying to picture the issue.

Today I will get to hear their take on Microsoft Office products. I hope they include Outlook. We, at The Times, get a majority of calls about email. You just can't run a business without email. This was underscored for us, of course, with the email conversion throughout Tribune. I'm surprised we were able to publish, considering all the issues. We are good at overcoming these obstacles, so we did publish; but IBM must know all aspects of Outlook VERY well.

I talked with the new group on Monday about their feelings about talking to Americans. They all professed to be, if not scared, a bit leary of the prospect. I told them they should be scared. Many employees were not looking forward to the change. They like their Helpdesk staff. But the bottom line is that the Helpdesk is only there to get people whole again, make their computer issues go away, and get them back to work. So as the people here gain the trust of the people stateside by resolving their issues, getting assistance quickly when they can't resolve the problem and following up at each step, the barriers should drop.

It won't be easy, but by the time I leave I expect see that this is happening.