Ever wondered what it’s like to work at ITS? Freshman and Help Desk Assistant Ilya Dyskin shares his experience.
What are your basic duties as an ITS employee?
As an ITS employee, my duties usually consist of sitting at the desk, helping people with minor computer problems, mostly fixing issues with WiFi, and filling the paperwork for them when the computers have to be taken for further work.
When is your scheduled work time?
This semester, I actually work a night owl shift from 12am to 8am on Thursdays.
Why did you decide to work at ITS?
All my life, I was generally interested in computers, and being able to help others with their computer related issues, and getting paid for it at the same time, seemed like a perfect job for me.
What is the hardest problem that you have had to solve?
Probably when an elderly Pakistani couple came in with a very old laptop that would refuse to connect to our WiFi network. To make matters worse, that particular model was not released for the global market, so we couldn’t find anything about it on the web, its battery was shot, therefore we had to constantly keep it connected to the power source, and the Ethernet port was not accepting our cables for some strange reason.
The entire ITS staff present at the time had gathered around that computer trying to figure something out for a good half an hour. I had to leave later because my shift was over, but from what I have gathered, we took this laptop in and somebody on the computer fixing team managed to make it work (which I still find amazing).
Oh yeah, the laptop’s language was originally set to Arabic which made it really “fun” for us trying to do any basic operations with it.
If you had to describe your job in three words, how would you describe it?
People. Computers. Desk.
Describe your interactions with your co-workers.
We are a very friendly bunch who are always ready to help each other whenever somebody encounters a problem he doesn’t know how to solve, and we always share a few good laughs over the comic situation occurring at the desk (and they happen all the time!).
What are your three favorite memories of your work experience?
Let’s see… The first one was probably the orientation where I got to know the inner workings of ITS, got to know a lot of great people for the first time and was fed food non-stop from 10am until 6pm.
The second one would be the first person who came in for help. I still remember the genuine feeling of happiness and awesomeness of being able to help out a fellow student.
And the last, but not the least, is my first night shift this semester where I befriended my coworker, Kevin Gerami, who lives a floor above me, is a Computer Science and Economics double major just like me, and is generally a great guy. We were amazed that we’ve not met each other before since we’ve had most of our classes together both semesters.
What advice would you give to future ITS employees?
Guys and gals, don’t ever be afraid of people who come for your help. Most of them are students just like you. Have a little conversation with them while you’re trying to fix their issues; you may even befriend them later (that happened to me actually)!
Also, don’t be afraid of the current ITS workers; we may seem a bit weird and intimidating at first, but we really want to know you as a person and help you out with anything you need both in and outside of your work. Both my lab and workshop TA’s were working together with me last semester, and they helped me a lot outside of the class. And we also became great friends.
Rudd is a member of the class of 2017.
Douglas is a member of
the class of 2017.
