I have been in the career field of I.T. for about 20+ years, and most departments run, generally the same way. You have multiple "tiers" of operation, and each team of the department specializes in specific areas of I.T. Just what are these areas? Well, let's outline them below.

Tier 1 Roles - Tier 1 roles are typically entry-level I.T. people, and people who perform I.T. as an interrim job between other jobs they might do. The most popular one is "helpdesk support" - which are the majority of the people on your I.T. team that you will be talking with most of the time. Some people might be waiting to take certifications, some might have skills under-the-level of certification, and some might be looking at I.T. as a potential career, while others are just doing this as a fill-in before they do something else in an unrelated field. Another department some larger companies may have is a dedicated "Printer" Team. Why Printers are somehow seen as "beneath" I.T. to me, I dunno. They are some of the most aggrivating devices on the planet. They are where the mechanical meets hardware and software, and that's always a very tricky combo when the printer is affordable to the average person.

PRinter Support - Printer support team members are sort of a subset of I.T. that handles the printers on the campus. The end users, of course, do not know this. Neither do other members of the team. A lot of them tend to see the printer people as not as technical or skilled as Helpdesk, truth is this is just another discipline or specialization and it's every bit as important as the Tier 1 helpdesk. These jobs typically pay peanuts compared to other parts of the field. However, in a good company, they might consider hiring you on if you do good work and show the motivation to actually learn parts of helpdesk support or even other roles. Tasks in question typically are assisting higher levels of I.T. in getting new printers installed and setup, replacing paper, replacing toner, replacing staples on MFDs (Multi-Function Devices - ie, those huge Xerox machine sized printers that can print documents in color or black and white, staple pages, and punch holes for a three ring binder), setting up plotters (very large, wide printers used by Engineers), and calling in Tier 1+ I.T. to check out the printer if it's not communicating with the NEtwork. It also may include things such as replacing Fusers, Care Kits, Maintenance, and performing RMA ~ getting service and repairs done under warranty, or working with someone in Resource Management to get a Purchase Order in order to get it replaced if it's out of warranty and the company refuses to replace it.

Helpdesk Tier 1 - Helpdesk Tier 1 is where the luckier people start out in. This is generally the most basic of I.T. Tasks, troubleshooting hardware, and basic Microsoft Windows and Office Software, usually as the front-line of support for a team that may have higher tier members with bigger projects under their belt. It usually pays just a little more than the Printer Tech job, but it also expects more and has a little more risk, and a little more responsibility. Human Resources often fails to pick up or learn how the department actually works. While most job postings state that you will be fielding calls through some form of ticketing system, it's more of a multi-tentacled approach. In Tier 1 is where you get used to the ropes of handling a mix of phone calls, instant messages, text messages, trouble tickets, and other members of the team handing off tasks to you depending on what needs done. These can include (but is not limited to): Upgrading/Replacing memory, Upgrading/Replacing HArd Disk Drives, Installing hardware/peripherals/software, figuring out why software isn't working, figuring out why the computer won't boot (and fixing it), figuring out why the computer won't connect to the network (and fixing, or escalating to the network team), figuring out why it won't print, figuring out why it won't power on (which is separate from booting up the machine), working with the OEM to RMA broken devices under warranty, working with resource management to get a P.O. to repair/replace computers and peripherals out-of-warranty if required - but all just base level stuff, like most average home users ie your mom, or your non-technical sibling.

Tier 1 usually has the most diverse mix of personalities ranging from total cut-ups who don't take the job seriously all the way to people who take it a little too seriously and probably need a vacation but don't have the sense to take one. Usually the cut-ups are the first ones let go/laid off when the budget gets tight or the company is not doing well, as are the people who take it a little too seriously because the company claims they cannot afford to pay the technician what they are worth - or at least, that might be what they say behind closed doors - but it's all dependant also on how your company operates, and if they enable upward mobility or not. Some people are college graduates, some people are not, some people never went to college, some have certifications, some don't. ANd none of those are accurate representations of who is skilled or not. I've seen guys who never took a day of college in their life doing system-admin level things in PowerShell for Tier 1 tasks becoming very efficient, while other guys might have a 4 year degree and think they can coast on by by regurgitating standard knowledge without any care or notice of the situation at hand and it's highly visible anomalies because it's "what ______ said it works like".

Most I.T. work in these lower tiers, up to about Tier 3 Tech Support and anything beneath System Administration, Network Specialists, and I.T. management team members - are often, these days, outsourced to a "peoplesoft" company that focuses on "manpower" for I.T. Usually the company will pay the outsource company something like $60/hr for the hire, then the outsource company takes a huge chunk of that, as much as 2/3rds of the pay, and pays the tech some tiny amount between $10/hr all the way to about $21-22/hr if they are really lucky. The only way to stay hanging on is to make yourself invaluable to the team. How do you do that? Well, take a look around you and see what your local I.T. Team lacks.

The biggest stressor for a good Tier 1 technician or Printer Person, is when they are bombarded with work due to other members of the team slacking, or due to management dropping everything they can on them because they "super perform". It can reach a point where that technician might be fielding calls in the 20s or 30s due to widespread issues, or just general mismanagement, which then leads that technician to working late, getting burned out, and having to leave ends untied at the end of the day because even having help is not cooling things down. A lot of bigger companies also tend to refuse resources that they may need to do their job such as USB drives, certain levels of network resource access, or even just another person to work with them to stay with the demand.

But this is for the people OUTSIDE the team.

Tier 2 and higher Support typically contains seasoned Technicians who might go by all sorts of titles depending on the company. These people are the people who have a very good grasp of computers, other technologies, networks, and printers, sort of a jack-of-all-trades in some respects, of hte I.T. team. THat's done by making yourself valuable. These people might do SOME Tier 1 tasks, but most often, have bigger issues going on whether that's working with the network administrator to coordinate a large scale deployment of the next Windows version, or even shadowing some of the higher teams in InfoSec, Network Administration, or even the Business Side if that's where they show skill at. These are also the guys they bring in when Tier 1 can't fix your issue - ie - some strange thing nobody else has been able to fix on your computer after a few days, maybe even a few weeks to a month, and they'll bring in this guy who has seen some of the strangest stuff you'll ever see in I.T. from poorly put together PC's shorting out on the casing causing weird hardware issues, all the way to finding design flaws that eventually lead to contacting the OEM and informing htem of it with some form of proof to tell them that it's an actual problem.

Usually you'll find the people on this team are what most will call "nerds" "Geeks" "Gamers" - you know, there might be a few "TechBros" but TechBros really don't last long in I.T. settings I've found. USually they get washed out since it's usually discovered how full of horse hockey they actually are, or they get removed because they are showing a conflict of interest by advertising whatever it is they are selling on company time to people who are neither interested, nor have a need for whatever product or service pie in the sky dream they have. You will find interpersonally on these teams it's a little more difficult. For starters, most of the nerd/geek stereotypes are there, being on the spectrum and maybe a little socially awkward, but befriend them because they can be one of your best resources when stuff gets really messed up. Don't be put off by their esoteric, geekly, initially seemingly non-business-like interests either because those interests are the catalyst from which they channel the very skillset they are using to assist. Upper tiers tend to be very used to strange problems, odd use-cases, and thinking outside the box occasionally. This makes them very formidable as technicians and often can be the team Tier 1 has to call on for issues that are not the standard routine I.T. issue.

Network and System Administrators - These people typically are hired direct on to the company and make far more money. They tend to also have higher education (or have parlayed a level of higher education themselves). They also are not the people you should be talking down to, since generally, the more one works in the I.T. field goes towards networking and systems administrator type roles, the generally crankier you are going to become - because this is where the REAL mental labor takes over.

Network related roles are where we begin to introduce business and legal elements more into the picture. AS a Tier 1 or Tier 2 technician, you don't really see as much of the picture regarding cost centers, RMAing items over $10,000, dealing with elements of networking and the internet that start to introduce political and social issues into the picture. Most of that is shielded from you from the administrators and InfoSec teams. They handle all the REAL tricky things like what settings to turn off on Edge for group policy, turning ports on and off on the switch, monitoring network traffic for malicious or otherwise questionable behavior....this is also, where this page is going to become a little more *fun* to write. They are also the ones that work with the larger fish from the company to use technology to enforce, control, and otherwise, make sure network traffic remains clean, safe, and free of bandwidth hogging - which is a HUGE problem ever since the advent of smartphones, BYOD, and other stuff. If you want to know why you are blocked from a site you may even need for legitimate business - these are the guys who take care of that for you - usually via proxy of tier 1 or tier 2.

And the necessity for precision on the networking side is a major reason why Tier 2 might seem a little cranky if you just say "my computer won't work, FIX IT!", because if the problem is a network problem, the Network or System's admin is not a genie, nor are the other tiers for that matter - we cannot read your mind. We need to know SPECIFICS! What's broken, why it's broken, any error messages, any potential odd behaviors you noticed earlier - one thing I've learned from 20 years in this industry that is the most grating is how end users just think we automatically know what's wrong, like we are causing the problem - which I can rest assured, we are not. We have PLENTY to do when there isn't any tickets in the queue. Workstations that need updated, servers that need updated, new devices that need imaged/installed/configured, old devices that need fixed, new hires to setup - and while you may see someone on your team doing something that seems entirely not work related - this is where we enter into another piece of the problem. Tiny time, and sometimes, what you see us doing with a computer, is not what it looks like. - but more on that later.

So let's say you've been screaming "it's broken, Fix It!" with no other details beyond that. And you decide to go over our heads. That's when you start to really irritate everyone on the team, because now you are wasting the time of I.T. MANAGEMENT. Our supervisors, Directors, Managers, Bosses, Department Heads, any of those titles, typically have even MORE to do than we do, and they are where the scales of I.T. shift more from the technical, and further into business, politics, and budgeting - three very dare I say "scary" subjects to most other people, because it has to deal with one thing the lower tiers are not accustomed to on such a heavy level - Accountability. Leadership is where a team sinks or swims. Leadership may also be the ones taking the hit for the lower tiers.

Secondly, we all work a little differently depending on where we stand on the team and what our specialties are. I tend to keep myself free of any tying engagements when possible so I can remain somewhat "liquid" with my work, so I can stop and fix something right quick that might turn into a major issue, all the while resolving another issue.