I believed most people decide to work in IT because they’re introverts (like me!) and, of course, the money - it can be a very lucrative career. Those are the reasons I changed careers and was attracted to cybersecurity. I thought I would be sitting behind a computer, minding my business, taking care of tasks, and make lots of money. Prior to working in cybersecurity, I was a merchandiser for 12 years - which is an autonomous, task-oriented role, and minimal interaction with humans. Your focus is the products, and the only human interactions I had was dealing with my boss, my co-workers, various store managers, and store employees. Which I was fine with. We’re all on the same team and I have no problems interacting with the backend side of work.
I’m grateful that an MSP took me in as a total noob. I have unrelated degrees, a security+ cert, and minimal technical knowledge or experience so it was a gamble for the company to take me in and take the time to show me the ropes. I learned a lot.
I didn’t know what to expect. Frankly, the role I got from the MSP was made up during the interview. They didn’t have a dedicated security department and they thought I would be a great fit to fulfill some security tasks such as HIPAA, phishing campaigns, deploying new security tools, and more.
Prior to this job, when I was looking for entry-level IT work, MSPs always came up as entry-level and a foot into the tech industry. I knew MSP meant “managed service provider” and the most I knew about that was help desk tickets because, in previous jobs, I’ve had to contact the help desk for technical issues too. So, I thought it shouldn’t be that hard. I found this position through a job fair. I sent my resume, interviewed, and got a job offer. Finally! Someone was giving me a chance.
Right away on my first day, I was told by my direct supervisor that MSPs are very fast-paced and I would learn a lot in a short amount of time. He even compared 1 year of experience at their MSP as equivalent to, like, 4 years of experience in the tech industry. Boy, he was not lying. Practically every day until the day I was laid off, I learned something new or had a new task to do. It was overwhelming, but a big part of the challenge for me was the lack of structure, and that has more to do with company culture. It’s not a bad thing. Some people love that type of hectic work environment. It’s all your own preference. Since I’m task-oriented, I prefer to know exactly what I am doing and what I need to do. Nevertheless, I will always be grateful to this company for seeing potential in me and giving me a chance. I am glad things ended with them on good terms.
So what did I learn about working in IT?
The most profound lesson I learned is that IT is a service. It is a service-based industry solving users’ problems and communicating with people A LOT! You have to have the passion to be a problem solver and have the patience to deal with hundreds of users.
To me, it felt like I was working in retail again. You get to wear many hats in an MSP and the soul of this job is the help desk. One of my job duties was being a backup dispatcher (answering phone calls). Whether you are working at Target, Mcdonald's, or Help Desk people are generally the same. They mostly are rude, demanding, and impatient.
The tickets I dealt with were more security-based and I didn’t mind that part. Hence why I was a security ADMIN. What that mostly consisted of was going to Azure AD and changing passwords, enforcing MFA, whitelisting and blacklisting domains and IP addresses. I enjoyed doing this work because it was the backhand side of things. I also enrolled users to take Security Awareness Training, deployed security tools, and did device audits. All of this was fine for me because this wasn’t highly technical and really was system administrative work. I still gained some technical knowledge and learned a lot about cybersecurity.
The challenge for me was talking to clients, remotely logging into their computers, and having to take on technical tasks that I wasn’t yet trained in or confident in providing. It was overwhelming dealing with hundreds of users and providing the best service so our MSP will continue to have a good reputation.
The entire existence of this business is providing a service. So if you don’t like dealing with people or want to avoid them - this might not be the job for you. It is also a very underappreciated job because users will treat you as just “the help”. There are even nicknames you find online like on Reddit that call the help desk “hell desk”.
I need to emphasize that this is not a reflection of how I felt about my previous employer. My co-workers and bosses were great. I probably could not have had a better introduction to working in IT because everyone was so supportive and patient with me. I got along with everyone. The users even liked me even though deep inside I dreaded working with people. Working there narrowed down my options on where I would want to be in this career, long term.
I found out randomly on the internet that most people get shocked when they go into IT and realize how customer-facing it is. When people think of tech and want to be autonomous, they are thinking of computer science, not information technology. My next step toward my career is a computer science job. And I will write about that soon as I get certified and get hired. Or, my other option is to work in a GRC role - Governance, Risk, and Compliance.
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