So, Tom at this point in the course we're examining what it

means to be an IT support agent.

From your perspective as an actual support professional,
can you provide us with an understanding of what the role
entails?
And what is expected of an IT support agent?
>> Yeah, Tony that's a great question.
I will begin by explaining a little bit about my career.
Right now I've been in IT support for 13 years.
And back in 2006 I started on the Excel team.
And I actually came from sales.
So I didn't have very deep technical knowledge.
And when you are an IT support agent, you are going to be on
the phones answering customer calls with very critical issues.
A customer will call in with
a variety of different forms of issues.
It could be some form of migration or update issue.
They could have encountered a bug.
They could have been testing something applying updates and
now things are broken and
the business could be at a stand still.
And this was really daunting for me earlier on.
Having all of this responsibility of delivering
the solution to a customer in a timely manner.
That's really the main piece of the IT support role is,
a customer will call in and
it's up to you to deliver them a solution.
Often times you are not always the right person.
So you're gonna have to have a network of different engineers
to collaborate with.
You also need to know the product really well.
When I started on the Excel team I had very limited
knowledge of the product and
I remember sitting around a table with my wife.
And she was studying for her nursing exam, for
her NCLEX exam.
And I sat there and I read a book about that big called
Microsoft Excel Inside and Out.
And it was those very, very thin pieces of paper.
So when a book is that thick,
I think it was maybe 780-some pages.
But over time, I got more comfortable.
I felt I got stronger at the role by working directly with
customers, and that's really where you learn a lot about
the product that you're supporting,
because you're seeing how other customers are using it.
And it also helps to build up your brand,
and we may touch on this later, the importance of entering
the IT field and what it can do for your career.
It's a great role, because you are developing
the strong sense of technical capabilities.
So yeah, it's a fantastic role.
But to answer your question really,
it's about getting a customer up and running as soon as possible.