

Ask HN: Stuck in support role - stuck434

Is there any way out of a support role? Long story short, I started working at a company part-time in college supporting a CMS (slicing, integrating cms, troubleshooting, etc). I did it for over 3 years. Recently I transitioned into full time, but it seems like I've terribly outgrown the job. Even though there are other positions for UI/UX, programming, the company pretty much only wants me doing support. The company hires totally new people for these positions all the time, and it really hurts. This is the case for pretty much everyone at this company that started on support, there seems to be no way out. I worked really hard for this company in college since I thought I was working for something more (long hours, less pay for more responsibility, harder or equal work as full timers).<p>Should I be grateful to even have a job? Am I asking for too much? I figured I should have been given some semblance of a chance by now to do anything else. High tail it out of this company, or what? I didn't go to a well known college, and only have one significant project I can point to outside of work, so I'm finding it difficult building a solid resume. I feel really gimped, but a lot of the blame must obviously fall on me.
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codeslush
I started my professional career in QA, then "downgraded" to a support role in
a different company because (a) it was a mile from my house instead of a 2hr
commute each way every day and (b) it actually paid more! Now for the
interesting part: In support, you have an opportunity to SHOW and CREATE
tremendous value! Value drives recognition. Value drives increases in salary.
Value drives opportunity - within or outside your current employer.

Let me back up my assertions:

I worked for a large software company that had acquired a smaller niche
company. Niche company had some bugs that caused some problems for its
customers.

I helped said customers resolve those issues. Those customers wrote really
nice letters and sent them to my employer. Regularly. It was actually a little
embarrassing after a while. It's almost as though I was asking for them, and I
wasn't. It just wasn't "normal" -- enter "Wonder Boy" nickname. That's all
good - I got raises and recognition.

Next, I developed a utility to help correct this problem. I didn't actually
understand much about programming, and it was a fairly complicated issue for
me to solve. Had to do with bitwise operators and all that good stuff. I
sought out answers to an equation I wasn't smart enough to solve, but for a
problem I knew existed. Once I had the bits (funny, huh?) of info I needed, I
wrote a very simple program/utility to save companies from experiencing this
problem. Guess what happened then? Development manager tried to recruit me
(lucky for him, I didn't accept).

Then...I started working closer and closer with partners. I was becoming
somewhat of a subject matter expert. I then get invited to present in partner
training. So I go do this. What do you know? Sales Consulting people see me
and say - Wow - this guy is confident, knows his stuff, and can communicate to
an audience. Now, I get recruited to sales consulting. Sweet - that works! Not
smart enough to figure out complicated bit shifts, but smart enough to solve
real world problems and communicate those solutions to high level business
people and lower level techies. That works.

Create value! Have passion. Seek solutions to problems to problems that only
you have visibility to! You are in a unique position - you are the front-line!
You are seeing things that escape everyone else. Use it as an opportunity to
make people happy. You make them happy and you solve your own situation. You
will have customers trying to recruit you when you solve major problems.
You'll have internal people fighting for you. You'll have your HR department
spinning their heads not knowing what to do when your boss is trying to give
you a raise out of cycle, and two or more people from other departments in the
same company are asking them for salary advice when trying to negotiate your
role in their department.

Hope this helps! (no time to proof and hope it makes sense - forgive any typos
or strange sentences/fragments - hopefully you get the concepts)

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steventruong
Have you tried talking to them? Bring up your concerns and make it apparent
you are interested in one of the other positions, and see what they say. I
wouldn't assume unless you've already brought it up and they were unwilling to
do anything about it.

~~~
stuck434
I have, and for the most part, he wants me to wait it out. I've waited quite a
while already really, and I'm not really interested in being led on once more.

~~~
nandemo
I've been in a similar situation. It could be that your boss feels the company
has invested time and money into your "training" (even if you didn't receive
any formal instruction), so they don't want to replace you and incur that cost
again. Whether this sort of thinking is justified or not -- I think it's not,
considering you've been there for 3 years and your training must have paid out
long ago -- in practice it's clear your boss' interests aren't aligned with
yours.

Given that, and given that you've already expressed your wishes to your boss,
you _should_ start looking for another job. Unless you live an area with a
shortage of programming jobs and you are unable to move to a better area (very
unlikely if you live in the US), I'm sure you'll find something.

Don't even mention leaving your job if you don't have a job offer from another
company. In fact, if you get a good job offer you should probably accept it;
using it as leverage to move within your company might work, but you should
think really hard if you want to stay at your current company.

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lojack
Tell your boss that the work isn't fulfilling enough and if he doesn't do
anything about it start looking elsewhere. You're in an industry where demand
for your labor is much higher than you probably realize.

~~~
stuck434
I'm finding that to be not so true.

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anigbrowl
Apply for a more interesting job at a competitor.

