Helpdesk Right At Your Desk(top)?

There once was a time when helpdesk was such a misnomer. It was more like help-over-the-frustrating-phone. Working in the bullpens of nationwide organizations in the mid ‘90's, I can recall the hair pulling experience of troubleshooting a printer problem for almost half an hour over the phone, when the client finally confessed that he had not been following many of my instruction because he “couldn't be bothered” and thought I should just know how to fix his problem off the bat without his “help”. Pins and needles, my friends, pins and needles (Honeymooners reference there for those that don't know it).

Oh what we would have given for remote access software. Oh how we would have rejoiced and made offerings to the mighty software gods for such powers. Now I write this of course from the techie's perspective, but I can well too imagine the dialogue of that one time client: “I had a printer problem and this company technician, whom I'm sure is overpaid, had me clicking around for almost two hours. She had no clue what the problem was and who knows how we got it to work.” Perspective is everything, but I am sure this guy would have rejoiced just as loudly given the option of me simply remoting his system and taking care of the issue while he got himself a latte.

End of story, today's technology goes a long way to bridging the gap between user and support technician, making everyone's life easier and blood pressure that much lower.