Jermiah Robinson
September 26th, 2025
Old Dominion University – IT Help Desk
CYSE 368 – 15101
As I continue to work at the IT Help Desk at Old Dominion University as a Student Lead , my leadership and communication skills continue to improve as I cross the 100-hour mark with my shifts. While it is great to have the leadership and communication needed for the job, more skills are needed when it comes to incidents with the workplace. Tickets that either have no information or cases where professors or faculty members get upset at co-workers while on the phone or in person.
From this, I have learned two more important skills to apply for the job. Critical thinking is a must when it comes to complex and confusing tickets or calls that have no knowledge base or past incidents to work with. Not only is problem solving an essential skill when it comes to working at the help desk, but problem resolution is also a must, especially in cases where a caller may get upset at either wrong information being given, or perhaps, a co-worker’s tone or language during calls.
As a Student Lead, I must continue to step up and be there for my co-workers when these difficult tickets arise. Even cases where the problem is over in a different campus, which would be the Eastern Virginia Medical School campus. I communicate with the help desk there and employees with certain cases that we cannot simply solve at the IT Help Desk, like issues with setting up a custom profile for their device on their phone to even malware and computer issues at offices and classrooms. One of these cases happened during one of my shifts, where a professor reported that they were receiving strange pop-ups on their device from the EVMS campus on the phone with a co-worker. The co-worker called me over right away, confused on what exactly to do when malware like this shows up on EVMS computers. At this point, I used my critical thinking skills to search and gather as much info as possible to relay to my co-worker. In this case, I relayed that the user must have clicked on a malicious website from what I gathered, resulting in their cache being infected. I relayed again that all the user needs to do is clear the cache of the browser they were using before to remove the malicious cache off of their browser. My co-worker relayed that to the user at EVMS, and they were able to remove the infected cache and use their computer for clinical studies. My co-worker thanked me for the quick thinking, and the user was able to use their computer again.
Another case where my skills were needed was when a professor started to get upset with us due to the tone of a co-worker. During a call, the co-worker assumed they were muted as they started to talk badly about the professor. This quickly turned into a bad situation fast, as the professor started to scream and yell at the co-worker after hearing what was being said. I quickly came to the case and asked the co-worker to hand their headphones to me so I can relax the person and assist them with the issue. After I told the professor that I was a supervisor, the professor started to relax, and I slowly guided them through the problem. Finally, just as we resolved the password issue for the professor. The professor calmed down entirely and thanked me for taking over for my co-worker, and we ended the call on a high note. I, however, needed to remind the co-worker that they should never talk down about somebody, even if they may not have those technology skills as we do here. The co-worker nodded and I had them create a ticket for the user to look back on for reference to solve their issue if it happens again.
Overall, these past 100 hours has shown me that my skills are still constantly improving. With my communication with colleagues and users within the university and leadership when issues arise, I realize I need to improve more skills. I improved my critical thinking skills when it comes to problematic tickets that require problem solving and improved my problem resolution skills when users get upset or sad about certain issues.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I hope to keep improving myself and show that I can always be there for everyone at the IT Help Desk. As more time passes, tickets and calls are bound to have more complex solutions as time goes on. Especially as we slowly complete the EVMS merger, more tickets with their software and services show up at the IT Help Desk. At this point, our team must all work together to the common goal of providing help and services to those in need at Old Dominion University and Eastern Virginia Medical School. I cannot wait for the next 50 hours as I continue to work very well and will soon train new employees.