When I was a university student, we had a ‘walk-up-window help desk’ on campus.
I was a little jealous of the kids behind the window. From what I heard, they spent their time playing video games and watching movies while earning some cash.
There wasn’t much help going on, presumably because the desk was located several floors below ground at the end of a maze of hallways and dusty books. It was never clear when the help desk was open either: Mornings? Afternoons? Odd-numbered workdays? In the irony of all ironies, the university's webpage about the help desk consistently returned a 404.
We heard rumors that a student disappeared looking for the desk, a first-year (typical). You know how there’s always that one kid whose name is announced at graduation and they’re nowhere to be found? Set up a search perimeter around the walk-up-window, you might find them there.
In the improbable event anybody managed to find the desk, I imagine the staff helped with the usual grievances: password resets, audio issues, dead batteries, faulty equipment—the type of tasks that can be handled with DEX software and AI, and the lightest of human touches—the type of tasks we take for granted.
When a tech problem required more than a Google search for an answer, the student-workers would escalate to the real IT support manager on campus, an overworked guy I saw just once in my four years there. I was leaving the library one night and he was on the steps taking a smoke break, staring at nothing. It was the closest I’ve felt to encountering an endangered species.
He's probably a CIO at a Fortune 500 company now or a professional poker player, either one seems right.
