20200831:00 - What's it like to work in GitLab Support?
Intro / one-line summary
More reflections as I get into a new week
I was poking around GitLab's Google Drive, in the Support directory, and I found this spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ERn63AElkf9lqhGlTOZAh4LjlXkNKb0rcF9qdej6tr4/edit#gid=1568049660
It's a list of descriptions of a "typical day" in Support - mostly written around February 2020. I guess that there was an Issue or something which prompted it, maybe if I dig into the meeting minutes I'll find it. But the big take away is that it pretty accurately reflects my expectations. I learnt on Thursday last week of a GitLab person who's been at the company for about 5 years and "still [hasn't] finished my on-boarding, and reviewing the Handbook shows a lot of things have changed". So, the feeling that this is like chasing a rainbow is accurate. But not disheartening: it merely confirms my expectation that learning will be an ongoing thing at GitLab, which was part of the attraction anyway.
There is a lot in that spreadsheet to summarize, and a healthy deal of overlap. But basically I can expect to spend 50-60% of my time on tickets (either within the ticketing system, on calls to customers, or researching answers) and the rest a mix of different communications types (sync and async) and self-directed projects.
Which is awesome.