Dedicated and Designated

I started a new job about eight months ago. Yikes, time really does fly when you are having fun or just busy learning. I still describe myself as being new to the role and even new to the company. In the eight months since I have been there, we have been hiring about twenty to forty people or month. To someone starting last week, I am like an old timer there.

Well, lots more to learn and do. So no time to be bored anytime soon.

One of the titles I carry there is a DSE. Well, I really only have one title the company pays me for. But within the team, we have some more specific titles. My official title is Customer Operations Engineer (COE). Some time people would say Customer Support Engineer, but never call us CSE.

While must of us are in the support organization, and employed as COEs. We do specialize. Some COE are Subject Matter Expert (SME). They get to focus on a very limited set of even just one technology and get good at it. Some others are Back Line Engineer, sort of our second their of support. Finally, there is my even smaller sub-team of Dedicated/Designated Support Engineer (DSE). So why isn’t it settled, dedicated vs. designated. In this case, it really doesn’t matter, it is not really an official title anyway.

DSEs are assigned to specific customers. So instead of taking cases for any customer as the other COEs would do, except BLE and SME who are usually not customer facing. DSE only work on cases for the customer they are assigned to. And they are only assigned to one customer, because that customer pays for that service.

I have been visiting my customer on a weekly basis, usually once a week and sometimes more. But going onsite more than once a week is far in between. After my visits, I would write up a minutes reports of what happened etc. Just so I can remember the engagement and others on the team can follow. Besides, if I am not available, someone can step in or step up and have some idea of what had been discussed.

I usually get home late on the day(s) I visit the customer, so the report is not written that day. Then I may not get to write it for a few days, but need to write it before my next visit. So sometimes, the day before my next visit is when I am trying to write it, so I am not accumulating a backlog. By two days after my visit, I would start forgetting little details.

This week, I decided to do something different. First, I took notes during the day. Just a sentence or two here or there. Then I pushed myself to write the report last night, after getting in. So even though I was still technically working a lot longer, it was easier to write. Since I had notes and it was all very fresh. Previously, I would jot down some notes, but that was usually the next day for later. But then as I started losing details a few days after, the notes would only be so skinny.

The one drawback to writing the report on the same day? Since you remember quite a bit more detail. The report end up being longer.

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