[The opening is a nod to Jack London's The Scarlet Plague. Learn more about this work at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scarlet_Plague ]
It was to be the last camp fire for the Old One. He had lived during the time that there were cities, car, planes, and other amazing things. But life as he knew it changed in such a short period of time. The water supply became infected with an unknown virus. And almost all humankind rapidly perished. Only a few survivors remained, living in forests. In time, the remaining vestiges of an advanced civilization would be covered over by vegetation.
The Old One did not have long to live. Before leaving, he wanted to impart his wisdom on those that would succeed him. He started to tell his story.
...Then one of the impatient youngsters interrupted, "Didn't once tell us that you used to do one time something called Software Support? Tell us more about this."
Just by the mention of the words "Software Support" opened the floodgates of wonder and horror for the Old One. He declined to discuss that topic further and talked instead about his treasure trove of knowledge that he was leaving behind.]
This article discusses the tradeoffs of going into Software Support as a career. It does not have to be the horror show alluded to above. In fact, the opposite is more often true.
The Advantages
1. You get to refine your problem-solving skills and knowledge across multiple disciplines. Today's software touches across many areas such as integrations, networks, databases, applications, hardware. You get to be an expert in many areas.
2. The camaraderie is tremendous. Management and employees are all working together to have happy customers and produce stable, scalable environments. I found that the case here at CA Technologies.
3. Time and training is provided to keep you current. This is often taught by the developers themselves. You can also install and work with beta software before public release.
4. You get to work with a lot of internal groups. Product Management, Professional Services, Pre-Sales, Communities, Knowledge Management, Documentation and more. Together you can make a big difference as to the customer experience
5. You have an opportunity to improve the product through submission of documentation and software bugs. Or through knowledge documents.
6. You have a chance to provide a sense of service to others and yourself. See https://communities.ca.com/community/ca-apm/blog/2016/02/21/on-service-and-apm-support
The Disadvantages
1. You are often on your own. It may involve looking at terse error messages. See https://communities.ca.com/community/ca-apm/blog/2016/04/24/disarming-the-power-and-frustration-of-error-messages. Things are underdocumented or undocumented. New scenarios are discovered. This can be a challenge for some people dealing with heavy periods of uncertainty.
2. You get to deal with some people very emotionally charged due to ailing systems. See https://communities.ca.com/community/ca-apm/blog/2016/02/14/contracted-vs-reflective-mind-an-owners-manual. On the other side of the coin, it offers a chance to develop a reflective mind.
3. Time and issue management is always a challenge. You may have the day planned out and something may come along to take up the next two weeks. You may also have the occasional on-call support.
4. Mental and physical challenges. It may be a struggle for some not to become cynical, burned out, or have health issues.
In summary, Software Support is not for everyone. But for those that enjoy its numerous rewards, it can be a very rewarding career.