So school life here at Lehigh University has started again. This means classes have started, endless nights of parties have started (I have so much homework already), and (well at least for me) working has started again. What does this entail? Well continue to find out. Or don’t in case you don’t really care – which I’m sure most of you don’t. *tear*
I think as many of you may have already guessed, I work part-time with the Library-Technology Services (LTS) on campus. They have a specific program called “WIRED” (Worldwide Information Resources in Every Dorm). The name is actually a bit misleading, but we do, in fact, provide technological services to every student at Lehigh in (or out) of their dorm. The program is run by 2 staff of Lehigh who are then in charge of around 50 consultants. The consultants are all Lehigh University students (that includes me). The consultants can be called upon to work individually with the student who needs help, or they can be found working at a general help desk. The WIRED desk is a place where they can drop off their laptop to be worked on. Today, I happened to be working at the WIRED desk for 4 hours.
What you see here is the queue of laptops that are waiting to be worked on. At the beginning of the semester, it’s particularly busy as students who are coming back to campus are finding out that their computers aren’t working in the way they’re supposed to. If you refer to the first image, you can see the bench where we put laptops that are currently being worked on. It’s a general rule to not work on more than 4 at once. For the most part, nowadays, students at Lehigh almost exclusively use laptops. I feel like this is pretty much true at any campus. I’m probably one of the few who has both a desktop and laptop. Incidentally though, I rarely have any computer problems myself. Maybe it’s cause I actually maintain my systems and keep them healthy? Nah – it’s probably cause I’m reformatting my operating system every 6 months.
The papers here pretty much give you the general idea of how the desk works. The desk operates on a first come, first serve basis (self-explanatory). That means that if there’s a huge queue like you saw, it can mean waiting up to a week to get your computer back, depending on how long it takes to get through everyone else’s. People still tend to leave them there after learning this though, so I guess a lot of them don’t really miss having their computer.
This is where we communicate with people who need help with their computers. When we accept someone’s computer, we put their username into the database, their computer type, what’s wrong with it, and what they left with it. We put all of this information into a database where notes can be left about what kind of work has been done on the computer, along with user contact information. If the problem is small enough though, we take care of it right there.
And here, you can see all the laptops that are waiting for their respective owners to come pick them up. They have already been worked on and been given the OK to go back home. I actually put two or three there myself tonight. Ran into some nasty problems with the machines afterwards though – the next consultants to work the desk will probably have to reformat the current machines being worked on.
And with that, you basically have the functions of the WIRED desk at Lehigh. Checking in laptops, putting them in queue, working the bench, and putting them on the pickup shelves is about it. It’s not the most glorified job, but hey – a job is a job. To be honest though – I wouldn’t want to do any of this kind of work outside of right now.
