Yes, it is a rare kind of person who can be good at being front-line support for very long. Especially for one of those outsourced-support outfits that isn't

Yes, it is a rare kind of person who can be good at being front-line support for very long. Especially for one of those outsourced-support outfits that isn't actually allowed to help the customer. I kinda kid about the last part, but even when it's internal, being front-line support is brutal, especially for low-value products. The customer knows they can usually get free stuff by being mean, and it's the front line support rep who has to deal with that, almost always without the power to fire the customer. Half the time, they have to deal with corporate policies that are set in place really to get rid of customers who actually use support, but that don't want to admit this obvious fact. This requires an ungodly amount of patience. That was one of the reasons why I think doing support for your own company is so much easier; you can actually say "Hey, uh, I don't think we can help you, how about I give you your money back and you go talk to a competitor?" you don't have to pretend to be ineffective until they leave on their own, which is essentially what the corporate policies are setup to do. It's soul crushing. (I mean, developers get paid more because businesses notice when their developers can't develop; businesses seem to be largely okay with ineffective customer support. I suspect you would have to come within 70-80% of a developer salary if you actually wanted to keep effective customer support people. If you look at very high dollar products where support people are expected to actually help customers solve problems? they pay in that range; sometimes better. )