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George H.W. oval office posted:You are absolutely on the right track in how you're thinking about this role. A manager is simply executing (via delegation to your team) the will of the business. You have the leadership portion down and how you want to uplift, train, blah blah blah. This is the social aspect of management and is important. The second and possibly more important piece (in the eyes of upper management) is how you will reduce or make $$$. You will want to frame things not simply moving to Azure, and you're good at that, but how that move will save money or reduce operational costs. If you have previous metrics on how you did X and it saved Y then you're golden. Oh yeah, I've got a couple of "I literally saved us $60k over three years by just buying reserved instances for VMs that are going to run 24-7" and plenty of "ensure that new cloud POCs include cost projections, warnings, and controls". I can probably pair that off with some talk about sometimes it may involve renegotiating with Microsoft to bundle licenses or some kind of foobar mojo with a CSP, or understanding the time to develop something in-house vs. going with a third party and the risks on each, etc. It's nothing too formal but it's hopefully enough to make me a real-rear end candidate.
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May 24, 2023 18:50
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Today I have a new boss. He and I both discovered today that he has been my boss since March and no one told us
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May 24, 2023 20:06
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lol, that's great. I love our industry.
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May 24, 2023 20:11
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Sepist posted:Today I have a new boss. He and I both discovered today that he has been my boss since March and no one told us
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May 24, 2023 20:12
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Sepist posted:Today I have a new boss. He and I both discovered today that he has been my boss since March and no one told us I've spoken with my manager, the guy that hands out raises, five times in the past 1.5 years. None of those have been a one-on-one. For my yearly evals, I've given myself 5-Stars for everything, and he agrees and signs off on it. He's a cool guy, and the job is cake, but it feels a bit weird.
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May 24, 2023 20:21
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Some people are easy to manage. They find work, do an excellent job, and don't make a fuss. You're probably one of those people
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May 24, 2023 21:48
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Today I spent half a day teaching our MSP how to login to a VDI. We’re paying them to babysit our infra but instead they get paid to be potty trained by us. Management is not bothered by this taking up roughly 50% of our time. Most of the rest of my time is dedicated to helping vendors troubleshoot their own apps. I’m delivering about 5-10% of the stuff I can/should. It’s getting increasingly annoying and am considering taking the million red flags gig I mentioned a few days ago instead.
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May 24, 2023 21:57
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You need a break rather than an immediate job swap, if you're documenting and communicating that you can't get your job done because all your time is being taken up by other poo poo then your manager is obviously fine with that arrangement so you don't need to feel stress because of that situation. The red flag job was stuffed full of them, ideally you need to reduce your stress by not giving a gently caress until a better offer comes along.
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May 24, 2023 21:59
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Thanks Ants posted:You need a break rather than an immediate job swap, if you're documenting and communicating that you can't get your job done because all your time is being taken up by other poo poo then your manager is obviously fine with that arrangement so you don't need to feel stress because of that situation. The red flag job was stuffed full of them, ideally you need to reduce your stress by not giving a gently caress until a better offer comes along. You’re probably right. I’ve been documenting, communicating and escalating all these requests and we’ve added additional tags to the tickets to specifically filter on these. Manager is aware, her boss is aware too. Both (at least say they) are not pleased with the situation, but it’s becoming increasingly worse over the past 2-3 months. MSP is currently just taking the piss. Claiming accounts are missing (they weren’t), locked (weren’t either) or couldn’t reach our infra due to firewalls (their IP range was whitelisted). Purposely delaying or ignoring high prio tickets causing cascading failures. I consistenly get the remark “we just have to fix this ourselves this time” despite me pushing back that it’s not this 1 time but listing all occurrences. The “business” doesn’t care about long term consequences, dev churn, or even security/legislation as long as they have plausible deniability. Everybody who’s using our platform just dumps everthing on our plate instead of taking responsibility for their own problems. A lot of this is me debunking claims that things are not working properly up to a level that I’m fixing their poo poo. The potential to do awesome stuff is all there, but the complete pack of telling people to FO and to their jobs is killing for both my output and motivation. I strongly get the feeling people are doing a lot of this poo poo on purpose for their own gains at my expense. Right now I’m going to take a step back and stop caring until my holiday in July and evaluate what’s next.
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May 24, 2023 22:34
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My favorite user (extremely nice older lady who's bad at computers but knows it and listens to what we ask her to do) is having some personal issues and I'm worried for her 
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May 24, 2023 22:37
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LochNessMonster posted:You’re probably right. I’ve been documenting, communicating and escalating all these requests and we’ve added additional tags to the tickets to specifically filter on these. Manager is aware, her boss is aware too. Both (at least say they) are not pleased with the situation, but it’s becoming increasingly worse over the past 2-3 months. That's the spirit, hope your holiday comes quickly.
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May 24, 2023 22:38
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LochNessMonster posted:Right now I’m going to take a step back and stop caring until my holiday in July and evaluate what’s next. Fighting the burnout as your vacation closes in is always so hard (for me anyways, forgive this projection). I've got next week off to deal with exactly this problem while I sort out where I'm headed over the summer. Hang in there goon.
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May 24, 2023 22:41
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I am now the printer guy at my gig. One of the bigger printers kept jamming. I spend a few minutes looking at it with one of the other guys in my shop, not seeing any obvious jams. Ready to call it quits and call the printer tech in when I take one last look and find like a small 2 inch piece of scrap paper scrunched up into a roller. The printer works completely fine after that. All of the people on the immediate area of the printer "oh boy so I guess we just call you now!" Boss afterwards is like "oh yeah, some of them like to rip the page out as it comes out of the printer. That'll happen." Lol, gently caress. Also people in TYOL 2023 still mystified by Googling stuff to find answers. Myself and another new hire on a different team both got notifications last week from FedEx saying we had a package being sent to our homes. Queue that person's manager thinking it's a phishing email and running into IT to ask us about it today. Me, who cannot shut up and just let things be "Oh no it's legit. I got the notification from FedEx on my personal account as well." "But what is it? And how do you know?!?" Proceed to explain how you can sign up with FedEx to get package alerts followed by me literally googling the name of the shipping party and the company name "Looks like it's a swag kit for new hires." "Wow that's amazing, how'd you find that out?!?"
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May 24, 2023 22:45
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Nobody can ever convince me that an MSP is worth hiring. I’d rather outsource support to the CEOs nephew who’s “Good with computers” over dealing with an MSP ever again. We finally came to an agreement with ours to get our bill cut in half in return of not wasting our lawyer’s time but they are still charging us 3x too much for what we get from them. $9 per email address for skykick and they still are not backing everything up correctly.
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May 24, 2023 23:15
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New best: got a laptop back that was covered in yellow dust, uptime 125 days, no updates since user got it Still working tho so that's nice
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May 24, 2023 23:16
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Cyks posted:Nobody can ever convince me that an MSP is worth hiring. I’d rather outsource support to the CEOs nephew who’s “Good with computers” over dealing with an MSP ever again. Someone will always find a way to gently caress around and find out, and once lawyers' fees and opportunity costs get involved, there's almost always nothing to find out
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May 24, 2023 23:26
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Handsome Ralph posted:I am now the printer guy at my gig. This was a mistake, and your job is now ruined. At your next job, any time someone says "Oh, there's a printer problem", point them to the number of your printer vendor and stay far, far away from it.
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May 24, 2023 23:28
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i am a moron posted:Also Microsoft employs more morons who have no idea what they’re talking about or why they’re talking about it than any company I’ve ever seen. I hate arguing with these goddamn dorks about how azure networking and private paas services work together and it’s embarrassing how their product teams and TAMs and architects don’t know poo poo but won’t stop offering their dumbass opinions Dude, you are not wrong. It is  I don't what is with Microsoft but things are sometimes so incredibly messy and my issue isn't working with people who have "technical gaps" like developers being completely unaware about something but they at times believe Azure AD like downloading a program, clicking install, next, next... Or even worse when hot shot developers think they're so smart that they can just simply pickup IT Skills on the side. And Microsoft documentation sucks. Like really sucks. Way too much content reads like it's sales/marketing oriented. And terrible writing and grammar. Don't me started on the MS Graph Powershell SDK that's supposed to replace Azure AD PS and MSOL PS. Gucci Loafers fucked around with this message at 23:44 on May 24, 2023 |
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May 24, 2023 23:38
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Wizard of the Deep posted:This was a mistake, and your job is now ruined. Lol yeah I hosed up there. The good news was my manager was like "yeah don't waste time on printers. If we can't fix it after five minutes, call the tech. Also unless they put in a ticket, don't even look at it."
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May 24, 2023 23:40
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The only time being a printer tech could be a good job is if you don't have to deal with any of the server stuff and the smallest machine you work on is something like a Canon Varioprint, because at that point your job is closer to a modern car mechanic except you work in an air conditioned office.
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May 25, 2023 00:34
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I know a guy who works as a printer tech for one of the major printer companies, he's who shows up in this area if you engage vendor support. He's good at it too. I cannot fathom doing that job without taking my own life, but he really likes it. Says it's low-stress and low-pressure.
guppy fucked around with this message at 02:41 on May 25, 2023 |
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May 25, 2023 02:38
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Dude that 30 browser tab, diving into the source code problem still gets me going
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May 25, 2023 03:12
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guppy posted:I know a guy who works as a printer tech for one of the major printer companies, he's who shows up in this area if you engage vendor support. He's good at it too. I cannot fathom doing that job without taking my own life, but he really likes it. Says it's low-stress and low-pressure. I mean, printer techs are 95% physical problem solvers. I don't think I've ever seen an actual field printer tech do anything on the software or networking side more than plug an IP in. I can definitely see how if you become skilled at the job, you could be done with all your calls by 2pm and then do whatever. In fact, that's what I used to do for an MSP I worked at. My second job in IT was as a "refresh" technician for an MSP that had a contract with a major hospital system in the area. Basically, you would get a list of computers that the hospital needed to replace. You would first go "survey" the computer, which means physically locating it, notating all the software installed and hardware hooked up to it, and entering it into a database. A few days later, you would get the replacement computer and go swap it out. A tech usually averaged 3-5 swaps a day, or 10-15 surveys a day depending on what your assignment was. I was at that job a year, and four months in I was usually done by 2pm and heading home.
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May 25, 2023 03:43
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Being oncall sucks, but our printer techs got $180/hr after 5pm at the hospital, minimum one hour per ticket. Better than us direct hires who got 3/hr extra if hourly and nothing if salary. The team loved getting calls to fix a printer jam or clean the feeder. I wish they had an office in my current city. Cheaper and way more professional than my current managed print services provider.
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May 25, 2023 04:37
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skipdogg posted:Director level positions in larger orgs generally involve managing a team of managers. Our directors manage 4 to 6 managers who have teams of 10 or so under them. That's not even mentioning senior managers in some organizations. There are directors out there who are 3 levels removed from most of their individual contributors (director -> senior manager -> manager -> IC), and that's just a different skillset where the technical qualifications slide way down the list.
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May 25, 2023 05:01
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guppy posted:I know a guy who works as a printer tech for one of the major printer companies, he's who shows up in this area if you engage vendor support. He's good at it too. I cannot fathom doing that job without taking my own life, but he really likes it. Says it's low-stress and low-pressure. My brother was a tech for Ricoh for a while. He was based out of Topeka, while the Ricoh office was in Kansas City. It was a pretty chill job for the most part. He had to start his work day by checking in on one of the accounts in the area. Each machine had a barcode on it and he would have to scan one to prove he was working or something. If he didn't have a service call, he was supposed to just drop by one of the accounts to do a check on the copier or printers, and would just scan one of the barcodes there. I think he was making 18 bucks an hour plus mileage a decade ago when he did it. Not terrible for Topeka. He liked visiting the various offices and chatting up the folks.
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May 25, 2023 06:22
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Cyks posted:Being oncall sucks, but our printer techs got $180/hr after 5pm at the hospital, minimum one hour per ticket. Better than us direct hires who got 3/hr extra if hourly and nothing if salary. The team loved getting calls to fix a printer jam or clean the feeder. In fairness contractors like that do not get $180 in their bank account after an hour fixing printers. Only freelancers get to reap the profit of their labor fully.
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May 25, 2023 06:44
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i'm a freelance posting consultant, my rates are $50 per post (ban insurance extra)
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May 25, 2023 07:09
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chocolateTHUNDER posted:I mean, printer techs are 95% physical problem solvers. I don't think I've ever seen an actual field printer tech do anything on the software or networking side more than plug an IP in. I can definitely see how if you become skilled at the job, you could be done with all your calls by 2pm and then do whatever. I'm gonna tell the story of why I have a screw from a Xerox 6100 fuser unit on display wherever I sit and have for 5 years now. We got a ticket for a 6100 that was jamming in literally every duplex job. Checked it out, yup, it's doing that, so I took it back to tear it apart and fix it. A buddy and I spent hours trying to figure out why it was jamming at a specific point. On that model, the paper path for duplex ran through the fuser. The fuser in that printer worked fine in another printer, a fuser from another unit ate paper in this machine. I was about to take a fuser apart when I decided to go back to basics one last time. I pulled the fuser, and then re-seated it. And wiggled it. It moved. I seated the fuser the way that seemed right, mounted it with three of four screws and... duplex worked perfectly. I can talk a lot of poo poo about Xerox and engineering decisions, but on that generation the service manuals had really good troubleshooting flowcharts. The flowcharts would not have solved the problem. My souvenir fuser screw is testament to that. I kept it taped to my Xerox cert for that model until I moved on from that team. I still have it.
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May 25, 2023 07:28
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If anyone ever asks me to go back into an office again I’m going to quit and get into a trade. This post isn’t in response to anything just a random thought. WFH and being able to take a walk or go on a hike or work out during the day is the only thing that has made this bearable. We aren’t meant to live like this
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May 25, 2023 15:10
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i am a moron posted:If anyone ever asks me to go back into an office again I’m going to quit and get into a trade. This post isn’t in response to anything just a random thought. WFH and being able to take a walk or go on a hike or work out during the day is the only thing that has made this bearable. We aren’t meant to live like this I work half the week in office and half at home. I like working from the office because I can go to the next tier and ask them a question in person and its quicker than emails or slack. I also like that they have a fancy free coffee machine, the desk is much nicer and I can work from 3 screens on one computer since I don't have the hardware to make it work with my work laptop at home and lol I'm not buying that myself. I dislike working at the office because non-coffee snacks are more expensive, I have to either eat a frozen meal or overpriced fast food for lunch because of its suburban hell location, and also I have Autistic sensory problems and I sit close to several groups that like talking really loudly about politics, religion, gossip, comic book movies and which star trek character is hottest (the horny star trek guy's easily the loudest.)
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May 25, 2023 15:23
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Ah there’s something nice about having a server issue and just throwing your hands up, saying “gently caress it” and walking into a server room to get down to business. gently caress the cloud, I want KVMs and loud closets
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May 25, 2023 15:29
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BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:and which star trek character is hottest I mean, how is this a debate? Commander Loskene since Tholians have a body temp of 404 degrees Fahrenheit.
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May 25, 2023 15:32
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App13 posted:Ah there’s something nice about having a server issue and just throwing your hands up, saying “gently caress it” and walking into a server room to get down to business. gently caress the cloud, I want KVMs and loud closets If I never have to troubleshoot a loose ethernet, fiber, usb or good forbid some weird proprietary SCSI Adapter I will die a happy man.
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May 25, 2023 15:34
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This week I got to hear a big spiel about how being in the office enables collaboration, quick drive-by conversations, and pick-up meetings. I was incredulous. The #1 complaint my team have right now is too many people opening conversations via IM to ask for help instead of opening tickets. All those interruptions make it hard to close tickets, which extends closure times. As closure times get longer, more people resort to asking for help via IM. Instead of actually addressing this vicious cycle (caused by a mix of head count reductions and absurd policies), management thinks we need to make drive-bys easier? VPs are crazy.
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May 25, 2023 15:34
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Been on vacation for a week and the only work related thing on my phone is slack, it's fun to see the notification badge increment every time I get back into cell service and be all "sorry, ain't reading it, not for another week."
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May 25, 2023 15:39
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We have ~300 users worldwide, of which ~25 are nominally based at the same office as me, of which 5-10 will be in on any given day. None of our server infrastructure is at that site. What a waste of 2 hours of my day the commute is. e: only in myself 2/5 days. Was very much considering leaving when they were pushing for 3/5 bitterandtwisted fucked around with this message at 15:47 on May 25, 2023 |
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May 25, 2023 15:45
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Zorak of Michigan posted:This week I got to hear a big spiel about how being in the office enables collaboration, quick drive-by conversations, and pick-up meetings. I was incredulous. The #1 complaint my team have right now is too many people opening conversations via IM to ask for help instead of opening tickets. All those interruptions make it hard to close tickets, which extends closure times. As closure times get longer, more people resort to asking for help via IM. Instead of actually addressing this vicious cycle (caused by a mix of head count reductions and absurd policies), management thinks we need to make drive-bys easier? VPs are crazy. Put a big display up at the entrance saying "you are number <count of open tickets> in the queue, current waiting time is <age of oldest ticket>". Point to it when someone walks in.
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May 25, 2023 16:16
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Woof, workforce reductions. 60 people out of 700ish. Safe for now but I’ll just go ahead and update the ole LinkedIn.
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May 25, 2023 16:24
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Speaking of that mine got locked while I'm really trying to build a network on there and find jobs and all that, for no reason that I can figure why it would.  Cool!
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May 25, 2023 16:45
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