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Sheep posted:I was talking about the EMC book ("the storage book") not the Phoenix project, which should have been obvious. And yet it clearly wasn't.
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Apr 29, 2015 22:24
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The only way Sheep's reply is confusing is if mayodreams's post was confusing, which it wasn't. I'd like to propose this degenerate into a fist fight.
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Apr 29, 2015 22:27
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Yesterday afternoon we had a city-wide power outage for a couple hours, and our UPSs decided to malfunction, taking the network gear for this part of the building with it. It may be a couple days before the IT department has network connectivity, apart from the faint wireless carrying over from other parts of the building. This also caused the air conditioner to be permanently stuck in the on position, when it's only 9 degrees outside. It's been an interesting day. I probably could have gotten more done by remoting in from home, since the onsite servers were unscathed.
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Apr 29, 2015 22:32
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I have an interview next week with a hospital. On a color scale of chartreuse to aquamarine, how bad an idea is this?
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Apr 29, 2015 22:43
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Wizard of the Deep posted:I have an interview next week with a hospital. On a color scale of chartreuse to aquamarine, how bad an idea is this?
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Apr 29, 2015 22:44
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Wizard of the Deep posted:I have an interview next week with a hospital. On a color scale of chartreuse to aquamarine, how bad an idea is this? Uh, fuschia
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Apr 29, 2015 22:44
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Wizard of the Deep posted:I have an interview next week with a hospital. On a color scale of chartreuse to aquamarine, how bad an idea is this? gan green
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Apr 29, 2015 22:46
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Wizard of the Deep posted:I have an interview next week with a hospital. On a color scale of chartreuse to aquamarine, how bad an idea is this? I work for the medical department for the sheriff's office. It's got all the regulations and whatnot of HIPAA and the bureaucracy of government! So I guess it could be a lot worse. Good luck!
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Apr 29, 2015 22:51
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Wizard of the Deep posted:I have an interview next week with a hospital. On a color scale of chartreuse to aquamarine, how bad an idea is this? Code Blue.
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Apr 29, 2015 22:52
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MC Fruit Stripe posted:The only way Sheep's reply is confusing is if mayodreams's post was confusing, which it wasn't. I'd like to propose this degenerate into a fist fight. I'm also a non-native English speaker, and given that The Phoenix Project seemed to be written by someone who had heard of terms like "SAN" and "RAID" but never actually seen them, a reply to a post about two disparate books which discuss many of the same terms really wasn't as clear as it seems to you. His reply wasn't confusing. It just wasn't obvious to me which book he was talking about. Rereading it, "Plus like 10% of the book was just EMC marketing their solutions at us." is the only thing which differentiates between the two, and I missed that the first time I read it.
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Apr 29, 2015 22:52
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I just quoted The West Wing in an email. I'm that guy now. e: It was requested that instructions be written so that 'anyone' could do a task. This task could all but decimate our production environment. To illustrate why I was not going to provide instructions so that 'anyone' could do it, I punctuated my point with "This isn't school, I work with people who can play" Maybe I'll make a game of it, progressively more ridiculous quotes in emails. See if I can work "when the president sits, no one stands" into an email.
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Apr 29, 2015 22:59
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MC Fruit Stripe posted:I just quoted The West Wing in an email. I'm that guy now. The West Wing owns. Please tell me you ended your message with "What's next?"
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Apr 29, 2015 23:22
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TeMpLaR posted:Out of curiousity, what does pay look like supporting some extremely high producing individuals like this? Standard ~50k helpdesk or is this something special? All right, I said I'd put this reply together last week but poo poo got away from me. So you want to be an Executive Computer Janitor? Credentials: I have been supporting the senior leadership at a fortune500 for the last ~5 years and have performed the role in another fortune50 in the past(~1yr). Most of your job will be white glove deskside support - I can't do x in Outlook, I can't get these files onto my iPad. This is easy poo poo to fix, but the key thing isn't can you fix it so much as can you hold a conversation with the person while you fix it? Can you understand their level of comfort/expertise and talk to that, not to your own level? Can you help the CEO's admin without making her feel dumb? This isn't even really a tech support thing - its pretty much just customer service with computers involved. There will be a lot of (perceived) urgency in that you'll need to take care of things proactively or more or less immediately after getting the call/email/text. You'll likely also support (some) of their homes - every firm is different, but usually the C levels will get their home network/computers/kids xbox supported by this team. Most of my people have small residences where I live, but have larger homes across the country that we support as well. Usually we do this remotely, but it does involve occasional travel to the sites - Yes, I will fly out to LA for a day or so just to swap out a router/AP in an execs house. You'll get to know these execs to varying degrees, as well as their families - again the question isn't can you help the CXO's spouse get their iphone connected, but can you do it without them feeling dumb in the process or look at them instead of your shoes while you do it? Keeping the key support folks happy is just as if not more important than the execs themselves - I'd rather the CEO's EA be happy and the CEO mad than vice versa. I also tend to travel with the execs if they're all going to be offsite for a conference/meeting to provide the same sort of support they get in the office/home. The money can be very good - I've found my niche in this role and have parlayed it back and forth across a few companies grabbing increases each time I go - my first gig doing this about 5-6 years ago paid roughly 65-70k. My first headhunt bumped me up to the mid 80s, and after my last couple I've hit the milestone of having a salary that starts with a 1. Whether or not its worth the money will depend almost entirely on who you support, and how much help you have. Right now I've got roughly 20-25 people supported per ECJ and that is in my experience a sustainable level. I've worked in companies where that ratio is more like 50-60 and that lead to some pretty hard burn out. You will be on call - you may have a scheduled rotation of who's officially on call on a given week/month, but once you've got an executive's trust/confidence they will call YOU, not the oncall number. You will travel, and be away from home longer than you'd like. It can be a great gig, or a nightmare - the trouble is figuring out which is which. What's that? You want to get into this? Here's how I try to sort the real positions from something that will make me want to eat a gun. I keep an eye out on LinkedIn for relevant positions, and this one happens to be up now - lets check it out. https://www.linkedin.com/jobs2/view/41608650?trk=seokp_jobs_secondary_cluster_res_job_title The Executive Desktop Support Analyst is primarily responsible for providing technical on-site and remote support to C-Level staff, their families and their assistants, as well as executive and corporate users. The ideal candidate is driven by technology evolution, a self-starter with exceptional problem solving skills, delivers exceptional customer service, and the ability to resolve complex problems and implement solutions in a simplistic manner. Sounds pretty good right? I had a chat with the recruiter last week and it turns out this job is actually supporting roughly 100 people, and you'd be part of a team of 4 guys supporting them. 25/1, looks ok so far. However, all 100 are considered C level as far as scope of support, all of whom have homes supported in the greater SF Bay area - Strike one. Recruiter wouldn't give the name of the firm, but but from the discussion its either a Private Equity or Asset Management group, which means these 100 are probably some mix of actual Execs and the rest are big swinging dick traders - Strike Two! The recruiter was confused about why I was asking how many of these folks get the full home support treatment/how many homes are supported, and bristled when I said the magic words of Work/Life Balance and came back with a spiel about how they wanted someone really willing to go "above and beyond" in support of these guys, and at that point I ended the call - STRIKE THREE. What you should be asking is pretty simple stuff, and if the recruiter isn't willing to answer you should be wary. How many total users supported? How many get home support vs just in the office? How many are C Level and get the full white glove treatment of "Yes I will help your son convert their homework presentation from Keynote to Powerpoint at 9:15 on a Tuesday night" How many homes are supported? What sort of geographical area are these homes in (How much of your day are you going to spend in the car driving to and from houses) Is this a new position or is there already a team in place doing ECJ work? If so how big is the team? Why is this position open? Headcount increase or backfilling for someone who left? How long has the team been in the role? (If the seniormost person is only 2 years in RUN, if they've got 20years in and comes to the CIOs 4th of July BBQ you've found your winner!) There are probably a million things I forgot to add to this, and if you've got questions I'll do my best to answer them, but thats a start for now. It can get you a ton of exposure to some influential folks, and has given me opportunities I otherwise never would be able to have - current high point is flying back home after a conference on the corporate jet, bullshitting with the pilot a bit before takeoff, and getting asked "Wanna sit up front?" G4+ jump seat. Why yes I am a six year old boy, why do you ask?
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Apr 30, 2015 00:17
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IT manservants
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Apr 30, 2015 00:23
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go3 posted:IT manservants If the money is good, I'll fix your sons xbox, goddamn. Not for 60-80 hours a week though.
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Apr 30, 2015 00:27
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MC Fruit Stripe posted:I just quoted The West Wing in an email. I'm that guy now. Next time someone causes an outage, and a third party asks you what to tell <people> about the outage, reply with "He hopes to never do it again"
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Apr 30, 2015 00:38
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go3 posted:IT manservants Well, it is the rare IT position that gets seen as "actual people" so I'd say its a step up.
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Apr 30, 2015 00:39
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Colonial Air Force posted:Well, we've selected a backup/disaster-recovery solution, and now I have to tell the other vendors to go away. Once you've dealt with enough lovely vendors you stop caring about letting anyone down. Don't worry, they get told no on a regular basis. It's basically their job to take it on the chin and keep on trucking.
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Apr 30, 2015 01:08
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Just curious: what's the average time spent job hunting at mid-level around here?
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Apr 30, 2015 01:15
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MC Fruit Stripe posted:I just quoted The West Wing in an email. I'm that guy now. You haven't gone too far until you use "post hoc, ergo propter hoc." 
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Apr 30, 2015 01:16
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go3 posted:IT manservants No loving thank you I talk to too many C-levels and directors as is
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Apr 30, 2015 03:08
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It makes me oddly happy to see so many West Wing fans in here 
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Apr 30, 2015 04:58
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Mutar posted:All right, I said I'd put this reply together last week but poo poo got away from me. Just wanted to say thanks for this post, it was legitimately super interesting. I'd have too many personal hangups on the "IT manservant" piece to do the job myself, but I see how the executive access (and pay, and random perks of being around the uber-rich) would be very attractive. I guess my question is whether that access can be used to climb the ladder, or if you're forever pigeonholed as "the best helpdesk guy we have ever seen". Which is nice praise but also leaves you stuck under a glass ceiling. Or do you just not care? You're certainly making great bank already, so fair enough if not!
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Apr 30, 2015 05:09
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Fiendish Dr. Wu posted:Just curious: what's the average time spent job hunting at mid-level around here? Depends how picky you are and what you're looking for, where you are, how well you interview, so many variables! Generalities are tough. I can say the market in general is really strong right now. Maybe strongest it's been in 4ish years
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Apr 30, 2015 05:46
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On the same subject, I'm curious exactly how terrible was the job market during the .com bust?
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Apr 30, 2015 05:57
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Chickenwalker fucked around with this message at 03:01 on Mar 1, 2019 |
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Apr 30, 2015 13:27
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Chickenwalker posted:What should I do to be getting head-hunted? Bhodi fucked around with this message at 13:37 on Apr 30, 2015 |
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Apr 30, 2015 13:32
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Chickenwalker posted:What should I do to be getting head-hunted? I'm like a one-man army over here and while it's nice to have responsibilities to fill your resume, when you literally have almost too many to list and your mind is close to crumpling from working every day for a month, maybe it's time to get out of dodge? Make sure your LinkedIn profile is descriptive without being buzzword diarrhea, and post your resume on the big sites like CareerBuilder and Dice. However, unless you want constant phone calls, I would NOT put your number on your resume, LinkedIn profile, or any job site. Make them email/message you first. Some recruiters are ruthless and will call all the time.
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Apr 30, 2015 13:36
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I put a google voice number on my resume that I can link to my cell as-needed.
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Apr 30, 2015 13:38
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mayodreams posted:Make sure your LinkedIn profile is descriptive without being buzzword diarrhea, and post your resume on the big sites like CareerBuilder and Dice. And expect to get hounded by Indian headhunters who did a word search and found your resume and think you would make a perfect Network Engineer in Alaska, even though all you have is a Network+ certification and live in Ohio.
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Apr 30, 2015 13:41
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Docjowles posted:Just wanted to say thanks for this post, it was legitimately super interesting. I'd have too many personal hangups on the "IT manservant" piece to do the job myself, but I see how the executive access (and pay, and random perks of being around the uber-rich) would be very attractive. I guess my question is whether that access can be used to climb the ladder, or if you're forever pigeonholed as "the best helpdesk guy we have ever seen". Which is nice praise but also leaves you stuck under a glass ceiling. Or do you just not care? You're certainly making great bank already, so fair enough if not! As far as pigeonholing vs advancement I've seen it work both ways. At the fortune50 company I worked at this role was never held by anyone longer than a couple years - you get a shitton of exposure to pretty much every technology group and leader in order to build a relationship with them so that when you call them at 715 and say that you need them to drop whatever they were doing and take a look at this EVPs SSO issue they are willing to help you out, as well as getting involved with pretty much every project that impacts the technology experience of the execs - video conferencing/telepresence, new hardware, board books via iPads etc. this exposure leads to lots of connections and visibility to other parts of the org, so you'd do the job and figure out where you wanted to go next from that. In contrast my current company has a few of the original ecj team members that've been in this role for 15 years or more and their kids call the CIO "Uncle Jack". They aren't looking to climb the ladder too much more(their positions are equivalent to senior manager and Director), but they are very secure in those positions and can comfortably support their families. I've been in this for 6years and change, haven't decided on which path is more appealing yet.
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Apr 30, 2015 13:47
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MC Fruit Stripe posted:Maybe I'll make a game of it, progressively more ridiculous quotes in emails. See if I can work "when the president sits, no one stands" into an email. Coincidentally, Lunchtime Theater for me for the past couple of months has been rewatching West Wing.
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Apr 30, 2015 15:11
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Chickenwalker posted:What should I do to be getting head-hunted? I'm like a one-man army over here and while it's nice to have responsibilities to fill your resume, when you literally have almost too many to list and your mind is close to crumpling from working every day for a month, maybe it's time to get out of dodge? I would advise you to go take a look at the linkedin thread and follow their advice. I did and started getting 1-3 recruiter queries a week. Also, update your resume on indeed.com and whatever other websites you are on.
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Apr 30, 2015 15:21
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mayodreams posted:You have a link about that SCCM disaster? I'm assuming he's talking about the time Emory University sent out a deployment package that involved a reformat/repartition command to all Windows machines, which included the SCCM server itself.
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Apr 30, 2015 15:22
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Tab8715 posted:On the same subject, I'm curious exactly how terrible was the job market during the .com bust? It was bad in the sense that a lot of jobs disappeared seemingly overnight. And not just because of startups going under, but everyone else was tightening their belt because of the hit that was felt economically. Where I was at, everyone that was making above $X that wasn't senior management was let go. The real problem wasn't that the market had shrunk (although it had), it was that there was a glut of under-qualified, inexperienced workers that had been spat out from MCSE, CCNA, etc.. certificate mills. During the dot-com boom you could find one in every strip-mall. So, it took longer for hiring managers to wade through all the bullshit paper-certified applicants. And a little longer than that for companies to realize that just because there are applicants who are willing to take a job for 50% of what it should pay, doesn't mean it will be a good decision to hire them. I'd say it took me about 12 months before I landed a full-time job. During that time I kept busy (and fed) by doing some independent security consulting for small businesses. Post-mortems and policy creation mostly.
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Apr 30, 2015 15:51
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Tab8715 posted:On the same subject, I'm curious exactly how terrible was the job market during the .com bust? Im curious what the IT industry was like around 2007 actually 
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Apr 30, 2015 17:18
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Crossposting this from the Windows thread:CLAM DOWN posted:Server 2012 R2, during a CIFS authentication session, why is tcp/80 being used in the middle of the series of tcp/445 packets? I'm completely stumped on what is going on here. Nothing is listening on port 80 on the destination server, and it's just svchost.exe initiating it on the client. I initially thought it might be WebDAV, but that isn't installed on either end. Anyone have any idea?
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Apr 30, 2015 17:25
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Race Realists posted:Im curious what the IT industry was like around 2007 actually Ha! That's when I was working for a MSP doing Apple/HP/Lenovo hardware repair making a glorious $12/h. Everyone making the equivalent of $40k+ was given an immediate 25% pay cut. The company CEO came to our office after everyone complained where he told the audience it was worse for him because his salary went from 120k to 90k.
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Apr 30, 2015 17:33
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CLAM DOWN posted:Crossposting this from the Windows thread: NSA
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Apr 30, 2015 17:43
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Tab8715 posted:The company CEO came to our office after everyone complained where he told the audience it was worse for him because his salary went from 120k to 90k. What a prick. Serious reality distortion field.
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Apr 30, 2015 17:46
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