New Job: From a frugal employer to a major university
The short of it is that I got a new job. My official title is a NOC Assistant and I'll be working for the Department of Housing at a large university. Part of the duties include managing MS Exchange and Active Directory servers, 2 things I have 0 experience with. It also calls for managing RHEL servers so I'll get to dip into my homebrew Linux experience. Yay! I'm excited and nervous but I know I'll be fine. To be honest. I'm still coming to grips with the idea of actually leaving my current job. In some ways, I love my job but I dislike the company. A little history is in order.
When I applied at my current job, I applied for a Network Admin position. I'd been looking to break into IT and out of the usual retail/service jobs but with no professional IT experience, that made things difficult. The company was (and still is) desperate for Linux Administrators so I saw this as a golden opportunity. It sure as hell beat flipping burgers at Wendy's or spending my nights cleaning floors.
Despite my best efforts, I failed their Linux test, MySQL test, and Apache tests. However, I did pass the tests for hardware and general support. They offered me a position in Technical Support. With that still being a great foot in the door, I took it.
From minimum wage and part time hours to full time with (what I felt at the time was) decent pay, my new job practically doubled my income. That and I was finally getting to work with computers. I was excited at first. I really enjoyed it but there was a steep learning curve for me. Not only did I have a bit of catching up to do from a technical standpoint, I also had to play catch up professionally. The retail industry isn't exactly a breeding ground for professionalism. Needless to say, I didn't do terribly well my first few months.
It's a family owned company and like many family owned ventures, there's virtually no line distinguishing where the company ends and the family begins. One of the main traits they look for in a Support rep is genuine desire to be helpful but it's hard to remember this when you're being asked to do things that are clearly not within an IT scope and are seemingly random things. I don't know how many times I was called into the break room to troubleshoot the coffee machine (including once being asked to research what the "CLN" message it was displaying meant), showing people how to use the microwave, fixing a drawer in the kitchen or one of the filing cabinets. Once, a few Support members were asked to help get a bird out of our shipping warehouse. We purchase, configure, teach how to use, and maintain all of the founding family's personal computers and devices such as cell phones, tablets, etc. On top of this, we provide the usual customer-side support via phone and email for the company's products, plus providing internal support for real technical issues employees had with their computers.
To say the company is frugal is an understatement.
- The chairs are older than almost all of the employees
- The workstations range from 3 to 9 years old,
- The desks are folding buffet tables on wooden blocks to raise them to the correct height.
- Support only has spare tools from the shipping department. We don't have a proper tool kit with computer tools. I had to speak to my supervisor twice about getting a basic set of screwdrivers because we had no Phillips head units. You heard me; No Phillips screwdrivers.
- The main printer that half the company prints from only supports Windows 3.1 up through Windows NT.
- The server room is the best part. It's a plywood box with 2 window Air Conditioning units filled with old desktops in a cluster. There's only a handful of rack-mount switches and such but no fire suppression and no security other than a simple lock on the sliding glass door.
Despite my complaints about my job, I do have a lot of positive things to say about it. I truly love what I do and I've learned so much while working there. I started there your usual computer nerd but I leave an IT professional. I acquired and honed critical thinking and problem solving skills, presentation skills, increased practical technical knowledge, etc. I have better written and verbal communication skills. I re-wrote and added to Support documentation, helped with testing of our Android app, wrote bug reports and assisted with testing and handled all projects that were assigned to me no matter how BS I felt it was. I made lasting friendships and gained something that's king in the IT world; Real-World Experience.
It was a great stepping stone into IT and I can't thank them enough for the opportunity to prove myself. They have what they refer to as an "onward and upward" policy, which I think it's a nice way of saying whoever doesn't like it can leave but this company does understand that if you treat your employees well, you'll get quality work. If they had better equipment, offered better benefits, and management learned how to manage IT better, they'd lose the high-turnover rate and keep some great workers. Until then, the high-turnover approach to getting college kids to do a hodge-podge of work for a combination of experience and meager pay may continue to work for them.
For now, I'm more focused on my new job. I'm nervous about going someplace new, being the FNG, and generally starting over at the bottom of the food chain again. However, being a major university, there's plenty of roles for an IT worker, a large number of departments to work for, and a wider variety of work. I'll get to work with new technologies, get to work with more people, and get to learn new things every day. One of my supervisors said "After a few years, you'll be filling your resume up with valuable skills." I can't wait.
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