Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Digital_Jesus
Feb 10, 2011

My coworkers called me crazy when I told them they'd rue the day they didn't build a fresh-format image for our lenovo laptops.

Suck on it fuckers :boom:

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Digital_Jesus
Feb 10, 2011

Unfortunately I transcended regular user interaction into network engineering, and forgot to stop before I hit consulting where now its only 10% user interaction but that interaction is all C-Levels and everything must be explained in pie graphs and scatter plots and gantt charts.

Digital_Jesus
Feb 10, 2011

Free helpdesk software sucks because its free. Just fyi.

Digital_Jesus
Feb 10, 2011

Internet Explorer posted:

You're currently using it, aren't you? :-D

His username adds depth beyond meaning to this discussion.

Digital_Jesus
Feb 10, 2011

Ask yourself which you're more interested in: Developing new skills at a new organization or honing existing skills in a stable work environment with long-term potential.

Every job move involves risk, even more so when moving from a position you know you're secure in to something new in a different company. If you're risk adverse and don't like the inherent instability of a job change, stay where you are and look for alternative avenues of learning new skills if you're bored with what you do now. You may also find your new job will stale quickly while you put in your merit time before being allowed to move to a higher level roll or alternate career path.

Personally I love switching jobs and learning new stuff. Very little hesitation to do so if the financials make sense. Some people not so much.

Endpoint Management as a skill set isn't going to be obsolete anytime in the near future, so weigh that in too.

E: As to what to ask, my own questions would revolve entirely around what I just outlined above. Every potential new employer gets asked "Why should I leave a stable long-term working environment to join your organization?". The ones worth working for have better answers than "Because we offer new opportunities!"

Don't forget to factor in work environment and life balance as well. Are you willing to sacrifice your personal time to learn new things in a private sector job that will most definitely treat you worse than a public organization? Whats the dress code? Are you giving up Jeans and T-Shirts for slacks and a button down? Working hours too. I'd rather work 35 than 50 for the same salary.

Digital_Jesus fucked around with this message at 19:28 on Mar 29, 2019

Digital_Jesus
Feb 10, 2011

Don't turn your PC off or let it sleep?

Digital_Jesus
Feb 10, 2011


Our core switch was up for 4 years, 17 Weeks before I rebooted it after getting hired.

Digital_Jesus
Feb 10, 2011

Xanderkish posted:

So I'm a Co-Op student for the Information Management section of a mid-sized company. My most recent manager moved to a new batch processing team within the company as part of a larger company reorganization, and brought me along with him. As one of my first tasks on this new team, he tasked me with improving the documentation for the team, as the higher-ups want to improve efficiency and the systems this team is working with have been around since 2004. The system is complicated enough, and the documentation spotty enough, that when I joined the company, I was told by other workers that it might take a person months to become adequately comfortable with the systems and procedures involved, and a lot of it is currently only learnt by word of mouth or by screwing up and asking someone else what the right thing to do is.

Problem is, I'm not very experienced with these systems myself, and my manager also doesn't know the system, and possibly knows less about these systems than I do (we had one meeting where one of the existing workers was teaching him how the batch software worked, and I was able to answer a few of my manager's questions about it, for example). So his instructions to me have been relatively vague (make a 24-hour playbook like the 24-hour playbook this other team uses, use OneNote to document it), and when I initially tried to talk with others experienced with the system, they were also at a loss and annoyed because I didn't even fully know what I was asking for!

So I'm in this position where I have to figure out what the needs are for the team in terms of improving communication and documentation, then create prototypes for the documentation that I send to my manager for approval, but I don't know how much his approval is worth if he doesn't know how the system works himself. I keep thinking that I could develop some document that my manager is happy with, but then no one on the team uses. So I have to keep meeting with the team members to get their ideas on what the documentation needs and make sure my prototypes work with them as well, while I'm also trying to better familiarize myself with the system that I'm working with and only saw a little bit of in the 8 months I've been working here. And then I've got this feeling in the back of my head that, because I'm an intern, a lot of the people I need to cooperate with me and give me an idea of what the team needs don't actually take me seriously, so I'm worried that my deliverable isn't going to amount to a whole lot because I just didn't get enough buy-in.

I feel like I'm slowly plodding towards a solution, but my god, this is the most ambitious and complicated thing I've ever been tasked with doing, and I can't figure out how much of my struggles are because of my own inexperience, and how much is because I'm being mismanaged.

Congratulations and welcome to the first experience in your potentially extremely lucrative consulting career.

Learn to deal with this poo poo well and you too can charge people $$$$$ to go in and document / overhaul their dumpster rear end networks. (Ask me about doing this crap every single day!)




RIP
vvv

Digital_Jesus fucked around with this message at 00:55 on May 16, 2019

Digital_Jesus
Feb 10, 2011

Some Dude from Kickstarter posted:

Born in San Felipe Baja California Mexico come to Colorado when I was 9 liked computers and technology since then studied computer science at RRCC

Digital_Jesus
Feb 10, 2011

Im confused... how is it by the third time you've told an employee to document their poo poo and they've ignored you have you not started writing them up and making sure HR has disciplinary notices in their file for failure to complete tasks as assigned?

Third write-up for failure to complete tasks as assigned is termination time. People will absolutely document their work as soon as you eject one of them from the building with your foot.

Digital_Jesus
Feb 10, 2011

gently caress that. Fire them. If they won't document their work they aren't necessary anyway. Everyone can be replaced and proving you're willing to fire people for doing their jobs half assed is most definitely important if you want to succeed in management whatsoever.

E: Just make sure you also treat employees who actually do their jobs well with respect and give them nice perks like flex time, extra PTO, etc. or whatever is in your power as a manager to do, and make sure they get solid performance reviews and raises.

Digital_Jesus fucked around with this message at 15:43 on May 29, 2019

Digital_Jesus
Feb 10, 2011

skipdogg posted:

I’m just bitching online.

Thread title material.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Digital_Jesus
Feb 10, 2011

CLAM DOWN posted:

I actually really like what I do and I'm grateful to have the skills applicable to it and the privilege to have landed a very lucrative career. But in the end, it doesn't mean anything and my true passion is elsewhere, not to mention the emotional and mental drain this field results in.

Arus admits technology cannot surpass his true passion of buying gems.

Digital_Jesus fucked around with this message at 01:30 on Dec 20, 2019

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply