Work in the IT field? Chime in your experience.

[325Projectz]

^ Dude did you turn your E30 M3 into a table? What's up with the beverages on the hood... and that passenger door...!

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showthread.php?t=273141

[InuFaye]

You must work in helpdesk, try moving into network/security/programming.

Did you see my post where it said I have been a sysadmin?

[capn]

Did you see my post where it said I have been a sysadmin?

Looking back at your post I do see it at the very bottom but your top 10 list aren't a typical sysadmin role. Looks like you had some rough experiences with your previous employers because they seem to push a lot of helpdesk type responsibilities on to you.

[InuFaye]

I was a sysadmin at a two man IT department.
Ive done it all.

[redsubdivisions]

Here is another question: do any of your job roles require you to have a college degree?

[Cletonius]

Here is another question: do any of your job roles require you to have a college degree?

Not really but a degree of some kind seems to be required for advancement. It's been very difficult for me having only an associate's

[EREKSHUN]

It does pay decently so lets get that out of the way.

1. You get blamed for everything related to a computer. Oh this excel spreadsheet won't work because I fucked up the formatting? Its IT's fault. Shit like that will drive you crazy.

2. You will be expected to babysit everyone with all their technology.

3. You will have to be an asshole to almost everyone to stay sane and avoid burnout within a year.

4. You will have to work with people who have the money and have no idea how IT works and think that you can just keep on using old hardware all the time.

5. People will expect you to work on their personal shit for free just because you work together.

6. You will have to constantly learn new shit all the time.
7. You are on call 24/7.
8. You have to job hop every 2-3 years just to get a raise.
9. You are always inheriting someone else's mess.

Ive been doing the sysadmin thing for about 7 years now and its tiring as fuck.

This guy is on point though. This is what I deal with all the time. I do IT for a recycling company so we are constantly buying out smaller businesses and I always come into a rats nest and need to make it work under a ridiculous time frame. Most maintenance can only be done after hours and must be perfect before the first guy comes in the morning. You will always be wrong and as long as your a passive person and don't let things get to you you'll be fine. It's those who are uncomfortable out side of their speciality or think that everyone is smart that drive me nuts.

This is today's project.



Still cleaning up.

[Cletonius]

That's a clean cabinet already! You should see the mess our server group operates. If something goes down they're in there for hours looking for cables.

[knuklehead92]

I was a sysadmin at a two man IT department.
Ive done it all.

i have been in IT for 1 year and im a sysadmin and its two man department. My dept consist of me and a help desk person. I was by my self for 7 months with no help, for a company that has 3 locations and a total of 150 users. my life has been stressful. Just starting to get good because i got a help desk to do all the BS work.

Let me tell you this.

If you dont like reading this field isnt for you. In my experience its attention to detail. Dont fuck up

You have to think logically most of the time but also take into account about how other humans feel/react when you change something

People dont like change, in IT everyday changes and People dont like learning new things especially old people and they are higher up.

i can go on on on on about IT

read read read pay attention to detail, always have a back up no matter what.

cover your ass with emails because people are people
I've met crazy people and most people dont like IT because they dont understand it.

Get away from desktop asap, its good to start but move up to something better asap

I handle and manage all of our IT infrastructure.

Like what this guy says your always taking care of other people mess

[ohthejosh]

You guys are working for the wrong companies if your IT Department consists of 2 people. Help yourself out and find somewhere with a larger department. That is just ridiculous.

[ParsedOut]

Not sure what kind of IT you have in mind, it's a pretty broad field. I've recently joined the IT field in a project management capacity. I absolutely love it, I get to use my experience in managing people and processes to accomplish a goal. I do not have any formal IT training, but have been a computer nerd for the last 20 years, so I've picked up just enough knowledge to speak semi-intelligently on most things. If not, I've fine tuned the ability to spend a few hours to a few days familiarizing myself with the topic at hand. I've also had non-IT related project management experience, so the transition wasn't a slam dunk but I found a company that was willing to connect the dots and give me a shot.

If you want to go the sys admin route, I'm pretty sure you'll need at least a few certificates to make yourself marketable. Personally, that shit would drive me crazy for the reasons posted above. Software development is a fairly lucrative field, but also requires some pretty specific experience and the brain wiring to pull it off.

[knuklehead92]

Not sure what kind of IT you have in mind, it's a pretty broad field. I've recently joined the IT field in a project management capacity. I absolutely love it, I get to use my experience in managing people and processes to accomplish a goal. I do not have any formal IT training, but have been a computer nerd for the last 20 years, so I've picked up just enough knowledge to speak semi-intelligently on most things. If not, I've fine tuned the ability to spend a few hours to a few days familiarizing myself with the topic at hand. I've also had non-IT related project management experience, so the transition wasn't a slam dunk but I found a company that was willing to connect the dots and give me a shot.

If you want to go the sys admin route, I'm pretty sure you'll need at least a few certificates to make yourself marketable. Personally, that shit would drive me crazy for the reasons posted above. Software development is a fairly lucrative field, but also requires some pretty specific experience and the brain wiring to pull it off.

Thats what i want to do. I want to do more of the managing aspect. I am getting to do that more and more everyday but still have to baby sit once and while drives me nuts

[capn]

Not sure what kind of IT you have in mind, it's a pretty broad field. I've recently joined the IT field in a project management capacity. I absolutely love it, I get to use my experience in managing people and processes to accomplish a goal. I do not have any formal IT training, but have been a computer nerd for the last 20 years, so I've picked up just enough knowledge to speak semi-intelligently on most things. If not, I've fine tuned the ability to spend a few hours to a few days familiarizing myself with the topic at hand. I've also had non-IT related project management experience, so the transition wasn't a slam dunk but I found a company that was willing to connect the dots and give me a shot.

If you want to go the sys admin route, I'm pretty sure you'll need at least a few certificates to make yourself marketable. Personally, that shit would drive me crazy for the reasons posted above. Software development is a fairly lucrative field, but also requires some pretty specific experience and the brain wiring to pull it off.

Certs are extremely helpful to get started in a certain direction but having related experience speaks volumes when trying to move on to bigger and better things. The way I see it is, you have a degree but do you have the experience to backup that degree.

[ParsedOut]

Certs are extremely helpful to get started in a certain direction but having related experience speaks volumes when trying to move on to bigger and better things. The way I see it is, you have a degree but do you have the experience to backup that degree.

Exactly. Getting a foot in the door to a new field (ie. no experience) you need to have education of some sort that applies. Here's a method I would recommend if you don't have either... build a website (a good, clean design) that functions as a blog and an online resume. Use the blog to document EVERYTHING you do, take pictures, be detailed. Then in your online resume portion (can be password protected, give it to prospective employers only) you then outline what you've done and how that directly applies to their line of business. Use hyperlinks to reference your blog posts to show you have some "experience" that is relevant. I would say if you've done a lot of projects and nerdtastic things in the past, it wouldn't be dishonest to go back and blog about them and back date the post... it's a grey area, you did the project and have the experience, so I'd say you're good.

Anyway, that is my recommendation for anyone trying to break into a new field without the education or formal experience to back it up.

[capn]

Exactly. Getting a foot in the door to a new field (ie. no experience) you need to have education of some sort that applies. Here's a method I would recommend if you don't have either... build a website (a good, clean design) that functions as a blog and an online resume. Use the blog to document EVERYTHING you do, take pictures, be detailed. Then in your online resume portion (can be password protected, give it to prospective employers only) you then outline what you've done and how that directly applies to their line of business. Use hyperlinks to reference your blog posts to show you have some "experience" that is relevant. I would say if you've done a lot of projects and nerdtastic things in the past, it wouldn't be dishonest to go back and blog about them and back date the post... it's a grey area, you did the project and have the experience, so I'd say you're good.

Anyway, that is my recommendation for anyone trying to break into a new field without the education or formal experience to back it up.

I've spoken to a lot of HR professionals and they literally scan through a resume in 20-30 seconds for pre-screening purposes and they don't have time to read details (let alone click on hyperlinks of your past projects/accomplishments).

You'd have better success if you just popped in a few keywords these HR departments are looking for in a prospective cadidate.

For example if you are applying for a Network Admin job that requires VMWare, Cisco, and HP Blade Server experience then make sure you highlight those in your past/present experiences.

The above may seem obvious but I've met lots of colleagues who goof up on this part. :loco: