[Techconceptions]: Five Key Steps to a More Efficient Help Desk Request
Let's
not mince words today. You hate your company help desk. They're slow,
bumbling, haughty, and condescending know-it-alls with poor hygiene who
force you to wait in line with the plebs while they scurry about the
building doing their "help-desky things" for other, less-important
people. They speak in a secret code behind your back that only they
seem to understand, and above all, they fail to recognize how important
you are to the company and how critical it is that all of your equipment
functions at optimum efficiency. Yes, these things are universal to
every company, which is why I thought I'd take a few minutes to educate
you on the five key ingredients to the perfect help desk request. This
is just for you people who don't know every damned thing there is to
know. The rest of you can safely skip over today's post.
First off, before filling out a help desk ticket, be sure to
spend several hours attempting to fix the problem yourself. For example,
open the case to your computer and run a large magnet over the hard
drive in order to pull off any bugs, viruses, or bad data that may be on
your system. Additionally, remove the drive cables and memory,
thoroughly cleaning all metal contacts with a mixture of Comet, club
soda, and steel wool to make sure you got everything spic and span.
Remembering that peak work times are between the hours of 9:00 AM
and 4:00 PM, put off submitting any help desk requests until the end of
the week -- say Friday around 4:45pm. If your help desk tech person
still seems terribly stressed out, insist that they come in on Saturday
and fix it when there isn't anyone else around to bother them.
If you're an important person, don't bother with the established
help desk ticketing system at all. Just leave a voice mail, email, or
post-it note, where they are sure to find it ... eventually. In fact,
you may want to solidify your importance by forwarding your service
request via the president of the company in an email tagged "URGENT!!!"
(Three exclamation points is usually sufficient, but use more if you
feel the situation requires it.) Requests from upper management
generally make your help desk person feel important and respected by the
highest levels of administration.
Next, describe the symptoms of the problem as briefly and vaguely as
possible. For example, my computer broke, my printer is stuck, my
monitor smells hot (you laugh, but I did get that one once). Follow
this up with as much unqualified detail as you can invent about the
probable causes of the problem and the exact steps the technician must
take in order to satisfactorily resolve the issue. If you are unsure
about your ability to invent techno-babble ad lib, feel free to request a
brand new computer, printer, monitor at this point ... especially if
the problem pertains to another, unrelated device entirely. You can't
be too thorough with these things.
In your request, be sure to state, clearly, all of the reasons why
your problem should be put in front of all the others in the queue.
Possibilities include, you're extremely busy, nobody in the company can
do any work until the problem is fixed, we will loose all of our
customers, the company will go out of business, financial markets will
collapse, and/or people are dying in horrible agony from eyeball
hemorrhages every moment your request goes unanswered. This is also a
good place to imply that you have a special, close relationship with
someone in senior management who, against all logic, is following your
situation very closely. Finally, end with an implied threat that the
help desk technician could easily lose their job (or that harm may
befall their loved ones) if they don't immediately come to your aid.
That ought to get their attention!
Once again, it's time to vent about my favorite class of people, technical recruiters, or as we like to call it on this blog: Wednesday. Now, I'm on record as one of those tech geeks who find most recruiters to clueless, talentless, flesh peddlers with the attention span and short-term memory capacity of goldfish when I try to answer their stock questions about what I'm looking for in a job. To them it's like when you and I say, "How are you?" It's just something they throw in out of habit in order to lure someone into a false sense of trust while they play "connect the acronym with resumes and job tickets. Secretly I know they think they're better than me. I know I'm just "geek flesh" to them. I know they really don't care about my feelings or about me as a person who cries at the end of "War Games" every time it's on TV.
In that regard, I find most of them to be akin to sports agents ... or worse ... bar band managers.
(Well, not all of them, there are exceptions, Julie.)
In my last job search, I've had the following run-ins with supposedly reputable, national recruiting firms:
After going through a 30-minute interview with a recruiter about what I was looking for in a career -- (That is, my standard I started out as a C++, VB, and C# programmer, but decided I hated doing code-monkey work, so about five years ago I broke into managment. So, at this stage in my career, I'm really looking for something in that area..." speech.) He proceeded to feed me three "really strong fits:" 1) C++ programmer; 2) VB.NET programmer; or 3) C# programmer.
After going through the same spiel with yet another recruiter, he said he had a "really strong fit" for me and asked when I would be available to go to the north side for an interview the next day. I told him I was working downtown so between paying to park twice, walking from the office to the parking garage (15 minutes one-way), and driving in and out of downtown, it really isn't practical time wise -- and since I was working on an hourly rate, money wise -- for me to go and come back during the day. Therefore, any time after 4:00 would be great, preferably after work. I received a phone call the next morning at 7:30 asking if I could be there at 8:30 AM. Grumbling, I relented, because he said it was a really great opportunity at a considerable pay hike from what I was making as a contractor. So, I took a half-day off work to go the interview (mind you, a half-day at my billable rate is about $400). First question out of the guy's mouth: (And remember, I'd already been through the same conversation with this recruiter that I had with the recruiter in the previous story.) "Tell me about your C# experience..." I wasn't even cordial at this point. Shortest interview ever.
Got sent on an interview for a contracting position based on my extensive experience with PSQL. Okay, so actually I have experience with TSQL ... but the recruiter figured it was only one letter off, how different could it be, right? (Geek equivalent of: You drive a Cavalier with an automatic transmission, this more than qualifies you to parallel park an 18-wheeler with a manual transmission.)
Got asked to interview for a position requiring a CNE Certification. I protested that I had taken once class for a CNA, but didn't even take the test. The recruiter (for a major, national recruiting firm no less) told me not to mention that part during the interview and just fake it. (Geek equivalent of: You would have passed freshman biology if you hadn't skipped the final. I got you an interview to be a surgeon. If they ask anything about open heart surgery, fake it!)
My personal favorite. While finishing up a contracting assignment, I agreed to help the company find a replacement for me that could take over the position permanently since, as we mentioned in #1 and #2, I have no interest in being a programmer for a living. The company hired a major, national recruiting firm to submit candidates. One afternoon, my boss calls me into his office, hands me bios of five potential candidates, and asks me to pre-screen them to see who is best suited to be my successor. Imagine my surprise when I get to #5: "Darrin has been in I.T. for fourteen years as a technical manager, architect, project manager, business analyst, network analyst, and technical sales support specialist. He also has extensive experience as a programmer." The company in question had apparently not only forgotten where I was working, and what kind of jobs I specifically didn't want to do, but also didn't even ask if they could submit me for the position beforehand.
And then there is this week, when I received the following email:
Dear Consultant,
I am an IT Recruiter for Ramsoft Systems ... We have the below mentioned job opportunity available with one of our clients...
================================================ C#.NET Developer (conversion of FoxPro to C#.NET) Multiple work Location: Schaumburg, IL Duration: 6 months Rate: Depends on experience
*** MUST HAVE *** extensive experience analyzing requirements and building solutions using C#.NET
Be able to read FoxPro code and transfer functionality to C#.Net platform working with a team of remote developers, analysts and testers.
Codes, tests, debugs, implements, and documents programs. Analyzes, designs and writes specifications for programs. Assists support personnel in locating and resolving problems of significance with programs.
Convert existing FoxPro application to C#.NET. Must be able to read FoxPro code and then transfer application functionality to C#.NET.
Be able to read FoxPro code and transfer functionality to C#.Net platform working with a team of remote developers, analysts and testers
Pretty standard recruiter spam. Lame, faux-technical company name (probably someone in a basement), masked out "To:" field. Generic, nonspecific greeting. Yeah whatever, if I'm not worth at least a personally addressed email, let alone a phone call, I know I'm just a commodity.
But then, ten minutes later, I get this one...
Dear Candidate,
My name is [NAME withheld] and I'm a technical recruiter for Sapphire Technologies ... We are currently recruiting for a C#.Net w/ FoxPro Developer for our client located in Schaumburg, IL. This is a 6 month contract position with the possibility of it being extended...
================================================
*** MUST HAVE *** extensive experience analyzing requirements and building solutions using style="COLOR: windowtext">C#.NET Be able to read FoxPro code and transfer functionality to C#.Net platform working with a team of remote developers, analysts and testers. Codes, tests, debugs, implements, and documents programs. Analyzes, designs and writes specifications for programs. Assists support personnel in locating and resolving problems of significance with programs.
Convert existing FoxPro application to C#.NET. Must be able to read FoxPro code and then transfer application functionality to C#.NET...
Exact same wording. Okay, slightly-less-dumb company name. I check a few boards to see if this is a freak coincidence, or some new scam or something. While I'm doing that, the following email arrives...
Hello,
We recently viewed a copy of your resume. My firm, Intermedia Group has been retained by a large consulting company to fill ...
JOB CODE: FP431IL52121 JOB TITLE: Web Developer JOB LOCATION: Schaumburg, IL **very strong candidate could work remotely** EMPLOYMENT TYPE - Contract DURATION: 6 months, could go perm.
JOB DESCRIPTION: C#.Net Developer with FoxPro exp. *** REMOTE WORKING OPPORTUNITY FOR PERFECT CANDIDATE ***
*** MUST HAVE *** Extensive experience analyzing requirements and building solutions using C#.NET
Be able to read FoxPro code and transfer functionality to C#.Net platform working with a team of remote developers, analysts and testers.
Visual FoxPro 6, 3-5 years advanced experience required. C#.Net, 3-5 years advanced experience required. Conduct Application Analysis, 3-5 years expert experience required.
Thank you,
Senior Associate INTERMEDIA GROUP, INC. 5 Hanover Square New York, NY 10004 voice: 212-248-0100 facsimile: 212-248-0600
Okay, lamest faux-technical name yet. There are literally hundreds of companies called "Intermedia" out there, I checked ... way to differentiate yourselves guys ... (or are you trying to blend in ... hmmmmm). And the contrived subject line -- "RE: Open Web Developer Position--Remote Work" -- with the fake "RE:" -- no doubt designed to trick me into opening the email or thinking I had somehow already agreed to this position -- is a nice touch. Your very first contact with me is intentionally deceptive. Yeah, I feel real comfortable dealing with you now.
So, what is the deal here?Are there no FoxPro/C# people in the Chicago metro area so they have to come to me in Indianapolis to fill this position?What kind of reputation must this company have that they must go through at least three no-name recruiting companies with spam engines at their disposal?Code sweatshop?Possibly a bad reputation with the local geek community?Name sullied perhaps for questionable employment practices?How many thousands of letters got set out for this position to my unsuspecting brethren?Is it any wonder I hate these mass-flesh-production pimps?Enquiring minds want to know!
The geek in me is completely blown away with how small we can make wireless NICs now, and how cool it is to have yet another common device wired into the cyberspace collective.
The tech support guy in me remembers that I'm still, to this day, helping friends and clients who can't properly configure WEP on their PC's, cell phones, digital picture frames, and can openers already. Now we've got SD cards in the mix too.
The cynic in me says that the limited 2GB of space will evaporate within the next year, no doubt filled up with firewall, anti-virus, and anti-spyware software to protect our now-endangered portable devices.
The business analyst in me is still not sure of the practical application of this yet. SD is a storage medium. Why did we never develop floppies, CDs, and thumb drives with wireless NICs? Because, those mediums plug into devices that already have NICs. The only real use I see for a WiFi SD card is for older generation phones, digital cameras, and picture frames that don't already have WiFi capability built in. Since this is pretty much a standard feature on the current generation of these products, I really don't see any long-term potential for this technology once those older products are phased out, and at $99 for 2GB of memory, I'm not even sure it's practical for that. Is the elimination of that extra step -- plugging a cord into your camera -- really worth the money? For the average geek, no; for Grandma, maybe.
Taking the 'Human' Out of 'Human Resources' Since 2005
This is actually a repost from my "other blog" from July of last year, but I need to populate some content before the site goes live (and heck, if you haven't read it before, it's new to you).
Have I mentioned I find most recruiters to be clueless, shady vermin,
with little or no knowledge of industry terminology, and no
understanding of actual job classifications, who treat people like
cattle to be traded without regard to career aspirations or personal
desire? There are exceptions, and I've dealt with a few good ones. I'm
mostly talking about the leeches who troll Monster.com looking for
resumes the way a certain demographic of people troll garage sales
looking for discarded Beanie Babies. "I've got 2437! I don't know
which ones or how many, but I'm told I can make money off them on eBay!"
I suppose when you find yourself wishing you were a Beanie Baby, you've got serious problems.
I've been to interviews with recruiters where I've honestly felt I needed a shower afterward. Porn industry casting agents probably make you feel more comfortable than these guys. Thus far, I've been asked to lie about past work experience, misrepresent qualifications and education, and in one instance was offered a substantial cash bonus if I would leave an existing contract position immediately without giving notice. My response: "And how would you feel if I did that to your client?" Was met with complete incredulity. Most annoying is when a couple different recruiters lied to me about job requirements to get me to go to an interview I otherwise wouldn't be interested in. I suppose because they thought I would magically see their side of things after I realized they were lying weasels. Also on numerous occasions, I've been shown the resume a recruiter gave a hiring manager and wondered exactly whose resume that was with my name at the top, and why weren't they sitting in this chair wasting an afternoon of travel and interview time when they should be at the office that is, for now, paying their bills. Oh, and my old personal favorite, in one instance my boss showed me a list of people who were submitted as potential replacements for me at a contracting position I was getting ready to leave. Imagine my surprise to find my name and summary submitted (without my knowledge) as #4 on the list. Pay attention people!
Today, however, I have found a bold new winner of either the "I don't know what any of this stuff is that I'm selling, but a bunch of words were spelled the same" category or possibly the "We don't need to hire anybody to read resumes and talk to people, we can just match key words between resumes and job sheets" category. Now, if these flesh-peddlers would just pick up a phone and call me, then they would know that
I like my job and am not interested in leaving (well ... today ... call me again next week)
I do not wish to let "Think Energy Group" -- or any company who uses unsolicited bulk emails as their main marketing tactic -- represent me. This is doubly true of a company that doesn't think enough of me to give me the courtesy of a two-minute phone call to introduce themselves and ask about my current situation and long-term career goals.
Now this is a very small but important detail, and the crux of my argument: While, yes, I used to be an "off-shore development manager" (like ... software programs written by people in India), this job opening is in fact for an "off-shore development manager" (like ... building oil rigs and stuff on the bottom of the ocean floor)...
Think Resources has recently received a job requirement, from one of our clients, that could be a potential fit for your background. Please read the following and apply accordingly:
> To APPLY TO THIS JOB or see more information on this job click here:
Position description:
A GLOBAL ENGINEERING COMPANY in Houston, TX is actively seeking a
Senior Consultant Subsea Engineer to lead subsea hardware efforts in
studies, proposals and projects. Responsibilities include performing
all subsea design engineering functions, oversea project progress,
staff, budget, and monitor change orders, as well as research subsea
hardware options; Develop innovative subsea design, inventions,
patents, technologies, and present these in white papers at industry
trade shows; Generate cost effective field architecture design,
interfacing with Pipeline, Flow Assurance, Riser Analysis, Marine, etc.
as applicable; Check specs, datasheets, reports, technical notes,
procedures, instructions and Notes to Bidders, RFQ and procurement
packages for PO award and material requisitions, and bid evaluations.
The ideal candidate will possess a BS degree in Engineering, 15 or more
years of professional engineering experience in the offshore subsea
industry; Knowledgeable of subsea design codes (API, DnV,ASME,BS);
Familiar with field development scenarios, riser and subsea structure
design and installation scenarios in shallow and deep water (primarily
in the GOM); Certification as a Licensed Professional Engineer is a PLUS
Position type: Contract
Position location: Houston, TX
Potential pay up to: 52.88 $/Hr
... slight differences in pronunciation ... Zathras ... Zathras ...
you are seeing the difference? ... Zathras ... Zathras ... --
I can't even get the little castle in my aquarium to stand up right! Who the frack is going to entrust me with building large structures underwater?!
But
of course I submitted my resume anyway. It sounds like a really cool
gig, pays pretty well, and if "Think Energy Group" has no problems
wasting my time, then I certainly have no problem wasting theirs. The reply I sent:
Darrin Snider has recently received a job requirement, from ThinkJobs, that they believe could be a potential fit for his background. Please read
the attached resume and proceed accordingly:
> To SEE A MORE DETAILED RESUME FROM DARRIN SNIDER click here:
Revenge Against Referer Spammers: An Obvious Solution?
It's interesting to note how experience wizens you. It's amusing to look back and realize how naive you used to be. For example, for the longest time I thought dick-pill peddlers and HP customer support representatives were the most worthless waste of flesh on the planet. How silly and childlike I was two years ago. Recently, I had my first run-in with "referer spammers" (yes, the misspelling is intentional, I'd explain it, but I don't want to ... just Google it if you care). For you uninitiated people who don't try to actually put content on the Internet, referer spammers are just like dick-pill peddlers and HP customer support reps, only dumber.
It all started three days ago when I pulled up my log files and noticed my traffic had increased about ... oh ... fifty-fold in a matter of 24 hours. Ironically, my first thought was not that my writing talents had finally been discovered, or that I had accidentally gotten some national exposure that suddenly drew throngs of worshiping fans to my site in order to witness my work first hand so they would have something witty to say as they stood around the water cooler the next day. Hell no, I'm a cynic. I knew I was being attacked by something.
Sure enough, I pulled up my logs. I had 300 hits from some poker site, 300 hits from some mortgage company, 300 hits from a cialis dealer, and so on. (And this was just in the first hour's worth of logs I checked.) Now, I've had this stupidity a few times over the eight years I've been hosting my own web site. Usually they hit me for a dozen or so hits over a couple days, then disappear back under their rock. It's mildly amusing, seemingly pointless, and only slightly annoying. This time, however, it was completely insane the number of hits they were trying to put on my server. I've had clients under "denial of service attacks" that were more subtle than this.
I popped a couple of the domains into search engines to see if this was personal, or I'm just lucky enough to get targeted this week. Turns out these guys have been popular topic this month. Some of the less-morally upstanding members of the Internet society are even planning a little retaliation. And while I, as an upstanding technology executive, can not condone the violation of community trust that results from attacks or intrusions by unauthorized persons, white hat or otherwise ... aw fuck it ... you go, boys! haxorz repreSENT!
So why, if all this is abuzz in the blogosphere, is this allowed to continue? Well, fortunately for us, we can blame search engines. You see, what happens is, some moron with no real talent or intelligence decides that if he can just find way to get at the top of Google's search rankings, he'll somehow become independently wealthy and be able to continue his current existence as a worthless bag of flesh who does nothing productive for the society off which he leeches. In addition, girls will suddenly find him attractive, he will possess the secret of eternal youth, and the Cubs will will the World Series. You see, search engines base their rankings not on the quality or content of your site (nay, good citizen, for that would make too much sense), but instead on how many links there are to said site from the rest of the Internet.
Think about this: Search engines (many of which claim they will do no evil), are actually rewarding others for doing evil unto me.
So how do you get people like me to link to a worthless site that no person with any modicum of intelligence would ever want to visit. Ahhh, that's where the unenlightened computer user (probably you, dear reader) comes in. See, there are tens of thousands of buggy machines out there just overflowing with security holes -- in fact, every Tuesday, Microsoft publishes a new list of security flaws they found the previous week -- a one-stop shop for unscrupulous individuals who are too lazy to hack for themselves. So now, all a spammer needs to do is download this list of security holes, hand it to a twelve-year-old kid in a country that actually teaches computer skills to elementary school students, and voila: an instant army of compromised "zombie" machines that can be used to attack computers, send out tons of spam email, or (in this case) constantly surf web pages at a rate of several hundred a second, leaving a trail of fake referer tags behind them.
Yes, I know what you're thinking ... this when we are finally able to start paying Microsoft to protect us from flaws in Microsoft's operating system, then all these problems will magically disappear.
Now, theoretically, you get a couple dozen machines with a couple hundred referer tags each ... say about 5000 hits -- which was what I was getting -- and, if you're lucky my tracking software will pick up on this and display a link to your stupid spam site on my "top referrer's" page -- which ironically was invented to thank and reward real sites who link to me and drive legitimate traffic here. Repeat this whole process for a couple thousand other webmasters (say a couple million hits total) and after approximately a month: BOOM, you might raise your google search ranking by one.
Pretty cool, eh? Well no. This is where the real stupidity comes in.
If you do it slowly enough, sure, maybe you'll get your site on a top referer page. But flooding a site over the course of about 12 hours gets you noticed and subsequenty blacklisted.
Doing this for one of your domains is no big deal, you might even be rewarded by a webmaster for your ingenuity. However, doing this for 300 domains in one day is essentially a DOS attack. So chill, Turbo. Taking down the servers you're trying to get your link on is a bit like buying viagra when you have no realistic chance of being with a woman in the first place.
Raising your search engine ranking is pointless if you're a dick-pill peddler or on-line casino anyway because there are about a jillion-bajillion dick-pill and casino sites on the Internet and most of them paid for placement. See, many search engines reward cash contributions even more than they reward bad behavior.
So in the end, all you've really done is piss off a geek.
Now, I probably could have gone through all hundred or so domains, traced the URLs back to IP addresses, done a WHOIS, and gotten some fake names and addresses, then painstakingly reported them to the ISP's that issued them to get them shut off. I even considered it, but several people had, fortunately beat me to it, so I didn't have to take those minutes out of my valuable day.
Then the $20 solution hit me. (I say $20, based the industry-standard consulting rate of $120/hr, and the fact that it took me a whopping ten minutes to put this grand scheme of mine to work.)
It all comes down to three simple steps:
Step 1: Write a quick SQL query to pull out all of distinct domain names that "linked" to me for the first time in the last 24 hours. Then wipe them from the tracking logs.
Step 2: Concatenate the extracted domain names into a regular expression to be used as a filter.
Step 3: Write a quick little "if statement" to check new visitors for a spam site in their "http_referer." If they have one, send them a cookie (a timesaver for future identification), and redirect them to the spammer's site.
So, not only did this save me an ass-load of unwanted traffic (and drastically speed up my internet connection), but also awarded me the knowledge and satisfcation that all that traffic has now gone back to the ass-munch responsible for it and, with luck, raised his bandwidth bill by a couple cents a month.
And that I feel really good about.
So then I got to thinking: if everybody did this we could use the referer spammer's own uncscrupulous tools to put them out of business once and for all. But then I also go to thinking, if everybody would just keep their machines patched, we wouldn't have these problems. But then I got to thinking, if there were no assholes in the world, we wouldn't need patches and our machines would all run really fast and technology would progress faster because our best minds could develop useful things instead of wasting all that effort coming up with ways to keep assholes away and ...
... after that my head started to hurt.
So, for those of you who are not technically inclined, you may now go about your day. For those of you who are webmasters, or who are for some unglodly reason actually interested in reading source code, the gory details follow.
Put this code in your global.asa file:
' This function takes a URL and compares it to a regexp
' containing various spammer domains
' Returns: number of matches found, 0 if no match found
Function isSpamReferer(byval strReferer)
' Define a new regular expression object
Set objFilter = New RegExp
' Pattern can be either a list of domains, or (if
' you're not to worried about the broad-filtering
' of visitors,) just a list of key words
' (Email me for my complete pattern filter)
With objFilter
.Pattern = "vpoker.com/|nemasoft.com/|move.to/..."
.IgnoreCase = True
.Global = True
End With
' Run the filter on the URL passed to us
set intFound = objFilter.Execute(strReferer)
' Cleanup
Set objFilter = nothing
' Return the number of matches found in the filter
isSpamReferer = intFound.count
end function . . .
Sub Session_OnStart
' If there is a referer variable, and they have the
' spammer cookie or their referer matches one of the
' spam domains we've already identified...
if (len(request.servervariables("http_referer"))>1 _
and request.cookies("imaspammer")="1") or _ isSpamReferer(request.servervariables("http_referer"))>0 then
' Give them a cookie so we can spot them next time response.cookies("imaspammer")="1" response.cookies("imaspammer").expires=#1/1/25#
' Send them back to the spammer's site response.redirect(request.servervariables("http_referer"))
end if
End Sub
It's not perfect, I realize, but it pretty much instantly cut all that bullshit off my network (that 10 minutes of work took me from 300 spam referer domains a day down to maybe three a week). If you would like my complete regular expression pattern that lists all 300 spam domains and keywords (obviously I won't give them publicity by publishing it here), or if you have any suggestions for improvements, optimizations, or corrections feel free to discuss it in the comments.
Not sure what the hell happened to the industry, but I'm suddenly getting a flood of queries about my old resume offering me "C# Code Monkey" positions, despite the fact that I haven't been a code monkey for five years and even then had very little experience with that particular language. It eventually got so bad that I decided to update my resume's "Objective" section to plainly state that, "No, I don't want to be a ****-ing code
monkey again!" in the very first line. It turns out that is actually counter-productive, because the recently-updated resumes appear first in searches, and recruiters don't
actually read resumes anyway, they just match acronyms and send you a form letter anyway.
Out of frustration, I decided it was time to update my resume a third time -- being, let's just say, "brutally honest and 100% factual" in my self-description. Not surprisingly, it was just a couple of hours before recruiters, thinking they had discovered new blood not previously entered in their extensive databases, began calling me to request an updated version of this resume in the obligatory MSWord format. More than one even prefaced his email with, "I know it's been a couple of months since we last spoke, so you probably don't remember me," even though I had just made up what I had thought was the obviously-fake name and resume that morning.
As with last weeks' exercise in writing your own job description, I wholeheartedly recommend that everyone try this week's exercise on company time as an excellent way to combat stress. This time, however, instead of hiding it or filing it away, I think we should all create new, fake, accounts on Careerbuilder and/or Monster and post these for the world at large. Don't worry about those pesky terms of service or anything. The preponderance of pyramid scheme jobs posted on those sites is proof that they do not enforce their own rules and are interested only in the raw number of eyeballs trafficking to their site.
In addition, be sure and post your work in the comment section here for everyone to enjoy in its original context.
Updated Resume
Chuck Roast (Address available upon request) Fishers, IN 46038
(Note: Please do not call or email if your sole purpose is to obtain the obligatory MSWord copy of this resume to lose in your files or database somewhere. If the intricacies of cut/paste continue to elude you, then you may download a word-formatted version of this resume copy here.)
:: OBJECTIVE
To maintain my elite status as a former code-monkey who managed to crawl out of the cubicle and into a cushy middle-manager position with a real office and door.
To find a job that is not fast-paced and challenging," but reasonably stress-free and well within my comfort zone as a seasoned IT veteran -- which admittedly is more fast-paced and challenging than the average person's job.
To find a company that understands "bleeding edge technology" does not mean "works better," but instead means "vendor-dictated product obsolescence of something that probably still works really well." It is rarely a good thing.
To convince my congressman to repeal Sarbanes-Oxley (aka: the "Public Accountant and Auditor Protection Act of 2002") so that I never have to hear a CFO again say, "I don't see the problem. All of our accounting software runs on computers, so it's I.T.'s problem."
To find a company that appreciates my passive-aggressive rebellious nature, quirky sense of humor, and snappy dress sense. Frankly, a likable boss goes a lot further with me than anything else you have to offer.
To find a recruiter that actually reads my resume, asks me what I want in a position, and actually listens to what I say (or failing that, to overthrow all recruiting companies). That is to say, yes, I used to be a .Net developer, but thanks to more than a few bad experiences with recruiters, consulting, and contracting firms, I am extremely burned out on that lifestyle. For your edification, I have also officially been an IT Director, business analyst, project manager, senior consultant, network administrator, EDI Analyst, desktop support specialist, mainframe operator, accounts receivable clerk, waiter, and chicken wing delivery driver. In addition, during my 15 years in the workforce, I have also performed the duties of senior architect, technical writer, account manager, technical sales presenter, technical trainer, marketing communications consultant, and bartender. Any and all of these positions, with the possible exception of "EDI Analyst," are preferable to ".Net Developer."
:: WORK HISTORY (Actual company names available upon request)
Integrated Marketing Communications Company -- Indianapolis August 2006 to Present Business Analyst / Project Manager
Work,
primarily with our network administrator, towards getting the company
certified Level 1 PCI Compliant. As I was more eloquent writer of the
two of us (and closer to the CIO's office), I managed to usurp the
position of "Chief Security Officer" for the company as part of this
project.
Work directly with sales team and prospective
clients during discovery phase of projects. Prepared needs analysis,
business cases, ROI models, and formal proposals -- most of which died
in the boardroom due to sticker shock, though the few high-profile ones
that could afford us said they liked how I present things.
Design and architect new software projects
using UML and rational unified design processes. That is to say, I
write these big 100-200 page specifications that the programming team
categorically ignores.
Project manage an unmanageable in-house
programming team of mediocre programmers with raging egos. Basically, I
put out a project plan and timeframe, remind people of deadlines, then
try to fill the cracks to make sure stuff gets done on time and under
budget. Hence, I have earned the moniker "I.T. Spackle."
Act as technical point of contact for the
customer during implementation and post-implementation of new software
projects. This was not really my plan; however, the account manager
repeatedly gives out my private cell phone number to clients despite my
constant complaints.
All this while dodging and defusing the
efforts certain paranoid, backstabbing, sabotaging co-workers who will
say and do anything (ethical or otherwise) to make the people around
around them look bad -- simply because they are incapable of making
themselves look good.
My Own Company -- Columbus / Indianapolis
June 2004 to August 2006 Co-Owner / Director of Technology
Wore
about fifteen different hats and spin about twenty different plates at
once until I either pass out from exhaustion or blow up at someone out
of extreme stress
Sold a modified, customizable version of the business
management suite I wrote for "Remote Systems Administration
Specialists" (see below). Constantly came up with new features and uses
for the product.
Came up with creative new ideas for programs and web
sites -- much like throwing spaghetti noodles at the wall. Built design
documents and prototypes of the ones that stuck, managed the
programming team in developing them into robust applications, and
helped my partner market and sell them to prospective clients. Examples
included:
A School District Data Warehouse (C#.Net, ASP.Net, SQL Server 2000)
A Law Enforcement Case Management System (Visual Basic 6.0, SQL Server 2000)
An invoicing system for small coin and stamp supply shop (MS Access 2000, Visual Basic 6.0, QuickSell 2000)
Two local job/resume databanks supporting 150 users on average (ASP 3.0/.Net, Visual Basic COM/.Net, SQL Server 2000)
A
community portal and on-line collaboration and communications tool for
Chambers of Commerce (ASP 3.0, Visual Basic COM, SQL Server 2000)
A sales quote management system (VB.Net, ASP.Net, SQL Server 2005)
Worked
directly with clients to figure out what they need versus what they
want. Invent new and innovative pricing plans. Convince clients that
they're doing the right thing by listening to me.
Managed a competent but inexperienced programming team
that peaked at five full-time employees, plus on-site and off-shore
subcontractors that we brought in on an as-needed basis
Was the face of the company as far as the technology side of things went
Small Consulting Shop -- Carmel, IN
May 2001 to May 2004 Consultant
Supported
somewhere around 25-30 different clients doing everything from web
development, process analysis, custom application development, and
network administration -- that is to say, was regularly thrown off a
rooftop and expected to learn to fly on my way down. For the most part,
it was an enjoyable job, and since I'm not a puddle of goo on the
sidewalk today, I think I was pretty darned good at it, even though an
alarming percentage just consisted of driving 10 or 15 miles, paying
extortionist parking fees, and turning a computer off and back on.
Had my hands in all sorts of technologies including -- PHP,
JSP, Visual J++, ASP 3.0/.Net, Visual Basic 6.0/.Net, Windows 2000, Red
Hat Linux, MS Exchange 2000, MySQL, SQL Server 2000. Most of which I
learned on the fly out of a book or through my extensive peer network
of experts. The common phrase I used with clients was, "Don't worry,
I'm wired in. If I don't know how to do it, I know someone who will
show me."
Served as one-stop shop for pre-sale and post-sale questions and issues.
Notable projects included:
Designed and built time tracking and priority management software
for national service organization (ASP 3.0, Visual Basic COM, MS
Access). Great client, super nice guy, expert at creating scope creep and haggling for creative pricing.
Designed and built high-traffic open house web site for large
realty organization (ASP 3.0, Visual Basic COM, SQL Server). Another
great client, very organized and methodical.
Designed and built intranet site for major hospital trauma
center including physician scheduling utility, meeting minute
organizer, knowledge base, and a variety of communications tools
(ASP.Net 3.0, Visual Basic.Net, Dreamweaver, Ultradev, SQL Server
2000). Slow-moving juggernaut of a client compounded by a rather
incompetent middle-tier organization who subcontracted us when they
couldn't project manage their way out of a paper sack.
Designed and built quote management system for nation-wide
restaurant equipment manufacturer (ASP 3.0, Visual Basic COM, SQL
Server). Fun client. No matter what you gave them, they loved it.
Provide customizations and add-ons for IAS Visual Advance and
Accountmate financial packages (Visual FoxPro 6.0, Visual Basic
6.0/.Net). Essentially, once a week I drove 40 miles out to the middle
of a cornfield to re-index a Foxpro database because the client was
deathly afraid of technology.
Designed two sports registration packages for local youth
sports organizations (ASP 3.0, Visual Basic 6.0, MS Access). Both very
political work environments with constantly shifting priorities and
specifications. This technically should have been only one package that
we sold twice, but it got so convoluted with specific customizations
for each of them that we decided it was cheaper to just start over the
second time.
Designed accounts receivable system for local healthcare
organization (Visual Basic 6.0, MS Access). I'll leave it up to your
imagination as to why, when they had a perfectly good, very expensive,
accounting system, they needed a "special program" written to report
and track receivables as well as calculate commissions for their sales
team. Surprisingly, I hear they're still in business and using the
program.
Remote Systems Administration Specialists --
Carmel, IN May 1999 to May 2001 Systems/Network Analyst
Acted as a one-man IT department, doing just about everything imaginable, including:
Designed, built, and administered the entire corporate network from
a couple servers in boxes in the corner. (Windows NT/ 2000, Corel Linux
1.5, Cisco 2600 Router, GShield Firewall, MS Exchange 5.5)
Designed and developed in-house CRM, financial, sales
forecasting, collaboration, and business management systems (ASP
2.0/3.0, Visual Basic 6.0, SQL Server 6.0/7.0). Essentially I walked
around, and if I saw someone doing something on paper, I wrote a
program to do it for them.
Designed and build corporate web site (ASP 3.0, Flash, MS
Access 2000). It was 1999. They didn't know what they were going to do
with a web site, they just knew they needed one.
Implemented and administered Unicenter AHD help desk system
for call-center and integration with aforementioned in-house business
management software (Unicenter AHD 4.0/5.0, Perl-TK, SQL Server 7.0).
It was real purdy, and if we actually had customers that called in, it
might have gotten used a little more.
And, most painfully, oversaw shutdown of I.T. operations
when company went out of business during the Dot-Com crunch of 2001.
Yep, I cried. A weaker man would have just gone of and contracted a
drinking problem.
Managed Care and Physician Organization -- Indianapolis, IN
February 1998 to April 1999 Systems/Network Analyst
Was one-half of a smooth-running two-man IT department, doing just about everything imaginable, including:
Desktop support for 75 users, mostly doctors, nurses, claims
processors, and account managers -- you know, really smart people who
didn't want to be bothered learning how to use computers.
Administration of three-site NT WAN and additional
frame-relay connections to a hospital's Unix mainframe (Windows NT 4.0,
MS Exchange 5.0, HP9000 Unix, Cisco 2600 Router, Motorolla FRAD, Raptor
Firewall, Psionic Portsentry) Largely this meant I drove all over the
state whenever the janitor unplugged the CSU/DSU so they could run the
vacuum.
Was key member of team that installed and integrated a
brutally complex EDI system for the existing data warehouse (Sybase SQL
Anywhere, Foxpro 2.6, Sterling Commerce Gentran, HBOC CRMS, MS Access).
Developed ad-hoc reporting and analysis tools as needed (VB
6.0, MS Access, and some absolutely insane Excel pivot-tables). I
didn't know what any of the numbers meant, but if somebody gave me a
formula or process, and an approximation of what the result should look
like, by golly I could code the crap out of it.
Hospital -- Indianapolis, IN February 1996 to January 1998 Desktop Support (initially), then promoted to LAN Administrator
Responsible for server and desktop support for four servers and 125
users, over half of which were using what even at the time were
antiquated 286-class machines with no hard drives acting as dumb
terminals auto-connecting to a Unix mainframe
(Novell 3.11/4.0, Groupwise)
Developed and maintained fee schedule database (DBMan) even
though it was months before I found out what all the little numbers
actually meant.
Administered departmental data warehouse (Foxpro 2.6, HP9000
Unix), which meant every third week I had to go in and baby-sit an
overloaded FoxPro Database while it imported a couple million lines of
medical claim detail.
Coordinated vendors in implementation of call tracking and help desk software -- my first lesson in big, corporate bureaucracy.
Coordinated contractors and vendors in installation of new
wiring closet -- my first lesson in self cross-training to affect
indespensability .
Educational Software Startup Company
-- Indianapolis, IN September 1992 to January 1996 Official
Title was Software Development Manager, but that was just to make the
company look bigger. In reality there were only two of us writing code,
and I'd been there longer.
Developed to specifications the first three versions of a
remote multimedia training and presentation software (Borland Turbo C,
Microsoft Visual C++ 1.0, custom hardware devices). Frankly the product
was really slick. Essentially I had invented HTML before there was an
HTML. Sadly, Tim Berners-Lee pretty much put us out of business.
Designed, developed, documented, and maintained over 20
retail software packages (Microsoft Visual C++ 1.0) Stuff like basic
spreadsheets, word processors, photo albums, media players/recorders.
You know, really original concepts.
Was the go-to guy for all technical questions and phone calls
Aircraft Engine Design and Repair Company -- Terre Haute, IN June
1991 to November 1991 Computer/Mainframe Operator
Sat around and read books or studied for class until the mainframes told me it was time to change the backup tapes.
Occasionally got to write a cool little script in DCL (for the DEC VAX) or TCL (for the Unix Mainframe)
Occasionally got a call to go look at or fix something, but since
it was third shift and only a skeleton crew, that was pretty rare
:: COMPLETELY WORTHLESS, OUTDATED EDUCATION, TRAINING, AND CERTIFICATIONS
1987-1992 -- INDIANA UNIVERSITY - BLOOMINGTON, IN
Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science:
Mostly worthless. In those days, PC's were considered toys and not
worth study in an academic environment. So, it was really a lot of
math, data structure, and mainframe hardware stuff.
Two additional years as Business/Finance Major: Like everybody else, I washed out thanks to Business Law (hated that class).
1999 -- MIDWEST BARTENDER'S SCHOOL - INDIANAPOLIS, IN
Certified Mixologist: Part of a planned strategic life-change that never came about.
Present
Currently studying for my Security+ and Project+ certifications in my spare time.
November, 2001
Visual Studio.Net Developer Days Microsoft. Pretty much the point where I stopped drinking the Kool-Aid.
March, 2000
Whole bunch of really boring Unicenter AHD and TNG classes. Computer Associates.
November, 1999
Windows 2000 Loadfest. Microsoft. Amusing to see that they couldn't get it to work out of the box either.
October, 1998
Whole bunch of General EDI and Gentran Training classes. The stuff isn't brain surgery, basically I was an excuse to travel and drink on the company's dime.
July, 1998
Whole bunch of Windows MCSE classes:
So what if I never took the tests? Look, I've been at this for 15 years
on no less than 45 different corporate network setups. If I didn't know
what I was doing, somebody would have noticed by now. If you want paper
certificates, I can introduce you to a bunch of high school kids with
MCSEs that have never touched a server.
January, 1997
Novell 520 -- Netware 4.11 Administration: (The way servers ought to be!). LanTech of America, Inc.
June, 1996
Installing, Supporting, and Networking Windows 95. Alexander Hamilton Institute, Inc. -- I still have this one framed on my wall in my office.
:: AWARDS AND COMMENDATIONS
Dedication
is so rarely rewarded. I mean, sure I was honor society and all and
graduated in the top 5% of my class (in high school, don't ask about
college). However, did anybody give me a certificate (or even notice)
that I showed up to school every single day for three years? No. Has
anybody ever given me accolades for only calling in sick once (count
'em: 1 lousy time) in 15 years of professional life? And
to be fair, that was back in 1992, I was throwing up, and it was just a
temp job stuffing envelopes anyway. Does anybody thank me for being a
reliable employee who doesn't use a dime of healthcare, always shows up
on time, and aside from scheduled vacations, maybe asks for an
unscheduled day off only once or twice a year? No! You probably only
want to know if I was "IT Guru of the Year" or something. Well, sorry,
I'm the reliable, competent type; not one of the flaky-but-brilliant
ones.
:: SALARY REQUIREMENTS
My minimum
price to get out of bed every morning and go cheerily to a job is
$85K/year (though, secretly, if I like you as a boss, I'll come down to
78). This salary represents a substantial pay cut over what I made
during the boom days of the tech industry, and I still have a mortgage
from a large house I bought back then, so these numbers are
non-negotiable, sorry. I do expect passable healthcare, 4 weeks
vacation, and a matching 401K to at least 10%. You can keep your
bonuses, commissions, comp-time, and profit-sharing smoke and mirrors,
I've been around the block enough times to know how that scam works.
Oh, and I always dress business casual on your dime
(I'll even happily wear a tie if you ask), so keep your "laid-back
environment" and/or your trendy "Hawaiian Shirt Fridays." I'm an
old-school professional and not impressed by that kind of thing.
:: COMMUTING AND RELOCATING
If
your company is not located in the metropolitan area of Indianapolis,
Chicago, Seattle, Boston, Portland, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Toronto,
San Antonio, Austin, or London, England, then I am not interested in
commuting or relocating. I'd consider Nova Scotia, but I've never
actually been there so I'll need to check it out first.
For at least the past five months now, I've gotten daily emails from someone we'll just call "Mr. A" of New Rochelle, NY essentially begging me for a job. While normally one would admire the temerity and determination of a hard-working individual in a quest for employment, the frequency of these emails quickly became a nuisance. To add insult to injury, lately the emails have taken on an entirely different, more desperate turn:
I
will pay $3,000 to the first recruiter who finds me a good .net contract or
permanent opportunity. For most recruiters, this means you can double
your commission on this placement. If you're an independent recruiter,
$3,000 might not motivate you. However, if you're like most technical
recruiters, you can more than double your commission by placing me in a
good .net contract or permanent opportunity.
I am an MBA with five years experience in VB, ASP, SQL Server and VC++
development and five years experience in .net (ASP.net, VB.net, C#)
development. I am considering a change.
Please let me know what opportunities you have available.
Thanks,
[Mr. A.]
I suspect next month he will take to sending pictures of his starving children in order to endear himself to me. So, what may at first appear to be a unique, inventive approach instead completely falls apart under scrutiny because...
It immediately leaves one wondering why an experienced MBA is trying to buy his way into a position -- espcecially given the number of job fairs, business networking sites, or headhunters that he can go through that do not require (or accept) cash up-front. I can't sneeze out a blog posting without recruiters calling me offering me a contract-to-hire C# programming position, and it makes me wonder what large black spot is on this guy's record that he can't use more-conventional channels. As a result, I did a quick google of his name and found some rather "interesting" history -- which I won't link to here, as it may be a disgruntled hiring manager's way of exacting revenge upon a spammer.
Repeatedly offering cash up front in a daily form letter over the course of weeks, dare I say months, is probably not the best way to make sure a potential employer remembers you. It is certainly not a good way to represent your initiative, creativity, and problem-solving skills. I don't know, some people may be looking for a bit more originality and less desperation in a programmer. In effect, all you're doing is confirming the hiring managers suspicions that there is something fundamentally wrong with your skill set or background that has prevented you from finding a job after months of this level of persistence.
The accompanying six-page resume contains far more detail than a five-year resume warrants, and none of the achievements and skill sets listed and explained (in paragraphs) are particularly outstanding or unique when compared to other resumes that have come across my inbox. In fact, they read more like a consulting firm's case study brochure than a resume -- listing business problems, technical solutions, and accomplishements, where merely a list of accomplishments would suffice.
The resume further directs the reader to his web site (as if we didn't already know from the novel-length resume what the guy had for breakfast in 1997). The web site appears to be for his own business and lists several high-profile clients around the country for which he is doing extensive projects. This does not foster the image of a loyal, hard-working employee, but merely a potential hire that will have his attention diverted between his duties and his myriad side projects.
Finally, he does not respond to email queries at the email address provided. Now, granted I merely emailed him to tell him that we didn't have any positions that fit his skill set, and to offer some friendly advice for making his resume more concise and readable. Instead, I continue to get daily updates: Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead, and [Mr. A.] is still looking for a job.
Here a fun stress-relieving exercise for you to try at work -- ummmm, on your lunch hour of course. By way of setup, owing to my extensive prior experience, I was recently "volunteered" to take over the Tech Services Department here at work when the old manager left suddenly for greener pastures. That is to say, I was the only person in the company who could spell LAN, much less administer one -- never mind that this was back in 1997 and it was running Novell 4.1. It was fun for the first couple of weeks, but I quickly lost enthusiasm for life as my blood pressure steadily rises every time I hear the phrases "Your job is to..." "You need to drop whatever you're doing and help me..." and "That's not how [Mica Habib] did it when he ran that department..."
Sadly, I do love my boss and my company (which for me is 90% of why I take/keep a job), and it is only a temporary assignment, so I'll power through my distaste for uncreative, technical work and bring up my team-player attitude when I ask for a director position at my annual review (which is currently two years overdue, so I'm not holding my breath on that being anytime soon).
In the meantime, I find little opportunities for humor in my day to help relieve the stress, monotony, and general feeling of helplessness I feel every day. For example, the CEO stopped me in the hallway the other day and asked me for the description of my job so that he might find someone permanent to fill the office. Never one to miss a chance for a good joke, I did a little venting and produced the following, somewhat sarcastic, posting. I wholeheartedly recommend everyone try this at least once a year to help alleviate stress. There are just a couple of caveats to remember:
Be sure you clearly denote the actual job description from the sarcastic ranting. I recommend a nice, pleasant red font ... though bold/italics works well too. Not only is it funnier that way, but it's easier to reduce back to it's "official" form later.
It is vitally important that you save the joke description under a different file name, in a separate location, or at the very least, destroy all printed copies. It's terribly embarassing when you overwrite the official file and/or higher-ups in the company find it. But, I don't know, maybe you're braver than I am.
If you find the black text from this description on careerbuilder.com or monster.com and are thinking of hitting that "apply for this position" button, please see your doctor about some of the fine medications available for people with your condition. However, if you do apply, and specifically mention this blog post, I can almost guarantee I will hire you on guts alone.
Technical Services Manager
Reporting Relationship: The Technical Services Manager reports to an entire company filled with people who think they are indispensable to the company, and consequently, that their problem is the most important one in the building. He also reports to the Chief Information Officer, who is a really nice guy, despite the fact that he doesn't let you drink on the job.
Job Summary: The Technical Services Manager manages and supervises all aspects of the daily operations of the corporate network infrastructure, AS/400 operations and all internal technical help desk support staff. Which is really a laugh, because there isn't really a support staff, it's pretty much just you and a narco-syndiclist commune of overloaded, underappreciated, chain-smoking, techhies -- hence the reason everyone who has ever held this job has burnt out and quit.
Duties and Responsibilities:
Ensure that company network and computer systems are fully functional and reliable in accordance with industry standards despite the fact that there is no budget for upgrading equipment and operating systems. For Pete's sake, we've still got a couple of wheezing NT 4.0 boxes here that are ten years old!
Ensure that infrastructure devices have logging mechanisms installed, and that logging is enabled and logs are kept secure and retained in accordance with best practices. Nobody will ever look at these logs, and they will eventually consume all disk space in the company, but you just have to have them -- it's part of this thing called the "Sarbaines Oxley Accountant and Auditor Immunity Act" they came up with a few years back because it turns out several of our government leaders are very bad people.
Ensure that all systems are properly backed up at regular intervals in order to provide a data and system recovery plan. Currently the network contains six terabytes of data, and your backup system and budget allows for you to own a total of one terabyte of DAT tapes running on a very slow drive. You do the math here, Space-Ace. Current process is to back up one-sixth of the network, overwriting tapes every night. Users are advised and expected to comply with a schedule of what days they are allowed to corrupt or lose their files. You got a better idea, feel free to try it out, 'cause things can't get much more screwy.
Ensure proper firewall settings, password protection policies, and security measures for proper protection against unauthorized entry or use of corporate and client systems. The end result should be that it is nearly impossible to do actual work, or to download critical updates from Microsoft, yet, at the same time, allows certain higher-ups and sales execs to be able to play World of Warcraft on company time.
Ensure that the company meets all licensing agreements and laws. Exceptions are made for installations of Server, OS, and Office products, because those are kind of expensive if you want to be legal. Pretty much, unless you specifically have to have a license key to make it work, just use the crackz and warez sites.
Oversee the corporate help desk and ensure help desk staff is resolving issues from internal users in a timely manner to include hardware, peripheral and software support. Wait, okay, who are we kidding, you are the help desk staff. And don't worry about managing yourself; we've got plenty of arrogant, over-empowered 22-year-old account managers who will tell you how to do your job.
Ensure adherence to local, state, and federal computing statues/laws and adherence to applicable 3rd party compliance programs such as HIPPA, PCI/DSS, SOX, GLBA, or at least lie to upper management and make them think that it's even remotely possible given the size of the organization and the budget constraints placed on you.
Minimize and control costs toward outside purchases and vendor support, down to something comparable to five or ten bucks a year. If you need something, I'm sure someone here has a cousin's nephew's brother's friend who can screw it up for you.
Manage, oversee and control all contracted work by 3rd party vendors. Scrutinize all invoices and services received from vendors, get offended when somebody asks you for a PO, become creative and explaining to people why they aren't going to get paid, etc. The ability to convincingly fake a heart attack when the collection agency calls is desired, but not required.
Manage all maintenance and support contracts, licensing requirements, pacts with the prince of darkness, and computer supply needs. If a customer acts up, be sure to choke off their supply like a greedy Saudi Arabian Oil Sheik.
Develop and maintain appropriate accounting procedures of the equipment life cycle from equipment acquisition, redistribution and disposal, or just load all of those old laptops and monitors into the back of your SUV and sell them on eBay to make up for the difference between your meager salary and the national poverty level.
Manage, document and maintain a software library. Eventually become a bitchy, frumpy, bossy, middle-aged librarian who keeps her granny glasses on a chain and enforces stiff fines for late returns and speaking too loudly.
Manage, train, hire and staff appropriately all PC Technicians, Network Engineers, and System Operators for the successful support of systems, workstations, network architecture, servers, backup systems, and hardware support for all users within the corporate network. Knowing the secret location of the elusive magic portal to a fantasy dimension where CCNE's and MCSE's will work for $40K a year is essential to this task.
Perform 90-day and annual reviews of the technical staff, of which there isn't one, so just do your own 90-day review ... if you last that long.
Make recommendations and develop plans for disaster recovery, alien invasion, redundancy, giant lizard attacks, redundancy, reliability, security, redundancy, and speed of all your base and systems.
Manage all training material including reference manuals, training software packages, pornographic video tapes, self-study guides, and any other company purchased marital aids. Ensure that there are appropriate sign-out protocols and procedures of all training material for accounting's sinister purposes.
Analyze new technologies and perform competitive analyses on things we will never in a million years allow you to buy.
Assist in the development of technical budgets, allocate resources and determine schedules of new technology implementation. Next week we're hoping to get these newfangled things they call "fax machines," so make sure there's some space for those.
Establish and maintain an effective system of communication throughout the organization, especially during downed systems and product enhancements. Users will generally grab torches and chase you back to the server room screaming and yelling if anything goes down or if you ever change anything, so it is considered a good idea to use a bullhorn to be heard over the death threats and obscenities being spouted at you.
Ensure that the computer room is satisfactorily maintained and is presentable at a moment's notice for all client tours. Be sure to reset all traps, triggers, tiger pits, dart launchers, and poison gas dispensers when they leave.
Education and Experience: The Technical Services Manager must have obtained a 4-year degree from an accredited college and 4 years of experience or more then 6 years work experience in advanced network architecture, security, and administration, and be willing to work long hours with little appreciation, no opportunity for advancement, and a salary that would make the gizz mopper at the adult video gallery and/or the average fry guy at Burger King take pity on you.
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It's interesting to note how experience wizens you. It's amusing to look back and realize how naive you used to be. For example, for the longest time I thought dick-pill peddlers and HP customer support representatives were the most worthless waste of flesh on the planet. How silly and childlike I was two years ago. Recently, I had my first run-in with "