ML
    • Recent
    • Categories
    • Tags
    • Popular
    • Users
    • Groups
    • Register
    • Login

    Another "Give me a Title" thread

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved IT Careers
    81 Posts 8 Posters 18.4k Views
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as topic
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
    • KellyK
      Kelly @scottalanmiller
      last edited by

      @scottalanmiller said:

      @Kelly said:

      Scott, something that makes these discussions with you more difficult is that you appear to consider your experience to be normative, and it is anything but. Perhaps I'm misinterpreting your comments, but in this, and other threads, it comes off that way.

      Well, a couple things there...

      • What makes it non-normative?
      • What makes the viewpoint I'm countering normative?
      • How does any one person know? I've been in IT for 27 years and have seen a lot of scenarios. I've worked more than 60 companies directly and tons and tons as a consultant. So my cross section of IT is pretty broad compared to most.

      In the example of going from SMB to Enterprise, I know how it is done, and how it happens. People who have failed to get hired in the enterprise but wanted to don't provide useful feedback because all they know is that they failed and then they try to guess why. I've been a hiring manager hiring (and not hiring) those people and have broad insight into why they generally don't make it that they would not have.

      Is my person experience "normal". No. But is it useful? i think extremely so.

      I am not discounting your perspective. A man I know once said, if you respect me you will challenge me, or words to that effect. In this thread, and other employment threads you have pointed to your own experiences as examples. Perhaps it is your phrasing, but my interpretation of them has been that you think they are normal, or maybe should be normal. In my own experience, and the communicated experience of the majority of others, yours is far outside the norm.

      quicky2gQ scottalanmillerS 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • quicky2gQ
        quicky2g @Kelly
        last edited by

        @Kelly said:

        @scottalanmiller said:

        @Kelly said:

        Scott, something that makes these discussions with you more difficult is that you appear to consider your experience to be normative, and it is anything but. Perhaps I'm misinterpreting your comments, but in this, and other threads, it comes off that way.

        Well, a couple things there...

        • What makes it non-normative?
        • What makes the viewpoint I'm countering normative?
        • How does any one person know? I've been in IT for 27 years and have seen a lot of scenarios. I've worked more than 60 companies directly and tons and tons as a consultant. So my cross section of IT is pretty broad compared to most.

        In the example of going from SMB to Enterprise, I know how it is done, and how it happens. People who have failed to get hired in the enterprise but wanted to don't provide useful feedback because all they know is that they failed and then they try to guess why. I've been a hiring manager hiring (and not hiring) those people and have broad insight into why they generally don't make it that they would not have.

        Is my person experience "normal". No. But is it useful? i think extremely so.

        I am not discounting your perspective. A man I know once said, if you respect me you will challenge me, or words to that effect. In this thread, and other employment threads you have pointed to your own experiences as examples. Perhaps it is your phrasing, but my interpretation of them has been that you think they are normal, or maybe should be normal. In my own experience, and the communicated experience of the majority of others, yours is far outside the norm.

        I think it's normal to flick boogers.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • NicN
          Nic
          last edited by

          So SAM - what's the generic title for a jack-of-all-trades IT person then?

          KellyK 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • KellyK
            Kelly @scottalanmiller
            last edited by

            @scottalanmiller said:

            @Kelly said:

            Scott, something that makes these discussions with you more difficult is that you appear to consider your experience to be normative, and it is anything but. Perhaps I'm misinterpreting your comments, but in this, and other threads, it comes off that way.

            I have the same issue with many of the people on SW - I've worked with thousands (literally) of people with specific titles, no enterprise barrier, pay scales ... all that are defined as "impossible" by the SW crowd. Which is more accurate... a few thousand people saying that something is impossible or a few thousand people proving that it is very possible and not even realizing that it was considered "hard" by the other group?

            I'm not necessarily saying this about your SMB to Enterprise transition. I have no experience there, and don't want any. It was the tone that I inferred from your statement, and others like it. Again, as I said, I think we could hash this out over beers, but it is likely not going to go anywhere in a text format.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • KellyK
              Kelly @Nic
              last edited by

              @Nic said:

              So SAM - what's the generic title for a jack-of-all-trades IT person then?

              Who does Systems and Network Administration for a majority of their time.

              NicN quicky2gQ scottalanmillerS dafyreD 4 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • NicN
                Nic @Kelly
                last edited by

                @Kelly said:

                @Nic said:

                So SAM - what's the generic title for a jack-of-all-trades IT person then?

                Who does Systems and Network Administration for a majority of their time.

                Yeah, or who just does everything IT - the lone IT person at an SMB.

                scottalanmillerS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • quicky2gQ
                  quicky2g @Kelly
                  last edited by quicky2g

                  @Kelly said:

                  @Nic said:

                  So SAM - what's the generic title for a jack-of-all-trades IT person then?

                  Who does Systems and Network Administration for a majority of their time.

                  I only know 1 guy that does. We have 10+ offices. He's our internal admin for networking, systems, voice, security, PC's, printers, mobile stuff, etc. He's a true jack of all trades. He's 1 of the only people I know that's good at everything and great at a few other things. All of our offices are fairly small though.

                  scottalanmillerS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • scottalanmillerS
                    scottalanmiller @Kelly
                    last edited by

                    @Kelly said:

                    @scottalanmiller said:

                    @Kelly said:

                    Scott, something that makes these discussions with you more difficult is that you appear to consider your experience to be normative, and it is anything but. Perhaps I'm misinterpreting your comments, but in this, and other threads, it comes off that way.

                    Well, a couple things there...

                    • What makes it non-normative?
                    • What makes the viewpoint I'm countering normative?
                    • How does any one person know? I've been in IT for 27 years and have seen a lot of scenarios. I've worked more than 60 companies directly and tons and tons as a consultant. So my cross section of IT is pretty broad compared to most.

                    In the example of going from SMB to Enterprise, I know how it is done, and how it happens. People who have failed to get hired in the enterprise but wanted to don't provide useful feedback because all they know is that they failed and then they try to guess why. I've been a hiring manager hiring (and not hiring) those people and have broad insight into why they generally don't make it that they would not have.

                    Is my person experience "normal". No. But is it useful? i think extremely so.

                    I am not discounting your perspective. A man I know once said, if you respect me you will challenge me, or words to that effect. In this thread, and other employment threads you have pointed to your own experiences as examples. Perhaps it is your phrasing, but my interpretation of them has been that you think they are normal, or maybe should be normal. In my own experience, and the communicated experience of the majority of others, yours is far outside the norm.

                    I think EVERY individual's experiences, at least in IT, are outside of the norm. I don't believe that there is any norm, at least not in the SMB. That's one of the things that I keep running up against is that in the non-SMB there are very solidified tracks and clear titles and such and in the SMB it is a free for all. But people in the SMB often think that their own version of the SMB is the only one and that everyone is like them. Even having worked with tons of SMBs, getting to SW taught me that my experience was unlike anyone else's in there and none of them were like each other yet they all thought that everything worked as they saw it.

                    The difference, I hope, is that I'm pointing out that the perceptions from the SMB trenches that their individual failures mean that things are impossible are incorrect and that things like moving from the SMB to the Enterprise are totally possible. The thing is, when people move from the SMB to the Enterprise, they leave SW, for example, or never join. The people who remain in the SMB are either the people who like it and choose to work there or those that wish that they could work in the enterprise and keep failing. The result is that there is a natural filtering of people repeating that it is impossible to get to the enterprise when, obviously, this can't be true as the enterprise employs most of the industry, hires lots of IT people directly from high school or college with no experience of any type, let alone years of SMB, and people make the transition regularly (I know many.)

                    It's not that I'm saying that everyone working in the SMB will get awesome, unsolicited enterprise offers magically. I'm saying that the barriers are imagined and that the assumption that the filtered SW general consensus is a fake one created by the natural filtering of what brought the community together.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • scottalanmillerS
                      scottalanmiller @Kelly
                      last edited by

                      @Kelly said:

                      @Nic said:

                      So SAM - what's the generic title for a jack-of-all-trades IT person then?

                      Who does Systems and Network Administration for a majority of their time.

                      That wouldn't be a SMB person. Find me anyone doing network administration even 5% of their time in the SMB. That simply doesn't happen.

                      System administration CAN happen, but I'm not sure I know of anyone working on server administration half their time or more. Do you know many doing that? Most that I know are doing other tasks, like desktop support, application support, working with the business, etc.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • scottalanmillerS
                        scottalanmiller @quicky2g
                        last edited by

                        @quicky2g said:

                        @Kelly said:

                        @Nic said:

                        So SAM - what's the generic title for a jack-of-all-trades IT person then?

                        Who does Systems and Network Administration for a majority of their time.

                        I only know 1 guy that does. We have 10+ offices. He's our internal admin for networking, systems, voice, security, PC's, printers, mobile stuff, etc. He's a true jack of all trades. He's 1 of the only people I know that's good at everything and great at a few other things. All of our offices are fairly small though.

                        So his server and router/switch time is over 50% of his total workload with all of that other stuff? If so, why pay someone that skilled to fix printers?

                        quicky2gQ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • quicky2gQ
                          quicky2g @scottalanmiller
                          last edited by

                          @scottalanmiller said:

                          @quicky2g said:

                          @Kelly said:

                          @Nic said:

                          So SAM - what's the generic title for a jack-of-all-trades IT person then?

                          Who does Systems and Network Administration for a majority of their time.

                          I only know 1 guy that does. We have 10+ offices. He's our internal admin for networking, systems, voice, security, PC's, printers, mobile stuff, etc. He's a true jack of all trades. He's 1 of the only people I know that's good at everything and great at a few other things. All of our offices are fairly small though.

                          So his server and router/switch time is over 50% of his total workload with all of that other stuff? If so, why pay someone that skilled to fix printers?

                          I'm not sure how his day breaks down but I know it fluctuates. Some days he's 80% networking and some days 80% systems. I doubt any days are 80% printers, but he's the guy who has to tie up all the loose ends when the technician level employees can't figure things out. When he can't figure something out, he goes to specialists.

                          scottalanmillerS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • scottalanmillerS
                            scottalanmiller @quicky2g
                            last edited by

                            @quicky2g said:

                            @scottalanmiller said:

                            @quicky2g said:

                            @Kelly said:

                            @Nic said:

                            So SAM - what's the generic title for a jack-of-all-trades IT person then?

                            Who does Systems and Network Administration for a majority of their time.

                            I only know 1 guy that does. We have 10+ offices. He's our internal admin for networking, systems, voice, security, PC's, printers, mobile stuff, etc. He's a true jack of all trades. He's 1 of the only people I know that's good at everything and great at a few other things. All of our offices are fairly small though.

                            So his server and router/switch time is over 50% of his total workload with all of that other stuff? If so, why pay someone that skilled to fix printers?

                            I'm not sure how his day breaks down but I know it fluctuates. Some days he's 80% networking and some days 80% systems. I doubt any days are 80% printers, but he's the guy who has to tie up all the loose ends when the technician level employees can't figure things out. When he can't figure something out, he goes to specialists.

                            What networking is he running into with 10 offices? How much internal routing and switching do you have?

                            quicky2gQ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • scottalanmillerS
                              scottalanmiller @Nic
                              last edited by

                              @Nic said:

                              @Kelly said:

                              @Nic said:

                              So SAM - what's the generic title for a jack-of-all-trades IT person then?

                              Who does Systems and Network Administration for a majority of their time.

                              Yeah, or who just does everything IT - the lone IT person at an SMB.

                              The old title that seemed to be standard around 2000 when the market was booming was "LAN Admin" - the person who managed all the devices on the LAN but generally ran only a single office. It's a generalist title. I never liked it, but it was standard and never overlapped with any enterprise titles.

                              I prefer something like IT Admin, IT Generalist, SMB IT Generalist. Admin and Generalist are really the core "type" components that seem to need to be in the name. Nothing that singles out servers, networks or other non-majority job component should exist unless doing that job as the majority.

                              KellyK 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • KellyK
                                Kelly @scottalanmiller
                                last edited by

                                @scottalanmiller said:

                                @Nic said:

                                @Kelly said:

                                @Nic said:

                                So SAM - what's the generic title for a jack-of-all-trades IT person then?

                                Who does Systems and Network Administration for a majority of their time.

                                Yeah, or who just does everything IT - the lone IT person at an SMB.

                                The old title that seemed to be standard around 2000 when the market was booming was "LAN Admin" - the person who managed all the devices on the LAN but generally ran only a single office. It's a generalist title. I never liked it, but it was standard and never overlapped with any enterprise titles.

                                I prefer something like IT Admin, IT Generalist, SMB IT Generalist. Admin and Generalist are really the core "type" components that seem to need to be in the name. Nothing that singles out servers, networks or other non-majority job component should exist unless doing that job as the majority.

                                I could go for IT Admin for @hobbit666. It recognizes that his tasks have administration elements to them, but are general to IT.

                                NicN scottalanmillerS 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 2
                                • NicN
                                  Nic @Kelly
                                  last edited by

                                  @Kelly said:

                                  @scottalanmiller said:

                                  @Nic said:

                                  @Kelly said:

                                  @Nic said:

                                  So SAM - what's the generic title for a jack-of-all-trades IT person then?

                                  Who does Systems and Network Administration for a majority of their time.

                                  Yeah, or who just does everything IT - the lone IT person at an SMB.

                                  The old title that seemed to be standard around 2000 when the market was booming was "LAN Admin" - the person who managed all the devices on the LAN but generally ran only a single office. It's a generalist title. I never liked it, but it was standard and never overlapped with any enterprise titles.

                                  I prefer something like IT Admin, IT Generalist, SMB IT Generalist. Admin and Generalist are really the core "type" components that seem to need to be in the name. Nothing that singles out servers, networks or other non-majority job component should exist unless doing that job as the majority.

                                  I could go for IT Admin for @hobbit666. It recognizes that his tasks have administration elements to them, but are general to IT.

                                  Yeah I'll go along with that too. IT admin as the most general title that isn't just helpdesk monkey.

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                                  • scottalanmillerS
                                    scottalanmiller @Kelly
                                    last edited by

                                    @Kelly said:

                                    @scottalanmiller said:

                                    @Nic said:

                                    @Kelly said:

                                    @Nic said:

                                    So SAM - what's the generic title for a jack-of-all-trades IT person then?

                                    Who does Systems and Network Administration for a majority of their time.

                                    Yeah, or who just does everything IT - the lone IT person at an SMB.

                                    The old title that seemed to be standard around 2000 when the market was booming was "LAN Admin" - the person who managed all the devices on the LAN but generally ran only a single office. It's a generalist title. I never liked it, but it was standard and never overlapped with any enterprise titles.

                                    I prefer something like IT Admin, IT Generalist, SMB IT Generalist. Admin and Generalist are really the core "type" components that seem to need to be in the name. Nothing that singles out servers, networks or other non-majority job component should exist unless doing that job as the majority.

                                    I could go for IT Admin for @hobbit666. It recognizes that his tasks have administration elements to them, but are general to IT.

                                    And then, of course, levels like "Senior" and "Lead" can preface that still.

                                    NicN 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                    • NicN
                                      Nic @scottalanmiller
                                      last edited by

                                      @scottalanmiller said:

                                      @Kelly said:

                                      @scottalanmiller said:

                                      @Nic said:

                                      @Kelly said:

                                      @Nic said:

                                      So SAM - what's the generic title for a jack-of-all-trades IT person then?

                                      Who does Systems and Network Administration for a majority of their time.

                                      Yeah, or who just does everything IT - the lone IT person at an SMB.

                                      The old title that seemed to be standard around 2000 when the market was booming was "LAN Admin" - the person who managed all the devices on the LAN but generally ran only a single office. It's a generalist title. I never liked it, but it was standard and never overlapped with any enterprise titles.

                                      I prefer something like IT Admin, IT Generalist, SMB IT Generalist. Admin and Generalist are really the core "type" components that seem to need to be in the name. Nothing that singles out servers, networks or other non-majority job component should exist unless doing that job as the majority.

                                      I could go for IT Admin for @hobbit666. It recognizes that his tasks have administration elements to them, but are general to IT.

                                      And then, of course, levels like "Senior" and "Lead" can preface that still.

                                      Senior Reboot Monkey:
                                      0_1452270542022_refresh_reboot_reinstall_2.jpg

                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
                                      • quicky2gQ
                                        quicky2g @scottalanmiller
                                        last edited by quicky2g

                                        @scottalanmiller said:

                                        @quicky2g said:

                                        @scottalanmiller said:

                                        @quicky2g said:

                                        @Kelly said:

                                        @Nic said:

                                        So SAM - what's the generic title for a jack-of-all-trades IT person then?

                                        Who does Systems and Network Administration for a majority of their time.

                                        I only know 1 guy that does. We have 10+ offices. He's our internal admin for networking, systems, voice, security, PC's, printers, mobile stuff, etc. He's a true jack of all trades. He's 1 of the only people I know that's good at everything and great at a few other things. All of our offices are fairly small though.

                                        So his server and router/switch time is over 50% of his total workload with all of that other stuff? If so, why pay someone that skilled to fix printers?

                                        I'm not sure how his day breaks down but I know it fluctuates. Some days he's 80% networking and some days 80% systems. I doubt any days are 80% printers, but he's the guy who has to tie up all the loose ends when the technician level employees can't figure things out. When he can't figure something out, he goes to specialists.

                                        What networking is he running into with 10 offices? How much internal routing and switching do you have?

                                        Multiple WAN connections at each site (BGP/MPLS for internal and broadband for internet), Adtran routers, Cisco ASA, Avaya switch stacks, Aerohive wireless, lab environments, multiple data centers, monitoring all of it....plenty of networking for 1 guy. He's working on a point to point long haul gig wireless connection with Ubiquiti lately. Huge chunks of it don't have issues on a day to day basis but then there's other days when he's upgrading equipment, troubleshooting failed gear, new routing, VLAN port assignments, firewall ACL's, wireless authentication, etc. There's enough networking that a few of us have to help him from time to time.

                                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • scottalanmillerS
                                          scottalanmiller
                                          last edited by

                                          How many staff does Ronco have these days?

                                          quicky2gQ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • quicky2gQ
                                            quicky2g @scottalanmiller
                                            last edited by

                                            @scottalanmiller said:

                                            How many staff does Ronco have these days?

                                            I think the whole company is 300 or so. Internal IT is 2 system/network admins and a few desktop people. Then there are specialized groups like mine that usually deal with external customers but we help on internal IT projects too. For example I special in Aerohive wireless so I mainly manage our internal wireless but others have access and do some troubleshooting. Our Microsoft group also works extensively on the voice side but internal IT also has a big hand in it. Definitely doesn't seem like a typical way a company runs but somehow works for us. Have heard a few other consulting companies run in a similar fashion once they get big enough and need dedicated internal IT staff.

                                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                            • 1
                                            • 2
                                            • 3
                                            • 4
                                            • 5
                                            • 4 / 5
                                            • First post
                                              Last post