Transition from Doer to Thinker - Supporting the Boss
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In my experience any time someone says well we will only need this person a little bit that never lasts. I also know for a fact you put in crazy hours does your boss really realize this? Knowing that you have an employee working nights etc. and seeing actual hours laid out are 2 separate things sometimes.
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My boss only has me and the guys who work for me reporting to him. We have about 50 servers (most VMs) and 225ish users spread across 6 physical locations to support as a team. The boss is more ERP and operations centric, in lots of meetings, not involved in our daily IT stuff mostly.
As for the team, each tech is essentially a generalist with one able to cover for the other (mostly), and they can probably cover for me 75% of the time. I can cover for my boss to some extent (maybe 40% of the time when needed).
One tech started in July 2014 knowing only that he was a tech hobbyist (came from being an operator in our shops, actually). He's the one who will be the boss's apprentice. The other tech started in March 2012. Each has an interest in programming.
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I would say the boss may have an idea what hours I keep but also has come to expect that I will keep those kind of hours. He told me once after I e-mailed him at 3 AM about something that he's come to expect me to behave that way. It's not necessarily his expectation but that he expects I will have that way because of who I am (if that makes any sense).
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So there will only be two of you supporting 225 users and 50 servers? That doesn't seem enough. Then again, are you in the US, as I know you Americans seem to like working crazy hours? Also, 50 servers is a lot for 200 odd users! What do they all do?
Is this the same role that you talked about in my SQL Server thread? In which case, most of your users don't use Epicor?
It sounds like you need to demand another person, anyway.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
So there will only be two of you supporting 225 users and 50 servers? That doesn't seem enough. Then again, are you in the US, as I know you Americans seem to like working crazy hours? Also, 50 servers is a lot for 200 odd users! What do they all do?
Is this the same role that you talked about in my SQL Server thread? In which case, most of your users don't use Epicor?
It sounds like you need to demand another person, anyway.
As for the servers, we have 4 just for Epicor (4 VMs that is). We have at least 3 file servers, 3 DCs spread over 3 ESXi hosts, an older SQL server, about 2 or 3 test servers, and 5-10 VMs that run Engineering software or are dedicated to a specific software for better disaster recovery, etc.
You are correct about the roles I discussed in the other thread. We do not have an extremely large Epicor user base (30 office users I believe and about 14 data collection). Most every computer / tablet user in some form or fashion uses our intranet system daily (which is Epicor data even if not using the Epicor GUI). And my boss can't handle all the changes people want.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
So there will only be two of you supporting 225 users and 50 servers? That doesn't seem enough. Then again, are you in the US, as I know you Americans seem to like working crazy hours? Also, 50 servers is a lot for 200 odd users! What do they all do?
Is this the same role that you talked about in my SQL Server thread? In which case, most of your users don't use Epicor?
It sounds like you need to demand another person, anyway.
The density of users isn't so much of a problem, it's the manpower to handle vacations and stuff. One admin per 300 servers isn't a problem as long as you only need support on one shift and don't care about support on holidays and sick days.
http://www.smbitjournal.com/2013/02/the-smallest-it-department/
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Well sure, every environment is different. If you're happy you can run the place with two people @NetworkNerd then that's cool - only you know your environment. I just thought it seemed a little light based on environments I've worked in.
What does your company do, out of interest? I see you have one of those magical green "service provider" tags so does that mean it's an IT company?
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@Carnival-Boy said:
Well sure, every environment is different. If you're happy you can run the place with two people @NetworkNerd then that's cool - only you know your environment. I just thought it seemed a little light based on environments I've worked in.
What does your company do, out of interest? I see you have one of those magical green "service provider" tags so does that mean it's an IT company?
My tag says Service Provider because I do part time work for NTG. The company where I work during the day is a Manufacturing company. We're a job shop and can make just about anything out of metal. The ERP system is our life blood (as well as the intranet site built on top of it) for controlling and seeing the flow of parts through our shops.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
Well sure, every environment is different. If you're happy you can run the place with two people @NetworkNerd then that's cool - only you know your environment. I just thought it seemed a little light based on environments I've worked in.
What does your company do, out of interest? I see you have one of those magical green "service provider" tags so does that mean it's an IT company?
I wish that we had "where I work" and company detail options in our profiles. That would be a very nice feature to have added in here.
