Ok all other IT guys, exactly what IT field you in, what do you do?

ezbtr

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I'm curious :) what part of the US are you in as well? :)
 
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tpenfield

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Don't you know . . . IT guys & gals know everything about everything, just ask an End User :D

All seriousness aside, I just got a promotion, so I'm not sure what I do :)

My focus has been on corporate internal I.T. operations, from both an infrastructure (network/servers/PC's, etc) and business applications (sales, accounting, customer service, etc) perspective. Some of my I.T. buddies work in product development, which I think is more 'fun' than I.T. operations.

Of course, now that everything is moving to 'the cloud', internal I.T. operations is becoming less infrastructure intensive, allowing the focus to shift toward business applications. End User support never seems to go away. . . :rolleyes:

ezbtr - what specific area of IT are you in? I'm in the northeast. You thinking of moving to an I.T. 'hot spot' ?
 
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thumpar

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Jun 21, 2007
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My company pretty much handles everything from printers to servers/networks. I do the same as a satellite employee here in Spokane WA. We do onsite warranty work for the 2 biggest computer manufacturers (you can probably guess the names). I have some customers where I run the entire network. It keeps it interesting. One call I will be working on a printer and the next I will be working on MS exchange. It can get stressful but never boring.
 

ezbtr

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I'm up in N.CA, 30 mi east of SF, may move elsewhere when son out of high school(2.5 yrs), I managed 4-5 guys the last 7 years, supporting, installing, de installing all port terminal equip (ship cranes, trucks, mobile PC's, fiber, CAT5, servers, PC's, printers, wifi, media converters, you name it - course never any training) and user support(ugh :facepalm:) until I got my leg and back whcked in an accident 9 mos ago. Will probably want a work from home job after crutch(s) done with, and I'll get retraining, dont want to go back to same co. if I can help it, too dangerous and they really dont care.
 

thumpar

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You might want to look into getting an ITIL. My cousin has his and the warranty calls I receive come from people with it. They mostly work from home and just manage all the calls coming in.

Other than self study for A+ and Server+ I don't have any training except on the job and actually doing it. I have been with the same company for 17 years. Soon after I started they started to hire people that had certs. I call them paper techs because they may have the cert paper but in real life they can't do the job.
 

roscoe

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Oct 30, 2002
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Not me, but my nephew, sits in the basement and answers the phone, in-house tech support, national bank, Milwaukee.
Then he says, "Have you tried turning it off, and back on?" :D no degree, a bunch of classes.

2nd nephew is in program architecture, HCI - human computer interface, and SIM - simulated interaction modeling.
He moves for every project. Based out of Rand Corp. Degrees in psych, computer systems engineering, and something else, from Rice. Masters in HCI from Carnegie-Mellon

3rd nephew has moved more into the marketing end, but still has 100 guys under him, writing code for web services. Milwaukee. Degrees in Electronic media something, and Marketing, from Marquette.

4th nephew does pc and network setup, service, software installs and such a factory with 100-120 pc's, and a mainframe, integrated into a multi-national network. Madison Wi. 2 year degree in network admin.
 
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ehenry

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Jan 6, 2002
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Been in the IT field since the mid 80's. Back when an IBM pc cost 15k and only had two 5.25 floppy drives and didnt have the storage, memory or processing power a cheap cell phone has.They sounded like a corn grinder when they wrote data. Have held and still hold numerous certifications from IBM, Microsoft, Cisco and Novell. Anybody remember Novell?? I've worked for small regional companys to WorldComm (i'm still gonna beat Scott Sullivan with a brick for losing my retirement.) I"ve done anything from unboxing and loading pc's,setting up printers, to configuring switches/routers, supporting mainframe hardware and O/S, midrange AS 400 hardware and O/S, to servers and pc's, to pulling all nighters moving large data centers and planning disaster recovery for major data centers. I've concentrated on systems support through out my career.

Currently I'm employed by a county govt. and couldnt be happier. We support end users in all aspects of county govt. from hardware, software, network infrastructure up to and including all courts and law enforcement.

I was told by a retired elected official when I was first hired. Stay out of site out of mind and keep you opinions to yourself and you will retire with state retirement and benefits. I"m in central Mississippi.
 
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eavega

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I got into IT as a second career after having spent 12 years doing transportation logistics, specializing in trade shows, exhibitions, and special events. I went back to school at age 30 to get my CS degree, and was recruited out of college by IBM as a software engineer developing testing tools. From there I moved on to straight software QA, and I currently find myself working for General Motors in their IT Service Center in Roswell, GA. I do QA (functional and performance testing) supporting Corporate Functions (Specifically, communications and legal applications).

Rgds

-E
 

nlain

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Nov 17, 2005
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I work for a commercial truck dealer, we sell Ford, Volvo, International trucks. I am the closest thing to IT they have, been through the school of hard knocks. I started in the late 80's repairing a pc for myself, then one for the company and from there I run a lot of the cable for the network, I handle the wireless routers, build, repair, replace with new all computers in two locations. At one time I had several servers for oem manufacturers to maintain, that is no longer since they have all moved everything to the internet. Our main network is now outsourced so far as the main equipment is concerned. I have been through many system and network upgrades throughout the years. I am trying to retire sometime in the near future, just turned 70 this past Sunday, I think it is time now to stop and smell the roses. I am in S.E.Coastal Ga.
 
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98Shabah

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I've been in IT for 17 years, I got my start at a mid size manufacturing company at 18, working in the plant floor. After year of that I applied for a customer service job in the office, while I worked in their customer service department (at age 20) I went to a year of night school for a certificate in computer networking technology. The cert helped me get my foot in the door of their IT department. I acquired great experience during my 8 years at that job, I set up a wireless network in a 50,000sq ft manufacturing plant, maintained their phone system, did operations support on an IBM AS/400, learned about many aspects of IT support all the way from workstations and printers up to servers, routers, switches, etc. I've spent the last 9 years in the IT department at a local government where I still do anything from end user support to system administration, server replacement, license place recognition systems, in car video systems, GPS tracking of police vehicles, network design (as we've replaced buildings), wireless network design and installation, etc.. While I'm burned out on the world of IT I do realize how fortunate I am to have stayed employed in this field with no gaps in employment, and I can retire with a rather nice pension at age 59 after putting in 30 years here (I started at 29). I still have no degree and no real certs, my counterpart here has certs falling out his rear and can't ever seem to fix anything, he asks me. lol.
 

hostage

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I work as a Linux Senior System Admin for a large international power company in Upstate NY.
 

rogerwa

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Started as an intern doing deskside support for a large financial company. Help install the first non-SNA networks - local token ring and arcnet - and server (Novell 2.15). Ran a hardware testing lab that recommended configurations for PCs, servers, printers, etc for the whole company. Saw portable computing go from a "portable computer on a luggage cart with a 9" CRT and 40Mb hardcard to what we have today.

Got into application and technology Architecture in the mid 90's, worked for IBM and a few other companies and then came back to the financial services company where I spent 5 years as a Staff/Solutions architect. Spent 3 years as a major program architect covering a 200+million company divestiture. Then became an Enterprise Architect for the past 7 years where I am now and have 7 Solutions architects reporting to me.
 

cdnNick

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I'm a systems and network tech for an aviation company in Canada. I do everything from end-user support to managing the servers. Sadly, I don't get to work on the servers as much as I would like the user support takes up most of my time. I've been here almost 10 years, lots has changed over those year.
 

thumpar

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The old token ring and Novell days were fun. Now it is mostly replace instead of fix.
 

rogerwa

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I also used to install print sharing cabling with switch boxes. When you wanted to print you had get up and turn the switch to your machine.. Had a break out box to analyze the pinouts and everything. Man its hard to believe we did that.. The Novell operating system in the 2.x versions required you to feed the server ~20 3.5" disks. If there was a fault on #19 you had to start over.
 

ezbtr

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May 1, 2002
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great replies guys! I started in 85(??) working on S/38's and AS400's running a data center and adjoining buildings, then got into more communication, cabling, controllers, anything remote as well, then travelled all over the US for 7 years starting up, building out or relocating facilities, those were crazy days!!! :) Last 9 ish years mgmt, and 7 at Port of Oakland doing what i do, something safer for me on the horizon next!! :rolleyes:
 
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