The network admin / IT at my office

[Quasmo]

I'm getting really tired of him, he's completely incompetent. 50 person company, we're all in "pods" as he calls them, which means there is a single cat5 drop into each room and we're all put on an unmanaged switch. Terrible network speeds. Just irritating.

Yesterday, broke the camels back. I had always given him the benefit of the doubt thinking the company doesn't give him enough of a budget. Yesterday he asked me what "multi-threaded" was when I brought it up in a meeting about software. I just stared at him.

Should a network admin know what multi-threaded means? Am I goiing out on a limb here?

 

[sdifox]

do not question the infrastructure god or you will suffer staples to your drop

 

[Tweak155]

It means high quality fabric, duh. That guy is an idiot.

 

[DesiPower]

'IT guy" doesnt really have to know about networking and stuff, here in our office (170 - 200 employees) they just manage DTs and LTs. A separate team manages servers and networking (managing switches and network drops) is outsourced.

 

[Quasmo]

'IT guy" doesnt really have to know about networking and stuff, here in our office (170 - 200 employees) they just manage DTs and LTs. A separate team manages servers and networking (managing switches and network drops) is outsourced.

No, he's our network admin.

 

[DesiPower]

No, he's our network admin.

wow that suks... I think management is to blame, for hiring cheap uneducated labor...

 

[Cogman]

I'm getting really tired of him, he's completely incompetent. 50 person company, we're all in "pods" as he calls them, which means there is a single cat5 drop into each room and we're all put on an unmanaged switch. Terrible network speeds. Just irritating.

Yesterday, broke the camels back. I had always given him the benefit of the doubt thinking the company doesn't give him enough of a budget. Yesterday he asked me what "multi-threaded" was when I brought it up in a meeting about software. I just stared at him.

Should a network admin know what multi-threaded means? Am I goiing out on a limb here?

Multi-threading isn't really something that they NEED to know about. What would a network admin do with the knowledge of multithreading? That being said, It is sort of sad that he doesn't.

 

[lxskllr]

wow that suks... I think management is to blame, for hiring cheap uneducated labor...

I'm uneducated. I'll do the job cheaper, and better.

 

[Quasmo]

wow that suks... I think management is to blame, for hiring cheap uneducated labor...

I'm telling you right now he is not cheap, just uneducated. He has a team of 3 people under him, and I think he tries to hire people who wont question him, or know less then he does. It's aggravating.

 

[Avalon]

He shouldn't *need* to know, but anyone that even remotely follows discussion in the IT world understands multi threading.

The sad thing is I hear about ignorant retards running networks and systems like this all the time, yet I have such a hard time getting an admin position...lol...

 

[kranky]

You can be a great network admin and not know anything about multi-threading.

 

[lxskllr]

You can be a great network admin and not know anything about multi-threading.

I disagree. To be a great admin, you need to keep up with new technology, and techniques. While multithreading isn't directly applicable to the job at hand, you should have run across the term in the process of advancing your knowledge.

 

[IceBergSLiM]

I've heard of it but I couldn't explain it to someone beyond enabling a level of parallelism in the processor(s) executing algorithms to improve speed and efficiency.

 

[kranky]

To be a great admin, you need to keep up with new technology, and techniques.

Absolutely. A great network admin needs to keep up with new technology and techniques concerning networking. Nice if he/she knows about the internals of the devices using the network, but not essential.

 

[Quasmo]

You can be a great network admin and not know anything about multi-threading.

The problem is he is also part of the planning process for ordering PCs, meaning he is deciding weather we should get dual core or quad core machines. So if we can get a higher clocked dual core CPU vs. a lower clocked quad core, and I don't think he understands this.

Quad core has 4 it must be better!

 

[0roo0roo]

As always management is to blame if they let him get away with it so long.

 

[Cogman]

The problem is he is also part of the planning process for ordering PCs, meaning he is deciding weather we should get dual core or quad core machines. So if we can get a higher clocked dual core CPU vs. a lower clocked quad core, and I don't think he understands this.

Quad core has 4 it must be better!

Clock speed isn't everything... A Quad core at a lower clock speed may very well be better than a higher clocked Dual core. It all depends on the applications that the CPU will be using.

 

[Quasmo]

Clock speed isn't everything... A Quad core at a lower clock speed may very well be better than a higher clocked Dual core. It all depends on the applications that the CPU will be using.

That's what I'm saying, if he's making these decisions and doesn't know what multi-threaded is, how can he make an informed decision?

 

[lurkmoar]

The problem is he is also part of the planning process for ordering PCs, meaning he is deciding weather we should get dual core or quad core machines. So if we can get a higher clocked dual core CPU vs. a lower clocked quad core, and I don't think he understands this.

Quad core has 4 it must be better!

Clock speed isn't everything... A Quad core at a lower clock speed may very well be better than a higher clocked Dual core. It all depends on the applications that the CPU will be using.

exactly. quasmo, while this guy may or may not be competent to do HIS job, I think really you just don't like him. you are pulling things to bash him on that really aren't relevant.

in all likelyhood, the quadcore probably is better.

on top of that, multi threaded can mean many things in relation to your conversation with him about it, since it really does have no application to being a network admin. maybe he was trying to see how much you knew since multi threaded discussions are really only relevant to software developers (when compared to network admins...)

 

[Lean L]

That's what I'm saying, if he's making these decisions and doesn't know what multi-threaded is, how can he make an informed decision?

Doesn't really matter for an office application. For all intents and purposes, in an office they will perform mostly the same seeing as most users are opening spreadsheets or documents. Unless you're in the video animation business or genetics analysis, his misinformed decisions don't matter. Take a chill pill and ask him for elevated access so you can do things yourself. There are incompetents everywhere.

 

[airdata]

What are you doing when you're getting ' horrible network speeds' ?

How old is said network admin?

 

[Quasmo]

Doesn't really matter for an office application. For all intents and purposes, in an office they will perform mostly the same seeing as most users are opening spreadsheets or documents. Unless you're in the video animation business or genetics analysis, his misinformed decisions don't matter. Take a chill pill and ask him for elevated access so you can do things yourself. There are incompetents everywhere.

We're a software company that has a digital signage product. We send out computers to customers and run our software on those boxes, he make the decision on what boxes to run.

I'm not saying that quad-core is worse. for 90% of what we do, we can benefit from multi-threading, but there are applications when a really powerful dual core would be better than the lowest of end quad cores we buy.

I'm saying how can he say that Quad core is better when he can't tell me why it's better?

 

[Quasmo]

What are you doing when you're getting ' horrible network speeds' ?

How old is said network admin?

50's

 

[xSauronx]

this is nothing
i intern on the app support team at a large hospital...theres a guy in his early 30s that i had to explain an ipod, ipad, and iphone to because the hospital wants to implement a vendor iphone app and its his job to do it

hes never seen one....had almost no idea what the damn things are, what a data plan was or cost, or that everyone who has one already *where* to get apps and how to install them.

completely oblivious. its as though he graduated, got his job at the hospital, and never looked at anything IT related again unless it was required for work. he is constantly amazed at what 5 year old technology can do...because he has a hard time believing its possible.

its astounding.

 

[Ghiedo27]

If he only has a budget for consumer grade switches do you even want to know what your server(s) and internet connection are? He may have been cracking a joke about not knowing what multithreading is because he can't afford anything with more than one core muahaha :biggrin: