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The network admin / IT at my office

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xSauronx said:
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.
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And no one will talk to me because I'm "uneducated" :^S

There's more to a quality job than a piece of purchased paper....
 
Quasmo said:
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?
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Well, the question then is, does he really not know about multithreading or did he just misunderstand you? Sounds to me like quad cores really were the best choice for the company. If 90% of what you do can benefit from them, then making all the customer lend out machines quad core just makes his job a whole lot easier.

Even if he doesn't know a ANYTHING about multithreading, so long as his decisions are correct for the situations, who cares?
 
Ghiedo27 said:
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:
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Our "file server" is a rack server that has a $20 raid card, with two hard drives that's backed up to tape every night. Raid 0.
 
the it guy @ my work doesn't really know that much about the latest computer technology either. I would say he is extremely intelligent and does an exellent job. He fixes any problem very quickly. I don't see the need for him to know how many vertex shader units the latest video card from nVidia has
 
lxskllr said:
And no one will talk to me because I'm "uneducated" :^S

There's more to a quality job than a piece of purchased paper....
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yeah, i mean, its a hospital....they run a lot of very old legacy software for a number of reasons, and what he *does* do, he does very well. he makes oddball vendor apps work, keeps up documentation, can explain very well what they do and how they work from his end and is good at troubleshooting all of those things. he's not unintelligent....hes just completely out of the loop on technology. that goes for a lot of people in IT at the hospital.

the network/server/vmware guys are on top of things relatively well, anyone else is a crapshoot

but if he had to support something on windows 7? no way in hell. the hospital wont move to it for at least 2 more years, and right this minute he probably doesnt know the first thing about it
 
brainhulk said:
the it guy @ my work doesn't really know that much about the latest computer technology either. I would say he is extremely intelligent and does an exellent job. He fixes any problem very quickly. I don't see the need for him to know how many vertex shader units the latest video card from nVidia has
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I wouldn't complain if everything ran smoothly.
 
I only buy multithreaded sheets!

In all seriousness if he is in any aspect of IT and doesn't know what multi-threaded is chances are he's incompetent.
 
Cogman said:
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.
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I disagree -- assuming this guy is responsible for servers as well, he should definitely know the concept of multi-threaded apps.
 
Quasmo said:
Our "file server" is a rack server that has a $20 raid card, with two hard drives that's backed up to tape every night. Raid 0.
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Quasmo said:
I wouldn't complain if everything ran smoothly.
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I think you might have gotten it right in your first post when you said you always thought your problems were because your employer doesn't have much budget for IT Infrastructure.

As far as him not knowing what Multi-Threading is - there are a LOT of different areas in IT and no one can be an expert in all of them. If he is a network admin, then I'm not all that surprised...his thing is networking and multi-threading doesn't apply.

What you are describing is an issue that lots of Small and Medium businesses have with regards to IT. They can't employ someone that's an expert in Networking, someone else thats an expert in Databases, someone else that's an expert in Software Development, someone else that's an expert in Desktop support, someone else that's an expert in Security, etc. It's too expensive to have in-house experts for everything. Maybe they should consider working with consultants on strategic planning.

If you really think things are being handled poorly and/or major changes need to be made, then take whatever information you have to management and let them make a decisions based on what you provide them.
 
kranky said:
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.
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In many companies, a network administrator is responsible for servers as well and if you're responsible for servers (particularly architecting them), then you should know what multi-threading is. This is a 50 person company we're talking about -- do you think this guy's sole purpose in life is going around and slapping Linksys switches everywhere?
 
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IndyColtsFan said:
In many companies, a network administrator is responsible for servers as well and if you're responsible for servers (particularly architecting them), then you should know what multi-threading is.
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This. Even if you are only a network person, period, you should know the basic concept of multi-threading. You don't have to be able to describe it in detail or anything, but you should know about it.

There are certainly specialized areas of IT, but you need to understand a lot more than just your specific area, especially these days. Unless your area is one of the more obscure or there are a relatively small number of people who do it.
 
Sounds like my place, except mine has less people. He takes forever to complete projects and he's always talking like he knows what's going on. That's not the biggest issue though. It's that he NEVER seems to verify that things are working completely before passing it on and never checks up on it again (unless someone else or I notice).
 
bobdole369 said:
I suggest you create random loopbacks on your unmanaged switches. A lot of them.
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We have two separate networks, and to access one network from the other you have to go outside to the internet and back to the other network through the vpn. It's mind boggling.
 
Quasmo said:
We have two separate networks, and to access one network from the other you have to go outside to the internet and back to the other network through the vpn. It's mind boggling.
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Wow. Is it a HIPPA thing? (like to keep medical records private)?

Here (a medium non-US ISP) at this office wireless (thank god its at least WPA2 with a very good password) gets you into the network core, but the wired side goes a different way and you actually need to VPN in for the same services (but the vpn bridges two networks in the data center, not out to the internet....)
 
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Quasmo said:
We have two separate networks, and to access one network from the other you have to go outside to the internet and back to the other network through the vpn. It's mind boggling.
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I think there is something you're not telling us. There is probably a good reason it is done that way. I doubt very seriously that a couple of incompetent/inept employees could set something like that up by accident and have it actually work.
 
Quasmo said:
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?
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That's exactly what sales peoples are for! Now we know why people in ATOT keep getting offered sales rep. positions dealing with IT stuff.
 
I can completely, and I MEAN COMPLETELY empathize with you OP.
The sad thing is I used to by the admin here and IT Manager. Now... now we have "this"
 
IndyColtsFan said:
I think there is something you're not telling us. There is probably a good reason it is done that way. I doubt very seriously that a couple of incompetent/inept employees could set something like that up by accident and have it actually work.
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That's what I was thinking. There could be a good reason for requiring VPN to get into some segments of the network.
 
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