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Things change, and yet nothing changes...
Sep. 27th, 2004 11:32 amAnd still, there are changes. Le roi est mort, vive le roi. -- Enigma.
My workplace is, somewhat thankfully, an everchanging terrain. One of the problems we've been facing since the budget started tightening is a staffing issue. Once long ago we had three servers and twenty-four identical workstations, and we had a staff of three to deal with them: One staff member and two students (well, initially one student, but for the sake of argument, let's say two, since I was in training for quite a while).
Two or three years ago, we had a staff consultant by the name of Garrett. Garrett had some beautiful sweeping ideals as far as how we could provide IT to the students. To that end, he convinced the PTBs that we should buy 30 Netras (1U, 1 CPU, 512MB, two disk rack based servers), as well as a couple larger servers. Then, in the midst of all this, he got an offer for better pay, and left. The project fell apart, and my group was left with a big honking stack of tiny little servers, apparently nonreturnable, since we didn't.
The end result is that we have over forty servers with widely varying configurations. To manage this, we have three staff members, two of which have a clue ranging from slim to none, and me. Yes, I'm technically staff now, but I've basically performed gapfilling maintenance for the last four years.
We now have Zero student assistants. Our last student assistant couldn't get a raise sufficient to maintain cost of living, and left for greener pastures. We _might_ be able to tempt some of the help desk students to join us, if we have the money. I hope so... Of course, it means I get to spend time training students. Been a while since I did that; I hope I haven't forgotten how to teach System administration.
On the up side, I stole my monitor back, so for the first time in a while, I have an actual desk space which doesn't suck. I've purchased a bluetooth keyboard and mouse, so I'm actually using a keyboard tray; I suspect I will shortly be trading the back pain working with my laptop has caused for RSI injuries from using a Real Keyboard again - I'm used to using a keyboard which is about a quarter as deep as a normal keyboard. Ah, well. Every profession has it's hazards.
I feel strangely comfortable being back in my old desk space again. strange how much difference a few feet makes.
My workplace is, somewhat thankfully, an everchanging terrain. One of the problems we've been facing since the budget started tightening is a staffing issue. Once long ago we had three servers and twenty-four identical workstations, and we had a staff of three to deal with them: One staff member and two students (well, initially one student, but for the sake of argument, let's say two, since I was in training for quite a while).
Two or three years ago, we had a staff consultant by the name of Garrett. Garrett had some beautiful sweeping ideals as far as how we could provide IT to the students. To that end, he convinced the PTBs that we should buy 30 Netras (1U, 1 CPU, 512MB, two disk rack based servers), as well as a couple larger servers. Then, in the midst of all this, he got an offer for better pay, and left. The project fell apart, and my group was left with a big honking stack of tiny little servers, apparently nonreturnable, since we didn't.
The end result is that we have over forty servers with widely varying configurations. To manage this, we have three staff members, two of which have a clue ranging from slim to none, and me. Yes, I'm technically staff now, but I've basically performed gapfilling maintenance for the last four years.
We now have Zero student assistants. Our last student assistant couldn't get a raise sufficient to maintain cost of living, and left for greener pastures. We _might_ be able to tempt some of the help desk students to join us, if we have the money. I hope so... Of course, it means I get to spend time training students. Been a while since I did that; I hope I haven't forgotten how to teach System administration.
On the up side, I stole my monitor back, so for the first time in a while, I have an actual desk space which doesn't suck. I've purchased a bluetooth keyboard and mouse, so I'm actually using a keyboard tray; I suspect I will shortly be trading the back pain working with my laptop has caused for RSI injuries from using a Real Keyboard again - I'm used to using a keyboard which is about a quarter as deep as a normal keyboard. Ah, well. Every profession has it's hazards.
I feel strangely comfortable being back in my old desk space again. strange how much difference a few feet makes.
