New AV/ICT Technician

[kingswood]

There is a possibility that a student ending their school dayz at our place is to become an AV/ICT Technician. No problem there. Where I do have issues is in their work scope- maintenance of server and client systems (mostly Macs) and only to "liase" with the "ICT Technicians".

Anyone have any advice on how I should play this one? I can see an independent AV/ICT Technician fracturing the management of the network and having to be given crucial passwords etc for servers and workstations, whilst being outside of my remit as Systems Manager.

Meh. Politics.

[localzuk]

I would go to your manager and outline your arguments against this person being 'semi-independant'. There are so many bad reasons and so few good ones I just don't see what the advantage would be to doing it that way.

[Ric_]

I would suggest that you raise your concerns and ask for the remit of AV Technician to be brought into your department. In this way you will have full control.

Chances are as well that projectors fall under AV and they hook up to computers so the line is blurred anyway.

[GrumbleDook]

Brooke Weston has AV as a seperate department to IT, but the main guy there works very closely with the Support Team ... but he is an experienced lighting and sound engineer and very good at editting.

We deal with it all, mainly because someone had to stop departments trying to do their own things and costing us a fortune, and we did not have a single member of the team completely experienced to cover AV.

[kingswood]

Locuulzuk and Ric: Thanks for the input. I guess that's what I was thinking but just wanted to see whether I was being paranoid. I will take up the remit with my manager (who happens to be the Personnel Manager).

Tony: Yes- I knew the CTC had an AV Technician. Of course I do understand that having one of these people around for departments like EPA is a good thing(TM), and if you have someone who is experienced in sound and lighting it's a Very Good Thing(TM). My big problem with this post is that they are shooting for someone who isn't ICT experienced (apart from home computer use) and they want him to maintain and manage a very complex Apple XServe/RAID setup that is integrated with the main curriculum network and is now setup for email etc.

Thanks for your input though Tony.

And thanks again to all of you.

[GrumbleDook]

Paul, take the arguement of 'If you want someone to work on their own and not under me then the level of experience and the technical level is the same as Mr X from Brooke Weston. The typical salary for this person is £Z and these sort of people are few and far between' to your Head.

The risk of failure on this is too great to get just anyone in, especially for a media-driven Arts College.

[Midget]

if they come under your remit, you would be their line manger. would that mean a pay increase for you?

[GrumbleDook]

He is already paid too much ... he probably gets nearly as much as me (which is not as much as some people think ... in spite of the army of minions!)

[kingswood]

He is already paid too much ... he probably gets nearly as much as me (which is not as much as some people think ... in spite of the army of minions!)

If only I were paid too much. I don't believe in being paid too much. Pay me as much as you want

[CyberNerd]

The school is obliged to recruit using the Councils policies (equal opportunities and equalities), the council are an equal opportunities employer. Therefore they must write a job specification and advertise the post. Failure to comply with the policies could result in litigation against the county. The job specification will state they need someone with ICT server management experience/knowledge if that is what the job entails. Candidates must meet the essential criteria of the job spec to be selected.
Sounds like the personnel manager needs some training in his own job, does he meet the essential criteria for his job?