IT techs who work by themselves in a school

[korifugi]

However when she left her replacements saw me as an unnecessary expense.

 

I've seen this far too often - people's perceptions of what we actually do are completely wrong.

 

Their nephew or niece built their own PC and often people think this is the same thing - so why are they actually paying someone for that? Anyone can do it. I once worked with a headteacher that I'm pretty sure had "A mate down the pub" that was pretty outspoken about what was needed and I had to continually defend my choices, such as when he wanted to purchase a few home wireless access points to introduce wireless across the school as "that managed solution looks too expensive and these do exactly the same thing I've been told."

 

This was obviously someone with a little knowledge but not a professional that I was having to defend myself from proxy questioning.

 

I also once had a teacher say "My boyfriend says ". At that point I got a little irked and asked what he did for a living - the answer was not "working in I.T.", nor had he ever. She got sent away by "the mean I.T. man" after I asked her if he knew anything about setting up a domain, DNS, DHCP, least required access security, AD, etc.

 

There are many that think "I.T. is easy", without any idea of what we actually do.

 

[mikeprice]

I've seen this far too often - people's perceptions of what we actually do are completely wrong.

 

Their nephew or niece built their own PC and often people think this is the same thing - so why are they actually paying someone for that? Anyone can do it. I once worked with a headteacher that I'm pretty sure had "A mate down the pub" that was pretty outspoken about what was needed and I had to continually defend my choices, such as when he wanted to purchase a few home wireless access points to introduce wireless across the school as "that managed solution looks too expensive and these do exactly the same thing I've been told."

 

This was obviously someone with a little knowledge but not a professional that I was having to defend myself from proxy questioning.

 

I also once had a teacher say "My boyfriend says ". At that point I got a little irked and asked what he did for a living - the answer was not "working in I.T.", nor had he ever. She got sent away by "the mean I.T. man" after I asked her if he knew anything about setting up a domain, DNS, DHCP, least required access security, AD, etc.

 

There are many that think "I.T. is easy", without any idea of what we actually do.

 

 

As someone who has been a teacher and an IT tech I can follow this with the 'bloke in the pub about teachers concept:

 

teaching is easy - it's just simple adding up and stuff - and I can control my kids so how hard can being a teacher be

 

AND they knock off work at 3p.m.

AND they get 6 weeks off over the summer - and loads of other holidays to do nothing

 

damn easy life if you ask me - Fred down the pub agrees with me - and he's got kids as well

 

Although I haven't tried this in an actual school - this opinion would make most teachers very mad

but they do the same thing to IT techs without any concept that it is the same thing

[dapaulio]

O yeah that is the best way to make a teacher lose their head. Very few can take banter when you remotely hint at their job being easy. Mention 13 weeks holidays and Most go 🤯

[mikes]

I work alone and I do kind of miss being able to chat to people about IT, in my old callcentre job I had a group of friends and we'd talk about the job, new IT developments, etc.

Now I am alone in my own office, which is good in a way but here I can't talk to anyone about IT as nobody has a clue what I am talking about.

[mikeprice]

I work alone and I do kind of miss being able to chat to people about IT, in my old callcentre job I had a group of friends and we'd talk about the job, new IT developments, etc.

Now I am alone in my own office, which is good in a way but here I can't talk to anyone about IT as nobody has a clue what I am talking about.

 

That's what EduGeek is for - I used to be on my own and EduGeek was a saviour - for social contact as well as tech advise

[DrBeaker]

Hi all

New to edugeek & wondered how many one man bands there are out there. I have looked after a number of schools on my own for 15 years now. It does get lonely sometimes but I carry a good Bluetooth speaker & find that if I am alone the legend who is Ken Bruce can always cheer me up in the morning then at lunch a wonder around the classes to ask the teachers if all is OK, you normally find a conversation. Remember everyone has there own problems and we are all just a number to the bean counters so a cheerful word goes a long way.

 

Is it to early to say Merry Christmas to all

 

I'm the OP but I'm all by myself in the office in this new job, 5x days a week Previously had 5x people to work with in one role and one bloke who when we worked together, had a right laugh. Probably some of the best work years of my life working with him, fantastic bloke. Alas he left for pastures new and it all changed after that. I could be in the office with the others and nobody talked to each other, so I might as well have been by myself anyway.

[elsiegee40]

It sounds to me like a few people need to be getting some EduBytes meet ups going in the new year.

 

 

EduBytes are informal meetings of EduGeeks at a pub, bar, restaurant, picnic spot or other location chosen by whoever decides to organise it.

 

The South Central one has become well established and meets twice a year in Salisbury and is a great opportunity for people to meet up chat and stop feeling so lonely. It attracts people from across the south England... and someone from Liverpool at our picnic last summer! Next date January 3rd ... everybody welcome http://www.edugeek.net/forums/other-stuff/200748-edubytes-south-central-meet-salisbury-thursday-jan-3rd-2019-everybody-welcome.html

Edited December 14, 2018 by elsiegee40

[mavhc]

List of users who work alone, in order of probability: Members - EduGeek.net

 

I have hangouts and irc and hacker news and edugeek and slack open, so lots of people to talk to.

 

Turns out teaching is easy btw, just turn up and tell people stuff, then check they know it, if they don't work out why. Problem is I'm now doing way too much of it to get the rest of the jobs done.

[Edugamer]

Depends what the arrangement is. If you're on loan to the school, than you can always have that "outsider" feeling.

 

Also teachers often ask for support with administration software, but don't understand that I.T professionals aren't necessarily adept at Excel, Word and Sage!!

[CREATISH]

Do other IT Technicians always have something to do?

 

In a school with 400 or so students all 18+, most of the infrasturctre where im based is very good and solid, I am definitly worth while and price of lessons require no waiting hours to solve issues, however I can have days where I do not alot atall.

 

do people always have something to do?

Curious

[Jcx500]

I don’t have a lot to do in the normal school day , I’d say I’m more busy In half term

[Edugamer]

Do other IT Technicians always have something to do?

 

In a school with 400 or so students all 18+, most of the infrasturctre where im based is very good and solid, I am definitly worth while and price of lessons require no waiting hours to solve issues, however I can have days where I do not alot atall.

 

do people always have something to do?

Curious

Often techs with idle hands end up creating complications to a network, just purely out of boredom!

[CREATISH]

Often techs with idle hands end up creating complications to a network, just purely out of boredom!

 

I can see that,

 

Recently implemented GPO with a schedule task to shutdown at 6.15pm when idle 15 minutes to my test 2 computers had no issues so deployed to 30 teachers machines over the next week they was shutting down at random times in the day!!, event log suggested it was the GPO, deleted the GPO however as I now learn't is not the best way or removing things like this!

 

Mean't i had to rush round reimaging 40GB installs of software (30 mins each then 20 mins manually reboot and rename/connect ad later) to all 30 machines!

 

Learning curve though, need to spend more time testing and checking event logger to see if applying correctly!

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

I don’t have a lot to do in the normal school day , I’d say I’m more busy In half term

 

You on your own?

 

how big is the school

[LTurner3692]

Do other IT Technicians always have something to do?

 

In a school with 400 or so students all 18+, most of the infrasturctre where im based is very good and solid, I am definitly worth while and price of lessons require no waiting hours to solve issues, however I can have days where I do not alot atall.

 

do people always have something to do?

Curious

 

 

During a normal school day i never had to much to do, i ended up trying new things on a closed of network to test my skills.

 

use to always have something to do in holidays! manily projector changes and things like that!

[Edugamer]

I can see that,

 

Recently implemented GPO with a schedule task to shutdown at 6.15pm when idle 15 minutes to my test 2 computers had no issues so deployed to 30 teachers machines over the next week they was shutting down at random times in the day!!, event log suggested it was the GPO, deleted the GPO however as I now learn't is not the best way or removing things like this!

 

Mean't i had to rush round reimaging 40GB installs of software (30 mins each then 20 mins manually reboot and rename/connect ad later) to all 30 machines!

 

Learning curve though, need to spend more time testing and checking event logger to see if applying correctly!

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

 

 

You on your own?

 

how big is the school

 

Case in point, lol. Thanks for sharing, that make me giggle. I no longer work directly at schools, but I did once take over from an over-qualified tech in a small school. He had all kinds of completely unnecessary virtual machines running, some linux servers, and magnetic tape backups via Symantec setup! Presumably he was bored out of his mind most days, thus he decided to "add a few things" into the school's infrastructure, making it pretty hard for anyone else to come and manage after he left!

[mikeprice]

When I worked alone I was mornings only except Wednesdays which was all day - I hardly ever stopped - if there was no 'emergency' then there would always be some monitoring or set up thingy that needed looking at

 

Also I created stuff for the immersive room system and kept an eye on the printers

 

and then Windows 10 came along which started a whole new project

 

However, when I started the system was a total mess - and I never did manage to get everything sorted out before I left

[Jcx500]

I can see that,

 

Recently implemented GPO with a schedule task to shutdown at 6.15pm when idle 15 minutes to my test 2 computers had no issues so deployed to 30 teachers machines over the next week they was shutting down at random times in the day!!, event log suggested it was the GPO, deleted the GPO however as I now learn't is not the best way or removing things like this!

 

Mean't i had to rush round reimaging 40GB installs of software (30 mins each then 20 mins manually reboot and rename/connect ad later) to all 30 machines!

 

Learning curve though, need to spend more time testing and checking event logger to see if applying correctly!

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

 

 

You on your own?

 

how big is the school

 

Yeah , mid sized secondary

[mavhc]

Case in point, lol. Thanks for sharing, that make me giggle. I no longer work directly at schools, but I did once take over from an over-qualified tech in a small school. He had all kinds of completely unnecessary virtual machines running, some linux servers, and magnetic tape backups via Symantec setup! Presumably he was bored out of his mind most days, thus he decided to "add a few things" into the school's infrastructure, making it pretty hard for anyone else to come and manage after he left!

 

What was unnecessary about them?

 

There's always stuff to do, new software to test, more monitoring to add, working out ways to save money, training to deliver, automating deployment of everything, documentation, pen tests, replacing the phone system with one that's way cheaper and better, syncing directories, reducing password use, improving security

[Rob_D]

My first couple of proper school jobs I worked alone.

Both were in smaller primaries.

The first was a 3 form entry but only juniors (technically there were 2 of us but we never worked the same day). The second was a single form village primary, where I was on my own 2 days a week.

When I first started I could always find something to do (or was firefighting). But the longer I stayed on especially in the second school (and the more stable the system became) the less things I ended up doing. Waiting for the teachers to tell me they needed/wanted something extra, seemed to work better than being proactive and getting nowhere with SLT. SLT were always much more reactive when a teacher asked for something. So I did find I spent a lot of time reading up on new tech and playing with it in a test environment.

 

Now I'm in a team of 5 (ish). It's a very different environment, everything is much busier, I find it harder to be able to focus on tasks and (ironically) get interrupted more. There are times when I miss the peace and quiet my old shower cubicle (don't ask).

[Edugamer]

What was unnecessary about them?

 

There's always stuff to do, new software to test, more monitoring to add, working out ways to save money, training to deliver, automating deployment of everything, documentation, pen tests, replacing the phone system with one that's way cheaper and better, syncing directories, reducing password use, improving security

 

They were unnecessary because they could have been turned off, and it would have made no difference to anything whatsoever (maybe saved the school a little on the electricity bill!)

 

My question is, what do you do when all the tasks you have listed have been completed??

[LTurner3692]

They were unnecessary because they could have been turned off, and it would have made no difference to anything whatsoever (maybe saved the school a little on the electricity bill!)

 

My question is, what do you do when all the tasks you have listed have been completed??

 

Problem is that list never ends, once you think youv'e completed it, you start it again! you are always looking at ways to improve and make teachers life easier (and your own).

[smurfomatic]

Always been the sole IT tech here (though assistance when needed from our MIS/database admin), independent prep school with around 300 pupils. Relatively quiet here at the moment as it's half term, though already this week I have helped our maintenance team replace bulbs in the hall stage lights, rearranged furniture in the IT office, replaced the cache module in the backup VM host and re-replicated the VMs, cleaned projector filters, and tested the backup archive. And it's only Wednesday morning...

 

Also was supposed to have a meeting with the bursar regarding the new photocopier lease amongst other things, but he's too busy!

[CREATISH]

They were unnecessary because they could have been turned off, and it would have made no difference to anything whatsoever (maybe saved the school a little on the electricity bill!)

 

My question is, what do you do when all the tasks you have listed have been completed??

It's a bit different as I'm in a private school and issues need to be fixed straight away rather than calling IT support or waiting for the parttime tech to fix it.

 

Do you part time guys have to part time jobs or what? seems odd

[6Foot2]

I am now on my own two days a week after my technician went part-time after Christmas.

[CREATISH]

I am now on my own two days a week after my technician went part-time after Christmas.

 

why part time?

 

Age?

 

Curious