contingency plan for sickness?

[pinemarten]

I know that quite a few of you guys/girls are singlehandedly running the school's network(and probably a lot more besides)...

 

teacher goes off sick , what happens? - supply brought in, cover supervisors, colleagues to cover etc....the world keeps turning, right?

 

lone IT tech/NM goes off and what then?...Panic? Chaos? or is there a plan?

 

what I'd like to know is for all singlehanded how many have a workable contingency plan to cover either planned or unplanned absence.

 

Thanks!

[StewartKnight]

easy... they wait till I return, or phone, or messenger, or come to my house. Being ill doesn't matter to some members of staff!!!

[riedquat]

What??...You mean we're actually 'allowed' to be sick?

 

My assistant (now i've got one again) will usually cover me in case i'm out sick and since most of the probs are usually user oriented it's not much of a problem. Anything more complex or outside his area of knowledge is noted down for me to deal with once I return. Of course there are always those 'special' members of staff that will insist that only 'I' am able to help with thier problem and who will never speak to a 'junior'.

[SimpleSi]

There is no plan and it is a problem

 

It would be much better to have two of us doing more schools so that if one was ill the other could emergency cover.

 

It's possibly the only advantage in an organisation/company doing IT support in primaries

 

regards

 

Simon

[Face-Man]

"I love it when a plan comes together"

 

Planned sickness or maturnity cover are fine and for the odd day we just muddle through. If the technitian is off I'll allowed to get agency in (some of whom earn more than me per hour !!!). I'm negotating with the LA to cover me if I off but the price is a bit step at present.

 

I think this situation is one of the reasons managed services get sold to schools and certainly under BSF schools will be able to pull staff from other schools to cover as they will be contracted to the LA...

[edie209]

Funny enough I'm just back from two weeks sick and I had calls, texts and emails every day all day I do have a modern apprentice but it seems they don't trust him when I'm not about.

 

There does need to be some sort of plan luckly for my apprentice ad the school I was prepared to remote in to sort out problems.

 

We are not allowed to be sick me thinks

[tscnmuk]

No plan here either. I don't normally "do" ill so it's not so much a problem. However I am very much of the opinion that if I were to be ill, i'm ill and thats the end of it. The network can run itself pretty well, only users having non-critical problems and these can wait.

[katem]

No plan here either. I've got to have a total hip replacement soon (next 4-6 weeks) & will be off for 2-3 months. :?

 

There's no way I'll be able to physically come into school so they're going to have to sort out cover from another school.

 

Oh the joys of IT...

[Midget]

No plan here either. I've got to have a total hip replacement soon (next 4-6 weeks) & will be off for 2-3 months. :?

There's no way I'll be able to physically come into school so they're going to have to sort out cover from another school.

Oh the joys of IT...

 

*looks at katem's avatar.......*

 

QUICK! SOMEONE CHECK JAKE'S CAGE!

 

 

I have no set up remote RDP access so I am able to do most things on the network from home, but if there is a HW failure, or a machine needs reimaging (and they won't let me talk them through the RIS image setup) then tough, I'm unable to do anything.

 

However so far I haven't been ill for more than the occational 1 day as I get bored at home, and would rather just duke it out in work, than have to make up the day in the holidays.

[katem]

*looks at katem's avatar.......*

 

QUICK! SOMEONE CHECK JAKE'S CAGE!

 

:x care to explain?

[Midget]

He has a love for any woman who works in IT

 

but then, who wouldn't?

[katem]

OK I'll let you off this time ;-)

[webman]

Just shows how crucial we are to the running of schools; with our jobs you can't just pull someone in off the street (Supply Technician, Supply Network Manager) to do what we can like teachers.

 

That will probably all change with BSF though with the one-network-fits-all approach.

[SteveT]

contingency plan for sickness? ............... bucket???

[localzuk]

I just mentioned this to my boss and she has said that I now have to write down as much as I can... Like how to add users, printers, computers to the network. How to restart the servers, check the backups are running etc...

 

Shoulda kept me mouth shut!

[Sylv3r]

I have been off 1 day in the 7 years I have had working here. But if I was ever to be off, the technician here will cover in my absence for the day to day running of the network. If I was on long term sick things may be different or I would do a lot of work remotely from home if needs be.

[Norphy]

This may sound like a really stinking attitude but tbh, I don't care.

 

If I'm ill enough to warrant taking the day off, I do not want to be disturbed. I take the phone off the hook and leave the computer off. If someone has trouble, I don't care; I have problems of my own.

 

In more than four years of working at my present place, I've had a grand total of four days off ill and two of those were last year. As it happens, during those two days the other tech and the NM were off ill too which makes sense being as we work together. The school managed somehow.

[russdev]

My boss takes over is very good at doing simple basic stuff, adding users, restarting servers etc

 

@Kate sorry to hear that hope it goes well...

 

Russ

[pinemarten]

thanks for replies, folks.

it's good to see that some schools have a backup- but remote access might just be a tad difficult if you're in hospital

 

as I suspected though, for a lot of you it's not so much 'belt and braces' as a frayed piece of string...

 

as in so many other work-related situations, the system seems to depend on the consciensciousness of individuals rather than a sound backup plan, and in this case is made worse by the low perceived profile of tech support in schools.

 

I have often thought that if you were to stop someone on the street and ask them to name six different jobs in a school, in most cases they would go "headmaster, teacher , secretary, dinner-lady, caretaker ......... ummmm .........ahhhh .......ermmm...)

 

and yet with schools' increasing dependence on IT/AV the potential disruption caused by the sudden absence of technical backup becomes more apparent - well to me it does , anyway.

 

but it's a part of human nature to take things for granted, it seems (sigh).

[Gatt]

Unfortunately, we don't really have a contingency plan as such - the Technician or Head of IT try and fill in as much as possible.

 

This has been the case all this week as I've been off with 'Flu (or Man 'Flu as my partner calls it 8O) , though luckily its been half term!)

 

The technician, though can quite easily manage things pretty well, is still only new (month and a half) and not fully up to speed on a lot of systems, and the Head of IT has classes to deal with as well..

 

So invariabley, it usually gets piled up on my desk till i come back

[amyr]

There is no plan in my school although the ICT Coordinator is fairly good but she has a reception class to teach, so I pretty much manage the whole network within the school.

If/when i have a day off sick its normally that - a day - and most things can be left until I get back. If there is a major issue they are allowed to phone or email me but it has to be major. I can't remote in to my server as its still 2000 and has no remote access software on it, and anyway its more likely to be hardware rather than software. the computers pretty much look after themselves although there is a few software niggles that need me to make them work. The main problem i seem to get is smartboards/projectors and laptops - sometimes they just don't seem to want to work together, but they have all been told to just swap it for another laptop until they get one that works!

The staff are pretty good and know to just leave me a note with all of the details of any problems on and i will try to fix things when I get back. Other than that its just tough!

[MkII]

With two of us we sorta cover each other now. We have to stagger our holidays too - not so easy when you just have the school holidays to do that in!

 

We have a support contract with free telephone support - very rarely used.

 

The school gets by - I was in France 3 yrs ago and got a call on Bank Holiday Monday (May). The IT Co-Ord. told the sch where to get off (crazy bursar worked weekends and holidays). Luckily they worked out later that a switch re-boot would fix the problem.

[contink]

I just mentioned this to my boss and she has said that I now have to write down as much as I can... Like how to add users, printers, computers to the network. How to restart the servers, check the backups are running etc...

My heads mentioned something similar in one school and I pointed out that it'd take months to write up and besides the whole point of having someone in to do this stuff is that they already have the experience.

 

What I do need to do and it's on my urgent to-do list, is to document the structure of the setup, the overall plan and how things like software has been installed (how it should be managed, etc..) so that if the worst happens and I get hit by a bus, they can still get someone else in to take over.

 

I am thinking about long term implications of sickness cover for anything over a week though and may be looking to find someone reasonably local who can handle a quid pro quo arrangement so we'd both have some backup. That still relies on documentation though and time to organise.