derer1

I've worked in a similar situation before....shortly before the company was closed down for fraud and other malpractice! Basically, it was a con. Piecework, with Rate X below a certain number of workstations built/day, with rate Y kicking in above that level. However, with the thresholds nigh-impossible to hit, and the below-rate equating to under minimum wage, it was not so great. I'd get precise details of your targets, what happens if you get suck with difficult workstations, or whatever. X per day on a variable-problem break/fix line could be very hard to hit.

Iiiinteresting! Price wise this looks *Very* interesting, has anyone had any successful return of stolen items with this? (Or any other user feedback really)

According to our AUP? Internal disciplinary action. In actuality? Nothing.

I avoid the staff room like the plague - very cliquey, and all you get is bothered while eating. I generally eat offsite (Ahh, Sweet & Tasty Sandwich Shop!) or in the server room. There's very much a two tier attitude here, and often you're lucky if people actually remmeber your name, rather than just addressing you as 'the Techie' or 'The technician'

Odd - I was told the SO grades no longer exist/apply - at least in Somerset! Then again, I dont know what grade I *am* on

For comparison, Somerset LEA here, and the IT Support/Systems Manager (no-one's actually defined what it's called but I have overall responsibility for all of it, and am responsible for running two departments (IT support, Media Support)) Currently I'm on 22k/year fulltime, but again, not sure what point on the scale, as it's never been disclosed

This brings up an interesting point really - the wildly differing wages for similar people in similar roles throughout the country. It may be worth getting a souding of who is doing what, what responsibility, and how much they're getting to try to compare/contrast and use as leverage

All of these approaches do rather rely on SMT actually being willing to implement policy, that kind of thing. If you are in the situation where your SMT just want a quiet life, you are rather stuffed

Archery and Golf myself, along with cycling. All when I get the time

The reason that we allow 'home-use' of the LFTs is because of the wording in the LFT agreement. We want all staff to use their laptops in lessons with IWBs and the like... 'levering our investment in ICT' As a consequence, I wrote it into the staff AUP Besides, how can I be expected to have backups for a machine that I've never seen? Good point - and this puts the liability for damage either to the workstation or to the systems firmly in the hands of the end user.

Interesting - as far as I understand it, here they've decided to continue the LFT scheme in-house after the goverment portion ended. I must admit this is an interesting solution you're using - I assume you have the backup of SMT when it comes to being allowed to say 'no' when someone brings in a horribly infected/wrecked machine under 2? A lot of what we're looking at is as a result of a comprehensive look at our data security and protection policies - with the amount of sensitive data heading home on staff laptops and thus connecting to the internet, it's an avenue we've been told to look at seriously.

Hello all - not sure where this should go, as it doesnt easily fit into any given category - more an 'administration' type question. In short - due to past incidents, we're looking to radically revise our Laptops for Teachers policy. This breaks down into two sections: 1) Use of the laptops. The advice we've been given is to use one of two policies - allow staff to connect the laptops to our domain and network, to use them at home but not to connect to the Internet via any method than the college itself. Or... To allow free use of the laptops on the internet at home, to bring them in to work - but not to allow them to connect to the domain while here. Curious to see how others are tacking this issue - remember that we have had some fairly significant incidents resulting from internet use on staff laptops in the past. 2) How many we give - due to the cost considerations, we'd like to get a souding of the manner in which other institutions give out laptops. Do all and sundry get them - or is there are more defined method to give to the users with the most need?

Our room is code locked - however, as the alarm console for the building is in the room also, all staff who are liable to come in during the holidays, or may otherwise need the alarm code need to know our door code also. As a result, a majority of teaching staff know this

What we got quoted by our LEA/CC was 300/day/person - apparently their discounted rate.

Yes, exit interivews were done - nothing has come of them however. Several support members agreed to stay on after previously giving their notices due to problems here in the past, myself included, with the promise of future training. Naturally, we keep as current as we can regarding the technologies we use, but there's always more to learn - and only so much you can do in those elusive 5 minute breaks between things going wrong

Heh, I'm working on Plan B

Interesting - we're both employed by the same LEA, but my place said they're explicitly *not* allowed to do tie-in contracts, due to LEA restrictions. (I suggested this as an option to avoid any possible train-and-run scenarios)

Not sure if this is the most appropriate subforum for this, but here goes (feel free to move if not) Training, and how to obtain it. I've run up against a brick wall at my place - we're constantly being asked to produce new and shiny things, implement asked-for features and similar projects, but for the last 4 years+, there's been no training whatsoever for any of the technical support staff. During those 4 years we've gone through a total of 10 (!!) technical support staff, including those currently in the posts, but for some reason this obscenely high staff turnover hasnt caused SMT to bat an eyelid. Each time someone leaves the reason is very often, skills stagnation, and each time I approach Finance/SMT about training, the answer is always 'too expensive'. We can get a discounted rate via our LEA of around 300/day for MSFT courses, but it looks like the avalible training budget for non-teaching-staff for a year would pay for all of 1.5 days, for 1 person. Has anyone had any success actually getting SMT to listen to these kinds of problems - we're not going to retain skills if we arent prepared to invest in people. (Makes the produly-hung Investors In People award in reception rather amusing) Thanks