madmin

It's interesting you say that actually because I always use my own mouse and keyboard. Heck if I'm using some skanky hand-me-down. I mean, new mice and keyboards should be compulsory for new users because they're like a tenner each max. This is solid advice. It's one thing to go into a new job and be given bad kit, but if you truly believe that you need something better just make a case and submit it whoever has budgetary authority. If they say no and your case is sound, there's either a lack of respect somewhere or they don't care about spending money on things that can make the business (and you by virtue) more efficient/productive. I wouldn't want to work anywhere that doesn't respect me as a tech professional.

Thanks for all the replies guys! I read that thread too and it's one of the reasons why I decided to ask here. /r/sysadmin almost certainly has more corporate people browsing and posting (not to mention more from overseas), so it's hard to get a true read on the state of play in education. But I think it's pretty clear that after 15 replies here the mentality in education is very different to corporate (no surprises there though). I'm a massive PC enthusiast anyway, so an i3 with 4GB RAM just doesn't sound like a good time. But my work laptop isn't exactly a beast: dual core i5 (with HT), 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD. I'd say that's fine. I wouldn't want to be running too many VMs on it or do a lot of video encoding like I did with the i7 at my last job, but it's still snappy and let's me multitask efficiently. Also this.

Some interesting and varied responses here! Yeah. I made the mistake of not asking for a tour or what kind of equipment the IT guys are using. I'm not sure how cheeky it would be - if I were to receive an offer - to ask for a site tour out of hours. But a part of me actually doesn't want them to offer me the job anyway (even though I want to get back into edu) because I'm still perfectly happy where I am at the moment and it'll stop this weird anxiety that I'm feeling about the whole thing. But I was told that staff and students are all using HP 8200/8300 and G1/G2 workstations, so maybe it's not so bad. Apparently the school has a very good budget for IT too, but I wasn't told specifics. I just couldn't do that lol. I have 8GB RAM, which is starting to become the norm in the mid-end and above, and I'm easily using using 6-7GB with ~20 Chrome tabs, Outlook, Word, Excel, vSphere, Jabber, Skype, TeamViewer, and other misc applications. And at my last job in the school, I frequently found myself using Handbrake to re-encode massive video files that teachers recorded to save space on the network - there's no way I could do that in even half the time with an i3 versus the i7 I had. These are things that I legitimately use on a daily basis. I also couldn't work without two reasonably sized (at least 24in) and crisp monitors. Being used to IPS connected through DisplayPort, looking at a VGA connected display makes my eyes hurt.

...and would it affect your decision stay in your current position (if you had great equipment) or to decline an offer (if you knew they had not-so-great equipment)? I'm not talking about server and network kit (though I guess that that could be a factor); I mean like the computer you log into at work and use for 8 hours every day. For some context (and I'm posting anonymously if it wasn't obvious by my post count), I currently work in the private sector in London as a sysadmin and I recently interviewed at a school for a sysadmin-y role. At my current job, I have a Dell E7450 ultrabook (recentish 5th gen i5 affair) hooked up to dual Dell U2715H monitors via a docking station. This equipment is standard issue in our IT team, but even the mortals in HR, finance, sales, marketing, etc get nice laptops with thin bezel IPS monitors. It's just the way we do things, and we're not even a big company (80-100 people). The offices are large, modern and open, and I have desk space for days. Suffice to say it's a pretty nice environment to work in. At my last job (which was in a school), I worked in a dingy cupboard office no more than probably 20m², but we did at least have i7 desktops and two decent HP 22in monitors. I'm so used to the bleeding edge of technology at my current place that I think I'd struggle to move elsewhere if the equipment wasn't at least 80% as good as the place I'd be leaving. Screen real estate and performance are just so important for efficiency and productivity. So, guys and gals, what do you think? Is this stuff important to you? Would you change jobs regardless and try your luck at getting new equipment then? Would you just 'deal with it' if your requests to swap a single 20in monitor for two 24in was declined?