Network administrators who can't fix their own problems 1

[aznluvsmc]

Hi,

In my company we have a dept. that handles client side issues and another dept. that handles network/server issues.

I've noticed that many of the people in the network dept. can't seem to fix their own problems that occur on their own client PCs. They tend to have to call us to fix it. Does this show a lack of skill?

Steven S.
MCSA
A+, Network+, Server+, i-Net+

 

[gbaughma]

I'm a firm believer that if you stop learning, you stop living.

I consider myself pretty computer savvy... A+ instructor, hardware tech, programmer, network admin, web developer, etc. etc.

.... However, sometimes just looking over someone else's code opens tomes of new ideas. A couple of examples:

I stumbled across a piece of code that was very shoddily written, but embedded inside it was one little piece of genious. I mean, this coder didn't know what a FOR/NEXT loop was, and I cut out hundreds of lines by using loops... *BUT*, they had one cool thing in there; that would take a form (any form) passed to it, and from the form read the field names, values, and write to a database that had the same field names as the form. All in about 10 lines of code. ***SLICK!!*** It saved me hundreds of lines of code later in processing web forms.

By the same token, sometimes I have ideas that are an epiphany to othres. For example:

I was talking with other Admins at my company, and they were talking about a process and procedure for restarting servers. Who had to be notified? Who did it effect? Should it be a spreadsheet? A database? A PDA? My answer? A clipboard. On the back of the clipboard, a list of what the server did (i.e. Accounting storage), who it directly affected with their phone extensions, etc. On the front, a log sheet of when it was rebooted and why (software upgrade, hung system, etc.) The other admins were astonished that something that obvious would work so well. (I'm very process-oriented... I love working through different processes and making them better).

Anyhoo, I'm done rambling...


Just my $.02

"In order to start solving a problem, one must first identify it's owner." --Me
--Greg

 

[mattaw]

I am a firm believer in pen and paper.....

I ditched a PDA (too big, shirt battery, cost, vulnerability to damage) in excange for a filofax.

However the new PDA stuff is much smaller, better batteries, and comes with metal cases for survival so I am beginning to bend.

Matthew

The Universe: God's novelty screensaver?

 

[CajunCenturion]

Back to the original question, I would like to share the SOP of an organization that I've come to know recently. Being a financial institution, a great deal of cash is being "processed", and as such, there are very clear delineation lines between departments and their responsibilities. The auditors are very strict that no-one does anything, regardless of skill, talent, or convenience, outside of their own department's mission. In this case, it would be an audit write up if an application programmer replaced the keyboard on their machine. Application programmers write code, and IT support personnel replace keyboards and never the twain shall meet.

Good Luck
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