Diary of a Network Geek

Or, things I’d want to know before I seriously applied for, or took a new job.

The other day, a recruiter emailed me a super vague job description and we had a brief exchange about it. It was a little interesting, but, mostly, it was a mystery, because they just didn’t have a lot of details. Frankly, it sounded like the client wasn’t quite sure what they really wanted, except that they wanted to move all their IT support in-house instead of continuing to pay a managed service provider to maintain their systems. I made a post on r/ITCareerQuestions asking the question “What do you want to know before considering a job?”. I shared in that post these questions that I’d want answers to before being submitted for an open opportunity:

• How many users? And how are they distributed at multiple locations? (IE. How many end users in what city and state?)
• How many people are going to be hired, ultimately, to be in the IT Department? (I generally think one support person per seventy-five or fifty end users is a good ratio, if I can swing it. I always seem to support more than that, but it’s a goal!)
• What servers are they running? What do they all do?
• Where do those servers reside? (ie. On-prem or offsite data center or cloud)
• Are they ALL virtual? On what? If VMware, what version? What OS are the virtual machines running?
• What kind of physical host or hosts are the virtual machines on? Is it a cluster? Is there shared storage (ie a SAN)?
• If there is more than one site, how are the sites connected?
• How is email being handled now? On-prem Exchange? Hosted? Office 365?
• What is the IT budget currently? How do they expect to see that expand?
• Where is the main business headquarters? What’s the commute if I’m coming from [part of town where I live]?
• How have they handled COVID-19?
• What problem am I being hired to fix? Why are they looking for someone?
• What does the compensation look like? What are the benefits? Is there a 401k and how much matching is there? What does the health insurance look like? Is there a bonus structure and how is that determined?

Hopefully, I wouldn’t have to ask them all of the recruiter, since the job description would normally include some of this information. Also, these questions assume that I wouldn’t be relocating across the country. So far, one Redditor came up with just one additional question that I’d want to know the answer to; How often are performance reviews done and what does that process look like?

So, dear readers, what about you? Anything you typically want to know about a job before applying?

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"No matter what goes wrong, there is always someone who knew it would."

You know, I didn’t think I could really enjoy going into work again. After a year of being at home, I thought I’d hate going into an office and putting in a full day’s work. But, I really sort of enjoy it.

My wife told me that I seemed happier when I got home from work these days than I ever did at ThatDamnBoatPlace. And, I guess it’s true. It’s a good work envrionment. I enjoy my supervisors, both directly above me and one step removed. I get along well with my coworkers. There’s not much pressure yet. I’m doing my regular maintenance-type stuff and they seem to think it’s great. And, I’m not a manager, which is more of a relief than I realized it could be.
I don’t think I ever really noticed how much I hated having to worry about what my employees were doing and if they were performing well enough. Not to mention all the paperwork and hassle that goes with being an IT supervisor type of person. It’s not bad when I have a good team, but if they’re too inexperienced or have too many personal problems, it gets to be a real hassle. For instance, I had an employee tell me all about their horrible childhood and want to talk to me about it all the time. Basically, she wanted to use me as a therapist because her therapist couldn’t help her. Now, I’m pretty good at helpng people with their problems and all, but c’mon, I’m supposed to be maintaining servers, not employees!

Anyway, I don’t have that here. Things are rolling along, and I should be too. More tomorrow or the next day. But, today, I’m off to work!