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First Thing IT Managers Do In the Morning?
An anonymous reader writes "When I was a wee-little IT Manager, I interviewed for a position at an online CRM provider in San Francisco, a job I certainly was qualified for, at least on paper. One of the interviewer's questions was 'What is the first thing you do when you get to work in the morning?' I thought saying 'Read Slashdot' wouldn't be what he was looking for — so I made up something, I'm sure, equally lame. I didn't get the job. But the question has stuck with me over the years. What do real IT and MIS managers do when they walk in to the office in the morning? What Web sites or tools do they look at or use the first thing? Remember, this is for posterity, so please be honest."
thing
Coffee machine, foo!
Ah, computer dating -- it's like pimping, but you rarely have to use the phrase "upside your head" -- Bender
Otherwise I get a headache real fast!
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
I'm sure that would've been the right answer.
The first thing you do every morning is check the sev 1 problems that have occurred when you are out. Next off you look at the 24 hour report to see what is out of whack. Anything odd you follow up on. If everything is fine then you have a cup of strong coffee and wait for the first dumb question of the day.
Deal with the disasters first, after that everything in the day is a lightweight bonus.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
If it's early in the iteration (we have two week cycles for our agile development plan) then I'll log on to XPlanner which is a Free Open Source project management tool that allows me to control the user stories and tasks for our project. Early on I look for people that have more hours than others and I try to mitigate that by visiting them and just talking over what they have to do on a high level with them. Since I'm still young and know all the technologies we use, I give them drawings and any sort of information they need to get the job done.
If it's near the end of an iteration or someone is empty, I shuffle tasks and then make a note to talk to both the people one on one when they get in. I also take the time in the morning to talk to people about what they need to work on so they don't spend all day on the wrong task. In the event of something pending that isn't going to get done, I schedule a meeting with my manager and maybe the customer. Haven't had to do that yet though.
Now, keep in mind this is only for a 10 person development team so it might not work on your level. But the first thing I do is assess the day by going over what people checked in and completed the day before in my project management tool, XPlanner. If you haven't used it, I heavily suggest and endorse it--you just need a server to host it on and you're ready. Oh and I'm 25 with little or no management experience prior to this so that could also make this advice completely worthless and naive.
In my opinion, the best thing a team lead can do is listen and, well before it happens, stop people from putting themselves in bad positions where they're in until 3 AM one night before a customer meeting. You take precautions at the beginning of every day and your team should be alright.
My work here is dung.
1) Shmooze around the office cooler for gossip. 2) Make sure my job is still there, and not outsourced. 3) Read Slashdot. 4) Call vendors and complain about service... so I can get free service. 5) Cut my budget even more. 6) Come unglued on a random user. 7) Read Slashdot. 8) Go home.
Seriously, the first thing I do in the morning is fart.
Its a natural event and usually followed by my internal body check (quick overall run over major areas - helpful after waking up with a dislocated leg when I was younger...)
I then open my eyes.
liqbase
I'm a programmer, not an IT person. But the very first thing I do in the mornings is check my email. I need to know if anyone had any problems while I was gone, or if there's something urgent that needs taking care of. Basically, I check for emergencies first thing. After that, I read Slashdot, and start planning out my day. (Generally, I'm fairly useless until my brain wakes up. Which happens around noon. But my company insists I work 10-6 anyway, rather than 12-8)
The first thing I do in the morning is boot up my computer. Then I grab a cup of coffee while it is booting up. If it's still booting, I check in with my coworkers to see what's in store for the day - I try to keep the conversations short. Once the bootup is complete I start up email and work on timesheet/paperwork while my brain is warming up for the day. In short, I first thing in the morning, I multitask and prepare for the day ahead.
Most probably first get coffee and then read email. A more "interview friendly" answer may be to "visit team members to greet them and see how they are doing both personally and prefessionally".
Table-ized A.I.
That's how you find out that while your staff was reading slashdot, a customer reported a major outage that nobody has handled.
Or Jolt (Red Bull, Diet Coke, Mountain Due, etc.) and an energy bar, Email
Then of course ... check out /.
You can always say: "I test our Internet access by browsing a few selected Web sites and verifying that their content is correct."
1 - hook up and power on laptop 2 - get breakfast and coffee 3 - go through security and domain logins for laptop 4 - start eating breakfast 5 - login to servers and slashdot 6 - glance at emails for anything important 7 - COFFEE!
Title says it all. I read slashdot and other industry materials at home- which I can pull off by having a ton of RSS readers on my dashboard.
Then again I work in a client driven work situation, so YMMV.
For what it's worth I'm usually consuming caffeine during this important time of the day. A couple (diet) Dew or Vault generally do it for me.
The first thing I do is crack my diet soda, and take a long pull.
The second thing I do is check the backup tapes.
After that, I see if the phone system is functional.
Finally, I check the emergency log.
Then, slashdot, groklaw.
of course
Anything on my network that sends emails - any kind, alert/notification/log, including stuff from SNMP - goes to one address. First thing, I check that address, make sure nothing needs immediate handling, and then grab some coffee.
ACs are modded -6. I don't read you, I don't mod you, I don't see you. Don't like it? Don't be a coward.
Easy to just check some logs, and read Groklaw for the real news.
Oh - Slashdot too.
[rux]
Masturbate. It's important you let them know you do this before you get to work. Sticky keys are nobody's friend.
I finish my coffee while I look over anything interesting on Google News and Slashdot. If I look in the morning, I don't think about it the rest of the day, so I don't get distracted. Then I make sure nothing important appeared in my email overnight, and I look over my plans for the day. So I guess the "good" answer is, I do a quick plan for eight hours of work.
You answer it like so:
"Every evening before going home, I write down my objectives for the following day. This helps me to stay focused the following day on what needs done. Sure, sometimes there are fires to put out, and not everything gets done. But by having a written down list, I find I am more productive. What I do first in the morning depends on what needs to get done that day"/
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
After I put the kettle on is scan the news sites. It takes me all of two minutes to identify any news item that might somehow impact me and my little slice of the IT world.
I do this not so much for security or first-alert type response but for a more simple reason... I start conversations using the info I gleaned from the news. The people I work with each have different areas of technical interest, specialties, etc... managing a team means more than riding people about deadlines. I always start the day with a little chatter, and feel good when one of my team members gets to share some of their 'personal interest' knowledge because of a conversation I started.
Starting conversations in this manner provides all sorts of little 'contact points' that provide info about your employee's mood, attitude, satisfaction, etc... and way too many managers I have known fail horribly at replicating these contact points through more formal methods.
Anyhow, after that it is review e-mail, prioritize the day, and only begin coordinating with others once they have had time to do the same.
Regards.
[1] Check my email [2] Get some coffee [3] Check my email [4] Read Slashdot [5] Check my email [6] Pretend I am working [7] Check my email
I goto bed! turn of cell phone so the boss doesn't bother me, fight insomnia by counting Microsoft software flaws and bugs while removing the caffeine drip from my arm and neck.
Ah, you gotta love those obscure The Princess Bride quotes. =)
Check my phone messages, e-mail, and run logs, for any problems from the previous night's processing.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The first thing I do is come up with an action plan to provide a best of breed solution that will benefit both our customers and our stockholders. After I take a wag at my daily task list, I begin working on new strategies to augment and improve the current paradigm. Once I have liaised with my support staff to determine the readiness of our infrastructure, I take off my jacket and put my briefcase away. Sir.
My network monitoring system gives me a status board. The first thing I do is glance at the board to see if anything is red.
The second thing I do is ask the early guy if there is anything going on that I need to know about. I also ask about anything I noticed back when I checked my email before breakfast.
The third thing I do is plug in and boot my laptop.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
It's got to be "say hi to your colleagues"... hasn't it?
Isn't that the most important thing?
1. Park my bike, shower etc.
2. Turn on computer.
3. While it starts, get a coffee.
4. Log in, drink coffee, check e-mail/calendar.
5. Get to work.
I've got to say, that sounds like the sort of interview question that would get some pretty boring responses. Like mine, above. So I usually jazz it up a bit in interview:
1. Park my unicycle, change out of my superhero unitard.
2. Get a new guitar from the IT guys because I smashed mine at the end of my last performance.
3. Check in with each of the 10,000 people who work under my command, all of whom I know by name.
4. Have my executive assistant relay my e-mails to me, one character at a time, by throwing lettered frisbees back and forth between my company's two tower blocks.
5. Take my second breath of the day.
So far I haven't had any job offers, but I figure the market is pretty competitive at the moment - it's only a matter of time!
"Goodness me, how unlike the FBI to abuse the trust of the American public." -- The Onion
I typically check my mail, touch base with the support guys, etc. Nagios would be lighting up my phone if it was something big, but it's good to be seen tackling the issue before everyone starts noticing.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
Say hello to co-workers?
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
I'm not really an IT Manager, but I'll bite...
Before I get out of bed, the first thing I do is turn off my alarm. Does that really need to be said?
Once I'm up, I either check my personal email or jump right in the shower. This really just depends on my mood.
Once I get to the office, I check my work email if it doesn't look like people are already in a panic. Otherwise, I deal with the problems at hand. Anything from a software bug to a HDD that's failed with priceless data on it and no backup (Friday was fun).
If I only had a moose...
check backups! Then, I recheck the backups. After that, I usually check the backups before getting to work. Seriously, nothing makes me sleep better than good, consistent backups.
I check Voicemail, while the machine is booting. Then check email for any hot items. If nothing's on "fire", I print off and check my list for my boxes.. backups ran, servers up, operator messages... Then on to my Change manangement system tracked issues to work on for the day...
I check my email. With nagios, logwatch and to a lesser extent swatch that lets me know if something unusual has occured. Usually the subject line gives me the information I want. In the corner of the screen gkrellm with the multiping plugin lets me know if hosts are up or down.
Read Slashdot.
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
while reading the e-mail and memos from my 7 bosses
When i come in, i immediately remove the backup tapes from last night and replace them with the ones for the night to follow. After that i sit down at my workstation and check the server logs to make sure that the backup completed successfully. Next comes email. There are a few automated emails that get sent to me when cron jobs are completed detailing what was done and how efficiently. If there aren't any problems that need to be dealt with, I start scheduling out my day in my notebook. After that i usually make my rounds around the office checking back in with users who had problems that required attention yesterday, to make sure that the solution worked for them and that everything is running smoothly. Once that is done, i log into the servers to check their state, make sure there aren't any runaway tasks, and basically ensure that everything is running smoothly. If there still haven't been any users with problems that need attention at this point, i will usually start looking through the firewall logs from last night to make sure nothing fishy was going on while i was away.
At this point, printers usually start exploding.
NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
From personal experience....
Depending on age, either they spike their hair or work on their comb-over.
The first thing you do is walk into the john and empty the first four cups of coffee from your bladder in preparation for the next three you'll imbibe while trying to look thoughtful and ignoring your email..
At least that's what I did.
.sig: Now legally binding!
I've not got up in the morning for months.
1. check for disasters that happened while you were away
2. coffee
3. plan the day
This question has to be answered with more context -- as an IT manager, one should have put in place automated monitoring and backup processes. One should answer the question by discussing these first -- at least at a very high level.
Then, the first thing one does on arrival is to check the results of the automated monitoring. However, the key point to get over to the interviewer is the proactive setup of the automated monitoring.
Of course for many people, they will already have checked the results of the automated systems from home, so then, the first thing one can do as a manager is to talk to the team -- get updates, opinions, ideas, or just bonding.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Peter Gibbons: Well, I generally come in at least fifteen minutes late, ah, I use the side door - that way Lumbergh can't see me, heh - after that I sorta space out for an hour.
Bob Porter: Da-uh? Space out?
Peter Gibbons: Yeah, I just stare at my desk, but it looks like I'm working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch too, I'd say in a given week I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work.
He got promoted to manager off this.
God spoke to me.
No, really.
I'm lying in bed right now, typing this on my mobile phone. The first thing I did when I woke up was to roll over, pick up the phone and check Slashdot.
It's warm in bed, and my computer is on the other side of a very cold room..
Bugger this, I'm going back to sleep.
But the first thing I need is to get my first hit of the day
Some Coffee, a cigarette followed by a few tabs of dexedrine and Effexor.
Honest to god, i couldn't give a fuck less about anything untill I have satisfied my cravings.
So what If i'm addicted.
perpetually dwelling in the -1 pits
I'm the first one into the office. I get in around 7:00. Our office opens at 8:30, our earliest clinic (medical offices) opens at 9:00. This gives me 2 hour window of few interruptions to not only fix problems, but get a lot of work done. I make more progress on major projects in those 2 hours than any other time during the day. Much of the rest of the day is fielding phone calls and working with coworkers to determine the direction/features of the products I'm working on.
The first 5-10 minutes entails checking the local servers, ensuring Exchange, Windows, etc are running OK. Then I check that our local failover web server is running fine. Then I check our remote web and database servers. I check the backup logs to make sure all offsite backups are up to date and that storage usage is OK across the board. I have small Python scripts that monitor most of the stuff for me and generate an XML report piped through PrinceXML into PDF. The scripts gather usage, load levels, etc of all remote servers as well as database growth (mostly row counts) over the past day, week, month, and quarter. They are PDFs because they are (a) easy to read and (b) look good when potential clients come in -- I can present a book of extremely detailed statistics on our uptime, downtime, server locations, average latencies, etc.
The reports also contain the volume of e-mail handled, bounced, rejected, and sent for all servers.
I then check all webmaster, abuse, and postmaster accounts for our domains, which are generally empty, thankfully. This also entails checking to see if any security alerts have come through Secunia. I have Outlook filters set up to flag incoming alerts for the products and operating systems we use, so I don't have to read all 300 message subjects each day. If there are any alerts, I still have almost 2 hours to handle them if needed, or at the least draft a memo to alert of downtime that evening or weekend.
All in all, it takes about 10-15 minutes of my time to check all of that. Follow that up with a nice glass of water, tending my plants and tending to my schedule for the day, and I still have an hour and a half before the office starts getting busy.
So the first thing I do in the morning is play Unreal Tournament deathmatch online with the Maytag Repairmen. They suck. Naturally, I pwn their asses. After that, it's time for my mid-morning nap. Then it's off to lunch! Two hours later, I'm back, and it's siesta time, followed by a bathroom break where I peruse the the NY Times. Then, back at my desk, I jiggle the hula doll on top of my Mac Pro and check my email. Yawn. Nothing happening there. Then around 3:00 pm, my supervisor usually calls and asks me to show him for the 300th time how to import his Van Morrison CDs into iTunes. By then it's happy hour in the employee lounge. A couple of brewskies, followed by a fevered round of pinball, and it quittin' time! Yay! I've earned my pay for the day.
CHECK THE BACKUPS. Seriously -- before coffee, anything. Make sure that any overnight backups went through okay and make sure all the data is safe and secure. That way, come hell or high water during the day, you're not going to lose more than one day people's work. Because losing people's data is the worst thing that can possibly happen.
1. Get into office. Assume coffee is there.
2. Check Nagios.
3. Quick look up the screens to check the usual jobs are running.
4. If all's cool, continue day as normal.
The important bit 'check Nagios' can be phrased as 'make sure everything's running'.
Smegma.
No problems equals a lie-in followed by a leisurely coffee. Problems can mean not getting dressed properly until mid-morning.
(thankfully I work from home)
First thing? I say hello to my team. Because even though "IT" comes before "Manager" in the title, it comes a distant second in terms of priority.
I'm sorry. The correct answer was indeed 'Reading Slashdot', yes 'Reading Slashdot.
Now destitute and unemployed, Anon reader falls to his knees, choking on the fecal stench of his own loserdom.
"Dear God! How has it come to this?"
Check my honor tab in WoW.
Oh wait, you said IT Manager?
-- Neminem laede, immo omnes, quantum potes, iuva.
1) Verbally check to see what is "on fire" with my underlings.
2) Go into office, scan through my email until I get sleepy again.
3) Close office door.
4) Go back to sleep, preferably in a position where it looks like I'm doing something if someone opens the door without knocking.
That's covered the first half hour or so of my day. Here's the rest:
Wake up (noon to 1300)
Heat up lunch, go back to office, eat.
Read slashdot or whatever while eating, and until I get sleepy again.
Sleep until 1600.
Wake up, do whatever I really need to get done.
Leave late, after collecting at least 1 hour of overtime, at least 15 minutes of which must be spent bitching about how I never get to leave on time, damnit.
Go home and read/play games/watch movies/hang out until 4-5 AM.
5 AM: Go to sleep.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm not a personnel manager, but a technical lead, and as such do have a bunch of technical types that I manage. So if you want to include me...
Seriously, bring up a browser, start the usual stuff loading (/., Ars, CNN, etc.) and then pop over to email while it all loads up. Generally go through my email, delete the crap, answer the easy stuff, read the hard stuff. Go get coffee while pondering the harder emails, come back, answer the ones I've thought about, read morning websites, answer the rest.
Generally then I get sucked down into the seventh level of he.. er, rather, an meeting about something I don't give a sh^H^H^H care deeply about.
Well the one thing they don't do is stare out of the window. Otherwise the afternoon would be really empty...
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I'm required to carry my laptop home or lock it up; I can't leave it powered over night. I either shutdown or hibernate it at the end of the day. We all would like to believe in this day and age that OS's and applications do not leak memory or become unstable but the fact is that they do. I find that periodically cold-booting my computer keeps things fast and stable. I usually have things to do while waiting for it to boot so it is not really a hardship or loss of productive time. I also find that having to shut down at quitting time forces me to take note of what I was doing over the course of the day and stay organized. Instead of performing daily system maintenance over night, happens durring my lunch hour.
1. Login (dang it takes forever)
2. Check group calendar (see who is in and out)
3. Check the help desk ticket queue
4. Check my Inbox (see what's urgent, medium, etc)
5. Take tactical actions only.
While reading Slashdot is fun, it's not something you should do first thing. Keeping the pulse of technology is strategic, not tactical. First thing in the morning, you do tactical. Later in the day when it slows down, then you can go strategic.
Jack off
pee
Well, I generally come in at least fifteen minutes late. I use the side door, that way Lumbergh can't see me. Uh, and after that, I just sorta space out for about an hour. Yeah. I just stare at my desk but it looks like I'm working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch too. I'd probably, say, in a given week, I probably do about fifteen minutes of real, actual work.
mod -1, funny :)
"Hey someone email that guy so he can read it when he gets in !"
you must get some laid back emergencies
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Whole lot of funny comments modded to +5, need more signal to noise I guess.
Heres what I do when I get in:
- Change backup tapes
- Do other things that have to be done (move tapes to off-site safe, make sure AC drip pan isn't full, etc)
- Check Nagios to make sure nothing is totaly f'ed up
- Tea
What I should do:
- Review my to do list and try and create some kind of schedule.
Good reading if your feeling a bit disorganized:Time Management for System Administrators
Though I would have already contacted him via communicator while on the way to the bridge.
There, No.1 would join me after performing his rounds.
After that, anything could happen. I might be kidnapped by a gaseous being trying to escape a time warp, fall in love with a woman who dies tragically, get in a fist fight with someone I trained with but was always unhinged and I knew he'd turn out no good, though when I have the chance to kill him I will relent because people are basically good inside and need another chance if they make a mistake.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Shave man, for the bend over situations. Wee question by the way.
Uh... ok... but the first thing I do when I get in the office is:
GREET PEOPLE!!!
Come on people, you're all talking about your project management tools, but the first thing anyone should do when they get in in the morning is say hey to their workmates and ask them about their weekend/evening before!
I dont eat at home, so the first thing I do is eat & while I eat I check emails. Then I reload slashdot and check the monitoring apps to see if there were any strange things in the last night.
Then I start my actual work.
"Freiheit ist immer auch die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden" - Rosa Luxemburg, 1871 - 1919
True pro's leave work at morning after an all-nighter and go to sleep. Doh!
On a more serious note, those of us who have to interact with people and especially customers, pulling all-nighters and going bed at morning is not a viable option. I myself belong to this unfortunate group. I start my morning with a few cups of coffee, reading the local newspaper, checking news sites including Slashdot, reading emails and checking calendar and writing back emails. I would say that I spend every morning at least an hour or two doing this. There are few reasons for this mainly: 1) I want to do it, and 2) my brains just wont work good enough to do anything more complex.
On a note I would recommend this to all employees especially if the company you are working has free breakfast. Why spend the morning at home when you can just go to shower, put cloths and head to workplace to start your morning. This has the benefit that you can meet and connect with people in morning with less hassle as you are not disturbing their work.
Survey research tool for commercial and scientific use
As an employer I would give additional points to anybody who responded with read slashdot. In fact the Customer service manager for our company responded that way in his initial interview as I recall.
..
Wha?? Because
1. it tells me your telling the truth - don't lie in interviews just to get the job, it won't work for you or me.
2. it shows me you like to stay informed, be aware of what is going on, I won't be expected to spoon-feed you stuff or wonder if you'll be able to stay current with tech.
3. *I* read slashdot, and that means you and I have something in common, we share interests -- and that makes you more likely to get the job.
I think the best answer could be something like:
I read slashdot.org, an IT news site to exercise my brain while I finishing sucking down my starbucks mocha thingy and let the combination of sugar and caffeine percolate through my body until my heart-rate begins pumping enough blood to my head to make good decisions.
Then I read my email, check the ticket queue, review recent code submissions, blah blah blah..
Anybody you *WANT* to work for will give you bonus points for a qualified, honest answer.
REMEMBER: Always be yourself in an interview, otherwise you'll be one of those dweebo waistoids who is ranting on slashdot about how your job sucks -- it's usually because you pretended to be somebody your not in the interview.
Pedo bear sees you!
What is the first thing you do when you get to work in the morning?' I thought saying 'Read Slashdot' wouldn't be what he was looking for -- so I made up something, I'm sure, equally lame
Perhaps he just wanted to see if you'd lie to tell him what he wanted to hear.
That question has only one "right" answer - You get coffee, check Slashdot and read your email (possibly not in that exact order), then you glaze over until you hit the bottom of at least your first cup of coffee. Any interruptions before then, you respond to with "Mmmmmpph? Grrrrrrumph. Mrphythuber kurbendurby! Mrffff". Anyone failing to understand that response clearly doesn't work in IT, or worse, likes mornings (grounds for immediate dismissal, IMO).
And anyone that mods this "funny" either lies or doesn't work in IT.
>Walk past HR bitch, try not to catch eyes in case she steals my soul whilst i'm not looking
This makes no sense at all.
IT == Information Technology, right?
... sounded like it fit the bill to me.
Writing software that handles information. Pretty technological
I review the NAGIOS reports for my lame arse Windows boxes.
I have to otherwise they will tank.
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
Try to get rid of massive morning wood.
i check my email.
I generally Space out till about 9:30...
>helpful after waking up with a dislocated leg when I was younger Do you sleep-exercise or have a particularly vicious spouse or something? I'm curious to how that happened...
Morning? I work at night :P
http://www.tjenepengeronline.com
I like to configure email to deliver automated failure reports of equipment, backups, cron scripts that grep system logs so that I have a log of what screwed up when. Filtered and sent to an appropriate folder. Usually email has errors from people who came in early or left late since my last email check, so that's usually the first place to start with the 'immediate critical problems of the day'.
Poll my script-managed web page graphs and logs showing 'at a glance' network and server responsiveness graphs, and duplicate logs of the above mail errors, so I can see if there were any outages over the previous evening/weekend, to see if there's a trend of equipment failure. Essentially, make sure servers I'm responsible for are up, networks are moving packets, critical machines ping, etc.
Calendar to check if any periodic hardware checks need to be made (equipment cleaning, scheduled maintenance, vendor meetings)
Check the 'todo' list for stuff that was in progress from the previous work day.
If all that looks good, and there's no voice mail.. then maybe a cup of coffee, and check in with my manager to see if there's anything new.
There may be more than one answer, but this one would definitely go a long way in an interview.
The first thing I would do after arriving at the office is greet any members of the team who were already in the office. It goes a long way when a boss spends the time to interact with the team and employees always appreciate little things like that. It's not a flashy answer, but it demonstrates that you want to emphasize communication and teamwork.
If we'd skip past all the things everyone does in the morning, I think usually I would take a look on 4chan. I mostly stick to the mostly worksafe boards. Considering the kind of things you can encounter on the other boards the temptation to visit those is not particularly great. I also often read the news (yes, Slashdot, Boing Boing, but also the Guardian, the NYT etc.), or have a look at Wakachan's Net Characters board. Sometimes a webcomic or one of my favourite learn-all-your-neat-programming-tricks-here devblogs has updated. This may sound like pretty useless activity, but I'm actually half a decent programmer and most of the moments of insight I've had, moments that have tought me something more or less fundamental about computing, occurred in those first 30 minutes. Well, maybe not on 4chan though.
When I used to just show up without that little ritual I'd lose focus real quick and just get into a reactive mode all day.
IT Managers with superior skills and productivity always get people_ready first thing in the morning. If the manager isn't people_ready, then how can your business be people_ready?
... and then they built the supercollider.
No caffeen!
I am ready, bright and breezy!
Write Linux drivers for 8 to 10 hours.
Then 23 mile bicycle ride back home.
Then do some sewing (www.clearplastic.com)
Then sleep.
Cleara
...I go to sleep. ; )
I'm assuming you were applying for a management position.
I think the answer the interviewer wanted to hear was "Review My Day". As in, you sit down at your desk and look at the various tasks you have to accomplish and figure out when you're going to do them that day.
You might also throw in a quick review of your long term projects/goals, determine where you are in accomplishing them, and plan that progress into your day as well.
Most successful people will do this very early in the morning -- sometimes before they even leave the home -- and again when the day ends to prepare for the following day.
-David
Check the nightly backups.
...is to go to lunch. Man I'm hungry by 11:30!
The art of computer software is turning caffeine into code, and that sure doesn't make you fall asleep in the evening!
Of course reading Slashdot is one of the first things I do. I check for IT threats mainly.
I also read SANS Internet Storm Center.
Then email.
Once I am sure everything is OK, I further read Slashdot for more entertaining news. Then macrumors, macbytes, fark, eduo.info, lasalasdelalacran.blog.com
The I go to work. (30 minute walk)
When an interviewer asks you the first thing you do when you get to work in the morning, your answer should always start with:
...And if they ask you what you do in the morning before you go to work, you read the Wall Street Journal. And if you don't already, you should.
I check my task list/calendar which I've prepared the day before to see what events I have going on first thing in the morning.
_Always_ start with your task list "which you've thoughtfully prepared the day before". Then, you would review any notes or memos which were given to you when you arrived at work or which were left on your desk. From there, you would review job-specific performance reports and any relevant metrics - the point is not to brag or exaggerate, just let the interviewers know that you are organized and have a system for handling the amount of information that is dumped on managers on a daily basis.
When I'm supervising, I always try to get in at least a half hour before anyone on my team.
First thing: Check my voice-mail. I've had night crews try to call or page me and for whatever reason not be able to get me. If there's trouble, that's likely to be my first warning.
Then I'd read the server logs and confirm that the servers are all up.
I've never required regular status reports from a night crew, but when there are big jobs for them, I usually require them to email me with their status at the end of the shift, so email's next.
Then I'd grab a bagel with a schmear and a coffee and I'd get to morning busy-work. When the rest of my team came in, I'd have a little chit-chat, go over what they've recently accomplished and what I'd like them to get to and send them on their way.
I get into work, drop my stuff and clock in, log onto Trillian, log into Final Fantasy XI, grab a cup of tea, come back, craft about 500,000 gil worth of stuff, bitch about how it's not selling on the auction house, logout, go to lunch, come back, code, check the auction house again. Leave. Sure. It's boring and simple, but I have three computers at my desk to play with and it's always fun.
For those who seek perfection there can be no rest on this side of the grave.
1. Switch on laptop
2. Swap the backup tapes
3. Enter windows password
4. Check messages on telephone
5. Give nightly tapes to FD to go off site
6. Make coffee.
7. Wait for windows to finally login (takes more than 6 minutes!)
8. RDP to server to check that overnight backup was successful
9. Check that windows server nightly reboot was successful, otherwise it might crash at any time.
10. Load windows updates on laptop.
...most IT managers suck. Reading these responces, I hardly see anybody checking their damn email. If you would check your email first thing in the morning, you'd know that I finished the project that you were asked about while walking around shmoozing people was finished. If you'd have read that email, you'd also have instructions on how to make said project work that would have saved you the half an hour you spent trying to guess your way through it with the person who met you in the hall, only to fail (because you're not tech savey although you think you are) and decide it wasn't done yet. This would also have saved both you and me the next 15 minutes you spent paging me and asking me about said project only so I could tell you that the project is done and all relevant details are in the email I sent you yesterday afternoon at 4:45 (an hour and half after you left).
Honesty is the most important quality for a senior admin.
You're ready to replace Steve Jobs!
My 0.02 cents
Try to take over the world!
I'm not a manager although I have been offered such positions (which I turned down).
... Etc.
This is the start of every day of every manager day I have ever known:
A. Get coffee/stand around and B.S. with their boss or the minions for about an hour or two.
B. Have their daily B.S. morning status meeting with all the staff for an hour or two.
C. Get some more coffee, have some "important" B.S. meeting with their manager for an hour or two.
take a crap
I Predict A Riot
'What is the first thing you do when you get to work in the morning?' that question shows you that this person doesn't have a clue as to what is happening in the work place. The correct question is What is the last thing you do before leaving at night? This is because how you finish you day has a direct effect on what you must face in the morning.
"Jump, up. Jump, up! And jump around!"
Thats what I would say, I'm no manager but that seems to be the first thing everyone usually does.
Call my wife and apologize for not getting home last night.
... tech management of all sorts should count, right? 1. Check for the little red voicemail light, and listen to it in the unlikely event that there is one. (As it's probably either an emergency or someone calling out sick.) 2. Hook up laptop, turn on, and start logging in. 3. Say hello to immediate cube mates. 4. Log in screen #2. 5. Pull out paperwork that I took home with me in case I got sick or something happened that required me to work from home. If it's Monday, switch back the voicemail greeting to normal instead of work-from-home-on-Fridays. Water plant if applicable. 6. Start email logging in (#%^$ Lotus Notes is slow to start up), then other software I expect to use that day. Pull up To Do list, and make sure it's up to date and sorted properly (I use Excel). 7. Check calendar. 8. Read email - first any meeting updates or requests, then automated notifications, notes from the client, the project manager, my immediate work manager, my team, my general manager, requests for help from my peers, and then personal stuff, in that order. 9. Put out any fires (or more likely, get a team member working on them). 10. Buy breakfast and coffee. 11. Write quick email responses and make any adjustment to today's To Do list (while eating). 12. Actually begin working on items marked as "1. Urgent" on my list. For the record, my team members would look at me oddly if I just randomly stopped by to say hello first thing in the morning, as they are all either a) in another part of the building, or b) in another state. I'll see and/or talk to them as a matter of course during the morning anyway, we'll chat then.
But anyway.
I don't drink coffee any more. When I get to work, I check email, the Samba workgroup / the network logs, and the "RSS" folder feeds from my completely customizable web-browser toolbar (of which /. and boing-boing and digg and ITMJ [among others] are a part). They're all mad props for fighting the good fight.
Life is all kinds of awesome for people who aren't locked into Microsoft licensing contracts. I really hope that the better part of the world figures this out, some day sooner than later. Hopefully sooner.
I'm an IT Manager.
1) First on the list is to go over any emails or voicemails that came in that need my attention. Hopefully there are no emergencies for me to take care of.
2) Go make myself some coffee. Just say "no" to bad office coffee people. We have our own coffee maker in our IT area. I drink most of it.
3) Swing by and say "Hello" to all my people, say good morning, see how everyone is doing, see if anything major is going on that I haven't been emailed about.
4) Get my coffee and relax for a few minutes reading slashdot or wired.com before delving into the day's projects.
5) Meetings!
OK, now with all the qualifiers out of the way, here's what I do first thing:
- Check voice mail. I will only normally have 1 or 2 at the most unless I've had days off, and I also get voice mails via email so it's likely I already heard it.
- Skim emails. Again I keep tabs on email even when not working so there's not normally a ton of new stuff, but I like to look over all of the emails, delete spam, and read important things first or things I've been waiting to hear back on. This is not when I deal with less important emails or write lengthy emails to people.
- Check monitors / logs. For me this means disk space monitors, MRTG bandwidth reports, backup statuses, etc.
- Check my short-term to-do list, normally created the day or two before that gets updated a couple times per week. Start on a project or delegate a project to a co-worker.
- If I'm in a waiting stage on all of my short term projects (waiting for parts to ship or waiting on a vendor or waiting to hear back from upper management) then I will make an effort to follow up on those items to help move it along (check tracking numbers, send "reminder" emails, etc.).
- If all of the above is taken care of, move on to the long-term project list.
My last comment is that some people have very specific ideas of what an "IT Manager" does or should do. Keep in mind that's a very broad term that will vary from organization to organization, mostly depending on the size. Somebody above made a distinction between an IT Manager and a System Administrator, but when your whole team is two people (like mine) those things don't make much difference. Maybe in some organizations IT managers don't get paged, or don't deal with backups, or whatever, but in smaller organizations the manager is also a staff member.First thing I look at are the overnights. Nagios output, mrtg output, snort, logwatch etc. I want to have a total picture of what the current state is and what my people should be looking at before I talk to anyone. (usually this done done at home immediately after the most critical need in the morning... a real long wiz.)
Neither do the HR bitches.
Look for a new job doing something interesting. :-)
to look for a better job.
I'd be all like: What the hell do you mean 'First thing in the morning'? I'm connected. I got my pager. I got my crackberry. I got my laptop next to my bed SSHed into the server. If the shit hits the fan, I'm all over it like white on rice, dude. There is no morning for me. There is no evening. There is no day. There is no night. I'm all about the IT 24/7/365.
First thing an IT guy does in the morning?
He wakes up from sleep mode.
Zing!
you should read everything on the internet as if it had "but I'm probably talking out of my ass" appended to it.
...and then, because I've gone blind from doing it too much... I grab my stick and go look up slashdot on my braille computer, and then I look at pr0n on my braille computer, and then I reflect on how much my life sucks, and go back to sleep.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
1) Caffeine of some sort
2) Check E-mail/IRC
3) Securityfocus/Milw0rm.org etc (0day security sites) for vulnerabilities
4) Ponder over where to eat for lunch
Have a squat over at the hobo house.
I wouldn't know; I never see my manager and he hates talking to us plebs.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
read /.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Go home...
-
Situational assessment and action by urgency
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Scheduled commitments
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Creative time such as project work, planning, research, checking in with colleagues
In terms of responsible time management, that's good enough. A good technical manager encourages his staff to do the same, and applies the second item with restraint.Parity: What to do when the weekend comes.
After I've picked up my dosimeter on my way through the badge room. I mosey over to my building and try to make it into my office without getting spotted by a user that wants something changed on their machine but refuses to call the helldesk in Poland, I can't blame them however. After dodging any bullets making it into my office I check the tapes, make sure the as/400 is purring along like she should to avoid lengthy calls with the "server admin" team in India. Once all systems are go, check the e-mail and voicemail, grab a coffee, read slashdot, see what the bofh is up too and then call it a day. While on the way to my car everyday I pray to the techno-gods that some sev1 issue does not wake me from my sleep at some ungodly hour requiring me to spend 17 and a half hours baby sitting the server admins in India while they try to rebuild an exchange server remotely. Sleeping on the floor of the server room was an expereince I will never forget and don't really recomend to the faint hearted. You really have to love your machines to go that extra mile, go team outsourcing.
"Start failing, so you can start succeeding" Harry Beckwith
2)Walk thru the student computer labs. Techs get the individual systems failures; but larger problems require a different viewpoint. See #3 & #4
3)Pass by or thru the datacenter. EMS has environmental sensors; but they never pay attention to them.
4)Walk most of the hallways. "Facilities management" is a misnomer at best. This provides the status info I never receive on work orders. Especially when talking to the vendors techs doing the work.
This path takes 5-20 minutes each day -- both entering and leaving for the day. Although none of the info I gather is directly system related, all of these items affect the systems. The best intelligence is always gathered on the ground; not thru electronic info.
Every mans' island needs an ocean; choose your ocean carefully.
Never been a manager, but if it was a small shop, first thing I would do would be a short walkaround to check in with my subordinates, how was your weekend (if a Monday) or how are you etc, then are they working on what I think they are and are they having any problems I should know about etc. Then I'd talk with my boss, depending on how "in the loop" he prefers to be.
I scratch my balls and fart.
Jack off. But it's my job - I evaluate porn sites for a porn site portal.
The number one thing I do: Say good morning to the receptionist.
A good relationship with her (it could be a him, it's simply a her where I work) is essential:
Just about everyone bitches to her. Whether an issue's with email, with network reliability, a printer not working, phones playing up, the cold tap running hot, she's aware of all of it.
She's also the one point everyone has to pass at least once and, being close to both restrooms and breakroom, she tends to see most people much more too. Better than anyone, she can serve as a barometer of people's moods. If someone is obviously in a foul mood that morning, if someone's running around stressed about something, she knows faster than just about anyone.
She's also the person everyone has to let know if a client's coming in as she'll be the person to meet them. She also tends to handle much of the mess that is meeting room booking so she gets even more insight in to who's coming.
Build a good relationship with her and she looks out for me. If everything's cool, I get a "Hi" back and get on with greeting my team, checking email, checking in with project leads and PMs, reading slashdot, etc. If there's something up, she'll give me a summary that, with her understanding my needs from our previous talks, pretty much prioritizes as I need to know. I can then get on any problems far faster than checking each of the traditional reporting methods or I can go about my normal routine prepped so I don't say send an email that might trigger the guy who's in a bad mood that day.
And that's just the first fifteen seconds of my day.
She's also the first person to interview any candidates for me: If someone's an asshole to the people they think "don't matter," they're going to disrupt my team in a million other ways.
As already mentioned, she handles the mess of meeting rooms - an often precious resource. Do you want that person favoring you or someone else?
Being the first person everyone bitches to, she can come back with, "Wow, Nick [or Nick's team] is really being a jerk. Let's see what we can do." or she can respond, "Wow, that doesn't sound like Nick [or Nick's team]. He'd never knowingly let that happen. Let's let him know and I'm sure he'll get it addressed right away." Her response, being many people's first reaction when something goes wrong, can totally color the rest of their reaction and how easily I can deal with the issue.
She also knows where everything is, how everything functions, or who would do. "Hey, I can't find the contractor NDA forms." can get you a sympathetic acknowledgment from a rushed person and hold up your rush filling of a position by a day or two while you track them down or it can get "Hmm, I'll track them down and IM you in about five once I've got them." from someone who likes you.
The same holds true for all interpersonnel relationships, it's just especially important with a front desk person given everything that crosses their world - plus the question was what do you do "first" and they are pretty much always the first person you'll see.
Most nerds give great answers about slashdot, about email, about remote logging and paging systems. They're great nerd answers that show why you'd be great for a nerd position. What they demonstrate a lack of is an appreciation of what good interpersonnel relationships give you and adding that on top of the nerd qualifications is what demonstrates you'll be a good manager. Management is no longer a role about who can do the coolest nerd thing, it's about how do you handle all of the relationships around a diverse bunch of people. If your answer is about the systems, not the people, you're most comfortable interacting with - you're probably giving a major red flag for your abilities to work with people who should work with systems for you.
There were quite a few joke comments about "schmoozing." While I know they were intended as fun, that it's seen as something silly that managers that n
When I get up, I VPN into work to check email and check the status of all AIX hosts. While I'm doing that, I call up the monitoring staff on duty and make sure all of the systems they check are up and running. If anything is wrong, I fix it or notify the appropriate engineer to get the problem fixed before the manager's meeting at 8am.
Should be a law against going into the office full of shit.
"Remember, this is for posterity, so please be honest."
*whimper*
"Interesting..."
myspace of course
1. Park bike / get changed into work trousers.
2. Turn on PC.
3. Change backup-tapes; initiated 2nd run.
4. Log in to Call Logging software, Outlook etc.
5. Coffee, Digg and Slashdot.
It is wasteful to have so many backup tapes! And think of the cost tasking someone to keep stacking backups in the vault for a week, a month and a year! And people shudder when I tell them how I keep overhead rates down so low.
That's what I learned from my master: Darth Vader, IT Manager. I hope he found a job by now.
------------
Beancounters serve a useful purpose only when counting Jelly Bellies
Place my laptop into the docking station and de-hibernate it.
/. at home.
While that happens, see if anyone has responded to my blackberry emails overnight, get some coffee, check voicemail. Once the PC is up, login and check the "nonstop" dashboard for any issues with my systems and new work, and prioritize my day with tasks, meetings, and other critical items that my teams' need to get done >> today .
Next, I look at the next 3 days of work and see if we can't get a head start.
Do I sound important enough? Isn't that the trick with this question?
I read
An online CRM provider in San Francisco? Sounds familiar :-)
:-). I could have just experienced an exceptionally resource-constrained IT environment, but I'd imagine that IT resources are severely limited at almost any organization -- non-profit and for-profit. IT is typically seen as a cost center and not an area of new development. I tried to reason that away, but I eventually gave up and now actively create new products as a software engineer :-).
As an IT manager, a good first thing to do in the morning is check email in a LIFO fashion with an eye for high-priority email messages. In IT, at least in my past experience at a non-profit, every day is typically about putting out fires with little time available for interesting projects. Knowing what's hot and what's only warm is key, and, with luck, time will eventually exist to tackle the medium-priority emergencies. Forget about ever tackling the non-emergencies; they only take up space on the to-do list and will never get done anyway.
This is a large part of why I got out of IT and into software development
Although the first two steps are optional based on the age of the sysadmin...
That is all.
Im on hiatus right now, but this is my stylie... 0. coffee/breakfast/bicycle ride 1. Check monitoring systems/logs (yes I'm 24/7, but hey.. im paranoid too!) 2. Scan Emails/Bugtraq/Slashdot 3. Tackle difficult tasks with fresh mind 4. Lunch/Slashdot/Livejournal 5. Deal with routines - backups, etc.. 6. Continue working.............. [ Life happens here ] Aiee... i dont miss sysadminning much at all.
I'm not an IT manager, (rather, a 'grunt', a programmer) but usually the first thing I do is have breakfast + caffiene. Then i check my email, etc. Then i start my daily routine.
why mod this offtopic when it is a valid answer to the question? it may not be useful but it is not offtopic
Rules 1 and 2, asshole.
Should be to go round talk to all your people - if you are any kind of manager, IT or anything else.
These are the individuals who will make or break your performance, and you need their support just as they need yours.
I see a lot of responses about checking for any problems etc ...
As a manager, shouldn't your first responsibility be to your team? The first I thing I do when I get in to the office is go and chat with my team. I find out a lot more stuff about the 'current state' than any email I might read.
Besides, if there was a critical problem, my team would have already called me or sent a SMS.
I'm under a non-disclosure agreement, so I can't say. You'd want me to be just a careful with your company's proprietary information, right?
First thing you do when you get to work is turning on the light on and hang your coat where is visible from outside AND then go to the coffee machine.
That way people will know you arrived and think you are probably doing something important elsewhere.
Works for me.
is shove their head up their ass. really far.
I'm a programmer, not IT, but this might be interesting, so here goes. . .
1) sit down at computer and login (i never shut it off, so i don't have to wait for it to boot the next morning)
2) start programming (usually at this point i either successfully get a few hours of coding in, or i get bugged by a manager and all productivity is lost)
3) prepare a cup of tea, go back to programming
4) get sucked into a useless two or three hour meeting where everyone discusses implementing feature V what i've already finished writing, though they don't know it yet
5) point out i already have solution V done, and i've implemented solution W even though they aren't aware they need it yet
6) listen to the boss tell me not to waste company time on W and that he wants a timetable for V
7) point out again that V is already done, and try to explain why W wasn't a waste of time, notice i'm being ignored, leave meeting frustrated claiming i have to get take an asprin/go to the bathroom/get a drink as an excuse to get out and never come back
8) few hours later, boss comes up and asks me how long it would take me to implement feature X, which is actually just a rephrasing of feature W (already done)
9) explain that i already have feature X completed, and look at the astonished boss as he says, "are you sure? no seriously, how much time do you need really?"
10) show him a demonstration of feature X (see W) and then hear the boss say, "okay then, start working on feature Y"
11) *sigh* feature Y isn't necessary because of feature X, futilely try to explain this, boss insists i waste time on feature Y even though i'm in the middle of feature Z which is usually some revolutionary feature addition that is going to a) make the company a lot of money, b) get the boss a raise or c) save lives
12) end up wasting time on feature Y, boss independently discovers that feature X makes feature Y redundant... get the great honor of listening him explain that i shouldn't be wasting time on feature Y, and why didn't i let him know that feature X resolved feature Y
13) point out that i did let him know
14) rinse and repeat every day until i want to slit my wrists
First thing that I do, like I'm most others do is make coffee the last thing my underlings want to experience is me without my caffeine fix and if someone made it there before me if they know what's good for them they'll have a coffee ready for me. After that I check my emails for the funnys that the people sent me, followed by the more serious ones after the caffeine has hit. I then check what everyone has planned for the day, I like to let people decide what they want to do for the day if anything has come up that needs some attention then I will direct them to the more urgent matters. I really guess it depends on the kind of environment that you work in. I work in a place were at lot of the staff are mature and don't need much direction. After I tell people what to do I like to sit back and read slashdot and some news sites for a while. Then I go to a long lunch maybe at a pub, after which I follow up on purchase orders and "service" vendors to see why they have broken on my network/servers you can be sure some monkey has done something that they shouldn't have. After that I like to get to work on my own little projects for a couple of hours, just to make it look like I am doing something. Then I like to take an early minute.
They lie.
I wake up at 7am, and look at the empty space in the double bed next to me cry for half an hour. I kick slowly while softly calling out "mother" before popping a double dose of Thorazine and heading out to work in the dirty clothes from yesterday. On weekends, I begin with a cold coffee.
Truth: Drink a coffee, Smoke a cigarette and wish i hadn't drank so much tequila the night before.
What i would say: get straight to work and try to improve my production by 3.7% on the previous day! Sir!
God Be Gone
and one day a little-used, but very important program won't start. "how long has that file been corrupted for? we have backups back from then, right?"
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
How about park? ( if he has a sence of humor )
Checking email or phone messages would have been the answer he was looking for.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I don't need to check emails when I get to the office - I have a blackberry and I have replied to all the overnight emails while I was at home taking my morning crap. I listened to my voicemails during my hour long commute, and I probably also participated in at least one conference call with someone in a different time zone. By the time I get into my office at ~8:30, I've done almost 2 hours worth of work. My first useless status meeting usually starts at 9, so that's just enough enough time to walk around and greet all the troops, do a little sucking up to my boss and his admin, get a fresh cup and trek to the conference room. With any luck, I'll have an hour or two between meetings sometime during the day or after 5 PM to get some "real work" (meaning shit passed down to me from above) done. On the hour commute back home, I probably reply to a couple of emails - while doing 75+ on the freeway. Once I get home I typically put in another 2-3 hours on my laptop before the Lunesta kicks in. Wake up and repeat until dead...
I wander over to one of the company restaurants and get breakfast (eggs, bacon, danish or fresh berries, coffee) which I take back to my desk. Log onto my workstation (linux,of course) and see if there are any alerts. Since I don't manage production systems, I don't bother having it send me a page. Fix any problems or log a ticket as appropriate. Read email. Read slashdot. Continue working on any ongoing projects I have on my plate.
(I am a manager)
The network Admins deal with the Sev1's, unless it costs serious dinero, like a cluster going BOOM, and then I get paged. We've had that happen only in practice drills.
I check for escalations to management, which I haven't seen in months, but still, they can come at the most inconvenient times. At my level, it means it's a systemic problem about to land us in trouble with the state DOI, federal SEC, etc., so I'd better get involved. (I feel sorry for you publicly traded entities in that regard - the Government really SOX it to ya, lol!) Management knows up front that while I'm not micro managing them, I'm keeping an eye on things to make sure issues don't get out of control. Again, haven't seen that happen since tax time. Stuff always goes to hell when we get nailed by a cost basis rush. That's usually solved by hiring more outsourced Okies (midwest reps, usually from Oklahoma).
Then, before I hit Slashdot, I walk the floor to make sure people aren't dicking around. Especially team leads and floor managers. Once in a while I'll sit down for 2 hours and take calls. I do it for the PR points - when they see the man on top putting up with the crap assed customers we deal with, it's a morale boost. I know what they're dealing with. And they have no excuse for slacking off. And I VNC right to my office to make sure that I can respond the instant something big requires my attention. I could sit on the phones all day if nothing is going on, because it's so easy for me to be where I need to be at the drop of a hat. Actually, given how much it inspires my workers, I like hitting the phones.
Then there's the proprietary stuff I can't talk about - the meetings with human resources and marketing staff, occasional briefings from our legal department, and coordination of community activities. Plus the odd call from the company's owner from his friggin yacht.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Pretty simple. Assuming that any serious problems haven't arisen, which is likely if you're doing your job, they shouldn't show up every day. First thing to do every day is make a list of the things you want to accomplish that day. If your only task is put out fires or you think that is your goal, management probably isn't for you. While that is important, developing methods of preventing fires and making overall operations smoother is a general goal for any manager.
1) turn computer on
2) 0xC0FFEE
3) e-mail
What is this Morning of which you speak?
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
If they wouldn't hire an IT manager that was in-the-know enough to read and stay on top of Slashdot (compared to, say, CNet or MSNBC or CIO Magazine), then they weren't worth working for.
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
Yes, yes. I was going to post, but you said it well enough. I will add only that some IT Managers continue to have skills, hone them, and share them generously with the company. It's a business deal: they treat me right, I treat them as if my life depended on it. Given the importance of good health insurance, my life may well depend on what I give back. Being an involved manager is a good thing. It can keep you on the roster when other people are being cut loose.
It's only funny until someone gets hurt. Then, it's hilarious.
SANS Internet Storm Center :)
to find out what may make my customers computers silly.
When you want a computer system that works, just choose Linux. When you want a computer system that works, just, choose
I retired from IT because of IT managers. I assume the first thing they do is hide the horns.
if i was to hire an IT guy I'd like to hear that they checked their email first thing in the morning. nothing worse than having to wait a day for IT support to get back.
First thing I do is make a pot of coffee, toast a bagel, drink my coffee while eating my bagel and reading my Java sites.
READ THE LOG FILES!
The first thing I look at each morning are the diagnostic lights on each of my servers as I walk by to my desk, followed by the lights on the communications equipment and the display on the UPS. While there are certainly many other tools out there that I could use, I've found that looking for anomalous lights on my servers is the quickest, easiest, and most efficient way to tell me if there's something that needs my attention.
After I get to my desk it's Fluke to quickly check the status of connectivity at our field offices.
And then it's probably Slashdot for the next hour until somebody else actually arrives at work and I need to start looking busy.
If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
lol... the first thing I do is read slashdot. It is firefox's home page. Read slashdot or check email... that is usually the first.
1. wake up and check work email/meeting requests 2. take a shower 3. drive almost 2 hour to work :(
4. drink lots and lots of coffee
5. start writing remediations for exploits
well I look up job finder for a better job and more benefits with less work.. then snoop at some hardcore porn followed up by reading the bosses emails to see if there is anything I should know.. then onto slashdot followed by writing some code for a home made game I'm working on.. by this time its 5:30pm so I hang about until everybody else has left the building apart from the boss, say bye and head home to spend my hard earned cash.
A question like this asks you to recognize if the interviewer is really asking you the question as stated or are they asking for a dialog. This sounds like a dialog question, meaning they expect you to ask them questions. They are either looking to see your soft-skills or they want to see your ability think logically in a free form flowing question. If they really just want an answer, then I think you need to ask yourself what is the most important thing an IT manager manages? Its not the hardware or the projects or the software. The most important thing an IT manager manages is his/her people. So the first thing you do in the morning needs to be around your people. "I would first remind myself that I am entering work, and that I manage a great team of people each striving to contribute to the goals of this company and their own career and their personal lives. So each person at work has home life issues, good days and bad days. I may be having a bad day. I need to be in tune with myself first, and then I am better able to be in tune with my team mates. Work/life balance, career development, and project schedules all have to be balanced. This self-reminder is the first thing I would do. Then I would focus my day on meeting our commitments and maintaining work/life balance. Daily standup etc." That's what I would say...and what I do.
* Google Reader ....
* Outlook
* Gmail
* Black Tea
* Start working
Say good morning to the receptionist.
This is one of the most brilliant things I've ever read on Slashdot.
Of course, I've always done it - chatted with her, heard the gossip, heard the upcoming meetings, etc. - I was being friendly because she was someone I work with; I liked her and valued her. But never even given a second thought to her power. And you're absolutely right.
Every time I needed the boardroom, I got it. Every time I was swamped, she'd have just "happened by" the old LaserJet III in accounting to peel a label out of the fuser. And every time the general manager was in a bad mood, she called me up about something mundane (in retrospect, transparently mundane) and managed to drop it into the conversation.
Yvonne, I miss you.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
I work for a small manufacturing company. I am 50% of the IT department. My job title in the HR database says "IT Manager". In practice, that means I'm CTO, system administrator, network administrator, server operator, software architect, DBA, phone guy, cable guy, automated test equipment tech, webmaster, desktop support, and that's just the short list. I also keep tabs on our application software specialist, but ultimately, I manage technology more than I manage people. If it uses electricity and isn't greasy or wet, it's my problem. (If it's greasy or wet, it's Maintenance's problem.) I like it this way; it keeps me from getting bored. To each their own, but don't assume yours is the only way. :)
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Check server status, complain to the SA and NA if they are down, check uptime logs. Check with night shift to see what issues there are to cover for the day. Check time sheets, see who logged in and who is late for work. Look at the project manager software and see who is slacking off and set priorities for things that are running late. Write emails and make phone calls about tardiness and missing deadlines. Try calling those who didn't make it into work yet, remind them that they need to be at work. Check email for priorities, sort out the important email and reply to it, move the less important email to a folder to be looked at later. Check calendar for meetings today, get notes in order try to think of questions to ask in meetings and answers for questions you are asked.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
See title for the message. That's all I need to say. But Slashdot's system freaks if you don't type something in the title box and the text box every piddlin' damn time, even when the title box or the text box said just enough what needed to be said.
In case you've forgotten by now, that answer, whose brevititious wit has been extinguished by Slashdot's artless control filters, was "Eat a bowl of stupid."
Damn...that was a very accurate description of my last job.
Fucking Goldmine...
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
1. check email ...
2. check website (i'm a web developer)
3. check slashdot and osnews for any major headlines
4.
5. PROFIT!
Unless he's spiderman.
Back when I was an IT Manager, the very first thing I'd do when I went in the door in the morning was listen. The room had a particular sound, and if was even the slightest bit off, that usually meant that one of the servers was doing something bad (ranging from thrashing a disk to being completely dead). Smell was a good indicator once, too...
Informatus Technologicus
First thing I do when I get in is:
Plot out my day, typically I have between 8 to 12 hours of planned meetings every day. I decide which ones I will attend, which I will have someone in my org attend and which ones will not be attended. They go into my "book."
Then I look in my "book" at what I accomplished yesterday and moved any important unaccomplished tasks from yesterday to today. At the same time I look at my meeting list for today and add any items that need accomplishing (I will get more items as the day wears on, but these are the important things, the long term goals that don't get constant "oh god oh god oh god the world is on fire" focus and you can lose them if you are not diligent.)
Then I start to wander around the floor to find people and ask them how things are going and getting feel for what they are up to, since I get in about a half hour before they do I catch them before they are doing anything important. I also have 2/3rds of my folks spread around the world so I tend to use instant messenger to talk to them as well, our European folks typically have a few more hours to go and our Indian ones will stay up late to catch me at 8 am.
Then I head downstairs for a diet pepsi and then typically take my first call of the day. I spend the rest of the day meeting all the time focused on my goals to make sure I clear off as many as I can in a day.
"What is the first thing you do when you get to work in the morning?"
I'd start on another chapter of: IT policies and procedures: Tools and techniques that work.
The first thing I do in the morning when I get in is to check last night's backup tape.
Your reply was completely wrong and your rant was irrelevant.
First of all, any good IT manager gets into the office before the receptionist does.
Second, if you have to single-out the female receptionist and only the receptionist to treat politely then you're a an infantile narcissist who's overcompensating for a misogynistic streak.
And you're a nincompoop.
Treat everyone in the office with a bit of respect and you won't need to schmooze the receptionist whenever you want to get something accomplished.
First thing I do in the morning is to check my previous night's backup
My first half hours is basically:
In the door to my inbox, say hi to the people in that area, and the receptionist.
Usually have a convo or 2 depending on whats happening that day in the office.
Go down, check my email, get a glass of water, check my voicemail.
Respond to all that stuff that occurred, call clients etc, and then start my regular day an hour later.
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
I usually arrived late...
Mondays are always jinxed, when you live in a building with spotty energy problems (please don't make me laugh by questioning why our systems lacked proper electricity backup!)
OK, to answer seriously... Meet and greet each and every person under my charge (I had a small team of eight people), I usually asked:
All this should take 30 minutes, tops, for any similarly sized team. but it'll save you endless grief...
I wish I could filter out the annoying Pickens articles...
Why does everyone seem to be answering as if the question were: First Thing a Systems Admin Does in the Morning?
So far I haven't seen anything that resembles the level at which a Manager of IT operates. What Manager of IT gets paged to come into work to fix a systems problem?!?! Insanity.
"Check monitors / logs. For me this means disk space monitors, MRTG bandwidth reports, backup statuses, etc."
Dashboards.
Get lunch. I'm not a morning person.
They want honest answers, so BS is a bad idea. But pure honesty is also bad. For instance, if you read Slashdot first thing, be honest about that, but lie about your motivation (I like reading Slashdot more than doing my job. Example: The first thing I do when arriving to work is to get coffee and read Slashdot online for 15 minutes. I find that the variety of technical news helps set me in the proper frame of mind for the rest of the day. Also, it allows me time when my staff knows that I am available for them to come in with various problems at the begining of the day without interupting my schedule.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
and check whether my favorite p0rn page has any new pics.
That was by far, the most ignorant response on slashdot I have ever seen..
The receptionist is a key player, far more important that most managers in a building. He or she knows all, and usually they are nice people to talk to anyways because who else wants to do that type of job, and have to deal with the amount of crap.
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
I like to stay up late so that I can sleep at the office for a few hours. I've found that I can lean back and fall asleep in my chair while looking like I'm working.
I would open the door to enter my office :-))
cb
At my place of employment, my boss' (the IT manager) schedule goes something like:
Arrive at work two hours late
Check the internet for 30min until the 1000 meeting
Muck up someone's workstation and pull someone from doing something important to fix it
Waste some money on crap and delay spending money on necessary supplies
Make a random problem an emergency and pull someone from doing something important to fix it
Go home shortly after lunch, maybe stay 'late' and leave about 1430
No, I'm not bitter at all ^_^
I roll out of bed and knock out 100 push-ups as fast as I can. It's a good 'wake me up' and keeps me from getting lazy/smooshy.
1. Slap the alarm clock off the dresser and across the room.
2. Crack open a beer while pulling up SlashDot (it IS liquid bread, is it not?).
3. Finish beer while finishing reading SlashDot.
4. Pop open a 1L Diet Coke while checking email.
5. Head to bathroom to shit, shower, and shave.
6. Get dressed.
7. Leave.
One weekends, I only do #'s 1, 2, 3, and 5.
Honestly, the article title could have been worded a bit better.....
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
The answer realy depends. Do you vant the truth or the correct answer?
:-)
The truth:
Im getting myself a huge coffelatte. After that I check the logs off all machine and read my mail. Then I surf on slashdot.
The real answer: (from school)
You should walkaround and say hi to everyone and makesure they dont have any problems. If noone seems to have any problems you go read the serverlogs and takecare of the nigthly backup.
Whats wrong with 'real answer'
Noone realy work in the morning they all drink thire coffe!
Dude, I actually like SOX. It means that, as a database developer, I am not allowed to touch the production databases.
This in turn means that I am not allowed to do production support.
This again means that I'm not liklely to receive phone calls at 3am, which I like just fine.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
The problem is, how do you know someone's answer is a lie just because it doesn't match your One True Answer(TM)?
I know people who don't drink coffee at all for example, and, yes, they work in IT. Honestly, until I was in the late 20's, I didn't either. I'm naturally hyperexcitable, and coffee really doesn't help with that. Other people have blood pressure problems, heart problems, god knows what else that doesn't go well with caffeine.
Just having a nerdy job doesn't mean it's predestined that you skip sleep and are a zombie in the morning. If you can't answer anything but, "Mmmmmpph? Grrrrrrumph. Mrphythuber kurbendurby! Mrffff" before you had your coffee -- and that's at least one hour after you woke up, since you had to at least eat, dress and drive to work, even if you skipped shower -- it just means you skipped entirely too much sleep lately, nothing more. It just means you're the kind who can't plan your time well even at home, so, if I'm to be mean, as far as fitness for IT goes, why should anyone trust you to estimate your projects and better?
It may be a somewhat more common syndrome among nerds, but that's as far as I can tell just a consequence of the general attitude of "I'm right by definition, everyone else is wrong" (including the doctors who say you need 8 hours of sleep) and "I'm fundamentally different from everyone else, I'm a sort of superman". Whereas the "lowlier" people will just accept their fate and go to sleep, the nerd knows he's such a complete genius, that he's obviously right in every idea he has, including "I'll just play one more Civ 4 turn"... at 4 AM.
Or what about people who understood it as "the first job-related thing you do in the morning?" I mean, otherwise, the honest first thing would have been "I hit the alarm clock" or "i get out of bed".
At any rate, that's the problem I have with bullshit "let's see who's honest" questions at job interviews. More often than not they don't measure whether you lied or not, but whether you picked one of the acceptable lies.
E.g., in your example of measuring "sincerity", someone who doesn't drink coffee would have more chances of passing your interview by telling a _lie_. "Oh, yes, I drink a coffee like everyone else in IT." You're not measuring whether someone lies or not, you're actually applying a flawed stereotype and requiring people to lie that they're the embodiment of that flawed stereotype.
To illustrate it with another popular bullshit question, the "what's your biggest deffect?" used to be all the rage, and probably still is in a lot of places. So people starting getting rejected as liars when everyone started saying "I'm a perfectionist." It must be a lie, right?
Well, that's good and fine, but what about people who are genuinely OCPD cases? It's actually a somewhat common personality disorder among nerds, and you just need to witness some of the flamewars or threads on Slashdot to see that some (but, of course, not all) genuinely lack shades of grey between white and black. Of course, most would fail to see anything wrong with it. They'll be convinced that they're the ones who have the right, high-enough standards, and everyone else is just an underachiever with lax standards. But many have been told "you're too much of a perfectionist" often enough to at least be aware that by the faulty standards of everyone else it's perceived as a defect.
So what happens when someone is actually honest when they put that on the form? Right, they'll get rejected as a liar, because that's not one of the acceptable answers. In effect, paradoxically, they'd have had their chance to pass for a honest guy, if they thought up some creative lie.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Lots of answers are off, so to speak. The dude was looking at IT manager positions, and sure lots of answers here are from admin guys. Sure you check the logs first thing, look for any emergencies - that's what you get paid for.
Most manager types I know indeed check their email first. That's where anything important for them that didn't reach them on the mobile went.
Few do what a good manager should do: Say hi to the team first thing after coming in.
And that, I think, is what the question was aimed at. Like many questions during interviews, it's a trap. What they are really asking is where you see your primarily responsibility. Any variation of "saying hi to the team" means you consider yourself the leader of your people first. Any variation of "email, slashdot, websites" means you see yourself as a manager of stuff. Variations of "getting coffee" probably say you care about yourself and your own well-being first.
None of that is good or bad in itself. But they might have a preference for the job that's at stake.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I have a tick list of about 15 jobs - hecking servers, checking databases etc. Most of these checks are also automated, so I could probably forgo my list but it means I have a structured routine first thing.
:-). It's now 08:33.
Also means if I am not in I know the technicians have also checked this list.
I then have a coffee and comment on slashdot
try to make ends meet, you're a slave to money, then you die
Personally, I like to save power. I hate walking by windows afterhours and seeing a zillion retarded screensavers wasting resources. What idiocy.
First thing I do is turn off the thousands of BitTorreent clients I have installed in our offices all over the world. You can never have enough porn.
is remind everyone that I'm a know it all douchebag...again!
I drink tea you insensitive clod!!!!1one
In this world nothing is certain but death, taxes and flawed car analogies.
--- This meme is memory intensive
uhm... wake up?
I'm an IT Manager in a company in Belgium and here's what I do when I arrive at work: 1) I check email (I use to have done it from home already) 2) If he's there and not busy, I have a chat with the General Manager about current projects 3) I check websites for news, hardware news, and slashdot
scratch balls, walk to toilet, empty bladder...
We ask questions just like this regularly and actually "coffee" would very likely be the single best way to start your answer.
If you are in an interviewing situation, it is already known that you are competent from a technical viewpoint so we don't need to hear about any cool monitoring software you'd like to install. Personality type and efficiency in work are the traits the interviewers are after, more so for manager level positions. An honest and (to some point) witty beginning for a question like this is a good way to start. Don't say you will read ./ or any other news, because that would imply you will waste time at work doing something you really should be doing at home. That would be too honest. A cup of coffee is a simple pleasure and doesn't interfere with your job.
Personally I would give full points to an answer like:
Coffee - Check for any pressing emergencies - Socialize a little with coworkers for any work related things you need to know
An honest, thought-out and self-confident answers are the way to go. Questions are designed to throw you out of balance and see if you have these traits even in a surprising situation. A bit of humour one or two times in an interview is also good, it shows you are in control of the social situation. It is not so much *what* you say but *how* you say it.
If the interviewer is a random executive and it is clear he/she doesn't do interviews very often, it is good to be a little less honest and to show your technical expertise every now and then.
Coffee, slashdot, check my email's (cron logs, emails from nagios).... then take a dump :)
Lifesigns: Present Hair: Escaped Age: Increasing
I don't know, as a "manager" this first thing I would do (provided there are no immediate emergencies) is check on my staff to see who has called in sick and see if anyone under me needs assistance.
As a manager your priority should be to make sure your team is running smoothly and has all the resources they need to have a productive day.
No sig here...
Unplug the phone and begin to sleep.
Tea? I believed you until this statement.
Beware of geeks bearing formulas.
Hear, hear! Do not let such douchebaggery go uncalled-out.
Take a shit. Always.
... your job and you don't want to fuck up again? :-)
Morning? what is this "morning" you speak of ? I really don't know what you are talking about since I get up at 2:00PM every day...
Scratch your balls...
Hope is the currency of fools
I wake up to the sound of my gal grinding coffee beans. I roll out of bed, jump in the shower, and by the time I hit my desk with only a towel in (I live in Hawaii), my coffee is sitting on my desk waiting for me (thanks honey). I fire up IM to let my team know I'm around, and then check email focusing on responding to client email right away (they pay the bills). If any fires are underway, I will either have past IM logs beep me as trillian finishes firing up my many identities, or my team starts chirping at me about what is going on. I then fire up putty, dbVisualizer, FireFox and IE and start logging onto systems (like our bugtraq and internal project dashboard) and get status where appropriate. If I have a early meeting, I fire up my webcam and put on a nice shirt, shave and at least look good from the waist up (still with towel on sometimes). I lead a software engineering team remotely. Life is good.
Horns are really just a broken halo.
Coffee, then informal chat with each person who reports to me directly about what's up. In that order (important).
Job of a manager is to lead; you can't lead unless you (a) know what's on the mind of the people you are leading and (b) remind them the direction everybody's supposed to be heading in. I always say that a manager has two functions: setting direction and removing obstacles. You should spend less than 5% of your time setting direction and more than 95% of your time removing obstacles. Simple reason will show that that's how you ensure your department is spending the most time being productive.
So, you spend most of your time as a manager doing various kinds of communication. Informal communication is the best, because the most information is offered and retained; formal communications are for when you absolutely must have something on the agenda. You need both, but formal communication (meetings, memos/emails) should be infrequent and informal communication (shooting the shit) should be frequent.
I'm a solitary consultant these days, but I really miss working on a team.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
...nor have I played one on TV, but first thing in the morning I check slashdot for Princess Bride-related news items. Then coffee. Jim.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Scan email list for anything marked urgent, look to see if my voicemail button is flashing (people only call if it is a REAL emergency) and finally check my calendar to see when first meeting is of the day. Then coffee, read through non-urgent emails.
The first thing i do is verify if the coffee machine is working fine, if not i reboot it.
I have some RSS feeds which I scan wherein Slashdot is one of them. Dilbert and XKCD is some others. Check if there's some urgent mail I need to read (if it's urgent enough my boss prints it out and hands it to me while explaining it's contents, therefor removing the need for the mail and the printout). All while having my morning drink. Usually Jolt.
Every job that I've had in the past ten years has been like Office Space. First thing I do in the morning: Read my email while checking for/downloading frequent updates to mission critical software. It's all about the multitasking. (Yes, she knows it's a multipass.)
If I knew in advance exactly what I would be doing when I started work each morning, I'd automate it.
It is a nifty trick question, IMHO.
well, after I pull into the parking lot, my morning routine consists mostly of: 1) get coffee 2) unlock sever room, and check status of all machines 3) set up laptop on desk, and power up 3) have a smoke 4) get another coffee 5) check email 6) begin whatever tasks are ligned up for the day
I read the RSS Feeds from SANS ISC, Sophos, Network Associates, and Symantec to keep up with the latest cyberthreats. Then I read Slashdot ^_^
1) www.slashdot.org :-)
2) www.digg.com
3) www.uol.com.br
4) check my money in Internet Banking
I definitely would've told the truth about checking Slashdot. I make no attempt to hide listening to podcasts from Buzz Out Loud, checking my rss reader for new stuff on /., arstechnica, or any of the many other websites that have nothing to do with anything immediate to my job. The point is it shows an interest in the field that you work in; to make a conscious effort to stay up-to-date on as many points of information as possible and shows the boss (prospective boss) initiative.
Make coffee while reading Slashdot and other tech news. When Outlook (yik) eventually starts- I check email for any issues that may have come up overnight or over the weekend.
Working in the industry- I believe it is important to stay on top of tech news, especially when it comes to security issues.
So this is why managers always get in the office late, to make sure that all their direct reports are already in. Now that's leadership!
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Try to figure out how to herd cats, I would think...
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
Nobody here has yet thought to say "Wake up."
Aside from getting tea, is...well, read Slashdot and catch up on my web comics.
While doing that, I'll verify nothing went splat over night\over the weekend. Check the automated reports, make sure they went out, etc.
I get in at 6 ack emma...nobody else is around, aside from some poor Production line schmucks. No one to greet, no one to kick off the system if I need to do something.
Somewhere around 7, I'll start doing actual work. The first hour is just a good chance to get organized and caught up.
Wow...you guys go into work in the morning?
Im rather impressed.
My morning begins with a wake up call 2am~9am of some jr IT dude that says.
"OMG THE FILE SYSTEMS DOWN", and ofc my reply is that, "THEN FIX IT (Click)"
After which, there are usually a few choice words that I yell, and i go make myself coffee.
(n/t)
-- To dream a dream is grand, but to live it is divine. -- Leto ][
Some people who park breakfast at work leave the place so minging that I'm certain that they don't take a dump at home because it would scare the kids!
Foul...
Walk in door. /.
Get caffeine from fridge.
Check in with my IT and non IT coworkers. (I work in a small shop, about 30 people)
Start dealing with immediate problems if there are any.
Start music in my office.
E-mail, voice mails.
Check automated tools and processes.
( I supervise other people but I am usually the first in the office. Am I a manager?)
Open
Look at to do list, reorganize and start knocking items off.
The "good" answer comes from Peter Drucker. This might not land you the job, but it will at least neutralize the question. "I ask myself what I need to do today to best contribute to the organization." Drucker's point was that executive (and managers) rarely apply themselves effectively.
The answer sounds like you're kissing someone's butt, right? You are. So if that's what the good answer sounds like, why would you use this question? (Hint, its a horrible question.) There are very few positive answers to this question, but plenty of ways to shoot yourself in the foot...say by being honest. 90% of people will admit to coffee and email. The other 10% lie about it. This question is weeding out honest people, which is generally a bad thing to do in an interview.
My opinion - your mileage may vary
Brian
As I walk in the door, I can see the network monitoring station off in the distance. I can see if there's any red lights and if so, go over and investigate. If not, I've got my own monitoring console so I look for any red lights there. Then I open my email and look for my diagnostic emails that would go off if anything's gone messy. Then I check my "situation normal" mail to make sure everything's there. Finally I see if the users are complaining about anything. Then slashdot, user friendly, roughly drafted, digg, DU for the news. Then orca and some other diagnostics to check system performance.
Login -> Check Mail -> Coffee -> Gossip -> Lunch!!!!
...would pull me outside, roll one up, spark it, pass it to me, and ask "Which cable drop do you think those idiot forklift drivers are gonna snag and break today?" Seriously, that was like 99% of all of our network failures - idiot forklift drivers trying to watch the scattered ass walking around instead of paying attention like they should be. I think maybe one time it was due to actual hardware failure, every other time it was cable replacement due to forklift damage.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
These comments make so glad I'm self-employeed and not some cubicle Dibert...
"Office Space" was a MOVIE for chrissakes people, not the model for a lifestyle!
When are you gonna rise up, brandish those red Swinglines and get medieval on middle-management?
wakeup, coffee, email, slashdot, washroom, food if I remember. go to work. coffee (free coffee is better than no coffee) email, make sure backups are corrupted (errrr are not?) go on with day.
Granted, I'm the IT Manager for a Real Estate Development company, but here goes:
6:30 - Arrive at Office Building, enter my Office (leaving door open at this point), skim Slashdot/etc while drinking Coffee/Red Bull/Something else and munching on something.
7:00 - Door still open, I start on my second cup of coffee or can of Red Bull and fire up Email client and start hitting DEL repeatedly, occasionally skipping past something.
7:15 - Door still open, Start listening to my voice mail and hitting delete on pretty much every one, unless it's from the owner of the company, but he'd never call my office line anyways, so I generally just delete them all, if they need to get ahold of me, they have my cell phone number if it's an emergency, if they don't have it, they don't need to get ahold of me. At the same time I'm going through the emails that I didn't delete and occasionally responding with 1 or 2 cryptic lines, just enough to get the person confused enough to not email me again unless it's an emergency.
7:45 - Leave my office and walk down the hallway, checking in with the people who actually get to work on time and seeing if there are any problems that I need to address - if told they sent me an email, I notify them that I never received it and make them send it to me again (I think everyone is on to me when it comes to this).
8:00 - Enter my office and close the door. Turn on speaker phone and dial the hold music line so that if anyone knocks on my door I can just point at the phone and give them a stern look so they'll go away. Check emails again to see the emails from subordinates that I had previously deleted. Respond to them if needed. Browse the web for awhile.
9:00 - Leave my office and walk down the hall again, seeing who came in late, stop by break room and grab a bottle of water from the fridge.
9:15 - Leave office and let receptionist know that I'll be out on the "Job Sites" all day (AKA: Home).
9:15-9:30 - While heading home, call in to surbordinates at Job Sites and check their status.
9:30 - Go back to bed and finish sleeping off hangover from night before.
By the time I've gotten to work I've already checked the logs and my email (first thing, while making breakfast) - which is my first warning of emergencies / attention-requiring details.
Therefore the first thing I do is say hi to folks. I check in with the receptionist (front line), the sales department (main users of the stuff I write these days) and the tech department (folks most likely to be able to fix their own problems).
By the time I reach my desk I already have a good idea on how the day is going to go.
Being sociable has never hurt my work - and I end up enjoying the company of those I work with more.
Also - it has meant I've occasionally been able to deal with problems before they caused "side effects".
It has also meant some expansion of work but that seems to be a good investment for growth within the company.
1.Change tapes. Our ITM says no coffee or chat until this is done! /. thread. think better of it
2.Read bbc, slashdot, check email
3.Consider replying to
4.Get coffee and colon busting omelette loaded with fauxbeurre
5.Meditate and PROFIT$$$$
I've worked in many different environments, both as a staff member and as an outside consultant.
After the "real" IT staff, who do I go chat with about a given system's issues? The secretaries, receptionists, administrative assistants, or the "lowly" office staff.
Why?
Their vision isn't clouded by anything other than what is preventing them from getting their job done. They give some of the most honest and forthright answers you're likely to find... Whereas the IT staff likes to play with toys, the execs want to make sure their existing investments are protected, the other managers want to make sure their decisions were right, etc...
They just know that whatever is going in is preventing them from doing there job in a very specific and tangible way.
Smoke crack and worship satan
Walk in the door, crack my Diet Dew at 9am, check the local servers and test our connections. Then I go over the firewall appliance logs and check admin messages from the system. After that I make a round in the office to see if anyone has any problems, then it's back to the grind doing my webmaster duties on our manual site *blech*. Once the initial priority web updates are done I check our backups for continuity and address any failures. Then I cruise the day with the IT winds addressing what ever when ever.
No significant down time in over 5 years (one hardware failure on one server for 4 hours, big blackout on power here in NYC, manhole fire in mid-town that knocked out our primary and backup T1s for two days, and one software failure from a SP2 upgrade to Win2K3/Exchange2000 server that had to be rolled back that took a couple of hours) on the infrastructure side, typical hardware failures and software bugaboos in a smallish office (few failed cheapo Dell HDs, one reload from crippled registry in WinXP, couple of Adobe product reloads which seems to be the norm).
I'd like to interject (although everyone seems already gone), because I believe there's nothing wrong with "contact points", it is in no way derogatory or assholish to one's staff. I think it refers specifically to teh feeling of "being in on it".
.pdf of the Oedipus article to interested readers.
It's true that the minute one becomes a manager they step into a different world. They are one of "them" now, one step closer to the company core and therefore one more reason not to trust/side with them. I read somewhere about a structure in mentality similar to Oedipus' complex, where non-mgmt. staff sees the company entity as the "mother" they are trying to accede to (by moving up in the ranks) whereas their direct superior taken on the role of the "father" that is blocking access to the "mother", do you see where I'm going with this? No matter how good one's working relationship with their boss is, there will always be a gap between mgmt. and non-mgmt. The manager is usually the one expected to bridge that gap.
I don't have a link, but will forward
Microsoft put the "sucks" in "success".
I am a some-what type of IT manager and the first thing I do in the morning is take a deep breath and get ready to get frustrated.
This used to be my ritual when I worked for a company that had me managing a large number of construction sights. Tuesday morning was the big construction manager meeting at 7:30 they roll in at 7:00. I always got in at 6:30 booted up the computer then I headed to the coffee area and started brewing the 6 carafes of coffee everyone would chug down in the morning. From that spot I would talk to every site manager, and local user in this section of the company. By 7:15 they all thought I was a great guy making the coffee and I new every single problem or need in the company and would have a list of what to do for the rest of the week. Then it was off to email voice mail and checking the other projects.
Yeah, it sure is.
t e.do?catg=638 o yment/Local/index.aspx
For those of you who don't like long commutes and take the time to throw a pity party every time you encounter someone who doesn't have one, may I recommend a few career alternatives:
http://www.mcdonalds.com/usa/work.html
http://walmartstores.com/GlobalWMStoresWeb/naviga
http://www.subway.com/subwayroot/AboutSubway/Empl
See something for everyone.
Feel free to mod -1 "snarky"
$diff terrorists hippies
$
$rm -rf *terrorists *hippies
Put pants on one leg at a time. Take off pants put underwear on inside. Put pants on one leg at a time.
Stand in the mirror, take a slew of anti-depressants and say "It's show time!"
Call CIO and leave voicemail saying what a great idea moving to Vista is going to be. While watching Microsoft sales rep get dressed.
Undress Microsoft sales rep and negotiate Vista licensing one more time.
Slap Microsoft sales rep on behind, wink and say "See YOU next version baby."
Send email to team that you will be in Vega for the week for a Microsoft Best Practices Seminar.
Get brain sucked out my Starship Trooper queen bug.
Disconnect from the collective regen pods with goal of assimilating Accounting.
Comb right pointing hair. Comb left pointing hair.
Sift through 500 mbs of proxy logs taking notes...
If you subscribe to the GTD model, the things that worked "In the early days of the 20th century" don't work today because our requirements are different. The "tomorrow list" is seen as demoralizing and redundant.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Read slashdot may not have been a bad answer...You could be more vague and say "read tech sites." Any good IT manager does this, In the days of your, it was 'Read tech magazines'.
IT managers need to be abrest of at least the basics of what is going in in the tech world.
Another:
Look at my list of goals for the week, then make my daily list. Bonus point if they have a franklin...extra bonus points if you bother to look up the Franklin terminology. FYI, the Franklin PLanner system is pretty go, I suggest any manager take a look at it.
Another,
Skim your email for emergency emails.
then
Call support, or your support person, and see if there where in calls.
Then read your email.
Crisis managment first, even if it is just touching base.
Remember, this is an job interview, not a job performance review.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
1. Greet my manager and co-workers.
2. Grab a drink while checking email and voicemail.
3. Run call center reports for the previous day and track down any problems back to the mass between the keyboard and chair.
4. Check for errors on callpilot, symposium, and the PBX.
5. Read slashdot etc...
6. Then sit around waiting for something to go wrong.
Not always in that order.
Goldmine still exists?
my associative arrays can kick your hash - TCL
Eating breakfast at work has the benefit that you arrive 15 minutes before everyone else, you plan your day, address significant problems while eating. People see that you arrive early and not that you are actually just enjoying breakfast. Same applies for the end of the day, plan the next day, take 15 minutes, that way people see you work longer than 80% of everyone else but the 20% which remain see you leave, as you manage to finish all your work in one day.
This is my sig.
I first look at the company dashboard, then the IT dashboard then, finally, my schedule. Since it is usually about 6:15 AM, I next answer e-mails. They call this managing.
Back, demented Ogrons.
> The receptionist is a key player, far more important that most
> managers in a building. He or she knows all, and usually they are nice
> people to talk to anyways because who else wants to do that type of
> job, and have to deal with the amount of crap.
So you'd kiss up to the receptionist for the sole purpose of getting favors from that person and you have no moral problem with that?
No qualms about manipulating that person solely for your material benefit?
No reason strikes your fancy that would promote being nice to anyone else in the office?
There is only so many hours in the day, you have to pick and choose who you can spend the time with, and it might as well be extra beneficial to.
It isnt the sole purpose, but it has that nice benefit.
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
I visit Zombo.com and have a necessary minute of relaxation and medition
You just got troll'd!