Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
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.
Masturbate. It's important you let them know you do this before you get to work. Sticky keys are nobody's friend.
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.
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.
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
Deal with the disasters first, after that everything in the day is a lightweight bonus. Generally speaking if you have to check on them, they are not sev 1. If they are sev 1 you should have been contacted by now via automated(monitoring software) or manual(minions) means.
Of course what is missed in this discussion is that the job is that of an IT manager and NOT SA and as such it is NOT your job to deal with the actual monitoring and fixing of anything (except, as mentioned above, maybe things of highest priority), it is SA's job. Your job to is to support SA's and make sure the emergencies ARE dealt with while also making sure all (including non-emergency) services are taken care of.
This is why sometimes a good SA does not make a good IT manager.
-Em
RelevantElephants: A Somatic WebComic...
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.
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.
At the bottom of the
Well, the first thing I do when I get to the office is fart. That way only the people with real concerns will dare approach me.
Badass Resumes
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
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.