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Ask Slashdot: What Are The Lesser-Known Roles Of The IT Department?

Posted by EditorDavid on from the have-you-tried-turning-it-off-and-on? dept.

chadenright writes: On the same day that I was hired into a new IT position, my new employer also bought a pair of $1,500 conference phones from a third-party vendor, which turned out to be defective; I've spent a chunk of the last two weeks arguing with the vendor. During the process I've learned that, as the IT guy, I'm also the antibody of the corporation and my job is to prevent not just malware and viruses but also junk hardware from entering my business's system. As a software engineer who is new to the IT side of things, I have to ask, what else have you learned about IT?
What fresh hell has this software engineer gotten themselves into? Leave your best answers in the comments. What are the lesser-known roles of the IT department?

5 of 355 comments (clear)

  1. If you thought enterprise IT was just software by bferrell · · Score: 5, Informative

    You may have been living in some sort of fantasy world of siloed functions.

    In a large enough organization, there might be specialists in telecom, desktop hardware and server hardware, but usually IT, in general, is charged with all facets of the IT plant... Workstations, servers, networking hardware and telecom (including switching, carrier interconnect and endpoints like conference phones).

    If what you want is to JUST develop software, you need to be in a different role.

    1. Re:If you thought enterprise IT was just software by usuallylost · · Score: 4, Informative

      It also varies upon where you are in the company. I am the sole IT person working at small, about 100 people, remote office of a much larger company, about 8,000 people. I am the only person in the building who has tools. I get pretty much anything that breaks even if it isn't technically IT related. A lot of the stuff will eventually get handled by the appropriate departments in the company but I am pretty much always the first responder. In addition to my regular IT work I've fixed doors, the refrigerator, the microwave, a garbage disposal, turned off more than one plumbing fixture that was spraying water, assembled furniture and probably more stuff I've forgotten. If I was working at one of our bigger offices I'd wouldn't do all of that. On the other hand, I'd have to commute to one of our bigger offices so it is a reasonable trade off in my view. Besides this other stuff gives me the occasional change of pace.

    2. Re:If you thought enterprise IT was just software by trybywrench · · Score: 1, Informative

      "One day, the janitor was out for a week. I was called out to fill the position in his absence. In fact, just to show how hard of a worker I was, I took extra effort to clean the restrooms and mops the floors more thoroughly. Never did see that guy come back to work. However, I was rewarded via holding the janitor position for the remainder of my employment (which I quit after six months). Why would I stick around?? I worked harder, and made LESS money as it was still minimum wage WITHOUT tips. Yeah, I said to myself "fuck this shit, I'm out of here!"."

      you know, it's your own fucking fault you weren't rewarded and you know it. You have to negotiate these things, you volunteer to take on this other role and demonstrate your mastery and then you negotiate compensation for it. Is that what you did? No, you just went through the motions and then got pissed because no one held your hand and walked you to a bigger paycheck. Instead of doing the mature thing you just up and quit leaving everyone else wondering what happened.

      If, after making your case, your employer stays fast and says no pay increase then you agree to disagree and part ways as professionals. Everyone knows where they stand and there's no mystery or hard feelings.

      This kind of "oh poor me, look how bad i was treated for just being nice" is such utter bullshit it drives me crazy. If you don't ask, negotiate, and just be honest with yourself and your employer over these things then how could it possibly ever turn out any different?

      --
      I came to the datacenter drunk with a fake ID, don't you want to be just like me?
    3. Re:If you thought enterprise IT was just software by Anon-Admin · · Score: 5, Informative

      Having worked in IT for over 30 years and having worked for Fortune 100 companies, I have never see it work this way.

      I have seen C-Level executives come in with a great new idea about how they were going to save the company millions by changing everybody's desktop to BYOD. Thus eliminating the need for the company to buy, maintain, and repair desktop systems. That lasted all of 30 days before security and legal come down on him.

      In today's corporate IT environment we have to meet regulations. They may be something as simple as SOX or as complex as GxP. In those regulatory environments having an open network where everyone can bring in any piece of equipment and plug it is becomes a major problem. As such there are policies in place, there is training, there are physical restrictions, and there are software enforced restrictions.

      I am currently working for a rather large Aerospace company that was recently acquired by another company. The new management seem to have problems understanding that having everyone on one network is an issue. The new company has locations in China, Taiwan, and Korea. The company they bought handles government contracts from everyday items to items that are classified. It is a violation of federal law to have foreign nationals on our network because of the government contracts we have.

      So, from a management point of view I am sure that having everyone able to bring in whatever they want and connect it sounds great. however in the real world IT and IT Security are the ones that have to, not only manage them, but they also work to mitigate the legal risk. Some of the more important jobs in IT, is to protect the company's digital assets. Including understanding the laws, regulations, requirements, and licensing of the products the company uses.

  2. Shooting nekkid chix by dasgoober · · Score: 4, Informative

    I was the web/IT guy for an adult photography company. This company used to take test poloroids of in-coming models, to shop them around to the publishers, to determine if any of the publishers wanted the model to be featured in a layout. Now comes the advent of the digital camera, which would allow these test shots to be disseminated faster, and with less complications. So, being the IT guy, I'm tasked with working the digital camera, taking pictures of naked women in various poses, which jump-started a sideline business of being a nude (the girls, not me) photographer.
    And fueling a major portion of my sex life.