I'm the system administrator for two really different organizations. During the usual work week, I'm managing systems at a small fastener distributorship. During the weekend I manage systems at my Naval Reserve unit (NMCI be damned).
There are some similarities between the two that really bear saying.
1) Dedicate yourself to communicating with everybody. You are after all, working in a communications capacity. Your job is to keep all these machines communicating. So keep your department communicating with the users, management, and the guy passing by on the street. Let them know when you will be performing maintenance, let them know when a new machine arrives, let them know when you will be out for lunch, let them know when your taking a vacation. Let them know everything. Everybody gets the impression your doing something, and when you say you need something, people are more likley to connect the problem you've been having with a problem THEY have been having.
2) Make friends with the senior managment. This is perhaps the hardest thing I do. It takes alot of effort, and patience, but by keeping from alienating the decision maker(s), and putting for the effort to keep them close to the vest, makes each day easier. It doesn't guarantee a yes, but it makes the 'no' a lot easier to deal with when it's followed by details like "taxes are due, mabye next quarter." or "I'm thinking of going in another direction, have you ever heard of Linux?".
3) Work ethic, work ethic, work ethic. Show up for work ready to work, and ready to work with people. Cloistering yourself in the office only makes your situation worse (although I understand that the server room is not in the lobby). And getting surly with users (no matter how inane their questions) can only serve to make you look like the loser here. I have reported users for "abuse of company resources" when they called multiple times in a day for the same trouble. But that was an absolute last resort. And only after openly hostile behavior from them. Basically, I use trouble tickets with users as an opportunity to get to know them, and cement bonds with the different departments.
4) After all that, I'm basically left with....
a)Do your level best to keep the uptime counter looking big.
b)Own up to mistakes, and fix them.
That's all my bosses really want from their IT departments.
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I'm the system administrator for two really different organizations. During the usual work week, I'm managing systems at a small fastener distributorship. During the weekend I manage systems at my Naval Reserve unit (NMCI be damned). There are some similarities between the two that really bear saying. 1) Dedicate yourself to communicating with everybody. You are after all, working in a communications capacity. Your job is to keep all these machines communicating. So keep your department communicating with the users, management, and the guy passing by on the street. Let them know when you will be performing maintenance, let them know when a new machine arrives, let them know when you will be out for lunch, let them know when your taking a vacation. Let them know everything. Everybody gets the impression your doing something, and when you say you need something, people are more likley to connect the problem you've been having with a problem THEY have been having. 2) Make friends with the senior managment. This is perhaps the hardest thing I do. It takes alot of effort, and patience, but by keeping from alienating the decision maker(s), and putting for the effort to keep them close to the vest, makes each day easier. It doesn't guarantee a yes, but it makes the 'no' a lot easier to deal with when it's followed by details like "taxes are due, mabye next quarter." or "I'm thinking of going in another direction, have you ever heard of Linux?". 3) Work ethic, work ethic, work ethic. Show up for work ready to work, and ready to work with people. Cloistering yourself in the office only makes your situation worse (although I understand that the server room is not in the lobby). And getting surly with users (no matter how inane their questions) can only serve to make you look like the loser here. I have reported users for "abuse of company resources" when they called multiple times in a day for the same trouble. But that was an absolute last resort. And only after openly hostile behavior from them. Basically, I use trouble tickets with users as an opportunity to get to know them, and cement bonds with the different departments. 4) After all that, I'm basically left with.... a)Do your level best to keep the uptime counter looking big. b)Own up to mistakes, and fix them. That's all my bosses really want from their IT departments.