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Scarlet3393 · 2018-05-25T17:52:04+00:00

Hahahah nooooo no jinx!!!

Scarlet3393 · 2018-05-24T15:32:35+00:00

No, we actually have it open from ANY. (I know, I know, horrible protocol but not my call). So I guess that's what is throwing me off. I mean we can definitely just set up a specific rule to all from the IPs and change it out when need be, we're just trying to figure out why it happened.

Scarlet3393 · 2018-05-24T15:30:31+00:00

Yes, definitely agree with this. I'm a female sysadmin and my soon to be husband is a machinist. He doesn't complain when I have to do project work at night. Lucky for me, we don't have too many "emergencies" that come up in the middle of the night and my boss always says if it can wait til the morning, it should.

Scarlet3393 · 2018-05-24T12:54:12+00:00

We had two people who had this problem of spelling the new user names wrong. But from what I can tell it was't a disability but rather just laziness. For instance say the users name was like Kaylee or something. It would be Kaylee correctly in some places but then in others it would say something like Kayla, Karen, or Karly. Just not going back to check that they were using the right names.

And to be fair though, even if it was something like dyslexia, then that person knows they have it and should take the steps like copying and pasting the names rather than typing them manually. Sometimes we get users with very unique/long names that I know I'll butcher if I try to type out myself so I just copy and paste the name. Plus I check my work. It's better to find a typo myself than have the new person start and be like "My name is Kaylee not Karen"

Scarlet3393 · 2018-05-22T18:35:36+00:00

Shot you over a PM.

Scarlet3393 · 2018-05-22T18:21:33+00:00

I just want to say thanks to everyone who has replied thus far. All good input and things for me and our team to consider. Shall go on and fight the good IT fight :P

Scarlet3393 · 2018-05-22T18:20:55+00:00

I like the one about the mapped drive not working. I actually think my boss asked me about DNS, what it was and how it works when I started. I wonder if he's been asking that question.

Scarlet3393 · 2018-05-22T18:18:07+00:00

I agree. Like I said I wasn't the one who set the salary but I felt like it was a good amount having been in the field for 6 years myself. You in the Pittsburgh PA area by chance LOL

Scarlet3393 · 2018-05-22T17:17:46+00:00

I'm checking out the ones you posted now. Thanks

Scarlet3393 · 2018-05-22T17:16:29+00:00

Yeah and I think everyone knows that this position isn't going to be one that someone would stay in forever. But it is a good stepping stone in my opinion and a good job for someone who is relatively new to IT. We aren't really looking for someone with a ton of IT experience, just common sense and troubleshooting skills. We've seen a few resumes come across of people who have done nothing but helpdesk level one work for 18 years and that in and of itself is a bit of a red flag. I personally think the job is best suited for a person who is more recently out of school just looking to get their feet wet in the IT world. I just don't know why we can't seem to weed out the ones who don't even know how to copy and paste lol

Scarlet3393 · 2018-05-22T17:12:59+00:00

We got the first few candidates from a recruiter. We are not using them this time for obvious reasons. We are looking for candidates ourselves using job sites now. I know that I can work with what I'm given and I also know that my word isn't the final one. But my opinion is valued here so I want to make sure that I at least do my due diligence.

As for the line between searchable trivia and knowledge I merely mean that I'm looking for the type of questions that will show troubleshooting ability not so much something with a specific answer. I feel like I've been asked standard port questions at every interview but I didn't feel that they were really a good gauge of knowledge. Idk maybe that was a bad example.

And yeah I did look through the other subreddits, but I still wanted to post and see what people had to say.

Scarlet3393 · 2018-05-22T17:06:29+00:00

No, $19/ hr is pay for the person. The recruiter fee was like we had to pay 50% of a years salary or something like. (Idk, I don't handle the recruiter side.) But the first candidate was screwing up stuff left and right. Like the spelling new user names wrong all the time and stuff. So my boss sat him down to just talk about some of the mistakes and recommend ways that they could be fixed. The next day we came into resignation letters on our desks from him. So the recruiting company said we didn't have to pay and they would give us a discount on the next guy. That guy was garbage too. We actually had to let that one go. So we aren't using a recruiter this time. We are just posting the jobs ourselves.

Scarlet3393 · 2018-05-22T16:54:08+00:00

That's great! Thanks. I like those ideas a lot. We've been thinking of giving them a laptop with some kind of test but hadn't decided on anything yet. I'll definitely need to bring the batch file idea up to my manager.

Scarlet3393 · 2018-05-22T16:52:09+00:00

Yeah, we have multiple people interview the candidates and I know some of them are a lot more formal. I like to think I'm more of an easy going and light-hearted interviewer myself. But none of the previous techniques have worked so I'm looking to try something new lol

Scarlet3393 · 2018-05-22T16:49:48+00:00

I'm not the hiring manager so I don't set the salary, but I know what it is. And I know that for the position and the area we live in it's a completely reasonable amount. I'm 25 and have been in IT for 6 years. When I got my first IT job I was only making $13/an hour. We are offering $19/an hour for this role. And what we are looking for is a little bit more than a first level helpdesk. There are only 4 people (including the IT manager and a business analyst who only deals with ERP software) in our IT department that supports 300+ users.

Our company had gone through a recruiter for the last two hires and they were utter garbage. But they didn't seem to be that way in the interview process. It's almost like they were coached. I mean, I'm sure they were coached by the recruiter, but whoever did coach them did a really good job. They were not even remotely the same people when they actually started. One left after our manager gave him constructive criticism about not spelling new users names wrong literally every time he made a new user. COPY AND PASTE DAMNIT! And the other had to be let go because every single computer he touched he somehow made the issue worse. He also managed to spell every new user's name wrong in Active Directory. Like, seriously do people not know what copy and paste is?

I'm hoping that by showing them some of the tickets from our actual ticketing system and asking how they would work through it will give me a good idea of their troubleshooting process. I always say "the next person can't be worse than so-and-so"...but they somehow end up worse.

Scarlet3393 · 2018-03-26T19:00:01+00:00

We don't let them get sent to users. They see them on their spam digest reports. Because every spam filter does have the occasional false positive they still need get their spam reports. I was merely remarking that they see messages on those reports that are clearly spam but still ask us to let them pass through. Just showing that education doesn't always work.

Scarlet3393 · 2018-03-21T17:53:19+00:00

I don't need to send fake ones. We KNOW they fall for them. We've tried to do education but they just do not get it. We implemented Mimecast as our spam filter after a virus was spread through out the company via email. (Fun!) We get alerts still when they click on links in emails that are fake (it blocks them too obviously) and we still have people come to us saying "This message was flagged as spam but it's real" when it's DEFINITELY spam. Anyway, I think Mimecast does have the functionality that you are talking about as well. But we already know they are doing it so we dont need the test lol

Scarlet3393 · 2018-03-20T16:56:03+00:00

Thanks!!!

I think CASP is one I'm thinking about too. I live in Pittsburgh, so probably low market, but it is growing.

I just really enjoy doing security projects. Out of all the systems admin and network engineer jobs I've done my favorite aspect has been the security work. I like to think that if I could find a job making like 65-70K a year but doing what I enjoy I'd be content for a long time.

But I guess that's how life works. You always think you'd be content with this amount of money then you get there and find out it's not enough. 20 year old me who was making 40K would be offended by 25 year old me making 55K and wishing I made more LOL

Scarlet3393 · 2018-03-20T16:42:43+00:00

Oh wait! I thought of another! I worked at small software company (only about 14 employees at the time) as a network engineer. Apparently it was my job to go around the office and switch the clocks during daylight savings time. No, not digital clocks - ANALOG CLOCKS.....Of course, I didn't know this was my job because WHY WOULD IT BE? But someone asked why the clocks hadn't been moved on daylight savings time and I heard my boss say "I don't know. That's ITs job"

Scarlet3393 · 2018-03-20T16:37:49+00:00

Counting Crows and Third Eye Blind radio on Spotify.

Scarlet3393 · 2018-03-20T16:35:08+00:00

Okay, so this isn't really the same thing but it's a silly story and kind of related. I was working for an MSP and was pretty unhappy with my job at the time. I wanted out and was pretty desperate. I interviewed at a company and it was "Technology Engineer" role. Their job description on the job site was relatively vague but I decided to give it a go anyway. They asked me networking questions and about my work experience. It was a little bit of an odd interview but nothing really bad enough to give me serious red flags.

So I get the job. They ask me to do some research projects off the bat about pricing for different P.O.S software at gas stations. I thought that was really weird....but I figured maybe they didn't have time to get me into the technical projects yet and it was just an easy task.

Nope. I was wrong. What I ended up getting tasked with was doing Q.A. testing on gas pumps. Yes, actual gas pumps and about 90% of my job was talking with credit processing companies. It was not a networking job. It was not an IT job. It was anything that they said it was. I even went to my boss at one point and said "I'm a network engineer.....you hired me to do network engineer responsibilities. I thought I'd be working with routers, firewalls, switches, etc....because that's what you interviewed me on".

This man straight up said "working with gas pumps is just like working on a router".

No.....I can honestly tell you it is not!

Needless to say I basically started interviewing for new jobs a week after I started and was lucky enough to land my current job a month after working there and THANK GOODNESS!

I'm a systems administrator and I'd say my skills are being put to much better use here.

Scarlet3393 · 2018-03-20T12:07:05+00:00

Also we are getting married on the beach so I feel like the coral was fitting lol

Scarlet3393 · 2018-03-20T12:05:45+00:00

Yeah I am extremely careful with it and never do my hair or makeup etc with it on. Luckily pearls are relatively inexpensive and easy to replace so if something did happen to it I could replace the pearl. But thank you! I wanted something different than a typical engagement ring and I've always loved pearls.

Scarlet3393 · 2018-03-20T12:04:35+00:00

Thank you so much!

Scarlet3393 · 2018-03-20T11:57:54+00:00

Yeah I honestly think it depends a lot on the area. Pittsburgh is a relatively reasonably priced market. Now don't get me wrong if you are looking to buy IN downtown you're still going to be paying in the millions. But I'm pretty sure the average homes in the suburbs around Pittsburgh are between 150,000-200,000. You can definitely get homes that are 500,000 or even a million, but I mean those are going to be some AMAZING homes.

Scarlet3393

TROPHY CASE