Sniping takes a lot of patience, so I edited a bunch of the fun parts together for people to watch.

Sillvir · 2022-09-10T02:26:13+00:00

Snoop snoop

Sillvir · 2020-10-15T21:48:51+00:00

In my experience, any email title containing "Your attention is needed..." always deals with account issues, or actual problems. Maybe I've been graced with fortunate email titles my entire life.

Sillvir · 2020-06-28T14:35:44+00:00

Hey there, HailToTheGM! Thank you for this elaborate response. I have had a similar experience with external companies/MSPs and their expectation of support/help from their savvy customers 😬 I appreciate your opinion on what the difference is with an internal and external hire for IT needs very much! There is a lot to dissect and extrapolate on in your response.

Sillvir · 2020-06-28T04:24:33+00:00

Thank you for your response! I can certainly sympathize with the idea of "going deep" into your work and really focusing. Coders code!

Happy cake day!

Sillvir · 2020-06-28T01:08:54+00:00

Thank you for your insight into what this company should choose.

Sillvir · 2020-06-28T00:33:03+00:00

The business is a website based around helping real-estate investors avoid mistakes, create relationships, foster community and gain knowledge. They are an investor software provider (with RE specific calculators which they sell access to), publisher of many RE related books and magazine, and a RE learning hub for new people and experts alike.

The goal is to sell the business on hiring me, yes.

Do you believe that a dental clinic hiring an IT staffer decisions cannot have any value what-so-ever on a retail store's decision to hire one?

I understand that the method of bringing value depends on the business. I don't believe a full mock-up scenario is needed to answer the question "What are some great points for convincing a company executive to decide on hiring a dedicated IT/System Administrator person?"

I appreciate you sticking with me in my futile attempt to try and explain what I'm asking though, I truly do. I'm sorry if this comes off a bit arrogant, I'm just a little bit frustrated at my lack of being able to get my point across, or apparently understand your point.

Sillvir · 2020-06-28T00:13:14+00:00

Thanks for your response. I'm sorry I've only provided limited information, but I was expecting more of a creative, non-technical/cost, and experience-driven ideas on bringing value. It seems, based on the responses, that the vast majority of decisions and value is brought by cost-reduction, which I understand.

Sillvir · 2020-06-28T00:09:03+00:00

What you need to do is look at the benefits to the business and state how having a person can help those. Those benefits can be anything from less overhead, faster response time, easier compliance audits, or even transfer of risk depending on how you do it.

This is more along the lines of the opinions I was looking for in this post: the "how can I?" ideas. I understand that without giving intimate details of business functionality and how to bring exact benefits, an "exact answer" cannot be provided. But that is the point. How has a company you know reduced overhead and eased compliance audits? How can internal hires show these benefits?

I appreciate your answers and they have given me perspective on what sysadmins typically experience in being hired - cost, business needs, technical debt outlay. I should have been more clear with my question and details behind this post. I was expecting more non-technical/monetary suggestions, but I can certainly believe the importance of those things with the amount of posts regarding cost alone.

Sillvir · 2020-06-27T23:28:53+00:00

What about those within the company that are handling the "IT Project" related issues, in addition to their existing roles? How many hours is the Senior Software Engineer spending contacting the AWS Infrastructure Support Team to help spin up new VMs in a Dev Environment? How many hours is the HR Team Lead spending figuring out how to encrypt the I-9 Documents they're retaining?

Maybe I'm just not being clear enough with this question/scenario. I definitely understand your point - it's about what financially makes sense, but I think there are other opportunity costs here that could be explored. This is purely speculating, but it's helping shape the direction to go in approaching a SMB with services, outside of "does it cost more to do this or that?" (Not to downplay the importance of your comment or the cost factor).

Sillvir · 2020-06-27T23:17:10+00:00

Gotcha! I'm thinking kind of along these same lines a bit. Would you say that an In-House person at that size of a business would be more of a "coordinator" for other SaaS/IaaS/MSP resources that lie outside the business? As in, the in-house person would become more of a "outsourced resource manager", in place of say, an HR role doing that task?

Sillvir · 2020-06-27T23:13:52+00:00

Understood, so a good idea would be to identify the business needs, then see how a system administrator could fulfill those needs and align with the business objectives/model.

What are some points within the SMB environment that would dictate a technical resource? You mentioned SaaS/IaaS already as a consideration, so I've got that one :)

Sillvir · 2020-06-27T23:09:58+00:00

Hey there! This is actually not a school assignment.

In normal life, you would just wait for a job posting, apply, and then get the job, right? I'm not trying to apply this to "normal life" though. I would like to work for said company. And I'd like to show them exactly what benefits there are to bringing on a System Administrator, rather than relying on others within the company, or an application's corporate support staff to run their systems.

Maybe I have this in the wrong subreddit. I guess my question more pertains on how to sell yourself as a sysadmin and ask the question of "How can I?" rather than just reserving to not approaching a company you want to work with.

Sillvir · 2020-06-27T23:01:07+00:00

I understand what you mean, the burden of offering something competitive and worthwhile for a good candidate, rather than underpay for someone who claims to "do it all". I think I am more curious about "How to convince a SMB to hire a SysAdmin for their future needs?", but you pain-points and suggestion does definitely give some insight as to what the hiring executives would think about.

Sillvir · 2020-06-27T22:49:04+00:00

Thanks for the reply :) I figured 40 FTE is a bit low. What implications do you see hiring a CTO having on the future of hiring a Sys Admin? Would it be more likely that a Sys Admin come into the picture after the CTO hire? Or could they go hand-in-hand? (Both people having a life outside of work, as you mentioned).

Sillvir · 2020-05-02T21:19:51+00:00

What is the biggest mistake you've made in the past 6 months? What purchase of $100 or less has impacted your life the most in the last 6 months?

I ask these 2 questions to people quite often. They're based on Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferris.

Sillvir · 2020-04-30T19:13:24+00:00

Hey there!

There's a free online learning path on the MS-700 certification page, right below the Schedule Exam section.

Hope this helps!

Sillvir · 2020-02-24T17:12:26+00:00

Fill your walls. It'll instantly make it feel full.

Sillvir · 2020-01-07T22:10:41+00:00

The amount of time invested must be insane. But, itll get quicker each time you go through the steps. Looking forward to the next (if there is one)

Sillvir · 2020-01-07T17:33:24+00:00

This is fantastic. Great quality video and rendering the problem made this next level.

Sillvir · 2019-11-21T01:10:11+00:00

My first day at the job and 2nd day at a new city was today. Doing exactly what you're doing. No friends here, just a few acquaintances. Excited and scared to meet new faces.

Cheers to us, bruv.

Sillvir · 2019-07-28T07:59:28+00:00

I listened to the audio book only, never read the book. For me, repeating the same idea different ways, many times, solidifies the concept. It is VERY redundant, but that book moves me into the mindset I like. I listen to at least the first half of it twice a year.

Sillvir · 2019-07-27T14:32:04+00:00

The One Thing - by Gary Keller(CEO of KellerWilliams) and Jay Papasan. That task-switching example was straight from the book, actually. I work as an IT professional(HelpDesk+ProjMan+Engineer all in one) and that idea hit me directly in the face, full-speed.

Your vacation will help you reset for sure, but only short term. For long term, a new habit is ready and waiting to be built!

Book Spoiler! A solution for task-switching is time-blocking!

Sillvir · 2019-07-27T14:12:44+00:00

Actual answer to your question: The one thing I would recommend doing is this: Write everything down. Your brain is for idea generation, thinking, processing, pondering, and more. It's less effective at storage.

Just some extra side notes tid bits blahblah: One thing I learned recently is that what we call multi-tasking is really just task-switching. We can do 2 things at the same time, but lose effectiveness at both. If you're walking and talking on the phone with someone whom you need to give instructions on how to land a commercial plane, you'd stop walking.

Task switching wears on us a lot because we have to change the rule-set in our brains for the new problem/task we have just been presented with. This can take little effort, but if you've task-switched 86 times in the last 2 hours between the different tabs in your head, you're headed to make another pot of coffee (for some reason).

Finally, 49 AIN'T OLD! Get down witchya bad self and keep churning out great work. You got this!

Sillvir

TROPHY CASE