Potentially the longest thread in history...

[S0ULphIRE]

Go back 2 years before I left, and yes I could. But not by the time I left, we had expired licenses for AV and stuff that the business refused to pay for. So 90% were protected and some wern't, etc. I'll admit it did free up quite a lot of my time knowing there is no point me checking up on AV and stuff.

No time spent improving stuff either because again, noone was going to spend money, and everything we had in place was quite refined anyway.

That's *exactly* the situation I was in with my first job too I did 1-2 hours of work per day there too and it was NOT a well maintained environment lol for the same reasons as yours. It's a miracle we didn't get ransomware'd up tbh.

If that attitude is confident in my ability to run IT for a small company with small IT needs and you're in disagreement then yes.

Only you would think that lol, this was never about your abilities. This all stemmed from you advising *other people* that managing the entirety of a 70-something business's IT environment would prob be "pretty easy" with the only logic behind that being "it's not lockheed".

Bold 1 yeah you're right, they pay me as much as they do to just be on hand to help when their wifi at home goes slow, majority of my day for sure! -_-
Bold 2 spot on - it wasn't anything to do with you, and was again aimed at wondering what a single IT person was going to have to stay on top of; if they don't they're leaving insecure PCs on their network.

Honestly man it's a waste of time to keep discussing whether it's a good idea to tell someone solo-managing and implementing a good IT system from the ground up for a 70+ and growing company is a "pretty easy" job. This isn't a dick measuring contest, it's a responsibility to properly take care of a lot of people's livelihoods and any tech would do well to treat it seriously.

Sooo, I had my interview!

Sounds like a great role that I would enjoy, and they seemed like good down to earth guys who were very realistic about what they want and expect. I think it went well, but they didn't give much away.

good luck with the selection

 

[PP Mguire]

Only you would think that lol, this was never about your abilities. This all stemmed from you advising *other people* that managing the entirety of a 70-something business's IT environment would prob be "pretty easy" with the only logic behind that being "it's not lockheed".

In fact it was entirely the opposite. It's based on the fact that not all companies require the same kind of IT infrastructure and therefor not all IT manager roles are equal or otherwise as difficult as you want to make it out to be. If anything your argument stems behind your only experience at your current job.
Basically your saying "because our previous guy was a ****up and 4 guys including myself have a hard time managing a small company it must be insanely difficult for a competent person to manage IT for a relatively small company with a small IT footprint". My whole statement was and still is, depending on the company it could be fairly easy. Not so sure why that's so difficult to understand.

Honestly man it's a waste of time to keep discussing whether it's a good idea to tell someone solo-managing and implementing a good IT system from the ground up for a 70+ and growing company is a "pretty easy" job. This isn't a dick measuring contest, it's a responsibility to properly take care of a lot of people's livelihoods and any tech would do well to treat it seriously.

See above. You're literally doing exactly like my gf loves to do in an argument she can't win. Cherry pick specifics to site their own argument. You're completely ignoring the absolute fact that not every company has the same IT footprint/needs and thinking I'm basing this solely on my experience at Lockheed.

Bold 1 yeah you're right, they pay me as much as they do to just be on hand to help when their wifi at home goes slow, majority of my day for sure! -_-

Another case of cherry picking. You've posted enough here to show that your own management has little in the know of actual IT management and simply "want things done" without fully being aware or understanding a situation. From the understanding we'd have based on what you've told us about your company management and workload you spend more time fixing bad decisions and their own personal problems than actually improving or maintaining IT in a forward motion. I'm having a feeling that your stance on this is maybe due to the fact that your title is a bit too demanding on yourself? You think it's difficult for you therefore it will be difficult for others. Somebody in that position should understand not all companies are created equally and not all companies will have the same IT demands. It's really that simple yet here we are.

 

[kmanmx]

my only point on this debate would be:

I'd rather manage a 200 man company that is 100% cloud based, and 100% virtualised (Citrix or whatever), with power users in each department handling the crud like mouse and keyboard swapouts, and everyone using a simple basic software suite to do there job...

...Than manage 25 man company with dog**** IT infrastructure that is 100% localised with no cloud infrastructure, 30 bespoke internal apps, weird tech usages like a printing firm that prints 100 gazillion things on ****ty weird printers, while everyone is using a local login and there is no real domain environment.

 

[iFargle]

my only point on this debate would be:



I'd rather manage a 200 man company that is 100% cloud based, and 100% virtualised (Citrix or whatever), with power users in each department handling the crud like mouse and keyboard swapouts, and everyone using a simple basic software suite to do there job...



...Than manage 25 man company with dog**** IT infrastructure that is 100% localised with no cloud infrastructure, 30 bespoke internal apps, weird tech usages like a printing firm that prints 100 gazillion things on ****ty weird printers, while everyone is using a local login and there is no real domain environment.

Engineering companies are wonderful for this. Everyone's a power user! Though not everything is virtualized.

 

[kmanmx]

Engineering companies are wonderful for this. Everyone's a power user! Though not everything is virtualized.

I don't like virtualization from every perspective. It's just nice from a support one. Someones PC dies and it doesn't matter, just log in elsewhere and they can continue their work.

 

[PP Mguire]

my only point on this debate would be:

I'd rather manage a 200 man company that is 100% cloud based, and 100% virtualised (Citrix or whatever), with power users in each department handling the crud like mouse and keyboard swapouts, and everyone using a simple basic software suite to do there job...

...Than manage 25 man company with dog**** IT infrastructure that is 100% localised with no cloud infrastructure, 30 bespoke internal apps, weird tech usages like a printing firm that prints 100 gazillion things on ****ty weird printers, while everyone is using a local login and there is no real domain environment.

Being the IT manager you should in theory be able to switch to what you want or can comfortably manage. Granted you can present it and have it allowed in a timely manner.

On that note, being an IT manager for an MSP should be interesting lol (or project manager, whatever)

 

[S0ULphIRE]

I can't imagine anything worse than working for an MSP we rent out part of our building to one and they have a pretty high staff turnover rate

In fact it was entirely the opposite. It's based on the fact that not all companies require the same kind of IT infrastructure and therefor not all IT manager roles are equal or otherwise as difficult as you want to make it out to be. If anything your argument stems behind your only experience at your current job.
Basically your saying "because our previous guy was a ****up and 4 guys including myself have a hard time managing a small company it must be insanely difficult for a competent person to manage IT for a relatively small company with a small IT footprint".

My current company *was* run like crap because of the old IT manager, but there's been a huge culture shift here over the last year and a bit culminating in the old manager being fired a few months ago and me being promoted. I've also posted about that and the changes that've followed, but ironically you were so eager to setup strawmen by screaming "cherrypicking" that you decided to ignore all of those and do some cherry picking yourself on **** which isn't even relevant anymore

My whole statement was and still is, depending on the company it could be fairly easy. Not so sure why that's so difficult to understand

Not difficult, I addressed that when I said "Sure if you mean something like the 70 employees share 1 PC between them [exaggeration obviously], but I doubt that's the case in 2019"
Hell, if your entire IT environment consisted of a single iPhone, I'd even be comfortable putting my mother in charge. Is that the point you're trying to make?

I accept small freelance jobs like that all the time, last one was for a 6-person business where they only need 1 server, 5 workstations, few laptops, wifi & and a printer, and a scheduled backup to the cloud for just the server. And yes, one person with not much skill would *totally* be able to manage that company (though in my case I handed em the keys after I was done as I don't have the time/wont to be on call for their issues).

The job in question, going off the job description, is a far cry from the above. If that specific role ends up being a cakewalk then something is crook in tallarook, that's my whole statement.

 

[S0ULphIRE]

On a less argumentative note my KZ-ATEs arrived today! What a step up they are from the **** in-ear sony's I was using before. Paid $18 for the ATEs and $35 for the sony's too.
Still needed some EQ adjustments, but out of the box with zero burn in time they're immediately more isolating with richer bass. Top end is a little flatter than it should be, but for $18 you can't expect reference IEMs I guess

 

[kmanmx]

On a less argumentative note my KZ-ATEs arrived today! What a step up they are from the **** in-ear sony's I was using before. Paid $18 for the ATEs and $35 for the sony's too.
Still needed some EQ adjustments, but out of the box with zero burn in time they're immediately more isolating with richer bass. Top end is a little flatter than it should be, but for $18 you can't expect reference IEMs I guess

I would love to know the trust cost of the really high end IEMs. It's hard to imagine even the most uncompromising best engineered IEMs actually cost more than about $50 to produce.

 

[Yami]

I would love to know the trust cost of the really high end IEMs. It's hard to imagine even the most uncompromising best engineered IEMs actually cost more than about $50 to produce.

The materials cost, certainly, but you've got to factor in the cost of R&D, marketing, logistics, management etc. required to bring a product to bear.