Systems Support Technician

[MSTie1]

The Systems Support Technician is ITT's name for the student systems admin. I was kinda forced into the interview, I actually had wanted the job at one point, but then got another job. They had hired somebody into it...he then skipped town for another job. I was the chosen one to replace him apparently, I went to the interview to kinda glean all I could from what the job was about. Now...the good stuff first..being an employee you do get 80% off the schooling. They also pay for certifications if you wanna get any (course pending budget approval). But the main part of the job, at least portrayed to me, was imaging imaging imaging. Why so much? because they don't have a friggin centralized system! (least not my campus)...inventory inventory inventory....no barcode system! Then of course...resetting passwords...making new student accounts...lame stuff that at real companies aren't even the responbility of a systems admin most times. I almost couldn't believe it, they were explaining their imaging system in the interview and I couldn't help but break out laughing. They want the SST to reimage all the computers each quarter...one by one. Course..you do get some responsiblity, a key to the campus, first contact in security related issues. But overall I guess they know what kind of students they produce and tailored the position accordingly. The pay was 30-35k/yr, health,dental,vision, 401k. mon-fri 8-5 or 9-6. They also wanted to kinda spice of the position and hire somebody that was a "people person"...uh ew. I had to interview with the IT Chair, Associate Dean, and then the Director. The Director of course not giving much of a shit about any of my knowledge or grades, just was so happy that I have 5 yrs in retail, that surely I must be a people person because of that. I'm not saying I'm not but wtf? He continued to spew corporate PR bullshit at me to the point where I wanted to just tell him to shut up. Saying that ITT encourages success, that most students don't have a parent that graduated from college and that I was in the minority cause I did. That these students don't know what success is because they have never seen it in their lives. They don't know that succeeding at college will get them anywhere. That their lives are filled with so much strife. That other colleges set up "barriers to success"...I guess he was referring to ya know...actually grading tests...actually have expectations of the students???? *sigh* it made me sick..

[KuJoe]

But the main part of the job, at least portrayed to me, was imaging imaging imaging. Why so much? because they don't have a friggin centralized system! (least not my campus)...inventory inventory inventory....no barcode system! Then of course...resetting passwords...making new student accounts...lame stuff that at real companies aren't even the responbility of a systems admin most times. I almost couldn't believe it, they were explaining their imaging system in the interview and I couldn't help but break out laughing. They want the SST to reimage all the computers each quarter...one by one.

LoL, how many "system admin" positions have you worked in? Yet another entertaining post.

[sevenalive]

Well a centralized system would be ideal, like acronis true image echo server enterprise.
Doing the username/password deal is normal for a system admin. What really sucks is that they don't bother reimaging the image with updates. They finally did a windows update and got IE7, WMP 11 and a few other things. Still uses old as software development tools, and multimedia programs are 7 years outdated. The latest version they have for software is autocad 06, which sucks. I had autocad 07, could never open up files in it, not even in 04 compat. i had to do a 2000 format then it would read it.

[MSTie1]

Well the way they explained it to me, each quarter they get an image disk from headquarters. As the quarter goes on the headquarters sends a list of things that the image should be updated with. It is then the SST's job to add those updates to the initial image. I'm sure all the old programs are due to licensing, anything cool...for instance to run Norton Ghost to have a centralized system, requires ITT to purchase a license for each computer they want to connect to the server. I'm sure it's the same for all the software. They're just too friggin cheap to buy licenses. And apparently the reimage every quarter isn't a rule but a guideline I suppose. Cause the SST before the one we used to have didn't do it. But the last guy did..and that's what they wanted.

[KuJoe]

Re-imaging each semester should be a requirement, not re-imaging will only cause more problems and work for the system admin.

[kayot]

I wonder if this job pays better than my current one. (Hey, when you owe money you do what you can.)

[MSTie1]

Low to mid 30s is what was quoted to me..

[jcrosbie]

... I had autocad 07, could never open up files in it, not even in 04 compat. i had to do a 2000 format then it would read it.

this is not ITT's fault, that is an overall issue with autocad 07, they fixed it in 2008, its kinda like office 2007 creating its own diffrent file format, but good luck getting ITT to update all of its computers to have 08 since it is like three grand a copy.

but i am not defending itt, i had to learn that same thing the hard way several times.

[sevenalive]

I wasn't saying it was ITT's fault. I was just pointing out how out of date their software is. Its also not 3 grand a copy, after education and upgrade discounts, it should be a lot less than that. Plus the cost of their tuition, it would be no problem to upgrade software every 3 years. 06 to 09 would be a good upgrade. VS03 to VS08 would be a huge difference. I could go on. Java is free, no excuse not to be running the latest JDK and tools.