Yes, definitely. It’s easier now that I’m part of operational support and can oversimplify it by referring to myself as an IT dude, but back when I was part of the field rotation, when I tried to sum up what “offshore seismic survey technician” is, I was sometimes asked “so, how’s it like working on an oil rig?”.
I wouldn’t know, I’ve never been on one. I’ve been on ships around them, but never on the rigs themselves.Information Security is so hard to explain to old people who don’t know much about technology. My grandparents back then (late 2000s) never understood it no matter how I explained it, and they thought I was a security guard at the bank I worked at. You could also see the disappointment in their faces thinking how someone who took IT in college ended up as a security guard.
I have two ways of explaining. The first one is just saying “I work with data” followed by some hand waving and shrugging.
The other is where I really go into detail and explain everything. Going gaga over some minute aspect that I find awesome but couldn’t even interest one of my coworkers.
Neither seems to really work, but I don’t get follow up questions which suits me just fine :)No.
“I keep the computer systems running at the local newspaper, and prevent it from getting hacked” is pretty straightforward.
It provides enough to latch on to for normie small talk.
And I can dose the tech talk based on what questions I get back.So you’re the one who changed the password from admin/admin to admin/hunter2? That’s all I needed.
I changed the password to a 256 character string, disabled pasting, and changed the keyboard layout on all servers to Thai.
My security philosophy is: “When even admins with all the info can’t get in, no one can.”
No.
Nope. I keep the internet working.
People seem happy when I say that. Unless my internet at home craps out and my wife makes a cheeky joke about it.
Depends on their level of interest and/or knowledge. My job isn’t exciting or prestigious, just niche/specialized. Most of the time when I say what I do, I get a blank stare. If that’s the case I’ll just say “I babysit computers” and leave it at that. I’ve had the conversation enough times that I know it’s not worth the effort to try explaining it further. “Oh, you work with computers? My brother in law is a programmer, perhaps you’ve met him?”
Sometimes people will get the gist of it just from the title, and these are usually the most interesting conversations because they’ve made the (un?)conscious effort to understand something new to them. I am totally down with that.
On very rare occasions someone will actually know what it is that I do. This inevitably leads to trading war stories about redundant alerts to please management, unbalanced power loads, poorly defined environments handed over with little to no explanation, cable curtains, and how even other IT people have no clue what we’re on about half the time.
those who know dot jpeg
I juggled datacenter design/management/maintenance, infrastructure, and enterprise monitoring, but only one of those was tied to my “Senior Engineer” title. The rest were just things that ended up as my job because I was good at them. So my resume looks like I’m lying through my teeth. Thanks, aversion to change!
Shout out to any other Solarwinds Orion admins who got that mess duct taped to their position. Drinking game idea: take a shot for every 100 nodes being managed. Or don’t, if it’ll lead to alcohol poisoning. 😒
Solarwinds Orion
We don’t curse in this household.
Anyway, guessing it’s the classic “sales sold the demo of a perfectly configured setup maintained by a dedicated team, management expects you to make that happen alone on top of everything else you already do” situation? Multiple years into cleaning up the mess of that shit at my place.
Hello fellow sufferer.
Not quite the same on my end but it ended up in the same place. When I started there were already two instances running (one for the parent company and one at my location, which had gotten acquired). Maybe a hundred nodes all together, and our job was just responding to alerts in a mostly out of the box setup. Then my boss got sick of trying to work around limitations of that setup and demanded admin access so our team could at least make adjustments. Which eventually turned into me being asked to add nodes, which turned into me being the primary administrator. Which was actually pretty sweet for a bit because I got to learn a lot, both about the software and the company. Finally convinced management to merge the two installations rather than rely on that EOC garbage.
Then the acquisitions started rolling in.
By the time I walked out there were 2000+ nodes in a dozen locations, and it was still just me and somehow still just a side job.
Orion has its faults but after migrating so many acquisitions from a handful of other platforms I still prefer it. Everything seems like it’s optimized for small installations and/or specific platforms. When shit gets that big you need a team to run it properly. Which is why I’m allowed to say “Solarwinds” in my house, but guests are asked to leave if they mention the C-suite as anything but sociopathic leeches.
Yes, if they are really interested and don’t have IT background. My mother once thought I look up codes in books and type it into the computer.
Someone needs to tell her about Stack Overflow.
Nope, most people are fine with “I’m a programmer”, the few times someone asked me what exactly did I program, I answered with the ELI5 version of what I do and that’s always been enough, e.g.
- I make computers see and understand what they’re seeing.
- You now site X? I work there
- You know game X? I work in the servers for it
i have problems explaining my job to myself. As I sit on the floor, painting a wall or scrubbing the floor or as I’m trying to repair a door… yeah that’s not my job description
Not really. I tell them it’s like a Black Mirror episode and they give me a sympathetic grimace. Then we talk about something else.
i build websites
yes and no.
I work as an it support in a small software company, so i do lots of stuff:
data integration / migration, fixes in our legacy products & websites, and of course fixing printers.thats way to complicated explain in detail,
but just saying IT support doesn’t do it justice (people just think im the guy that tells people to “turn it of and on again” if i leave it at that)Instead of telling people directly what i do,
i just tell them i work in IT, this is what my company does, and i work on these products.Me: I’m in IT (trying to keep it simple)
Them: OK, but what do you do in IT?
Me: I’m a system administrator (again trying to keep it simple)
Them: I don’t know what that means. What does a system administrator do?
Me: I work on servers (again, trying to keep it simple)
Them: What’s a server?
Me: I’m in IT…
That’s a combination of too simple/short in your sentences, mixed with too specific jargon with no clarification. It’s dumb as hell that people don’t know stuff like what a server is, but if they don’t you have to abstract it more.
My go to is some form of: I’m in IT, I do systems administration. I help keep all the things behind the scenes working so that everyone’s stuff works at my workplace. Less of making your email work, more of making everyone’s email work.
Obviously I work with a hell of a lot more than just email. I’m mostly scripting out custom automation jobs to bridge gaps in the integrations between different systems. But like you said, keep it simple.
Oh hello fellow email admin. What platform?
So you keep the computer engine running.
I’m a salesforce admin and I feel the same way
Ooo, my brother-in-law is in sales. What kind of commission do you make?
I’m a salesforce admin
I’m sorry
Tis a thankless job!
Automation for mainly the mining industry.
