Speaker 0 | 00:09.019
All right, well, welcome to Dissecting Popular IT Nerds, where we are allowed to geek out with our fellow nerds and their no-eye scrolls, and hopefully we’ll keep it entertaining enough that your eyes won’t glaze over like my wife’s do when I’m talking to her. So today I’m proud to introduce Andrew Landers. who’s just recently hit the six-month mark as the director of IT at Spear Mechanical. Hey, Andrew, why don’t you tell us a little about yourself, but start off with telling us your favorite childhood video game, and are you still playing it today?
Speaker 1 | 00:42.800
Favorite childhood video game? I’m still kind of young, so Halo is definitely my favorite childhood game. I’ve been playing it ever since. I played the first Halo way, way back in the early 2000s. I’ve been playing Halo since I was a kid. I’ve loved it ever since, played every Halo since, and still play it to the end. We’ll replay campaigns. I’ll have fun with it. So that’s definitely my favorite one.
Speaker 0 | 01:07.250
Okay. Yeah, I remember the first couple of times I played Halo, and I couldn’t even get out of that first valley.
Speaker 1 | 01:13.232
Oh, yeah. Oh, my gosh. I know. I went back and I remember when I originally played it, I was playing on normal, then I ended up playing on legendary just to see how hard it was. And, oh, my gosh, I don’t know how many hours it took for me to finally get past it. uh but no it’s so much fun i just love the storyline with master chief and the arbiter and just it’s so much fun to play and it’s definitely will always have a place in my heart okay well so now tell us a little more about your geek history or your nerd history and what you’re doing and how you became a director yeah uh well you know kind of how i got into the whole to geek out computers a little bit was my dad got into got me into it way back in the day i used to play uh you know oregon trail and roller coaster tycoon on the old uh nice tan box sitting there in the basement and you know with the hangout big monitor big big monitor exactly one color that’s that’s right and you know and that’s just what we ended i ended up doing and that kind of just sparked my interest in it you know it’s just kind of got me further and further and then you know i kind of got more into video games as i got older and um you know eventually it ended up leading me into, you know, I was like, well, I got to figure out what I want to do with my life at some point. And, you know, it started me out with, I was, you know, as I was in high school, I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do. And I had the opportunity to go to technical school. So what I ended up, you know, doing was doing that did a two year program in computer networking. And that led me into a plethora of opportunities. And it kind of it just helped propel me forward and it got me really interested in getting to know more about not only hardware but software networking all that so it really got me into it and uh it was a lot of fun to to learn and uh ended up leading me into now where i am so i’ve gone through all kinds of different uh different places i’ve been in education automotive healthcare construction doing i.t and now i’ve led all the way up to where i am now as a manager so All that experience kind of wrapped up. It really gave me a broad knowledge of different industries and how people work in those industries. And it kind of helped me build this, build why I am. It’s the easiest way to describe it. I feel like it’s easy for me to talk to all kinds of people and just get to relate to them and listen to them. And, you know, whether it be, you know, user submits a ticket, I kind of, you know, get to know that person and they. you know, learning about all those different types of people out there and it kind of helps build where I am.
Speaker 0 | 03:59.431
Right. One common thing that we all run into is that, especially any of us that have done IT service for any length of time, it’s always that ticket. There’s that one that you go, oh, and either that, or it’s the one that you tell the buddies at the bar, or, you know, when, when you’re trying to explain what you do, oh, there was this one time. All right. Tell me.
Speaker 1 | 04:22.192
Oh, there’s this one time I got a ticket. It was early in the morning, very early. Just kind of love those early ones, right? Where you’re barely waking up. It depends on what time you get up in the morning, of course. But early in the morning, it’s like 530 in the morning. Get that. I get an email. See you at the ticket. It’s urgent. All caps in the subject line. It’s super important. You need to get on this right now. this is and it and this wasn’t for any you know upper management this was you know for a normal i guess you could say normal user um and and that was the the thing that that got me was it’s urgent are you sure like i i’m reading the ticket and it’s you know something pretty simple with email and it’s they’re they’re yelling about they’re losing their mind um in the email, all caps, all through it. I’m just trying to decipher what the problem is exactly. Right. And so I’m reading it and it’s simply an email will not leave the outbox and they’re losing their mind over this. And they’re like, so the ticket came in two minutes later, I get a phone call, person called me and I’m just trying to decipher why they’re so worked up over this. Right. And all that ended up being was I closed Outlook and reopened it. And I’m like, so you got me all riled up over 30 minutes, and all you had to do is restart Outlook. Stuff like that. That was one that sticks out forever because it was the one in the early morning where people were just going crazy.
Speaker 0 | 06:02.587
And that’s one of the things that I realized is while I was working on the help desk or the help desk manager, that whatever problem they’re experiencing it’s it’s the biggest problem in the enterprise at that moment for them right exactly and and they don’t care what other problems i might be dealing with it’s not about my world it’s about their world right
Speaker 1 | 06:25.389
and that’s it’s always that’s all it’s always that way and as i learned through my experience you know i kind of have learned to decipher those individual ones and be honest with with people and say you know I get it that you have this problem, but it’s not worth me getting worked up about and immediately dropping what I’m working on. Yeah.
Speaker 0 | 06:48.770
And I always had a hard time telling people that kind of thing. I’d work with them. I’d help them out. And then I’d just walk away just shaking my head, SMH. And but one of the other things that it took me a little while to figure out or recognize. was there was one time where me and the rest of the IT department were working, or we’d been passing the on-call. So like every week, one of us would be on-call, and we’d deal with all the tickets after hours. And we finally go to lunch one day, and we’re all sitting around the table. And the guy that was on-call that week goes, oh, man, this guy called last night and basically talked about a ticket just like you did. And the guy that… was on call the week before was that guy called me too and bitched about this and then the person the week before them he called me too and and it was one of those times where i realized that you know we deal with these tickets and and if we weren’t communicating as a team you know here we are we’re recognizing this one user who’s like actually i i now remember what we were talking about it was the fact that he couldn’t remember his password and and he would tell us When we told him what his username was, no, you’re wrong. That’s not what I used yesterday. And I’m like, yes, it is. I helped you yesterday. I was the one on the phone. So, yes, this is your username. And I happen to know your password because I had to reset it and you haven’t changed it yet.
Speaker 1 | 08:22.553
Oh, yes. And not only those, you always have those offenders where they have to catch you when you’re walking in the door. You just got out of your car. you know you’re trying to just get to your desk and you know they’re coming up to you say hey hey like i need you like right now like oh my gosh and i’m just like can i sit down and just check and see you know if there’s something else that’s more urgent you know and just exactly right no you have to do this and i’m like ah yeah
Speaker 0 | 08:52.004
you gotta love those and it just yeah those are just the thing that i was working towards is the fact that you know everybody on the team had dealt with this guy and we all dealt with him And then didn’t say anything to anybody else. And so here we are complaining internally going, this guy, I mean, he can’t even, I don’t even know how he types. And, you know, we were bashing, but deservedly so. And the manager at that time heard all of this, joined in on us talking about it, and then left it at that. And it took like another two months. before the guy’s manager finally realized what we were picking up on pretty quickly because of the the kind of tickets that he was submitting to us um i mean he he obviously was having a real hard time with um with everything um and so you know it just it was one of those moments of clarity of hey we need to be communicating this stuff not only internally but But if we run into people like this, that we should probably be talking to their manager and we can do it in a kind way.
Speaker 1 | 10:08.631
Right.
Speaker 0 | 10:09.172
But if we don’t. Do you know that another thing that I was thinking about while you were talking about all of this was how, you know, as when I was director of IT and like the one of the, I’m trying to think of the best way to say this. One of the regular employees came up and had one of their tickets just like this. And then, like, you know, I finished working with them. And then 10 minutes later, the CEO comes over and he’s got a problem with his stuff. And I’m like, okay. yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. To him. And I’m like going, yes, ma’am. Yes, ma’am. Yes, ma’am. To the other person. I’m thinking, man, I, I, yeah, my, my title says director, but I answered everybody in this organization. I am there. Come here.
Speaker 1 | 10:57.224
Yeah. Right. Yes. Exactly. Yes. There’s,
Speaker 0 | 11:01.387
there’s other terms for that, but I’m trying not to use that right now.
Speaker 1 | 11:06.671
Absolutely. Yeah. I, I definitely. you know understand that you know and being it’s it’s hard when you know you’re that single point like i am now i’m the one the one man show and you know having all of those people have funneling to you for you know all the little stuff to the big stuff like i’ll have our you know president come and say hey we need to go and find a vendor for for something because we need to upgrade something uh you know like a security system or you know hey i need you to do this and another user’s like well i can’t get uh i can’t get word to uh auto correct something right or you know it’s hard to it’s tough with that because when you’re you’re bouncing you have to figure out how to properly tie manage and
Speaker 0 | 11:53.044
it’s it can get it can get tricky um especially when you’re in that kind of situation so you’re a one-man show right now i am a one-man show right now oh man so so not only are you juggling all of the infrastructure and any of the projects and things like you just talked about, but then, then you’re the help desk too.
Speaker 1 | 12:13.267
Yep. I’m everything. So it’s, it’s, it’s definitely a challenge, you know, and it’s the, the, the, the, my outlook calendar just looks like a rainbow. I mean, it is just filled with stuff and it’s hard when I, you know, tell people it’s like, Oh, I don’t know. I’m booked out for the next like three weeks. Uh, you know, and it’s,
Speaker 0 | 12:33.583
and they don’t understand because they just like,
Speaker 1 | 12:36.702
you’re here you’re our resource you’re here to help me right um but how many people are you supporting so i’m supporting right now but 250 uh by myself so it’s now i do have some help from i have msp on on retainer for help and stuff like that if i needed it so it’s not like i’m completely on an island by myself i do have support where i can get and i have to give credit upper management is super supportive of getting the help if i do need it and you know, they’re, they’re there. And so that one, that that’s huge to have their buy-in. You know, a lot of times when, you know, sometimes you have, you know, upper management who are, you know, they look at IT as an expense, right. And so it’s nice when you do have, you have that management who’s willing to like, Hey, like, Oh, Hey, we just had a server failure and we don’t have any way to get it up. We have probably to buy new or buy used. you know being able to go to them and say hey this happened and they’re just like okay you know if we need to do that to get the business up and run a gas like like we need to do it so sometimes you do get that pushback but it’s nice when you do have that that back-end support you know where you feel good making a decision see
Speaker 0 | 13:47.653
we we tried an msp um early on when i was i was still one of the five help desk technicians and i honestly we were somewhere around 200 to 50. um three different locations but the msp when we brought them in they they added a layer between those of us in the building and the users and the organization hated that they wanted to be able to walk in and say come here and reach out grab you and bring you to the desk and say fix it and and even that five minute delay of you got to send a help desk ticket and and When I was leaving, I’m like, you got to send a help desk ticket. If we don’t have a record of it, then, you know, because there were so many times people would say, well, I sent you a ticket. I talked to you guys three weeks ago about this. And we’re like, OK, prove it.
Speaker 1 | 14:45.516
Right.
Speaker 0 | 14:47.557
And there’s so many times that they’re like, OK,
Speaker 1 | 14:50.959
well,
Speaker 0 | 14:52.200
I can’t find it. You guys must have done something with it. No. We archive every email, and even we can’t delete those. So.
Speaker 1 | 15:04.991
Nope. Yes. You know,
Speaker 0 | 15:06.411
I want to look at the phone logs. I’ll get you the phone logs.
Speaker 1 | 15:08.952
Yeah. Well, I’ll pull up everything, you know, I’ll shut it. Right. Oh yeah, absolutely. I, yeah, that’s, it’s, it’s definitely fun. It’s a fun time.
Speaker 0 | 15:19.536
So what’s something unique that you’ve been through?
Speaker 1 | 15:22.698
So something unique, I’d say the most unique is I was able to join an IT team from the very beginning. So, um,
Speaker 0 | 15:31.961
and that’s something we’re doing today.
Speaker 1 | 15:33.762
I know. but this was a company where they were off-boarding their MSP and bringing in an in-house team. And they were starting from nothing. I mean, they had to hire VP of IT, IT manager, help desk, systems engineers. I mean, it was from the bottom. I mean, for the most part, obviously they had the network there and they had all that, but going through that process of being one of the first new hires and watching us. take over those responsibilities was an interesting experience.
Speaker 0 | 16:09.513
How hostile of a takeover was it from the MSP?
Speaker 1 | 16:12.815
It was actually not hostile at all. We actually were working in tandem with them. We would kind of lean on them sometimes if we needed to do something and they could take over support for a few hours and if we were doing a migration of something. And it was actually a good thing. So it wasn’t where, you know, I’m coming in, the MSP is all disgruntled and they’re like, we don’t want to do this anymore. So it was nice to have that.
Speaker 0 | 16:40.929
What size of the organization? Because, I mean, you talked about like four layers right there of, you know, the VP, the director, the manager, help desk. So,
Speaker 1 | 16:50.254
yeah, it was about locations. There were two. No, you’re fine. So there were two locations. One in. One local in Columbus, Ohio, one up in Maine. So you had two locations in kind of separate regions of the country. So it was definitely a little interesting to support them in Maine because we had to support them remotely with any sort of splash top, connect wise control, whatever, and be able to help them that way. And then that was actually an acquisition by that company. So it was a whole nother company that they got acquired. And that was right at the beginning of 2020. So, you know, we all know how the beginning of 2020 went. So you had that.
Speaker 0 | 17:34.934
January was great. February was great.
Speaker 1 | 17:37.595
Right, exactly. No problems. And then March hit and just everything went crazy. And that was when the whole team was being built at that same time. So you had all of this going on all at once. And it was a huge undertaking. I mean, we had three help desk. three systems engineers, our manager, and then the VP of IT. So it was a pretty sizable team of people. And we are supporting a little over 300 users. And they were mostly based in one place, but a lot of them were based in different states like New Mexico, California. I believe they had someone in Alaska too. So we had people all over the place and different time zones and having that, all it was. You learn really quick, you know, when you got a phone call eight o’clock at night from the person who’s in Alaska, you know, it’s the middle of the day, you know, and it’s just like, yeah, it’s just you’re on the East Coast.
Speaker 0 | 18:35.544
You’re in the East
Speaker 1 | 18:36.784
Coast. Yeah. So it’s it’s definitely was a it was interesting experience. But, you know, obviously hiring, finding those people that fit and building that and learning the systems that were in place. The MSP didn’t have a whole lot of. information for us which was unfortunate but so we had to kind of create our own documentation so as we’re trying to support we’re also creating documentation creating those kb articles for users doing all that and it was it was a lot of work yeah
Speaker 0 | 19:07.824
yeah i can’t i can’t imagine walking in and not having even like a network design and luckily it was only a couple of locations but i mean with the spread out people so you got you you’re either vpn-ing in or they’ve got some other way like a personal device that handles the vpn forum and creates a kind of encrypted tunnel into the network yeah it was oh man and then and then of course on top of that we had we moved to a new office so
Speaker 1 | 19:36.916
it was like it was you know pandemic uh new it team and removing offices all happening within basically a year And, you know, and this was all during COVID too. And it was, it was a, you know, that was definitely something. I don’t know if I’ll ever see that again. I mean, who knows? knock on wood yeah yeah knocking on wood on that definitely on that one but yeah that was definitely a very unique experience uh that you know i don’t know you know how many people get the chance to go through that and it’s you learn a lot about yourself hey yeah absolutely you learn a lot about yourself and a lot about you know other people and it’s it’s definitely it’s a fun thing and it’s invaluable you know really i mean you learn so much it was it was interesting april
Speaker 0 | 20:25.201
1st 2020 was the day we went live with a new acquisition so we like brought on a whole new line of business or it wasn’t a new line of business but a whole new company with a different focus and like 200 people and and somewhere around 300 trucks and multiple locations and yeah yeah And so we had to take over their networks. We had to get all of their computers switched. We had to get all of their phones switched. We had all of that stuff happening. And April Fool’s Day, 2020.
Speaker 1 | 21:02.953
Gosh, yeah. So, yeah,
Speaker 0 | 21:05.114
I have an idea what you’re talking about.
Speaker 1 | 21:06.994
Oh, yeah. It’s a fun time. And, you know, I definitely, you know, I had lots of fun times where, you know, we had during that whole office move during that, too. We had our network go down. And. our internet connection out and we could not figure it out the isp couldn’t figure out what was going on like well i’m like our routers good so like well let’s go and then like we’re but we weren’t getting any any link lights weren’t we weren’t getting any light through the fiber we ended up doing a fiber distance test see where the where the break was it was like i don’t know i think it was like 400 feet outside the building and we just look outside and there is a hole and a backhoe and i’m just like oh you’ve got to be kidding me like this is this is like worst case and then and only a short few months later at the new office same thing happened again backhoe through a fiber line i’m just like backhoes and being anywhere near them is bad news for me and
Speaker 0 | 22:04.550
so whose responsibility it had to have been the company that employed the backhoe operator that was responsible to fix it but of course they’re not incentivized to get it fixed as quickly as you need it
Speaker 1 | 22:18.462
fixed so exactly yeah so we had you know call emergency call out to our our you know who the company ran the fiber and we’re like hey like we’re systems down completely down like we need we need people out here to help you know find find the fault you know and get it up and right because our whole business is completely stopped you know so it’s uh it you know it’s stuff like that it’s just you know and of course you go down you go down outside and you’re talking to them and they’re just like i don’t know and i look at i can look in the hole And, oh, look, there’s pretty little colors down there, you know, for all the cables that you just sliced through. You know, so and they’re just like, whatever.
Speaker 0 | 22:54.889
Yeah.
Speaker 1 | 22:56.449
Yeah. She didn’t bother me.
Speaker 0 | 23:01.231
It means I don’t care.
Speaker 1 | 23:02.992
Exactly.
Speaker 0 | 23:03.512
That’s your job, man. That’s your company. I was told dig here.
Speaker 1 | 23:09.055
Right. Exactly. I’ve got a lot of stuff like that.
Speaker 0 | 23:16.374
So, you know, we’re talking about the help desk tickets and those kinds of things. You brought up something in the in the pre-call, something about the users, the users.
Speaker 1 | 23:33.239
What about us? I mean, you know,
Speaker 0 | 23:36.620
there’s like a yeah, I’m trying to point at one of your key takeaways, brother. Number one, tell us.
Speaker 1 | 23:42.382
Number one. Yeah. So, yeah,
Speaker 0 | 23:44.242
obviously willing to take something that you’ve learned,
Speaker 1 | 23:47.124
being willing to teach users those small things so you can work on the big stuff. You know, that is huge. And especially when you’re in a role like I am, where I’m a single person team, sitting there and spending five extra minutes with somebody and showing them, hey, if your monitor goes disconnected, here’s where to find it in system settings. Turn it back on. boom, now you just saved yourself a phone call and 15, 20 minutes of your time, probably, you know, and then that ends up saving me 15 and 20 minutes too. So it kind of goes both ways. And then that frees up more time for me to focus on, I have projects to work on, you know, Hey, I need to work on, you know, I’m deploying the software. I have time to spend creating a script for it. I have time, you know, all of those little pieces and it’s always worth it. to spend that little extra time even it’s with maybe a person you don’t like particularly um you know and then you don’t have to come especially exactly and uh um you know and that’s a huge thing um i’ve learned throughout my experience getting to a management role you gotta show those people how to do things because if you don’t they’re going to come back every day and they’re going to ask you for this ask you for that and that now you have some peace you know you can sit in your office and actually get some work done you become the crutch if you never teach them and
Speaker 0 | 25:10.306
if you’re if you’re one of those guys that says here just move let me add it you know get out of my way i’ll fix that oh here i got this um yeah but if you’re one of the those people that here let me teach you how to fish right
Speaker 1 | 25:24.294
Exactly. And it definitely is a huge time saver. I think now that I’ve been in my manager role for a little while, being able to show some people some things, calls, texts, tickets, emails go down quickly. Once you show people how to do those little things that are day to day. Obviously, if someone’s phone is completely destroyed and they need a new one, well, that’s a little different. But, you know, small little changes in the window.
Speaker 0 | 25:51.872
The word backup means?
Speaker 1 | 25:56.003
Oh my gosh. I’ve had several of those. I mean, you see them, I’m looking at them just like, you know, you could see the inside of the phone. I’m just like, what did you do? You know, some stuff like that where, you know, obviously you have to spend the time to set up a new phone and everything, but all those day-to-day stuff, you know, it makes it easier for, makes you, you know, you’re coming into the office. You don’t have a ton on your plate. You can sit down and you can, you know, Hey, I need to write this KB article for, for something. I’ll have the time to do it now. So it works out. It definitely is worth it.
Speaker 0 | 26:27.974
Well, and then hopefully, you know, one of the other benefits of doing this is hopefully then the person next to them suddenly shows up with that same problem and they start complaining about it. And the person you taught how to fix it goes, hey, here, let me show you how to do that. Exactly. And it spreads out further. I mean, especially with you being a one man shop trying to take care of 250 people, you’ve got. to do that. Otherwise, all you’re going to be doing is those help desk tickets. You will never get out of that.
Speaker 1 | 26:59.765
Right. And that’s, you know, and of course, you know, for your, you know, you have to do the accounting, the budgeting, you have to schedule, you know, server upgrades, you have to schedule network downtime. You need to make changes to something you have, you know, there’s so many things going on that, especially when, like you said, you gotta just let the, let the word spread after you teach somebody something and then they call them and they’re like, Oh yeah, I did that. And then, and then.
Speaker 0 | 27:22.878
they’re basically doing it for you kind of in a way you know so that way you can focus on the big picture right so um one of the other things that i’ve heard you mentioned was you were talking about like server upgrades and and or repairing servers and you’re talking about getting a used one so that that indicates to me i bet you have a server room in a closet oh it’s it’s a closet uh
Speaker 1 | 27:51.234
It’s definitely, it’s been, it’s a modified closet, you know, and it’s just what, you know, unfortunately, it’s sometimes just how it is. And, you know, it’s sometimes, well, a lot of the time, a lot of times, a lot of times. And, you know, it’s modified. And I mean, for a server room, it’s a big room. So I got to give him credit. It’s not some cramped closet where I can’t get around the rack to unplug things or move things around. It’s nice and open. So I can’t complain about that. It makes it a lot easier. Yeah.
Speaker 0 | 28:24.575
It’s great because at some point you’re going to have to add air conditioning to make sure that everything doesn’t overheat. And then comes the fun of UPSs. And I have found that there is nothing more deadly to a data center in a closet than a UPS. Those things were supposed to be the saving grace, and they brought down my data center more than anything else. More, literally, more than anything else. And they would be, like, huge outages because, like, we’d have a UPS in each rack that was rated for the whole rack, and we’d cross the cable so that, you know, every server has two plugs, and one leg’s plugged into this UPS, one’s plugged into that. my server admin loads up too many outlets on one side of the UPS. So it causes the circuit to trip inside of that UPS. And so that whole UPS drops and, and well that day we remembered exactly which servers don’t have dual power supplies.
Speaker 1 | 29:35.144
Oh yes. I know right now I’ve got a, I’ve got a bunch of that are just stacked in there between servers and, you know, low trying to load.
Speaker 0 | 29:43.730
Yeah, they’re not wrapped. They’re stacked.
Speaker 1 | 29:46.991
Essentially, yes. And it’s just, oh, and I’ve just, you know, and luckily everything was set up right when I took over. So it was set up the right way where things were split between UPSs and it’s set up correctly. So it’s okay. But, you know, I agree with you. It’s still.
Speaker 0 | 30:07.423
You’ve been there six months. When were those UPSs installed?
Speaker 1 | 30:12.382
Oh, they were installed last June. So they’re relatively-ish new. A little over a year. Yes.
Speaker 0 | 30:21.086
Okay. In case you didn’t know it, replace those batteries every two to three years, preferably closer to the two.
Speaker 1 | 30:29.010
Yes. Oh, I completely agree. I’ve had it before where we had a UPS batteries failed, turned off, and it was a weekend, of course. I love it. I wasn’t in charge, though, yet of the server. So it wasn’t fully my responsibility. But went offline. I got, you know, I was in the chain of on call. I got all the way to the fifth person, which I was the fifth. And it was like, why am I getting this call? I don’t manage the service. But it was one of those where, yeah, the UPS had the batteries had been replaced in probably, I think, three and a half years. And things just turned off.
Speaker 0 | 31:06.418
You get like a minute or three before it says, oh, you know, it tells you the battery health is 100%. We’re good. And you’re like, okay, the way we rack this or the way that we set this thing up, we got at least 15 minutes from the time we get that first alert. Not if they’re three years old.
Speaker 1 | 31:26.724
No, you might get 30 seconds if you’re lucky.
Speaker 0 | 31:29.104
Yeah, sometimes. Yeah.
Speaker 1 | 31:30.145
Sometimes.
Speaker 0 | 31:31.285
And then, you know. Shutdowns like that are never good for servers or applications. And, oh, man.
Speaker 1 | 31:38.989
No, they’re terrible for us.
Speaker 0 | 31:41.031
That’s the way server admins get called in.
Speaker 1 | 31:44.012
Exactly. Yeah, it’s no fun when that happens at all. I hate when you restart a server after something like that. It takes a while. I think it takes a minute, well, more than a minute to boot back up on the application services to start running again.
Speaker 0 | 31:59.518
and then it’s just a mess for a while and then things finally get smoothed out it takes a while but or or you get the fun of that ab i want to call it an ab end that’s how old i am and what kind of programming i started off the abnormal ending you get that just that shutdown where it just it drops off the face of the earth and then it comes back up and says oh i’m going to do updates now because somebody hasn’t done that either So now you’re in that update cycle and that’s an up, down, up, down, up, down until it’s done after this critical outage. And you’re just like, come on, start up, start up, start up. Come on.
Speaker 1 | 32:39.064
And of course, you know, you’ve got, you know, you know, president, CEO, CFO, just breathing down your neck. Like, why is this not up yet? I’m just like, it’s doing updates. I don’t know what you want me to do.
Speaker 0 | 32:51.114
So we finally got a generator. We put a generator outside and. That thing, religiously, it would kick off on Thursdays. It would do its test run. It would prove that it was nice and healthy and everything was great. And then the city would lose power or that portion of the city would lose power. And the generator would go, nah, not today. And we’re like, wait a minute. You ran yesterday. Today’s Friday. You started up yesterday. Now you won’t?
Speaker 1 | 33:21.085
Yeah. Oh, gosh. Yes, generators. I just.
Speaker 0 | 33:24.922
i they’re great when they all when they work but otherwise it’s like well why do i have you yeah yeah i love that stuff yeah the last time we had a major outage like that cfo standing there over my shoulder going we need to get a wall of batteries and just have a battery bank and like get off the grid i want off the grid and he’s adamant about this we’re um we’re off the grid we will be feeding power back
Speaker 1 | 33:54.314
to them you know and there’s expletives following this of course of course and the cfo’s just sitting there going not gonna do it i’m not signing that check no no way and then and then you gotta think of the battery maintenance for that like just oh my gosh you know and then it’s like the headaches that that would be and just the
Speaker 0 | 34:15.979
whole austin and you know so multiple people hear that that’s what the ceo wants and then the cfo’s saying no and then it’s like Trying to, yeah, the fun, the fun of balancing those roles. How can those people, you know, and gosh, so, so what’s something, what’s something that you’ve experienced or gone through that nobody would expect?
Speaker 1 | 34:41.519
Oh. especially in the it world of course you know oh gosh i mean uh it’s you know it’s weird stuff like you know it’s gosh it’s a hard one it’s always a tough one with that i mean i i’d say that um i have done some some interesting that you know i you know i feel like you know sometimes when you’re in it you kind of get the the label of you know it’s just like you know other duties as assigned is essentially your entire your entire description and you know there’s stuff where like i was um you know i was the the guy that would fill up the snack machine you know it’s like hey you’re doing the snack machine i was like what you know like why am i responsible for filling that up right And it’s like, you get these random signs like, this has nothing to do with my job. Like, I have 15 tickets in my queue. Why are you telling me I need to go do the snack machine every day and fill it up? It was just one of those things like, well, why can’t this person do it? Because they’re more better for that anyway. Yeah.
Speaker 0 | 35:52.546
Was it a pay-for-snack machine or was it a free-for-everybody?
Speaker 1 | 35:57.029
It was like a free, kind of a free-for-everybody thing. And I just… just didn’t understand like you know it’s like i got assigned to it and of course you know my boss would then come to me and say hey have you filled the the snack area yet i was like i didn’t i’m supposed to do it all the time i’m sorry i didn’t realize that like everyone’s like what do you mean and so it was you know weird stuff like that you know you kind of just depending on you know how you know if you talk to too many people and get to know them you They’re like, oh, maybe he’s willing to do this. Maybe he’s willing to do that. And they kind of just kind of push those things, those little things. And I found that that’s kind of what ended up happening. Was I a snack machine guy? I would be like, oh, the ice machine stopped working. I would reset it. You know, like, okay. Like the ice machine would fill up and then I’d have to go in and press the little reset button. You know, and then that would do it again.
Speaker 0 | 36:53.051
The ice machine has electricity. So.
Speaker 1 | 36:56.312
Sorry, dude. It’s my domain, right? It’s electric. Right. It’s immediately my domain.
Speaker 0 | 37:00.013
What about that snack machine? Did that have electricity, or was it just like a box with little drawers in it that you had to put the…
Speaker 1 | 37:06.956
It’s like a little shelf, just a shelf, and it just had stuff stacked up on… It wasn’t even plugged in. I was like, if it had electricity, I’d be like, well, I guess it’s kind of my job, right? But no, this was just a shelf, and I’d go in the supply closet, pull the boxes of stuff out. They bought from Costco or wherever, and just… be stacking things up. Yeah, that’s up a little outside.
Speaker 0 | 37:31.188
Okay, as needed.
Speaker 1 | 37:33.630
Yeah, it was one of the, and then it just became a thing. It was like, hey, Andrew, why haven’t you restocked it?
Speaker 0 | 37:40.374
The issues that come up and the things that, the hidden things that we find at work, you know, what are some of the ways that you’ve helped surface and fix some of those issues?
Speaker 1 | 37:51.742
Yeah, so, you know, what I would do is Get involved with every department. Get involved with everybody as best as you can. And really try and get to know everyone on a level and kind of work through, figure out what people’s pain points are in those departments. What’s going on? What’s life like in your world? What are you doing on a daily basis? And just try to understand how they work, their workflow. And just kind of, you know, work and figure out what they do. Because, you know, obviously, you know, being in, you know, I’m a single person and I have to understand how the business functions. So I have I’ll set up meetings with, you know, different department leaders and I’ll talk to them about, OK, so what is your day look like? And say, for example, where I am now at Spear, we have a service department. So I worked with, you know, service, you know. they may start really early guys, you know, are getting to job sites or, you know, their service calls six o’clock in the morning, five 30 in the morning. And, you know, I have to understand, you know, when, if something goes wrong with those hours, you know, kind of might have to be available for that and try and, you know, depending on what it is, you know, guys will try to, you know, get invoices side, Hey, the system’s not working, system’s not responding, you know, and then five figures. And then that, you know, can, you know, as long as they bring those to the intent to my attention. I can try and find a solution for them. But a lot of times they will just say, oh, it’s normal. It’s just a typical thing that happens every day. Right. And so I’m like, well, that’s slowing you down. Now you’re, you know, it could be 30, 30 minutes, an hour behind on your day. And now you’re having to work late and it’s causing it’s being inefficient. So I have to figure out, okay. you’re having this pain point and the issue is only happening at this hour and it’s happening to everybody right and so now i can mark it down say okay now i can do a little bit of a diagnostic and figure out okay at this hour what is going on on our application server there must be something going on and so having those conversations with people just getting to know them and their life you can unearth crazy things like that where they may not feel comfortable talking about it may you know sending an email or calling you about it because like oh we feel like you’re we’re bothering you so digging into people can sometimes lead to fifth you know finding things out problems that you never knew were there and that helps then fix helps the business be better off in the long run so that is definitely huge so yeah getting to know people on every level the and help identify those hidden issues. It’s super important to do that.
Speaker 0 | 40:43.255
Yeah, definitely. I mean, I can see how it would be a major challenge today, but, you know, at the last organization that you were at, when you had more of a team, that chance and, you know, just when you’re out there on the floor, there’s so many times where I dreaded walking from the IT area to the facilities. because, you know, somebody would be like, hey, Mike, hey, Mike. But then you start to hear those issues and you start to find those little gems. And if you’re paying attention and looking, you can bring some real value to the organization through those.
Speaker 1 | 41:21.810
Oh, absolutely. Without a doubt. And I think the one thing that’s definitely been huge, I know for me is, you know, hey, like, you know, the guy, if you hear the opportunity to maybe, hey, you want to go to happy hour or something? Hey, you want to go out and do something? And then you get them out of the office sometimes. And sometimes they’ll talk about stuff that goes on at work and you end up finding things out, you know, just by hanging out with everybody. And it’s just stuff like that where if you can get to know people, it’s just, I don’t know what it is. They get comfortable with you. They feel like you can be approached and you can talk with them and they can talk with you. And then boom, you have this relationship where they’re more willing to just. you know, follow the protocol. If you know, you explain your side of the story where, you know,
Speaker 0 | 42:10.945
you’re going to listen to people and you’re not just going to tell them how your D and D campaign went last night.
Speaker 1 | 42:16.088
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. It’s, it’s, it’s definitely, it’s definitely a big, it’s a big thing to get to know people. You know, I know that now we’re so used in the world of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or now X, and they’re just always typing and you’re, you know, talking with different people, you know, going you’re over text versus actually speaking and i’ve you know found that you know if you can just talk to people and you know get to know them they just feel better about it i feel like a lot of times when you’re just communicating with someone over text it’s like okay you can’t really tell a what they’re actually how they’re saying it how they’re feeling and if
Speaker 0 | 42:53.334
you can just find a way to talk to them you’re better than it wait a minute you’re you’re sounding like somebody who was born before 1990 dude yeah i know
Speaker 1 | 43:05.731
I know it’s, it’s kind of crazy. Cause I, I, you know, in huge with, you know, texting people, I think it’s a lot, very easy, but I also understand the human component to it, which is, you know, we’ve got to talk to people too, you know, and you have to get to, you have to understand the people you work with and you have to know their tendencies and just how they like to operate. And I find that I have to, I just have to do it. And now in a manager role, it’s even more important. because now you’re talking to everybody you are the face you know you’re now the face you have to talk to everybody at every level and you have to know how to talk to people and you have to know i find it’s better it’s easier to talk to them if you know a little bit about them so it
Speaker 0 | 43:49.739
definitely makes it it’s it’s easier but yeah sometimes it’s hard though you can definitely soften things up too because they they may be having a really bad day but if you know them and you bring up some of the some other aspect of their lives that gives them a chance to just breathe for a second and hello you know the kids are doing great um and and then they okay now that i’m thinking about that you know one of the things that happened right before all of this was like i got that email and i clicked on that link and
Speaker 1 | 44:26.312
then it’s like oh no now you opened another can of words right and i don’t know but yeah but it definitely it’s just you know and then And then they’re more relaxed too. So if you go into a situation where maybe they’re a little tense, something’s going on, you know, you’re talking to them and they’re kind of calm. Just like as you mentioned.
Speaker 0 | 44:42.166
kind of calm down and everything’s better back to where we started all of this you know that that when somebody’s contacting the help desk or asking for that help grabbing you as you walk through the the main room or wherever their world’s on fire usually their world’s on fire and they need help right now because they don’t know what to do or how to do it or how to handle it and and that error message that tells them exactly what’s going on but that air matches
Speaker 1 | 45:10.710
messages on their screen and so yeah yeah no absolutely and i know that and one thing i’ve learned too in my experiences to just be calm if you are bringing that calm sense to to the room it helps everybody else you know everyone else like okay it’s really not that bad like we’re all right you know i think that that was and that was big because i mean you Well, previously I’ve dealt with ransomware and gone through a super stressful time with that. And that was a huge learning experience where I learned there is nothing that can happen where you don’t have to get all worked up about it. And it’s just one of those situations where, yes, it’s a very serious situation, but you just need to just be calm because when you’re calm, you can think clearly, you can make those important decisions. That was a huge thing that I’ve learned and helped me get to where I am now.
Speaker 0 | 46:09.919
So, you know, we’ve talked about a lot of the different struggles that we’ve had. So out of one of those, I don’t know about you, but for me, there’s been times where everything’s on fire, but I find something in the middle of that. And I’m able to turn that into a big success from some kind of a failure. Got any of those? Oh,
Speaker 1 | 46:33.962
yeah. Oh, yeah, I definitely do. Oh, yeah. So, you know, a good example is I was so this was when I was still help desk and I was trying to push my way up and try and get more involved within the systems engineering world, the sysadmin world. And I was really dying for an opportunity to go and I got the opportunity. I was assigned a project and the project was so we needed a new antivirus solution. I we need you to do the research, talk to vendors. get demos, figure out what would be good for us. And I was tasked with doing it. So I took it on full heartedly. I was like, I’m ready to do this. I’m going to prove myself. I’m going to show them how it’s done. And I’m going to find something that’s going to be perfect. I have all these ideas in my head. And I’m like, all right, so I’m talking to vendors and doing this. And it’s been maybe two and a half weeks since I was assigned it. And we have our daily scrums and our weekly sprint planning. And I would mention, hey, things are going all right. I’m still working through a couple of different things here and there. And I’m still trying to figure things out. Well, the end of the third week of the project, I kind of figure some things out with it. But our VP of IT comes back and says, hey, we’re pulling you off this project. We’re not making any progress. And I’m just like, what do you mean? I feel like I’m making progress. you know, we’re, we’re, I’m here. I’ve got, I’m down to three options. I nailed it. What was, I was at six. I’m now down to three. Now I’m making progress. And he’s like, well, you haven’t been communicating that to me. You haven’t been communicating that to the team. You haven’t been communicating where, you know, where you want, you know, where you are on this project. So, um, that was a huge moment where it kind of drug me, kind of drug me down. It was like, okay, I learned here. I’m not communicating. I’m obviously not communicating in the way that I need to be communicating.
Speaker 0 | 48:29.129
Because you need to know that you’ve gone from like 10 different antiviruses down to three. These are the reasons why I’ve gotten rid of these ones. These are the failures that I saw. This is what I’ve learned. This is what our systems need. Keep going. Exactly.
Speaker 1 | 48:42.498
Yeah. And no, you’re fine. And I had everything typed up on each one with the pros and the cons and all this stuff. And I provided it. And our VP of IT is like, well, you didn’t tell me that. You didn’t tell anybody exactly where you were. You mentioned in scrum. Okay. Yeah. You’ve been working on it, but there was no, no meat. There was nothing there. So, you know, we had to pull you off and they reassigned it to, uh, to somebody else. And that was a huge learning moment for me about communication and just making sure that I am communicating status, the full status, not just, Hey, I’m working on it with, you know, backing that up with, okay. Here’s where I’m at. Here’s what I’ve done. Here’s all this documentation I have. All in just making sure I’m clear with people, you know, this is where I’m at. So that was a huge learning moment for me. Massive.
Speaker 0 | 49:35.057
And there’s another lesson in the middle of all of that, too, of not only do you need to. to kind of over communicate but you gotta learn what they want because depending on who you’re communicating to like the cfo he’s going to be more concerned about what to cost per seat or per computer or you know what what’s the business model for them and and because we’re buying so much of it what kind of discount are they going to give us um where the vp of it is like how secure is this making our systems and what have you done to
Speaker 1 | 50:09.184
know that it actually works because you know vendors lie oh yeah absolutely and and that definitely you know brings to another good point you know so i learned at the beginning if i’m assigned a project or i have a project coming i will sit down with you know whoever the you know who’s leading that project or who the who the sponsor of it is and i will you know sit down and say okay you know what you know let’s figure out a touch base do we want to have a touch base every week do we want to have a touch base if it’s a big long project about touch base once a month you twice a month? How do we want to do it? What are your expectations on communication? Just try and get those things ironed out. So that way, A, you’re getting the sponsor of the project, the info they need. And so that way you’re keeping on track and that way no one’s getting frustrated with, and they’re calling you saying, hey, what the heck’s going on? Why do I not have the information I asked for? So then there’s no confusion. Then you don’t have to go back and try and mend things where- Instead, now you can just smooth sail through. You can just keep rolling. That’s, yeah.
Speaker 0 | 51:12.531
And if you know what they want and you provide that quickly to them, then that touch point is minimized. And they’re like, okay, he’s given me exactly what I wanted to know. And let’s move on.
Speaker 1 | 51:23.859
Exactly. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think that definitely it’s always fun because you have so many different types of people. Some people want it over text. Some people want it on a phone call. Some people want it in an email. It just depends, you know, and everyone’s kind of a little bit, a little bit different. And, you know, and the one thing that’s definitely I’ve learned is, you know, as change comes up, you know, effectively communicating that if there’s a change coming with upper management, they can kind of work to get everyone to buy in. And it’s definitely, it’s hard sometimes because the way every single person upper managed from the CEO to the CFO to the COO, they all. have to understand different components, like you mentioned. So they all have to know the little different pieces. And if you can get them up there to buy in and communicate out to their teams and say, hey, this is coming. I’ve talked extensively with Andrew. He is extremely confident that this is going to be a really good improvement for everybody. And then the list, here are the things it’s going to address. And then that kind of will help with They could listen to me, but sometimes I have a hard time bringing it down to maybe a level that some people might understand. I may be so high level with it, they’re just looking at me like deer in the headlights, right? So sometimes it’s good when you have those upper management to send that information down and let them kind of handle those questions and then they’ll come feed them back to me and then I can answer them. So definitely huge to get that upper management buy-in on this stuff instead of having to deal with the fallout later.
Speaker 0 | 53:06.881
I love that mute I don’t even know when I hit that mute button damn it um you know yeah if you can communicate to management and talk to them about all of this stuff and they understand it then they can disseminate it and get it to their people and yeah it saves you so much time and effort and and but it’s just like you know effective planning if you can plan things ahead of time you spend that extra amount of time in planning versus those Go, go, go, go. Organizations. Exactly. Go, go, go, go. All right. I’m going to get going this way. Oh, wait, we need to turn that way. No, wait, no, we need to go that way. Yeah, it’s always fun.
Speaker 1 | 53:46.715
Oh, absolutely. And it’s definitely can be hard sometimes when you’re trying to say, you know, you’re trying to implement something and, you know, you’re trying to say, okay, well, we need to deploy an RMM agent to people’s computers so we can keep it up. Make sure they’re all working correctly and make sure that we have proper inventory. And then you have to talk with management and they’re just like, well, what are you going to be doing with this? Like, why do you need it? And then trying to figure out a way to explain to them, it’s like, well, here’s what it does. And then you have people like, well, isn’t that just like basically monitoring what I’m doing all day? And I was like, no, that’s not what it’s for. Then you have to go through the explanation of it and trying to get them to understand because everyone’s at a different level.
Speaker 0 | 54:29.669
We got it. 200 people that we’re supporting, and each of those have one computer or maybe a laptop. That laptop is worth, let’s just round it off at 500. 500 times 200 equals, do you want to know where that inventory is? Do you want to know that we still have that inventory?
Speaker 1 | 54:48.883
Exactly. And that’s what I, you know, you have to figure out a way to just relate it to what’s going on in there. Because if you tell them, hey, if you give them like the, you know, the CFO, the. the dollar number on what’s going on they’re like oh okay yeah we definitely need that you know and then eventually you strike that little that little spot where you have you have this target you don’t really know where you know you have to figure out where the bullseye is to try and hit them and then you it’s like okay always the money operations
Speaker 0 | 55:16.310
guys going to want to know that people are doing their job so hey you know okay out of those 200 here are the 10 that never log in so how are they accomplishing their their i mean are they meeting their sales goals
Speaker 1 | 55:29.694
because yeah exactly it’s it’s and it’s it’s just it’s sometimes hard you know people you know to get people to understand and this stuff because it’s so foreign to them you know they may be they may have been you know uh doing you know construction work for you know 30 40 years and then all they’ve done in their entire life is you know hammer and nails and that’s what they know and then you introduce this foreign thing in their world and you have to just try and Help them understand that this is just kind of normal now because we have to manage this stuff. And it’s not as simple as it used to be when you had like just a pager or something like that, you know? Well,
Speaker 0 | 56:08.571
and you know, in all honesty, I think we’ve gotten to that point where everybody’s gotten used to the technology, that there’s some level of technology involved with their jobs. So even those guys that have been using the hammer and the nail this whole time, you know, maybe in 2010. there were still some that had the clamshell phone and and um hadn’t really done much with it but today i don’t know and and maybe that’s just from our point of view in the world because we’re guys that have i don’t know about you i got multiple computers for me in my house i do too not the maximum phone yeah um and and so um so i know that i come from a skewed perspective but but um i think
Speaker 1 | 56:55.266
technology has become the norm so many people yeah yeah i mean it’s it’s just it’s everyone has some form of technology whether they know it or not you know and it’s it’s just you know and some people are just deathly afraid of it and some people are just like embrace everything you know and it’s funny you find some of those people who have been working in you know a trade where technology isn’t really a big deal but then you go to their home they’ve got google homes everywhere they’ve got a desk thermostat they’ve got cameras they’ve got all this stuff and i’m just like oh they’ve embraced it in some form but and they’re turning up and down their lights through voice commands and and hey you like to show me the front door yeah exactly yeah it’s it’s definitely it’s just interesting to see like some people and what they’re you know what their tolerance of or what they’re willing to to try and do and what they’re willing to like okay like i don’t want to do this at work we all do it at home you know where i feel more comfortable you know so it’s interesting kind of sometimes how that works.
Speaker 0 | 57:55.694
All right. Well, Andrew, this has been a great conversation. Really enjoyed our time. Thank you for coming on to the podcast.
Speaker 1 | 58:03.656
Yeah, absolutely. I really appreciate you having me. It was a blast.
Speaker 0 | 58:06.817
All right. I’m glad you enjoyed it too. So one second. So as we come to a close on another Dissecting Popular IT Nerds, I’d like to invite all of our listeners to comment, rate the podcast on the iTunes store or wherever you’re grabbing the copy of the podcast from. We really appreciate the support of the program and the time you’ve invested into nerding out with us geeks. So thank you very much.
