What is your daily work schedule alike?

kihun

I'm curious because I have seen data analyst, system admin, data admin, network security personnel in IT field.
What is your day like at work? please post your job title and work exp year. if this is repost,

gorebrush

I work in a NOC so some days are quiet, some days are busy.

I work at night as well so that's generally quieter.

I usually study for CCIE then.

docrice

My official title is Network Security Engineer, but it's really more like Network Janitor.

I get into the office, fight fires, look at logs, run reports on traffic patterns, write documentation, help on infrastructure design plans, do some firewall/router/switch work, tune the ID/PS, hunt down policy offenders, open tickets with vendors for various problems, interrogate hosts (scanning), listen to vendors when they come in and pitch their "next generation" xyz, add my two cents into change-control meetings, look at more logs, tick off checkboxes on any completed quarterly projects, capture traffic and do analysis, write emails, write more emails, write even longer emails, and more stuff that I can't remember right now. Every now and then, I get coffee.

Maybe after 9 - 11 hours when I can't tell what color the blinking lights are, I go home. I do less on the weekends.

MAC_Addy

docrice wrote: »

My official title is Network Security Engineer, but it's really more like Network Janitor.

I get into the office, fight fires, look at logs, run reports on traffic patterns, write documentation, help on infrastructure design plans, do some firewall/router/switch work, tune the ID/PS, hunt down policy offenders, open tickets with vendors for various problems, interrogate hosts (scanning), listen to vendors when they come in and pitch their "next generation" xyz, add my two cents into change-control meetings, look at more logs, tick off checkboxes on any completed quarterly projects, capture traffic and do analysis, write emails, write more emails, write even longer emails, and more stuff that I can't remember right now. Every now and then, I get coffee.

Maybe after 9 - 11 hours when I can't tell what color the blinking lights are, I go home. I do less on the weekends.

Apparently you and I do almost the exact same thing during the day. Except, I HAVE to make myself a coffee before I start work. It's not a sleepy thing, I think at this point it's almost an OCD thing.

TheProf

I work as a senior systems admin, but on the integration team for the moment as an integrator on the infra side.. My job is mainly SME, Design, Implementations, etc.. Day to day stuff includes documentation, meetings, proposals, more meetings, collaborate with colleagues, more meetings, fly aboard for an integration, more meetings ...

In all honesty, I am happy can't complain, get to do what I want, good salary and perks.

DevilWAH

It seems 40%+ these days is spent doing admin stuff. Managing contractors, scoping projects, design/development meetings, purchasing, writing business cases, chasing orders, chasing suppliers. About 40% is spent technically designing projects, and 20% actually hands on technical work. Although this does vary and some week I spend 100% hands on while others I might not log on a single device. Maybe 1 or 2 cases a week work there way up to my attention and over half of these get sent back with instructions to carry out basic trouble shooting before bothering me.

Some how this week I have been roped in to migrating some web servers around, but generally its get in to work, see what projects need attention and then get on with it. Normally about 5 - 10 main projects on the go at once + a few other smaller bits and pieces so never time to sit back or have a regular schedule.

Iristheangel

My job title is Network Engineer and I have 1.5 years experience in pure networking at this point (6ish years in IT total).
I work in a small small small networking team of 2 other engineers and one admin for a large international company. The admin usually does a lot of the operational work but every once in awhile, I'll have to go to a site and find the issue when no one else figures it out.
My company lacks a dedicated network architect so while most of my work is project work, I usually have to start at the very beginning of the project doing all the architecting and designing meaning I have to meet with the site or the business owners, figure out the needs, do site walks, design a solution that's fault-resistant and can scale, work with the vendors for whatever I need for the project (wiring, service, ordering network equipment, electrical, etc), stay on top of the vendors, configure the equipment, install the equipment, create the final diagram and sitepak, add the equipment to monitoring, etc, etc, etc, etc. The projects I work on vary - Everything from site projects such as CCTV and WiFi upgrades and additions to a full-blown ISE deployment, adding and designing a IPS solution, and, hopefully soon, a datacenter redesign and rebuild.
It's actually pretty hard to balance all the projects, helping out when things break, staying on top of vendors, and then still getting the documentation done at the end of the day.
I work long hours and definitely bring my work home with me. When I was stuck sick with strep throat over the holidays, I sat at my desk and home and used that time to finish 10 diagrams and the sitepaks that went with them. I have to sometimes leave town and don't always make it back in time - last week I had to meet with the CIO out in the bay area for a site walk for a major project we're about to undertake and something broke at a site in SF that disabled the whole network out there. Since it was down for 3 days, I was 45 minutes away, and no one was figuring out from Southern California, the CIO asked me to go out there and find the issue - Ended up being a broken media converter - but stuff like that happens and I missed my flight back.
The job I work now and the breakneck pace at which is do it isn't an ideal long-term solution for my career but I do love my job and I love the management I work with

Verities

Get a cup of coffee, sift through about 100 useless emails (that's what doesn't get caught by my ridiculously long Outlook rule) to find 1 email that may be someone requesting my team for assistance to resolve an issue, if issue has been resolved, move on to checking my virtual infrastructure, verify successful backups, then wait for a project to be assigned or hardware to fail.

darkerz

Day starts with Coffee & Food

Purge alerts, emails and tickets - mix of break/fix, RMA's, vendor hounding, general responses, etc. "The Grind", this is 1-2 hours and is the Business, Management and Other-IT group facing part of my job.

Projects, Asset Management, Code Upgrades, Migration Planning & Network Architecture and Design (What protocols, what configurations / templates, what special changes per customer need) can consume the rest of the day. You will find me looking up "OSPF _____", "BGP ____", "Nexus VPC+ ______", etc. and creating documentation, personal notes and process flows a lot of the time.


Second Coffee. It's a habit - I can quit any time I want!

Clear any NNMi & HPNA issues, alerts and oddities. Troubleshoot some issue here and there that Off-Shore and US Tier 1,2 and 3 teams can't resolve. It's neat to touch the stuff three levels of techs and engineers couldn't quite figure out.

On-site visits to one of 29 datacenters, either for physical installations, re-wiring or "No Out of band break/fix" when it happens. Any network downtime within 4 hours must be resolved, it keeps everyone on their toes.

Argue the cost effectiveness and ROI of platforms and specific cables, LC's and SUP's with team. It's thrilling and frustrating. Whiteboard arguments over network infrastructure, or "clarifications" about certain functions.


Third Coffee.

At this point, either head home after 7-8 hours and a skipped lunch, or study for a bit. Wrap up any emails, tickets, etc.

Manager will micro-manage any issue that is not a perfect process flow or resolve, will usually walk in making suggestions to a ticket or project deadline 1-2 hours late. I've already handled and escalated the issue by then - fun.

Finally, food, home and relaxation. I have been able to successfully seperate my professional self and personal self.


After work.

Unfortunately for my lovely girlfriend and two cats, this only means that "He's playing with his GNS3 again", as CCNP-CCIE level prep and ambitious goals are important to me. I managed to find a study buddy who will break out 30+ router topology and I will fix it with no syslogging, sh logging or alert system.

sdgsdgdsgsdg

Sat & Sun are usually study and work free. It helps prevent burn out.

bull313

Currently being stuck in RETAIL (enough motivation to get recertified and back into IT!), my day goes like this:

Arrive early because someone is ALWAYS calling out sick in my already understaffed department.

Deal with irate customers because of compatibility issues with products, services, etc.

Get yelled at by management for not making enough sales due to being busy trying to fix everyone else's mistakes.

Go home, study, and pray for a better tomorrow and a FULL-TIME job!

NightShade1

Currently i work as Product Manager
My days goes like:
Presales, postsales, Marketing and technical Marketing, designing WLAN, speaking to a bunch of customers in an event, performing demos to our clients, tracking user feedback and have really happy to our customers about the brand i was assigned, and anything related to the brand i was assigned

Thats what i do my whole day! sometimes i could be doing presales the whole day others, i could be doing something else!
Its a fun job, as i do many different things in it, there is always sometimes new to do

Cheers
Carlos

ally_uk

I work for a charity / social enterprise that specialises in refurbishing redundant IT equipment for reuse / resale, Daily duties include fixing allsorts of I.T equipment from laptops to Servers to PC's to Macs. I also run a external repair service for customers each day is different and brings new challenges and new hardware to drool over / fix

I also help out with in house I.T support when needed and front I.T sales which basically means selling the kit ive fixed up

I use any down time to tinker with Linux that's my real passion I usually pull out a old Dell Poweredge and get to work when the Boss isn't looking lol

Before I did this role I was on the help desk supporting WIndoze but after a while that was like watching paint dry

devils_haircut

My job title is "Desktop Support Technician", but I'm actually just a contract Windows 7 migration tech. I work 8-5. When I get in to work, I grab a handful of new desktops/laptops to deploy that day (3 is a good start, 4-5 if I'm feeling frisky). Before I hit the road, I fire them up and make sure they were configured correctly because I don't trust the other members of my team...some of them can barely log in to Windows, let alone troubleshoot ancient healthcare software.

The rest of my day is spent driving around the city to different medical offices or hospitals playing scavenger hunt to locate the machine I'm supposed to replace and hoping the end user will let me install the new equipment. Some people have the "...out of my cold, dead hands" mentality when it comes to Windows XP. I also have to pray to the PC Gods that the software I will be supporting that day has either a knowledge base article on how to get it working on Win7, or the EU has a support # that I can call, like when I have to setup software for security cameras that is unique to one specific location and requires a username/password that nobody on-site knows.

I roll back to the data center at ~4:30, close out tickets, update assets, and leave as soon as my boss does (which can be any time between 4-5).

DevilWAH

OK so you never know what you might be working on. Came in to work today and got called in to a design meeting for a new Lab. Seems one of the new projects I will be working on is a communication system for these..




Yes bio containment suits! not designing the actually suits but how they will integrate in to our communication systems. I love the variety of projects I get to be part of Thank fully I don't have to wear the dam things though, been there and done that..