I forgot to mention...

[baratron]

that Richard has a new job. Unlike the job he's had for some years now, where he is head of multimedia/digital media for the London branch, network manager for the entire company, and also the only sysadmin in London, at the new place he will be one of four or five senior sysadmins, and there are also junior sysadmins and engineers. So hopefully take the piss situations where he's at work all night will occur on a much smaller frequency, and he will actually be able to take his entire holiday allowance instead of not being allowed more than a week off at a time, and he might actually be able to go on holiday without having to field calls from work all the time. He has another 2 days left of the old job and starts the new one on Monday. He is nervous, but I am certain it could be no worse, and will probably be better than the place he's working now.

Alexa is looking for work at the moment, and wants to be a sysadmin, but I wouldn't point her at Richard's old job if it was the only sysadmin job in the world. The senior management in Amsterdam are really nice people and competent, but the management in London are... eh, well I don't want to be sued for libel, but let's just say neither of those adjectives applies. I don't want to haul one of my partners out of the fire and throw the other one in! I've found a few jobs on Monster that might be suitable, but if anyone's company is looking for a junior sysadmin, do let me/her know.

Comments

GO for it Alexa

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

I'd actually tell Alexa to go for it - but with your eyes wide open in order to say "these are the conditions underwhich I will work".

A good sys admin needs to be able to take a little bit of occasional stress, but at the same time I agree that said SA should also be able to say "I am uncontactable for TWO weeks therefore we need to find professional replacement cover whilst I am away".

My GF munquie has two problems with holiday....
1) she is rarely allowed to have weekends off because she works in a shop
2) she is not allowed to take holiday during XMas or start of university terms because that is when people buy the most books from her shop.




Another friend of mine is considering entering computing as a career and might be good at being a system admin - except that he is 30 something and not been involved with computers in the past.


In the current job market ANY kind of experience in computing is a plus and doing a shit job for a year is better than doing no job for the same time.

This has been a public service announcement from SuperAlex whose special power is the power to state the obvious.

Re: GO for it Alexa

[baratron.livejournal.com]

I respectfully disagree.

I think that an essential part of one's first job is that there is a good support structure in place - friendly senior colleagues who can help you find your feet, management who are competent - or at least, not completely incompetent!, some sort of training programme, whether formal or informal. This job has none of those attributes.

This support structure becomes particularly important when someone has already suffered from a stress-related illness. So all things considered (including the fact she doesn't already live in London) - I think we should look elsewhere first.