A year in my (IT) work life

So it is currently performance review time at work. I never really enjoy this time - not because of problems but because it takes time away from the multitude of other items I am always working on.  I'm also not one to really want to toot my horn.  I also tend to struggle with self-advocating - that generally doesn't do much harm unless I am looking to make a change of some sort.

I will say that the performance review distraction has been a little lower the last couple years but only because I had started an informal time/task tracking method a couple years ago.  It isn't anything super fancy - a spreadsheet which has lists of tasks with rough time and tagged with common apps and whether it was operations, project, etc type things in support of ITIL tracking. Sometimes I wish I had more detail in my task descriptions but it gives me enough info to show what I work on and roughly how much time I spent.

Anyways, just documenting the breadth/variety of stuff I ended up doing over the last year.  This turned out to be a pretty typical recent year other than the organizations location changes (both people and data center).  I'm trying to break this up into somewhat logical groupings but that isn't always easy. Some of the items are really minor stuff and others are substantial projects involving multiple teams/groups.  I've also limited the amount of detail I've provided but I hope it provide enough for someone to get a feel for what my position requires. 

A note to those that are looking to get into the IT field - I often find that titles don't accurately reflect the expected scope of duties. The smaller the organization or the less IT focused the "organization/product/service" the more I find this to be true. I'm not saying that is bad but make sure your expectations and the organizations real needs are compatible.

• Department
• Support the data center moves
• Support the consolidation of employees to a new location across town
• Proposal for a couple infrastructure/workflow/business process changes
• Research some security issues
• Team
• Increase application build and deployment automation 
• Jenkins/Artifactory/Subversion/scripting
• Jenkins patching/updates
• Batch job maintenance
• batch email list rules/filters
• Subversion
• Setup some on-checkin email notifications for one application
• Update service side workspaces to not ask to save/store passwords
• Setup user/consultant access to various repos
• Multiple systems
• Tomcat & JDK upgrades
• Blackboard
• A litter research on items requested by lead/administrator
• Sharepoint
• Research user/account issues at admins request
• Other teams
• Provide some general support to team responsible for HighPoint Mobile application
• Recompile/configure Apache server/PHP per new required modules needed by HighPoint Mobile upgrade
• Provide some simple Subversion support/training/knowledge transfer to admin
• Provide Java/Tomcat setup/knowledge/guidance to another team
• Provide support to local team/administrator of integration with Dept of General Services
• Provide support to local AD administrator by setting up data/infrastructure to replace a shared resource domain file sharing setup with something else.
• Research data issues for another team after a large systems DB was corrupted and crashed with recovery from backup
• Research other/regular data issues related to ERP and other apps/integration
• Provide admissions application info to data warehouse group
• Admissions Application
• Server replacements
• Operations and support activities.  Large number of direct college staff  functional question after the functional group quit/retired/transferred or otherwise let go.
• Code changes to move large amounts of static text/prompts from property files to the database.  This reduced the need for deployments which were replaced by simple DB updates.
• Other technology upgrades; Primefaces
• Research and implement batch jobs which identify bad ERP setups and notify responsible groups.
• Off-hours support during normal ERP maint which affects this application
• Off-hours support for upgrades/maint
• Staff authentication method changes - initial R&D
• Changes to password generation/complexity requirements and processing
• Legacy portal
• Authentication method changes
• Server replacements
• User level security changes supporting split of HR from existing ERP.
• Minor customizations/additions to content/branding
•  Password handling changes 
• gmail/CAS setup - convert from prior methodology
• R&D for availability of new portals user security questions to help desk along with integrations to maintain that data
• off-hours support/maint
• Wizard
• some support; research and help resolve various issues. 
• Provide help answering questions from team/consultants working on rewrite.
• New portal
• On-going project support
• Implement JSF based self-service user lookup and password reset tools
• Another gmail/CAS custom code setup
•  Research the large number of data issues
• WES project
• Provide admissions app logic/processes/metrics/support to development team
• Integrations
• Implemented/deployed dev/test/prod ServiceMix environments
• Implemented several integrations involving DB to AD, DB to ERP type stuff
• Implemented integrations to monitor/report issues to integration system status
• Continue research, prototype and final implementation of ways to increase system capacity/stability/availability/performance/reliability.
• Password expiration / grace period implementation
• MS FIM
• Help primary admin with normalization across the dev/test/prod environments.
• Provide some additional operations/support help to primary admin
• Implement custom C# DLL for use with FIM/PCNS 
• Design/implement DB objects and process for the employee management agent
• Rework some group handling to remove an unnecessary restriction in group membership for a specific user base
• Support data setup for a college finance related back-office project
• Add additional data into employee management agent for use by new issue tracking system
• Some research into missing AD attributes on some users

Hoping Jesus blesses you and touches the hearts of those around you!
Scott

About Me - work & goals

 My view of employment

• Work is a gift from God.  I feel too many people treat it as a curse.
• I believe in doing the best I possibly can; even if it isn't something enjoyable at various times.
• I believe that my work should benefit my employer.
• To excel at what I do requires continuous learning; 
• books, research papers, prototyping, self-learning, organizations like the ACM, Google and software related sites are required resources both during work and outside of work to gain and maintain skills
• Learning from others is wise; only relying on other peers is laziness.  You cannot improve at something without actually spending your time doing the work. 
• Don't just give up when problems get difficult; brainstorm with others, research alternative solutions, redefine the problem to provide a way to a different solution space, rethink the box.
• Work ethic is important to me; don't cut corners simply to take the easy way out.  If an employer requires cutting corners; make the implications known and either do your best or find an employer with compatible work ethics depending on the circumstances.
• Admit mistakes, learn from them and move on.  
• Remember to treat others as I want to be treated; abrasive personalities make this difficult but do the best to readjust self-attitude before making comments which cannot be taken back.
• Help others in need whenever possible.
• A sense of humor can help everyone during stressful time
• I should provide an honest assessment of both things that I can do and things that I am  not (overly) familiar with.  If you don't know something say so; even if you plan to figure it out.
• I should provide as realistic estimates as possible; yes a fudge factor for the unknown may be warranted.  If an organization has little/no emphasis on managing overall employee workload and the project on-boarding is a high-speed ramp then estimations probably have little value though.

My personal hope and expectations of an employer

• Respect for me and my family. 
• Respect for employees as a whole.  Actions speak much louder than words.
• Appropriate support so I may fully perform my duties to the best of my abilities 
• Reasonably clear and attainable goals
• Long hours on occasion are an expected part of the job; normal planning using 45+ hour weeks is not respectful of anyone or their families IF not stated during interviews and paid appropriately for the overtime.  In an interview, stating "occasional overtime required" but expecting normal 42+ hour weeks is deceitful.  I expect an honest assessment of the organizations needs. 
• Pay which matches industry expectations for the job function and area.
• The ability to use annual leave without a guilt trip.  i.e. having 6 months out of the year which are "too busy to use leave" is not very respectful unless it is made clear during interviews. 
• A day off should not have the normal meaning/expectation of "work from home".
• I expect managers not to use fear and intimidation as management tactics.

Hope this provides some insight into me for anyone interested.

For any readers of this that are interested in some of the biblical backing, here are some references from the New American Standard Bible of things I try to live by (but fail at all to often).

• Colossians 3:23 - Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men.
• Proverbs 14:23 - In all labor there is profit, but mere talk  leads only to poverty.
• Acts 20:35 - In everything I showed you that by working hard in this manner you must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus , that He Himself said, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'
• 1 Peter 4:10-11 - As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.
• 1 Timothy 5:8 - But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.