| June 2007 |
| By Justin Stanley |
It happens to the best Systems Administrator sooner or later. Sure, you can put it off, sometimes almost indefinitely. I'm sure we all know at least one or two people who've managed to avoid it for years, but it happens eventually. But no matter how hard you study, how many certifications you earn, or how many busy and important people you know, you will, at least once in your IT career, be the New Guy.
It happened to me recently... again. After spending the last four and a half years with the same company, I jumped ship in the spring for greener pastures and suddenly found myself once again in the New Guy role. Though it definitely wasn't my first time playing the part, so much time had passed since the last time I was in that position that I almost forgot the basic rules every New Guy needs to know to be successful in his new gig.
Getting used to a new position involves more than just learning where to sit and finding the bathrooms, so what does the New Guy need to do to thrive? First and foremost, he needs to mingle. Get to know the people not only in the IT department, but throughout the company (or, in the case of a larger company, the people who fall under his umbrella of support). As a Systems Administrator, it's too easy to stay secluded in the server room unless it's absolutely necessary to get out into the real world and see people face-to-face. He begins to associate coworkers with problems and can easily become the legendary antisocial IT guy. People will be afraid to come to him for help and he'll feel a twinge of pain every time he sees a new message from one of "Them" in his inbox. It's counter-productive for everyone. Best to nip that one in the bud from Day One.
Getting to know his new coworkers has another, perhaps more important benefit for the New Guy: he learns about the business. Some people think that the Systems Administrator is just "The Computer Guy," but most SA's are a lot more than mere techs. They're problem solvers, tasked with ensuring that all systems operate efficiently. Yes, those systems typically involve workstations and servers and, yes, the SA is responsible for maintaining those tools, but he's also there to leverage his knowledge about those systems to help make the business run more smoothly.
For example, during my first full week with one employer, I spent a day with the customer service team and watched them walk through a process that involved manually keying information contained in one spreadsheet into a form in their CRM software. The staff performing that task had it down to an art, but it was still a tedious, time consuming task prone to the occasional typo. It was clearly the kind of process that could be automated easily and effectively. By the end of that day, we'd worked together to script that process, turning an hour long task into one that finished in minutes. Not only had we knocked out a key business process, but the relationship built that day made my job easier in the future. Plus, since I'd seen first-hand how things worked in their department, so I wasn't as confused when they called me with a problem about some obscure part of their routine in the future.
Keep in mind that nobody likes a know-it-all, especially when he's the New Guy. While his previous experience is probably one of the main reasons he got the job to begin with, the last thing the New Guy should do is insult his new coworkers and employers by implying that the way his last IT department did things was better than the way the new company works. They probably already know at least some of the areas in which they could improve, but the New Guy needs to realize that everyone at the new company is connected to those processes in some way and that they'll have a difficult time separating themselves from their work. While it might be OK for them to talk about their faults, it's another thing entirely to hear about them from the New Guy.
Finally, the New Guy can't just walk into the company and expect to change everything overnight. Besides the fact that people respond better to change when it happens gradually, the New Guy needs to take the time to learn exactly why things are the way they are. A process that might seem completely abstract and ridiculous from the outside, for instance, might be the only way to make some obscure (yet important) process work properly.
Long gone are the days in which most people could conceivably retire from the same company that offered him his first job. Every Systems Administrator needs to be prepared to be the New Guy... again. And again... and again.
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