OMG I am SOOOO freaking out right now!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I have been thrown into the proverbial, “deep end of the pool”.

I work for an educational institution as an IT guy. My job specifically is to back up our systems admin (I will call him S) and also to run and maintain our web server.

S is in charge of our company’s internet connection (Including router config, DNS, T1 circuit connection, etc.), wide area network to our financial server, phone system, e-mail system and some other miscellaneous things.

S just up and quit today. He has been diagnosed with depression and has been battling this for about 2 years now. About 1.5 yrs ago he took a 1 month leave of absence to deal with this, then came back. This AM he told me he had given our boss 2 weeks notice. Then he left for lunch at 11:30 and then called me later this afternoon to say he wasn’t coming back.

I’ve been slowly learning about everything he did, but most of what he does I’ve only dabbled with a little bit. I don’t know if I can do everything his job entailed. I can do some of his duties, but somethings (Like our phone system) are a complete mystery to me. I’ve learned a little about our DNS server, but I’ve never had to add configuration to it. My knowledge of network topology, especially our company’s, is basic at best.

I just spoke to my boss about S leaving so suddenly. He wants to give him a little time to think things over. He thinks that maybe S might change his mind. That is how things happened the last time he took time off. He up and quit, then decided to take a leave of absence and come back. Maybe that will happen again, but I don’t know.

So I am now officially freaking out. I can keep most of our systems running, but with what I know at this stage, I dread what would happen if one of our circuits went down, or if our DNS server somehow got fried. For now, boss says that a few of the others on our staff can help me with learning some of these things, but I’m still feeling quite overwhelmed.

:frowning:

2

That’s pretty typical of the IT training I have received.

shove

Now Swim!

Best of luck, the web is a great resource. You don’t have to know every answer, you just need to know where to look for answers.

3

I will paraphrase a snippet from the great wisdom imparted to me during sophomore thermodynamics.

PROFESSOR: “I am seeing many blank looks right now. This diagram I am drawing is not new. It is not something I have made up. We have been doing this all semester. Raise your hand if you think you could finish the problem given only what I have drawn… (…) Aha. Okay, I see. Some of you have missed the boat. Well, now you will learn to swim. If your hand was not in the air you had better have a pen out.”

4

Did S leave any notes you can look at to see how he solved previous problems? If he did, you should get those notes somewhere where you can have them to reference in the future. You should also start making notes when you fix problems if you don’t already- then, if a problem recurs, you’ll know what to do right away the second time. If you’re as hopeless at organizing things as I am, you should keep these notes in files on your computer.

Your university might have an extension program (or “University College” or some other name- it’s usually night school for adults). They might have classes on system and network administration- UC Berkeley Extension and UC Santa Cruz Extension do. If there is something like this in your area, it might be a good idea for building skills, confidence, and a network of other IT guys you could talk to if a problem comes up. If you work for a university, you might even be able to get a discount at that university’s extension program :smiley:

5

I opened this thread thinking “freaking” was being used as a general intensifier.

Oh well. Carry on.

6

Very wise words for NurseCarmen. I have this happen to me multiple times in my IT career. When I worked at biosphere 2 we had our payroll on a an HP 3000 “Mighty Mouse” box. I never had to deal with it but a drive failed and HP came and replaced it. My boss came to me at 5:30 and asked me to restore the data and added, “Oh, I handed in my resignation today.”

It gets better. His backup methodology was to overwrite the same tape set every day. If you had a corrupted or damaged tape there was no fallback. The tape was corrupted. It was the day before payday. I didn’t know how I was going to pull my bacon out of that one but I did. My first step after paychecks went out was to make a proper backup methodology for the finance department.

I have just been working a few months for a division of NCR. I had some experience in this field at my previous employer but have yet to have a day of formal training. A month after I was send to Germany for a month to fill in for the DBA of a major client. I was apprehensive but I’m enough of a jack of all trades and a BS artists to have pulled it off.

7

I have been in similar situations, except with machinery instead of software systems. I got my hands on any documentation I could by any means short of murder in order to figure out how the damn thing worked, and what I could do to make it work again. Anne Neville has an excellent suggestion on keeping [meticulous] notes. My own notes have saved my posterior more than once. The other thing I would strongly suggest is that you prioritize, and get the emergencies taken care of first, then the routine/mundane things. Make out a schedule of daily/weekly/monthly tasks, when they are to be done, and make those top priority on those days. Also, keep a running list of requests, and then do them. It helps keep people off of your back.

If you are doing something for the first time with a manual open in front of you, disconnect yourself from the world and focus. Turn off your cell phone, pager, go hide in a closet, whatever it takes to do it right the first time. Going back to fix your first attempt will put you in a game of catch-up, and I can tell you that you will rarely win that game.

Lastly, keep control of your time. Don’t let others dictate what should be done first, unless there is a good reason for it; “I want this done first because I’m yelling the loudest” when the system is about to crash would result in stabilizing the system, and explaining to the yellee that they won’t get anything without the system. You’re the IT person, presumably you know the system better than the users, so you should be in a better position to set priorities. Also learn to be a good negotiator and learn to compromise.

Getting organized and staying organized will keep your head above water. Good luck.

Vlad/Igor

8

Anne Neville, if he has any notes, it’s all on his pc. I’ll probably have to start searching it in the next week to get at everything I will need… at least until my boss decided how he’s going to handle the vacancy. It may very well be a situation where the rest of the IT staff each take up part of his job.

Great advice from everyone. I’ll keep you all informed as to how things turn out. The suddenness of it all was such a shock for me, it just really overwhelmed me. Thanks for all of your support.

9

Good luck, Dragwyr. You’ll do fine. I have been fairly successful in my job and the most important thing people know about me is “if she doesn’t know the answer, she knows who has the answer.”