Comments on: A Job I’m Glad I Don’t Have

By: Carol Anne

Carol Anne — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 06:07:20 +0000

Well, here’s a bit of happy-ish news: Nearly all of the guys who ran the labs for our department are being transferred to IT. They’ll be reporting up a different chain of command, and they’ll have to standardize the labs to institution-wide criteria, but at least the transition will be smoother.

Of course, if they’re being transferred rather than terminated, that’s good for them (I like them a lot, so I’m glad). However, that doesn’t translate into much cost savings for the college.

And yeah, most of them are musicians. One of them is a drummer in a pretty good local band.

By: Jesse

Jesse — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 02:55:58 +0000

I always thought “Information Technology” was a PC euphimism for computer worker, ala’ Sanitation Engineer=Garbage Man.
The other day T and me saw a slightly paunchy guy with a long pony tail. We decided he was either a musician or an IT guy. And noted how so many IT guys play music as a hobby.
There is a funny UK TV show called “The IT Dept” (I watch it on Netflix streaming). I don’t think it is actually so accurate as to who is really an IT guy, but it is funny nonetheless.

By: Jerry

Jerry — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 18:59:51 +0000

And now the IT guys have to go into each lab and figure out how it was set up (probably not documented) and try to standardize them. This will be a large effort in terms of time and will lead to a barrage of complaints: “I used to be able to do it this way.” “When Alice ran the lab we never had these problems.”

By: Carol Anne

Carol Anne — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 06:58:50 +0000

From time immemorial (or at least since I started teaching at this community college in 1998), each academic department has run its own computer lab classrooms. Aside from problems caused by (at some times of the day) having more classes that need labs than there are labs, things have run well. Each department has chosen to run its labs in a way that suits the department.

Now, as a cost-cutting measure (the Legislature found a way to give us a 4 percent budget cut while calling it a 2 percent cut by assuming that we would get federal stimulus money that hasn’t materialized), all of the computer lab classrooms will be administered by IT Services. This will allow the college to cut the jobs of the people who run the labs for each department, although the IT staff, as far as I know, will not be increased to handle the additional burdens.

Yeah, I’m glad I don’t work in IT.