IT guy here.. lost my job.

[m0rtal1ty]

Many of you guys know I have a few jobs. A week ago I lost the big one.

I worked as one of the two IT administrators for an architecture company in downtown Columbus; a company of ~170 people in eight regional offices. About 5 months ago I and a few of my colleagues had our hours cut nearly in half. Then a week ago I was brought into a conference room and was told the company could no longer afford to keep me at all.

Being nearly into my mid-20s this was my first 'big boy' job and my first time being laid off. I was always busy with a continuous long list of tasks and had such a large part in operations that my colleagues were in utter shock when they learned I was let go and are now paralytically worried about loosing their own jobs. I feel bad for my IT colleague who now has an enormous amount of work to deal with alone. Oh well. Right now I work weekends at the Abercrombie & Fitch corporate campus providing IT support for the associates and I work on small business electronics and photography projects as usual. It would be awesome if those jobs paid the bills since I enjoy them quite a bit.

If anyone here has any opportunities I'm looking for a M-F position here in Columbus for another IT support or administration position. I have a heavy concentration in supporting users utilizing the general stuff like Windows and Office but also more specific design products such as AutoCAD, Revit, Photoshop, Premiere, and tons of other stuff. On the server side I've spent nearly 4 years with active directory, IIS, Exchange, and some of the usual MySQL, PHP, HTML, and automation scripting stuff. I'm open for chaning to a motorcycle-related career and I have a few friends who would vouch for what I would do to get there ; ) At any rate I'm a little overwhelmed with everything still and my focus is more cloudy than usual so hopefully a resume will give more details on what I can do; feel free to ask for one.

Thanks for reading.

[Josh1234]

Do you have a degree in I.T.?

[gen3flygirl]

The application deadline is today for this one but osu has killer benefits. https://www.jobsatosu.com/applicants/jsp/shared/position/JobDetails_css.jsp?postingId=531446

[m0rtal1ty]

Thanks for the responses so far everyone. No degree yet; I'm in my junior year at OSU. School is tough for me and the expense is staggering but I'm plugging away. Thanks for the lead flygirl; that position needs experience with a education/security protcol I've never worked with before. I'll keep looking at that board though for other stuff to pop up.

[Josh1234]

You'll be fine in I.T. once you get your degree... especially since you already have experience.

P.S.

The title of this thread is "IT guy here - lost my job" and your screenname is "m0rtal1ty."

I find the leetness and the meaning amusing, considering the situation

[Sapphy]

Apply anyway, you never know. You have some experience, you might be surprised. OSU loves to hire OSU people. Hell I got to be an engineer of central email there, and I have no degree.

[JStump]

what on earth do you do as an engineer of central email? I am an IT guy myself, I just got a job with Sherwin Williams as a windows systems/network admin but I don't even know what that job could possibly entail lol.

[jporter12]

what on earth do you do as an engineer of central email?

Do you have any idea how much email goes through OSU's network? Neither do I, but I bet the volume is HUGE!

[DGTL GRL]

Nationwide Insurance's help desk is in Dublin.

[DGTL GRL]

http://www.nationwide.com/careers/jobs-apply.jsp

[JStump]

Do you have any idea how much email goes through OSU's network? Neither do I, but I bet the volume is HUGE!

Oh I definitely think there is a lot of traffic but what EXACTLY does that job entail? I am just curious how you can be an engineer in email lol.

[jblosser]

what on earth do you do as an engineer of central email? I am an IT guy myself, I just got a job with Sherwin Williams as a windows systems/network admin but I don't even know what that job could possibly entail lol.

Oh I definitely think there is a lot of traffic but what EXACTLY does that job entail? I am just curious how you can be an engineer in email lol.

These days, if you want the big money (high 5 to low 6 figure$), you're a "Messaging Architect"...

As an example: My company has ~3,000 mailboxes (users with e-mail), a couple of hundred 'resources' (conference rooms, projectors, automobiles?!, etc) that can be reserved through Outlook, and a couple of hundred groups (of people, e.g. Inside Sales, Big Shots).

On any given day there are around 60,000+- mail items that are inbound/outbound to teh Intarnetz through the MX boxes.

There are 3 physical servers hosting the Database Availability Groups (DAGs) - the database where mail is actually stored. Each one is in separate physical location and has the ability to host all 3 DAGs for failover/high availability/disaster recovery.

There are two Hub Transport/CAS (Client Access Server) virtual servers. These handle mail coming from 'the edge' and route them according to rules that are set up (what domain are they going to, etc.).

There are two Edge/TMG (Threat Management Gateway) servers that route mail to/from the HP-UX MX (Mail eXchanger) servers and to/from the HUB/CAS boxes.

There are two HP-UX MX boxes that send/receive mail straight from teh intarwebz, well, actually from Postini, a Google product that filters out spam (or is supposed to, but I still get penis enlargement e-mails - I guess the ex Mrs. and all the ex-girlfriends are signing me up...).

So. You have to take care of 8 servers, running either Windows Server 2008R2 or HP-UX 11.11.

You're constantly monitoring mailboxes for quota size, adjusting for people that are on vacation, people that just can't keep their mailbox size in check, people that are *too important* to be bothered with cleaning mail.

You are setting up resources as described above.

You're making sure the DAGs don't run out of space.

You're making sure that backups ran successfully.

You're restoring a mailbox for some idiot who deleted "important" mail that he didn't mean to delete.

You're restoring a lot of mail from 5 or 6 years back for the Legal Department as part of discovery for a lawsuit.

You're doing lots of things, and this is only for 3,000~ users. I would guess that OSU, with 50,000~ students, plus however many faculty, plus I think they host mail for alumni, so they are probably well over 100,000 mailboxes.

Plenty to keep someone occupied all day.

E-Mail is/can be pretty complex.

[JonS]

E-Mail is/can be pretty complex.

^^^ Technology is amazing and nobody is happy ...

Sorry to hear about the job loss. It happened to me earlier in the summer. So far the grass is greener ... working in consulting has yielded a 30% bump.

[bacchus]

Ohiohealth is looking for a few more Tier III desktop support folks. If the jobs aren't posted now, they will be shortly.

[Casper]

You'll be fine in I.T. once you get your degree... especially since you already have experience.

P.S.

The title of this thread is "IT guy here - lost my job" and your screenname is "m0rtal1ty."

I find the leetness and the meaning amusing, considering the situation

I don't have a degree, and I do quite fine.

OP: Check Columbus State and Franklin University. I think both have IT openings right now.

[Sapphy]

what on earth do you do as an engineer of central email? I am an IT guy myself, I just got a job with Sherwin Williams as a windows systems/network admin but I don't even know what that job could possibly entail lol.

see what jblosser said.

Do you have any idea how much email goes through OSU's network? Neither do I, but I bet the volume is HUGE!

5 million on an average day hits the system (pre spam filtering)

These days, if you want the big money (high 5 to low 6 figure$), you're a "Messaging Architect"...

As an example: My company has ~3,000 mailboxes (users with e-mail), a couple of hundred 'resources' (conference rooms, projectors, automobiles?!, etc) that can be reserved through Outlook, and a couple of hundred groups (of people, e.g. Inside Sales, Big Shots).

On any given day there are around 60,000+- mail items that are inbound/outbound to teh Intarnetz through the MX boxes.

There are 3 physical servers hosting the Database Availability Groups (DAGs) - the database where mail is actually stored. Each one is in separate physical location and has the ability to host all 3 DAGs for failover/high availability/disaster recovery.

There are two Hub Transport/CAS (Client Access Server) virtual servers. These handle mail coming from 'the edge' and route them according to rules that are set up (what domain are they going to, etc.).

There are two Edge/TMG (Threat Management Gateway) servers that route mail to/from the HP-UX MX (Mail eXchanger) servers and to/from the HUB/CAS boxes.

There are two HP-UX MX boxes that send/receive mail straight from teh intarwebz, well, actually from Postini, a Google product that filters out spam (or is supposed to, but I still get penis enlargement e-mails - I guess the ex Mrs. and all the ex-girlfriends are signing me up...).

So. You have to take care of 8 servers, running either Windows Server 2008R2 or HP-UX 11.11.

You're constantly monitoring mailboxes for quota size, adjusting for people that are on vacation, people that just can't keep their mailbox size in check, people that are *too important* to be bothered with cleaning mail.

You are setting up resources as described above.

You're making sure the DAGs don't run out of space.

You're making sure that backups ran successfully.

You're restoring a mailbox for some idiot who deleted "important" mail that he didn't mean to delete.

You're restoring a lot of mail from 5 or 6 years back for the Legal Department as part of discovery for a lawsuit.

You're doing lots of things, and this is only for 3,000~ users. I would guess that OSU, with 50,000~ students, plus however many faculty, plus I think they host mail for alumni, so they are probably well over 100,000 mailboxes.

Plenty to keep someone occupied all day.

E-Mail is/can be pretty complex.

yea, that pretty much covers it. Plus we are working on sunsetting departmentally branded systems and bringing them into the central system as well. I also am the primary Exchange Engineer that works with the Novell IdM team with the bridge between IdM and Exchange.

[jblosser]

...Plus we are working on sunsetting departmentally branded systems and bringing them into the central system as well. I also am the primary Exchange Engineer that works with the Novell IdM team with the bridge between IdM and Exchange.

And here I thought *we* were the last ones using NOvell...

We did the "network visine" (get the red out) last year. Painful at times, but all done and all gone now.. Woot!

[m0rtal1ty]

Thanks everyone, had a couple of interviews this week for non-IT stuff and more going on next week. There's jobs out there, no doubt, I just need to find a career.

[gen3flygirl]

Just don't rush finding a job to much. Finish getting your degree. Once you have it they can't take it away. As you learned the hard way, you can lose your jobl

[gen3flygirl]

If you are still looking CAS (chemical abstract society) has a listing...

PART-TIME STUDENT PROGRAMMERS

Tracking Code

205305-094

Job Description

We have part-time positions available providing support to the BW/SIS teams. The candidate will work with staff developers to document processes, investigate production issues, address development assignments.

Requirements:

Course work toward a Computer Science degree. Sophomore experience minimum; at least 18 months remaining until graduation. Ability to work roughly 20 hours/week or less year round.

• Knowledge of SAP and/or ERP systems a plus
  
• Knowledge/experience with Unix is desirable
  
• Software development experience required (course work or work experience)
  
• Problem solving skills and previous trouble-shooting work experience is a plus
  
• Good teaming skills are also important
  

Job Location

Columbus, OH, US.

Position Type

Part-Time

[m0rtal1ty]

Thanks, and yep, still in the market. There's plenty of things out there its just a matter of finding something that's for me and more than a few month contract through a recruiter. Looking for a new job is in itself a full time job but this downtime has helped get some small business plans and projects together so its not all that bad.

[m0rtal1ty]

Good news, everyone; I started a new position last week! Its a 6 month contract-to-hire deal at a place in Delaware. After a week into it I think its survivable.. Eh, its not my old job but it'll do. Thanks for the help and support everyone! Definitely appreciate it. I'll be in the market again in 5 months time seeing what else is out there.

Livin' the dream.

[jblosser]

Good for you!

We "rent to own" folks all the time, it's cheaper than hiring the wrong person.

If you like the place (not necessarily the job itself, but the people), work hard (ok, work hard anyway), people are watching and if there's an opening after your contract is up, and you "fit in" with the people/culture, chances are there will be an offer coming.