A Day In The Life Of... (Matt - IT Systems Administrator)
My days generally begin with one of 3 alarms (my phone alarm, my partner or her 6 year old son) waking me up. I then start off by checking my work emails on my phone to see if there’s been any issues overnight. This is accompanied with a cup of tea before getting ready for the day ahead. I drop the boy off to school before making my way into the office.
The first thing I do when I get into the office (after saying hello) is check our monitoring screen to see if there are any issues we need to tend to. If our monitoring screen is all green then it means we can continue with our next checks. The next stage is to check all server backups have run successfully, and if not then to make sure it does the next time it runs, which is usually the same night. I then go over all servers and systems to ensure they’re functioning correctly.
Although the daily checks start from the minute we sit down, they’re frequently interrupted by support calls that come in. We have to then juggle the support calls with the daily checks. A lot of the work we do is done remotely via screen sharing and/or over the phone, but when the need to go onsite comes up I am usually the one to venture out into the open. The days in the office are always different, which keeps things interesting, but I enjoy going out to client sites every now and then too.
One of the roles I’ve been given this past year is to manage the support work that comes in. As part of this I have to keep on top of all support calls (not just my own) and make sure that everything is running smoothly, with our customers’ satisfaction being top priority.
Although our office hours are 9-5, there are occasions where we need to do some out of hours work so that it causes as little disruption to our customers as possible. We tend to do this at home on our laptops rather than staying in the office (we’ve no beds in the office unfortunately). We also cover out-of-hours support for some clients, so if I’m on call then I’ll have my phone on me at all times and have my laptop easily accessible.
Out of work, I live with my partner and her son in Hitchin. Most evenings start off with eating dinner (and sometimes doing the cooking first) followed by relaxing on the sofa watching TV. On Wednesday nights I play for Osinskys pool team, which usually consists of a beer and some football watching. Weekends usually consist of some sort of children’s activities and then the most important part of all…roast dinner on a Sunday.