Usually a sales team for an IT vendor (OEM or VAR) will consists of two people: the salesguy, and the engineer. The salesguy shows up at the customer’s site, gets everyone to sit down, and describes the products. Then one of the sysadmins in the room asks a real question about how the product works. The salesguy turns the meeting over to the engineer, who usually goes up and draws on the whiteboard for a while to answer the sysadmin’s question. Then, the salesguy takes everyone out to lunch. Later, when the customer buys the product, the salesguy gets a giant commission and the presales guy gets a much smaller slice.
That’s the job in a nutshell. I did it for a few years and enjoyed it—it was neat to switch sides of the table and be the guy answering the questions instead of the sysadmin asking them.
Yeah I thought about pre-sales engineer for him too. But I think part of that is wanting to deal with people. You do have to really know your shit to do it well too. The sysadmin on the client side can really sniff out bs quickly. I’ve done a few gigs like that myself and though it is fun, I think you end up with a lot of the frustrations of ‘This is the right way to do it. Why aren’t you doing it like this?’
I’d suggest something like I’ve been moving to which is systems support. Server or data center admin or better yet, backup admin. You come in, sit in your little hole in the basement and go home. No phone calls, no people. It’s either that or ditch IT all together and start working in another field.
According to my experience about the only jobs you could switch to without going back to school would be retail, facilities, data entry, or maybe entry level accounting.
You might think about dealing with the debt of some student loans if you figure on something you might like to do. Paralegal is something that you might be able to do from home.
Edit: Have you thought about another branch of IT? Database admin? Exchange admin? Linux/Unix? Those don’t require nearly as much people contact.
I’d like to go the DBA route, but I don’t have enough actual database knowledge. I can query a database and pull data out of it no problem, but build one? No clue.
My experience is that adding DBA to the list when you’re already a solid sys admin isn’t that hard. In a way a database is a bit like another operating system - it’s just that the commands are different. I learned to be a DBA as a support to an actual DBA, while really being the admin for the platform on which it ran. By the end I was an entirely competent DBA despite only doing it part time
Yeah I’ve been avoiding the DBA title for years. It wasn’t that tough to pick up and if anyone asks, I know nothing. Kind of like my scripting. People see it and think I can program. I can, I just don’t want to. I’ve been driving towards VM’s and storage the last couple of years. ‘My’ goal is to get into a datacenter. I designed the one at my last job from the placement of the racks to the color coding of the wiring and where the servers were placed. I think it was an excellent design and then I had to leave to move to DC like a month before the actual switch over. Next time I go home, I wanna stop there and see how it’s working.
DBA is doable and seems like a lot of people looking for one. System admin is what I used as a jumping point to get off the desk. And whatever you do, use it to your advantage. Right now, I’m not in a big datacenter environment (We rent a rack someplace I can’t tell you about) so I’m brushing up on my Linux skills as I know I’ll need them when I finally do move into a real datacenter.
That’s part of my problem. I’m not a sys admin either. I started on helldesk, became a coordinator, then moved to metrics analyst (using stuff like Excel and QlikView), and now I’m a helldesk manager. I seem to have fallen into management when I’d rather be doing technical stuff.
My burn out plan, when I hit it, is to downsize life. Buy a house for 50k somewhere and just get a lower paying job, but likely end up happier for it. Maybe even just stay home and be a stay at home dad. The only bill we can’t dump right now is a house payment, and if we buy a cheap of enough place we won’t even have that.
I don’t like that the only way I can truly progress is to go into management. I don’t wanna do that.
I already manage a .5 FTE and a bunch of extra-hire subs… but what I really want to just get my hands dirty.
I started out just cleaning up people’s computers during the AOHell days. $35 an hour back in the 90’s was nothing. I did it to supplement my nearly non-existent pay during and after my divorce. I caught the eye of the head of some accounting firm here, got a lot of work with them and after my tenure in the world or Law, wound up with a lot of demand for my type of network security work. Then along came HIPPA…
In the words of Garrett Morris, HIPPA has been very, very good to me. It got me a rep, I was able to bid on quite a few government contracts that have taken me all over the place. In fact, right now I am raking it in thanks to Obamacare, but I’m done. I’m out. I’m tired of saving people from their refusal to think.
So I’m retiring to write fiction. I’ve agreed to some part time work because I need to work. And sometimes even I need to get out of my own head. Think of what it is that you most like about the work you do, then begin to stuff yourself into that hole and make sure that others only think about you when they think about that thing. Work at what you have to until you can afford to support yourself doing what you want.
In reality I would love to be a bum, paid to read books, but I don’t know how to get that job.
Despite what people think (and as you well know), being a bum and reading books is not Library or Bookstore work. Probably editing or reviewer type positions instead.
Tis my retirement goal to have one of those dank dark manky bookstores. I am thinking of calling it “The Book-Worm-Farm and Reading Room” That way I can raise worms too, and sell cookies with earthworm powder in them.
I think it would be a shame to let your I.T. knowledge go to waste? I realize you’re burnt out, but that’s probably mostly from dealing with the idiocy of lusers, right?
Do you have any programming skills you could segue into? I started out as a programmer a long time ago and picked up computer hardware builds & repair / software & OS installation somewhere along the way. I find my understanding of both desktop support and software development helps me out a lot. I can do the programming which I get paid for and help out on the desktop side if and only when I feel like it. While programming doesn’t necessarily insulate you from idiot lusers, depending on the size of the company and/or culture you can usually get your programming tasks filtered through a liaison who functions as the interface between the requesting party and the software development team, so you don’t have to deal directly with the lusers, but instead a Dept. Manager who usually is not quite sure what they want but just knows the computer should be able to do it for them.
Hey Grumpy. No I don’t really have any programming knowledge. I got into this wanting to be a network engineer but then stopped short of that when I realized that I would never really be off the clock. So I didn’t really learn any programming. And yes the lusers are a big part of why I’m burnt out, but a not insignificant part comes from management as well. Throw in a generous helping of havening only one job since 2006 that was not on a temp or contract basis (that I got laid off from in May of 2012 after working there a little over a year) and I’m just done with it all.
