First Thing IT Managers Do In the Morning? 584
An anonymous reader writes "When I was a wee-little IT Manager, I interviewed for a position at an online CRM provider in San Francisco, a job I certainly was qualified for, at least on paper. One of the interviewer's questions was 'What is the first thing you do when you get to work in the morning?' I thought saying 'Read Slashdot' wouldn't be what he was looking for — so I made up something, I'm sure, equally lame. I didn't get the job. But the question has stuck with me over the years. What do real IT and MIS managers do when they walk in to the office in the morning? What Web sites or tools do they look at or use the first thing? Remember, this is for posterity, so please be honest."
actual vs interview (Score:3, Insightful)
Check the logs (Score:2, Insightful)
Simple (Score:5, Insightful)
"Every evening before going home, I write down my objectives for the following day. This helps me to stay focused the following day on what needs done. Sure, sometimes there are fires to put out, and not everything gets done. But by having a written down list, I find I am more productive. What I do first in the morning depends on what needs to get done that day"/
Very first thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
I do this not so much for security or first-alert type response but for a more simple reason... I start conversations using the info I gleaned from the news. The people I work with each have different areas of technical interest, specialties, etc... managing a team means more than riding people about deadlines. I always start the day with a little chatter, and feel good when one of my team members gets to share some of their 'personal interest' knowledge because of a conversation I started.
Starting conversations in this manner provides all sorts of little 'contact points' that provide info about your employee's mood, attitude, satisfaction, etc... and way too many managers I have known fail horribly at replicating these contact points through more formal methods.
Anyhow, after that it is review e-mail, prioritize the day, and only begin coordinating with others once they have had time to do the same.
Regards.
Remember, this is for posterity so be honest... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:First thing in the morning (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Check the sev 1s (Score:5, Insightful)
Deal with the disasters first, after that everything in the day is a lightweight bonus.
Of course what is missed in this discussion is that the job is that of an IT manager and NOT SA and as such it is NOT your job to deal with the actual monitoring and fixing of anything (except, as mentioned above, maybe things of highest priority), it is SA's job. Your job to is to support SA's and make sure the emergencies ARE dealt with while also making sure all (including non-emergency) services are taken care of.
This is why sometimes a good SA does not make a good IT manager.
-Em
Re:Check the sev 1s (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Check the sev 1s (Score:3, Insightful)
Not bad.
In a non-IT context, I'm about the same:
1) Skim Republican website to see what got blown up last night. They're a pretty panicky bunch, and usually first to report major fires, earthquakes, etc by 15-20 minutes. When a nuke finally goes off in anger somewhere, I'll be selling airlines and buying defense contractors in the few minutes between the flash and the probable temporary closure of the markets due to panic.
2) Skim Democrat website to see what got covered up last night. They're great at digging into scandals; a few years back, their reports on troops without armor gave me a good 24 hours to get into Armor Holdings (NYSE:AH) before the mainstream media forced the government to shovel money into contract awards. Also helped knock Taser off its high horse a few years ago.
3) Skim Slashdot to see what the whackjob partisans in #1 and #2 completely forgot about. Your usual tech stories.
4) Skim financial news websites to see if what I've found in #1, #2, or #3 offer good opportunities to make money.
The war's a crock of shit, but it's a profitable crock of shit.
Re:Everyone has missed the vital answer (Score:5, Insightful)
Newsflash: If you're checking the results of monitoring software, you're not a manager, you're an SA or an operator. I'm not even a manager and yet I've not even seen my company's monitoring tools. If something is wrong, someone who's watching that stuff will tell me.
Re:Very first thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Try it sometime. Pick someone in the office you can't stand and spend one month learning a bit about them on a regular basis. If they are the type that prattles on and on be very straightforward in letting them know when they are annoying you without insulting them. After one month of this your understanding of who they are will have changed, and their understanding of how to interact with you will have changed... usually for the better.
BTW, it is a manager's duty to retain some level of professional distance from their employees. That distance can either turn the workplace into a coldly efficient production environment, or can become a minimized by a manager who really does care bout his employees even though he may one day have to fire them.
Regards.
Don't lie. (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps he just wanted to see if you'd lie to tell him what he wanted to hear.
That question has only one "right" answer - You get coffee, check Slashdot and read your email (possibly not in that exact order), then you glaze over until you hit the bottom of at least your first cup of coffee. Any interruptions before then, you respond to with "Mmmmmpph? Grrrrrrumph. Mrphythuber kurbendurby! Mrffff". Anyone failing to understand that response clearly doesn't work in IT, or worse, likes mornings (grounds for immediate dismissal, IMO).
And anyone that mods this "funny" either lies or doesn't work in IT.
Easy: Greet your team (Score:4, Insightful)
The first thing I would do after arriving at the office is greet any members of the team who were already in the office. It goes a long way when a boss spends the time to interact with the team and employees always appreciate little things like that. It's not a flashy answer, but it demonstrates that you want to emphasize communication and teamwork.
Re:Why I cold-boot my computer in the morning (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Coffee machine1st thing I look at (Score:3, Insightful)
I generally dig through the netcool alerts first to make sure nothing died overnight that wasnt brought to my attention otherwise. Then I start reading through lesser critical alerts, cron spewage, and other emails from actual people to see if anything else funny happened/caught fire that I need to douse. But, while Im waiting for Entourage to actually load the emails (damn exchange server), I hit up the coffee pot and then check slashdot.
tm
Sadly, the option most nerds overlook... (Score:5, Insightful)
A good relationship with her (it could be a him, it's simply a her where I work) is essential:
Just about everyone bitches to her. Whether an issue's with email, with network reliability, a printer not working, phones playing up, the cold tap running hot, she's aware of all of it.
She's also the one point everyone has to pass at least once and, being close to both restrooms and breakroom, she tends to see most people much more too. Better than anyone, she can serve as a barometer of people's moods. If someone is obviously in a foul mood that morning, if someone's running around stressed about something, she knows faster than just about anyone.
She's also the person everyone has to let know if a client's coming in as she'll be the person to meet them. She also tends to handle much of the mess that is meeting room booking so she gets even more insight in to who's coming.
Build a good relationship with her and she looks out for me. If everything's cool, I get a "Hi" back and get on with greeting my team, checking email, checking in with project leads and PMs, reading slashdot, etc. If there's something up, she'll give me a summary that, with her understanding my needs from our previous talks, pretty much prioritizes as I need to know. I can then get on any problems far faster than checking each of the traditional reporting methods or I can go about my normal routine prepped so I don't say send an email that might trigger the guy who's in a bad mood that day.
And that's just the first fifteen seconds of my day.
She's also the first person to interview any candidates for me: If someone's an asshole to the people they think "don't matter," they're going to disrupt my team in a million other ways.
As already mentioned, she handles the mess of meeting rooms - an often precious resource. Do you want that person favoring you or someone else?
Being the first person everyone bitches to, she can come back with, "Wow, Nick [or Nick's team] is really being a jerk. Let's see what we can do." or she can respond, "Wow, that doesn't sound like Nick [or Nick's team]. He'd never knowingly let that happen. Let's let him know and I'm sure he'll get it addressed right away." Her response, being many people's first reaction when something goes wrong, can totally color the rest of their reaction and how easily I can deal with the issue.
She also knows where everything is, how everything functions, or who would do. "Hey, I can't find the contractor NDA forms." can get you a sympathetic acknowledgment from a rushed person and hold up your rush filling of a position by a day or two while you track them down or it can get "Hmm, I'll track them down and IM you in about five once I've got them." from someone who likes you.
The same holds true for all interpersonnel relationships, it's just especially important with a front desk person given everything that crosses their world - plus the question was what do you do "first" and they are pretty much always the first person you'll see.
Most nerds give great answers about slashdot, about email, about remote logging and paging systems. They're great nerd answers that show why you'd be great for a nerd position. What they demonstrate a lack of is an appreciation of what good interpersonnel relationships give you and adding that on top of the nerd qualifications is what demonstrates you'll be a good manager. Management is no longer a role about who can do the coolest nerd thing, it's about how do you handle all of the relationships around a diverse bunch of people. If your answer is about the systems, not the people, you're most comfortable interacting with - you're probably giving a major red flag for your abilities to work with people who should work with systems for you.
There were quite a few joke comments about "schmoozing." While I know they were intended as fun, that it's seen as something silly that managers that n
Re:First thing in the morning (Score:3, Insightful)
First thing after arriving in the morning: (Score:2, Insightful)
These are the individuals who will make or break your performance, and you need their support just as they need yours.
Re:Coffee machine1st thing I look at (Score:3, Insightful)
Brilliant. (Score:3, Insightful)
Say good morning to the receptionist.
This is one of the most brilliant things I've ever read on Slashdot.
Of course, I've always done it - chatted with her, heard the gossip, heard the upcoming meetings, etc. - I was being friendly because she was someone I work with; I liked her and valued her. But never even given a second thought to her power. And you're absolutely right.
Every time I needed the boardroom, I got it. Every time I was swamped, she'd have just "happened by" the old LaserJet III in accounting to peel a label out of the fuser. And every time the general manager was in a bad mood, she called me up about something mundane (in retrospect, transparently mundane) and managed to drop it into the conversation.
Yvonne, I miss you.
Re:Coffee machine1st thing I look at (Score:3, Insightful)
Lots'a people agreeing with this, but it ain't really funny: the coffee machine is where everybody heads firts thing and thus its where I will meet all the people who have something interesting/important workrelated to tell me. "Hey, did you see the email from...". If the gatering space for the ad-hoc morning meet isn't the coffee maker in your company, then head for the water cooler or the fridge or wherever people gather. In five minutes of friendly hellos I know what's up today without actually looking at email.
Psychological job interviewer viewpoint (Score:5, Insightful)
We ask questions just like this regularly and actually "coffee" would very likely be the single best way to start your answer.
If you are in an interviewing situation, it is already known that you are competent from a technical viewpoint so we don't need to hear about any cool monitoring software you'd like to install. Personality type and efficiency in work are the traits the interviewers are after, more so for manager level positions. An honest and (to some point) witty beginning for a question like this is a good way to start. Don't say you will read ./ or any other news, because that would imply you will waste time at work doing something you really should be doing at home. That would be too honest. A cup of coffee is a simple pleasure and doesn't interfere with your job.
Personally I would give full points to an answer like:
Coffee - Check for any pressing emergencies - Socialize a little with coworkers for any work related things you need to know
An honest, thought-out and self-confident answers are the way to go. Questions are designed to throw you out of balance and see if you have these traits even in a surprising situation. A bit of humour one or two times in an interview is also good, it shows you are in control of the social situation. It is not so much *what* you say but *how* you say it.
If the interviewer is a random executive and it is clear he/she doesn't do interviews very often, it is good to be a little less honest and to show your technical expertise every now and then.
Back when I was an IT manager (Score:5, Insightful)
Job of a manager is to lead; you can't lead unless you (a) know what's on the mind of the people you are leading and (b) remind them the direction everybody's supposed to be heading in. I always say that a manager has two functions: setting direction and removing obstacles. You should spend less than 5% of your time setting direction and more than 95% of your time removing obstacles. Simple reason will show that that's how you ensure your department is spending the most time being productive.
So, you spend most of your time as a manager doing various kinds of communication. Informal communication is the best, because the most information is offered and retained; formal communications are for when you absolutely must have something on the agenda. You need both, but formal communication (meetings, memos/emails) should be infrequent and informal communication (shooting the shit) should be frequent.
I'm a solitary consultant these days, but I really miss working on a team.