My day job (2017)

  general

For the last 6 years I’ve worked in the IT department of a hospital, with 3 main responsibilities:

  • Database Administrator (DBA)
  • application support and development
  • Change Manager (as of mid-2016)

On a typical day, I:

  • monitor systems for faults
  • check the help desk system for issues logged by users
  • fix stuff (yay!)
  • do project work e.g. planning, implementation, testing of new systems, or upgrades to existing systems
  • consult and advise in my areas of expertise
  • work to improve systems
  • go to meetings…OK, not my favorite
  • document stuff
  • help users kick a** at their jobs (wording thanks to Kathy Sierra’s blog and fantastic book “Badass: Making Users Awesome”)

On that last point - I used to think that if IT could just be great, users would listen to us, management would appreciate us, and the world would be rosy.

A couple of things helped me re-focus and understand that IT really shines as we solve users’ real problems and help them be awesome at their jobs: admitting who “the talent” at any hospital is (hint: not IT), getting out of the office and alongside users, and studying ITIL which opened my eyes to the broader picture in business and IT - more than just my code.

(A couple of other user-centric books are Steve Krug’s “Don’t Make Me Think”, 37signals’ “Defensive Design for the Web”, and Don Norman’s classic “The Design of Everyday Things”)