I don't normally talk about what I do. Usually it's because people who'd understand don't need the explanation, and people who wouldn't won't find it interesting.
So this is my attempt at explaining what I do in a non-geek manner.
8am I arrive at work, I look at several things to make sure everything is working.
The translators here along with the school, the literacy team, the programmers who write the software for the translators, school and literacy team, the accounting department, and the director's office all keep their information in one place.
I'm in charge of that one place. I'm part of a team in charge.
That information, is anything from the Bible translation to someone's list of email addresses.
I make sure this data doesn't get lost, and that people can get to it over the network when they need to.
Then we offer services that people need to get their jobs done, and to communicate with others across the globe.
Email is a huge part of my job, I keep it running, I keep the spam out of it, I keep it moving.
Then there is the network, I keep that up, I keep that running, I keep it secure.
Each member of the team has their specialized area, but we all need to know each other's parts too so we can cover when they are gone.
Then there is the personal touch. The smaller issues that affect one person at a time that we're responsible for.
Fixing laptops, making programs work, all the stuff that annoys you at home, we're the ones you can take your computer to and get it fixed.
There are certain services that are essential to living and working.
Power
Telephones
and in the past decade,
Email
Internet
People working in these departments are a bit more higher profile, as your name gets attached when these things go wrong. If you're doing your job well, no one knows your name because it's always working.
I've worked a lot of jobs, big companies, small startups, but I've never worked in a place like this.
We offer home internet to people
We offer corporate services to people
We have modems and dsl users
We have people whose work machines are their home machines.
It is a very unique blend of home networking and corporate networking and it all twists together into different issues that I had not anticipated but enjoy troubleshooting.
For example.
For all of you at work with a computer you don't own, someone is responsible for that computer. They install anti-virus on it perhaps. They run software to monitor it and keep it healthy. These are your system administrators. (me)
Now, at home there is no one who will do this. No one will fix it when it breaks, and if you get a virus, it's your issue to resolve.
But here, people at home and people at work depend on us to fix issues. So when we say "you need to install this anti-virus on your system" some people get upset.
'It is my home computer, how can you force me to do this?' But the truth is, they use it on our corporate network so we need to keep things secure.
That is one of the many issues we face.
We have "customers" all over the place and I've never heard of another place that has to deal with these unique-ities.
And the driving force behind all of it is to accomplish Bible Translation. So if something seems completely unusual and impossible, but would dramatically help the cause, we find a way to do it, even if it means making our jobs that much tougher, because that's what we came to do.
Part problem solver
Part miracle maker
Part complaining post
Part service provider
That's what I do, and that's what a lot of people do here daily, regardless of what department they work for. I jsut happen to do my job with computers.
