Couple months ago I was working for a manufacturing facility in the IT Department as a System Administrator. I was on a 6 month contract to hire. The job description was a mix between tier 3/4 support and working on upgrading the infrastructure of all the facilities.
I have 10 years working in IT in production environments like that as I was a Site Admin for a salt mine. So I am more than qualified for this position.
So I start this place and find it is in absolute shambles IT wise. If you know anything about IT you would know that for a company that has 3 locations total there is no need to have 30 different servers. All of them 10 years old which is WAY outdated. The IT manager and CIO there come from the finance world and have no clue what they are doing when it comes to technology.
My first day I get sit down and reprimanded because I didn't take any help desk calls, even though my phone hadn't even be set up yet (it was an old copper system, and they had to run a new phone line to my desk). I inform them of that, but they said I was making excuses….whatever….
Few days later I am working on reducing the insane number of servers, while putting together a project plan on how to go about upgrading the hardware and server OS. Then I am interrupted by the manager telling me my help desk metrics are bad. I am not putting in work time in the tickets, and they have no clue what I am working on. Keep in mind there is not a place to put this information in besides the work note, and I was NEVER told to do this. I try to explain that, but it falls on deaf ears. Later that day I provide them with the project plan on upgrading their server stack, and migrating them to a virtual environment. They looked at me like I was crazy, and said the cost was way too much. Why should they update anything if it still works. I tried to reason with them, but they already made up their minds.
The following week they ask me to try to streamline their processes when it comes to setting up new users. So I start working through the little documentation they have. I am elbow deep working on deployment packages when a truck comes in with new computers/monitors. Manager sends out a message via teams that if we were not busy to go help unload the truck. There were about 5 other guys on the team that went to help. Also, keep in mind this place has a rather large shipping/receiving area. Several forklifts to unload trucks ect…. Well I am extremely focused on what I was doing so I didn't go because, I was busy. After they were done she comes by my desk and just gives me the stink eye. Meh whatever…
So that night on my way home I get a call from the contracting company stating that they are terminating my contract. I inquire on why, and was informed that the manager thought I was lazy because I didn't help unload the truck. I explained what I was doing, and the person I was speaking to told me that they have had issues with that company in the past.
I guess I dodged a bullet there…Apparently since I was released from my contract, they have gone through 3 more guys. That place was a JOKE.