I conducted my interview with my brother, Paul Anderson. He is a system administrator and a help desk supervisor for a trucking brokerage called England Logistics. The company facilitates shipping via semi trucks for various clients. My brother is one of the IT specialists for this company.
He has always been very good with computers and from a young age we figured he would probably do something computer related for his career. A few years ago he went to Salt Lake Community College and received several technical certifications that allowed him to look for jobs in a corporate IT position.
At England Logistics, Paul is in charge of everything technical related. There are a myriad of things that can go wrong in a big company and it’s important to have an experienced team always ready to help out. Paul has become one of the supervisors and oversees a group of technically proficient individuals.
One thing that I have had to deal with at the company I work for is getting email setup on my phone. It is a common thing with people who work for corporations to need to get a secure access to their work email on their phone. This is one thing Paul deals with regularly. With the explosion of smartphones in the past few years as well as there being several popular mobile platforms, Paul has to be acquainted with various operating systems for smartphones to be able to help people effectively.
Paul takes calls throughout the day from anyone and everyone needing help with their computers. Anything from poor performance to congested hard drives to network issues, all are under his responsibility. Large companies like CR England, who England logistics does IT for, have a large intranet and a host a company servers. These must be maintained and regularly cared for. Company networks are prone to issues, they can either be hardware or software related. Hardware related issues can be anything from issues with someone's personal computer to something with the server or network hub or switches. Some of the Network specifics are dealt with by the service provider but many of the issues must be handled by the IT support team.
The server Paul deals with is actually a virtual server. A virtual server is a server that is at another physical location but can be accessed by the technical departments of multiple locations and manipulated as if the the server was at their location. Paul has access to this virtual server and has to regularly access it to make sure that it is functioning correctly and that the right people have access to the right files.
Paul’s job requires a broad array of knowledge and expertise. He must know phones, servers, networks, Windows, Mac OS, how to build and repair computers, and the physical layout of corporate networks. It is a good thing there are technical people like him in the world that keep us connected and up and running. Large companies nowadays rely completely on their Workflow software and networks to interact and be productive. IT departments and essential to a company running efficiently.
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