The Thing Everyone Has Been Waiting For!
In order to save yourself some time in reading, I will simply post my written findings as to what I found in the document, which is a combination of notes and findings.
0 Comments
To say that I was surprised would be an understatement...As I wave for the last time for a while and make final handshakes, I realize to myself just what these four weeks were for me. I'm not going to have some long winded explanation, but just to be pretty brief, it's incredible what going into a professional job site is. I would like to thank everyone who was incredibly considerate and kind to me and let me do the work that I can do as time went on. Even though I was the intern, I felt as though I was apart of the crew and not some person who was just on the side doing nothing but the requirements for the school project. It felt incredible, the interactions with everyone especially as there was no doubt that the people who were working there were specialists in what they were doing. That to me is huge, as being in a school for a lot of my life everyone sorta knows a tiny but, but definitely can't bounce around ideas as much as the crew that I was working with. I knew though that going into this entire experience and what I chose would make me not go into the IT side of things, and that has stayed the same. It was something I wanted to do as a personal growth and learning challenge, to understand a lot more about the things that I knew just a little bit about so I can help others around me. Even with this said though, I got a lot more out of it than I thought I would. There was plenty of talk about how this experience would be great for me in the future if I decide to get a job in, well anywhere (especially IT) and how it would benefit me in the long run for just showing me a lot of things. This is absolutely true. I want to become a video editor in the future, but what I have gained from interacting from these guys and working in a real job environment has shown me that if you are willing to work your hardest and to try new things, you're going to be recognized as someone who seriously takes initiative, even if I didn't think that was the case. So what does this mean with my career idea? Well, as I said before I still want to be a video editor, but much more now. I can't wait to start to get to work with the jobs that I really want to do and start making a good profit as more time passes. There is so much I can do out in the world, even if I am an incredibly small part of it all. I think also having this baseline information will help in any technical problem I'll run into, personal or otherwise. As my mentor said, just knowing this basic stuff is the platform to learning and doing just about anything in the entire field of technology. It's learning this kind of stuff that sets you up for the future, and if I ever decide that I am done with the video editing life and I want to move to something more relaxing and less intensive, perhaps I'll consider the field. But for now, careers stay careers and jobs stay as jobs. Combining the two makes for a miserable life.
Just What Do I Do Everyday?The entrance to Fortress Computer Pro's is right off of the 15 South in Rancho Bernardo. Extremely close to the freeway and a fairly unassuming place, you might miss it if you weren't looking for it. Well, if your windows were closed and you didn't smell the fantastic restaurants nearby. The main waiting lobby is fairly well decorated, with various awards about the company's successes and recognition from both the state and from companies such as Microsoft and Intel. Obvious care and attention was made to ensure that the entrance was to be something which people could feel comfortable and patient in, as it is the name of the game when you are dealing with technology issues anyway. Marc definitely knows how to make a place feel not only welcome, but custom with engraving and vinyl printed on the glass. In the back of the shop is where things get the most interesting. You would figure that a company such as this would have maybe a team of 10 or 15 even, all working on various clients tickets for repair or building of custom systems. Well, that would be a wrong assumption as the team back here consists of a total of only 2 people, and a crew totaling of 6 makes up the entire company. We can get anywhere from 4-10 PC's a day, and with a crew working full time on many different systems, as well as plenty of antsy and worried clients, the stress mounts. To say that some of our clients are just the run of the mill old folk and youngsters with computer problems would be a massive understatement. And when I said we had big clientele, I wasn't lying. These guys at USCD have been requesting our shop for multiple desktops which are acting as servers, as well as a NAS to hold all of their data. This entire build rounded up to being around $9000, or the price of at least 5 Toyota Corollas. Even with the high stress mounting, we always find ways to relieve stress, take a breather while the PC's are busy updating or doing things we can't speed up. Both Ron and Jared here are pretty close with one another, so these types of interactions are somewhat common. Every day is a surprise to me, and according to one of the office workers Tom, IT folks have about the best personalities to them. I haven't been proven wrong so far. Just a Logisys case. If you knew what these things are, how much of a pain they are to work with, and how surprisingly unreliable (to a point of safety concern) these cases with their bundled power supplies, you would know why it's in the scrap bin. The scrap bin is out in back where PC's that have parts that are either far too old or far too broken and are too much to fix are taken. There are some gemstones here, if you want to look for things. We have a lot conversations with one another. This is not an antisocial job, it requires that you are talking to people to ensure that everything and anything that someone is working on is working well with everything. Many silly problems arise and thanks to people being more specialized in certain fields, we always find a conclusion, somehow. People think we're magicians and that we can do everything in a snap, and while things tend to take a fair bit of time to fix, I might start believing the fact that we do some miracle work. Speaking of miracle work, sometimes we end up with more PC's than we know what to do with. Previous businesses which upgrade their computers might send us PC's, or we might just have a client who wants to upgrade and says that we can keep their old machine. Plenty of these machines have life in them still, they just need a little love still. So these machines are refurbished and sent out to veteran / military families in a program that is called Homefront. And finally, we get to what I've been focusing on. Simplexity. Simplexity is a company which has been sending us PC's for a while to turn into machines for their company, which is an engineering firm which ironically works for companies such as Hewlett Packard and Dell. Regardless they require computers set up with their VPN and security, so everything they do is confidential. We are in charge of setting up their PC's to wipe, format, and set up for their program of choice, Solidworks. As well as doing Office installs and a slew of encryption and VPN services, we receive the laptops, set them up, and send them back.
|
Author: Daven K.On this page you will find my experiences, reflection, and thoughts about my project work as an intern at Fortress Computer Pros. ArchivesCategories |