🚀 go-pugleaf

"Thomas Adams" <thomas....@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:Xns95A9DBD7C1511thomasoadamsgmailcom@127.0.0.1...
> "Augustus" <Imperia...@Rome.com> wrote:
>
> > job is boring = "The job is repetitive and not mentally challenging"
> > (which is true! But what do you expect when the job description is
> > "monitor CPIC", "monitor bank communications lines", "monitor
> > transaction activity"...
>
> 90 grand a year for *that* kind of job???

If you looked at the overall job description, it would probably be something
like:
- Monitor CPIC, banking, attorney general and insurance computer
systems/networks
- Provide second tier helpdesk support
- Empty and refill line printers
- Backup web servers
- Reboot fax servers
- Backup Sun servers
- Backup mainframe computers
- Load 9 track tapes into tape drives per system requests
- Correct JCL on failed batch jobs

Most of the time I wound up just working in the tape room... on a standard
shift I'd spend most of the time in the tape room (a small room with 90,000
tapes and 10 tape drives) and the machine would tell me what tapes they
wanted me to load.  Monday mornings saw a flurry of tape activity as we
would send 20,000 tapes to Chicago for archiving (So the printer would spit
out a list of 20,000 tapes in a specific order and I would have to go find
those tapes and then box them up in order)

The job paid well because the skill set you needed to work there was very
specialised... you needed to know the basics of mainframe operations, JCL
coding, MVS and JES2 (operating system languages), OS/400, OS/390, OS2,
Unix, working with databases like DB2, Oracle and MS SQL, etc.

So yeah, most of the time was spent staring at 24 computer screens and
watching for problems... or answering the phone and hearing about
problems... or walking around with a checklist and performing server
backups... or sitting in the tape room and loading tapes... or walking
around and checking the air conditioners were running... but when things
happened you had to be "on the ball" and able to fix any problems with the
system.