Life in Tier 2 [Featured Workspace]
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Today’s featured workspace is a peek inside a small tech support operation for a small west coast university. It’s got everything you’d expect from a den of geekdom including piles of gear, movie posters, action figures, and testing stations galore. More »
Props to Lifehacker
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@IN THE FACE!: yea me too ^_^
redmotman
Thanks Lifehacker for sharing the photos. I am really proud of where our office has come from and where it is now. It is very functional and it needs to be for the amount of computers we work on every day. I am really glad to hear all the feedback in the comments and welcome any questions or suggestions.
I also would love to give a shout out for the Linux Mint podcast I am a part of http://www.mintcast.org (Lifehacker was our website of the week on ep19) and my blog [1n73r.net] where I talk a lot about tools we use at work and projects I do for fun.
Thank you Lifehacker for all that you do for the tech world. We really need more sites that don’t just talk about news and talk more about doing things.
rothgar
@Firesphere: We typically all try to keep 1 PC and 1 Mac available for each person so we can go remote with customers. If we don’t have anything running OS X we can only do about 80% of our work remotely. For those of us that don’t have something running OS X there is a Macmini available that we go remote with to go remote with customers. It gets a bit slow but it does the job.
With synergy/input director and remote desktop it really only ever feels like you are using 1 computer since we only have 1 kb/m.
rothgar
@phoenix: The customizations is a benefit of A: not having any customers directly come into our office and B: being on a different campus from the main support buildings. We are in a windowless office about a mile from the main campus so we can do pretty much whatever we want to the walls (short of costing the university money)
The monitor display basically came from having a plethora of old monitors and old dual display video adapters. The display used to not have any gaps, but that was when it was 19″ monitors, those all died so we replaced them with other (not-so-dead) monitors.
rothgar
@IN THE FACE!: Mostly it is full time workers. We only have 1 student worker and 1 part time worker. Everyone else is full time. There is another Student only office on campus but I don’t have pictures of that.
rothgar
I would love to know if this office is for full-time or student-hourly employees (or both).
IN THE FACE!
@jarek91: I second that. I work tech support at my university and I have 3. I have my PC, Mac, and a laptop. The laptop is great for troubleshooting network jacks in the field and imaging machines on location. I also use it for virus removal. It keeps dirty disks from infecting my main machine.
My PC is my everyday computer that I use for email, surfing and so forth.
The Mac I have is used primarily to keep my skills sharp on OS X and a way to troubleshoot issues over the phone. I can walk myself through a process while guiding a user. Plus it’s always good to have a working machine if one gets infected with a virus.
I’ll have to take a picture of my setup once my office get’s cleaned (which will be never).
UGAdawg
@OMG! British Dinosaur!: University IT workers in the house. I do tier 1, 2, 3, and 10 at my uni.
UGAdawg
Very nice workspace! And very custom – I used to work in a support group for a university as well, and we didn’t have the freedom to customize our offices this much – our management was too focused on appearances and such.
This on the other hand, is really slick, and I did the use of displays in that NOC-like arrangement with critical information on it on the wall. Very very nice! I also really like the way you guys have managed to reclaim desk space by putting your displays on arms. Very nice!
phoenix
This is one of the most realistic workspaces I have so far seen on lifehacker. Looks good guys.
brianhatch
I am a supervisor at a University IT center for students. It’s nice to peek into the lives of others such as myself.
OMG! British Dinosaur!
@DrScottyB: fuzzy things make computer-killing static electricity. its why i don’t wear my fuzzy brown slippers(i call them the computer-killing-pikashoes). hack safe, hack naked.
Gilliam
The good trusty WD-40 on the shelf… Classic!
Ferox
@Maave: 2 computers, why not more?
nav13eh
Rope lighting? Really? Why stop there? Where’s the shag carpeting for the ceiling?
lolzzzz
DrScottyB
@Maave: Not unusual for Tier 2 people. I’m Tier 2 at my company and I have three, I’ve got my personal Macbook unibody, and work provided Win7 laptop and Ubuntu laptop all connected via Synergy+.
And my shelves are covered with lolcats magnets. The shelves hold my modded Nerf Vulcan and Maverick, my original Optimus Prime, the Buckeyball creation of the day, and my acrobots in various poses of battle. I think it’s the moral imperative of all Tier 2 people to have workspace and playspace overlap
otherwise we might strangle people.
jarek91
@Firesphere: they should hook the computers up for distributed computing! But yeah, that is a lot, it looks like 2 computers for every person.
Maave
Wow… I want a workspace like that!
Although all those computers are a bit too much to use at once, just the space… You could do so much with that much space!
Firesphere