Almost seven years ago, I joined Thrive Networks as an Account Manager. I had come from a purely administrative background. I knew nothing about technology. I even remember during one of my first interviews being asked if I knew what “XP” was and had to answer honestly, “No”. Really, I knew absolutely nothing.
Being a non-technical employee surrounded by network engineers had its challenges. Over the years, I have learned a lot from being around technology. I now know what Raid 5 is, what Virtualization means, and I can tell you for certain the Internet is not a series of tubes. Can I build an Exchange box? No. Can I troubleshoot your bandwidth issues? No.
What I can do is give you the Top 5 Things I have learned being an end-user just like you working at an Outsourced IT Firm.. These tips won’t get you promoted to CTO, but they will surely help you make your own IT experience better.
Top 5 Things I Have Learned Working at an Outsourced IT Service Company
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Every now and then, a shortcut comes along and changes the game forever. Until recently, the last time I came across a trick of such magnitude it was:
(If you don’t know what that means then you are under 25, over 45 or lead a very, very sheltered childhood.) The tid-bit I am about to share won’t give you the Spread Gun or Infinite Lives; but it will save you some time and make your job easier.
If you spend any amount of time trying to coordinate calendars with people outside your office, then you probably know that pain of browsing back and forth, toggling from the calendar view (squinting to see which time slots are free) and then clicking back to the body of your email and manually typing out the day and times your available to meet.
As a Salesperson, I used to spend lots of time typing out emails that ended in a bulleted list of my availability for that next conference call or meeting. I can’t tell you how many times I have said to myself: “I wish I could just click a button and have my availability just show up for the next week or two without having to look at my calendar.”
Until recently, I did not realize that this functionality was built right into Outlook 2007 and 2010. If you ever spend more than 2 seconds outlining your availability for others, then you are going to love this.
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