Tom Brandt wrote:

> Most operations people I know do much, much more than change paper, load
> tapes and answer phones.  Though it varies from company to company, most
> perform similar functions to those Cynthia talked about in her message.

perhaps i'm stating the obvious...but how different shops handle the
operations/system management aspects of running a 3000 varies quite a bit.  in my
search for additional mpe admins, i discovered two 'schools of thought'.  some
shops (like longs) have the system admins off in their own group and operations
in their own group.  there considerable interaction between the two, but the
roles are generally well defined.  i'll hazard a guess that this arrangement
would be more common in larger shops.  the other is way of doing it is to have
the operations group also act as the system manager.  (hypothesizing again....)
i'd say this is more common in smaller shops.  typically in this set-up, you'll
have a 'super' operator (usually the most senior) who has a goodly amount of
technical experience.

i think the real rub comes when either 1) you're mpe shop is on the border line
of being 'big' or 2) management is unwilling to acknowledge how very difficult it
is to handle support in a 24x7 environment.  i'd be curious to know how often
companies are losing admins (defined however you want) because they're
burned/stressed out.....            - d

--
Donna Garverick     Sr. System Programmer
925-210-6631        [log in to unmask]

>>>MY opinions, not Longs Drug Stores'<<<