Post by bisquick on Jun 3, 2008 6:07:01 GMT -5
As many of you know... I'm a hybrid systems administrator / maintenance director.
Here's a breakdown of what I do.
Budgets I manage:
IT recurring: phones (cell and landline), ISP (we have cable, DSL, sat and recently started using EVDO cards), Muzak (this company repairs digital and analog (that word has "anal" in it, haha) headsets as well as fast-track and HME system timers).
IT expanded: Anything additional that is needed to keep our POS systems (we have 9 stores that run on Arcnet, look it up), back office PC's, corporate office PC's and pretty much anything else that has ANYTHING to do with transferring data electronically (including fax machines).
Maintenance, general: EVERYTHING that breaks and doesn't fall in the above catagory falls in this one. It's annoying... it's also my biggest budget @ 1.5% of total sales. That means this is a floating budget, sales go up, budget up... sales down, budget down. Last years net was $22 million. Do the math if you want.
Maintenance, recurring: All contracted companies that do a service for every location that doesn't fall under the IT budget. Companies to clean grease traps, do annual tests on our fire systems, clean the hoods, yadda yadda....
Utilities expenses: It is possible to manage this, I spent around $6000 to install (did it myself, with help from our HVAC guy) a computerized circuit controller. Over the next 3 months I'll get to see how much it saves... man it pisses people off when they try to turn on the fryers at 6am and waste gas and electricity for 4 hours before we open and they can't... oh well, fuck em.
Land Maintenance: Keep it looking good! Mowing, edging, weed control, shrub trimming, patching parking lots... we have 19 physical locations and this budget is $25,600 for the year. Do some math on that and tell me if it's possible. I can save you the time though, it isn't. I get yelled at every year about this one.
Apart from the budgets.... I also do a portion of our accounting. I'm actually finishing up my last few classes right now for my associate arts of accounting, which isn't that big of a deal, but it will get me a nice raise.
In the end... I have my hands on about 8% of our net sales. From a general maintenance standpoint, there is 1 person under me. This means that if something is wrong at store A and I send him there... then store F has a problem, I have to go. On the IT side, there is currently no one below me... or above me. I'm it, 19 stores, every single problem is mine. It's really depressing.
The quality of life I have because of what I do?
Here's an idea... my phone rings a minimum of 40 times a day. MINIMUM being the key word. Look at what I do... what do you think these calls are for? Problems... problems is the answer. People call me when they have a problem and want me to spend time and money on it. Think of it... how depressing would your life be if 4 times an hour (assuming a ten hour day), that'd be every 25 minutes... your phone rings and it's someone calling to tell you about a problem. Does it get any more depressing than that? Last month I used almost 8000 minutes on my cell. I'll chalk 1000 up to personal use. The other 7000... jesus, that's just me talking to someone about a problem. I think I might end up having a breakdown one day.
Ever seen office space? 3 people come ask him about the same TPS report problem... that's me. Example, the DSL in a store went out 2 weeks ago... within a day I verified that it wasn't my equipment and that it was a line problem... meaning, not my problem. AT&T's problem.... but, it's my area, so as far as the company is concerned, my problem. I got, I swear to god, 15 phone calls over the course of 4 days from 5 different people asking why it wasn't fixed yet and what's the status update. Seriously? It already took me 3 phone calls to someone who works for AT&T in fuckin Argentina or wherever the hell their at, at 1 hour per call just to get an open ticket number saying a line tech would be out "sometime". Really really sad it is...
The jest of my post?
Don't go into anything IT / maintenance related in the QSR industry. It's a migraine... a splitting, never ending, migraine.
Here's a breakdown of what I do.
Budgets I manage:
IT recurring: phones (cell and landline), ISP (we have cable, DSL, sat and recently started using EVDO cards), Muzak (this company repairs digital and analog (that word has "anal" in it, haha) headsets as well as fast-track and HME system timers).
IT expanded: Anything additional that is needed to keep our POS systems (we have 9 stores that run on Arcnet, look it up), back office PC's, corporate office PC's and pretty much anything else that has ANYTHING to do with transferring data electronically (including fax machines).
Maintenance, general: EVERYTHING that breaks and doesn't fall in the above catagory falls in this one. It's annoying... it's also my biggest budget @ 1.5% of total sales. That means this is a floating budget, sales go up, budget up... sales down, budget down. Last years net was $22 million. Do the math if you want.
Maintenance, recurring: All contracted companies that do a service for every location that doesn't fall under the IT budget. Companies to clean grease traps, do annual tests on our fire systems, clean the hoods, yadda yadda....
Utilities expenses: It is possible to manage this, I spent around $6000 to install (did it myself, with help from our HVAC guy) a computerized circuit controller. Over the next 3 months I'll get to see how much it saves... man it pisses people off when they try to turn on the fryers at 6am and waste gas and electricity for 4 hours before we open and they can't... oh well, fuck em.
Land Maintenance: Keep it looking good! Mowing, edging, weed control, shrub trimming, patching parking lots... we have 19 physical locations and this budget is $25,600 for the year. Do some math on that and tell me if it's possible. I can save you the time though, it isn't. I get yelled at every year about this one.
Apart from the budgets.... I also do a portion of our accounting. I'm actually finishing up my last few classes right now for my associate arts of accounting, which isn't that big of a deal, but it will get me a nice raise.
In the end... I have my hands on about 8% of our net sales. From a general maintenance standpoint, there is 1 person under me. This means that if something is wrong at store A and I send him there... then store F has a problem, I have to go. On the IT side, there is currently no one below me... or above me. I'm it, 19 stores, every single problem is mine. It's really depressing.
The quality of life I have because of what I do?
Here's an idea... my phone rings a minimum of 40 times a day. MINIMUM being the key word. Look at what I do... what do you think these calls are for? Problems... problems is the answer. People call me when they have a problem and want me to spend time and money on it. Think of it... how depressing would your life be if 4 times an hour (assuming a ten hour day), that'd be every 25 minutes... your phone rings and it's someone calling to tell you about a problem. Does it get any more depressing than that? Last month I used almost 8000 minutes on my cell. I'll chalk 1000 up to personal use. The other 7000... jesus, that's just me talking to someone about a problem. I think I might end up having a breakdown one day.
Ever seen office space? 3 people come ask him about the same TPS report problem... that's me. Example, the DSL in a store went out 2 weeks ago... within a day I verified that it wasn't my equipment and that it was a line problem... meaning, not my problem. AT&T's problem.... but, it's my area, so as far as the company is concerned, my problem. I got, I swear to god, 15 phone calls over the course of 4 days from 5 different people asking why it wasn't fixed yet and what's the status update. Seriously? It already took me 3 phone calls to someone who works for AT&T in fuckin Argentina or wherever the hell their at, at 1 hour per call just to get an open ticket number saying a line tech would be out "sometime". Really really sad it is...
The jest of my post?
Don't go into anything IT / maintenance related in the QSR industry. It's a migraine... a splitting, never ending, migraine.
