So I'm working, finally.  The head of IT here at school got back to me after I sent him my resume at the beginning of the summer.  I'm working on video conferencing and streaming which is actually kind of fun since I never really got to put my teeth around it as much as I would have liked at previous places and with the glut of bandwidth the world will have it will only make sense to understand how video/multimedia data is being shazamed across the planet and into our skulls.  I'm trying to imagine how this can all work with my actual career in Architecture and so far it's only on a peripheral level (people live places, places need architects, places have TV's and phones and all that fun stuff).

So I'm in a nebulous position again like at Prism where I was a "staff specialist".  I'm working between two departments on my own nifty project and answering to 2 bosses.  So far I haven't even bothered going down to the help desk because I'm sure it will bore the shit out of me.  I've been using my time to research and chill and focus on my tasty little project up here.  So far it looks like I'm doing good, but this is my first time working in academia and it's already a bit different.

For one, the bureaucracy here is insane.  Departments are shifted across the org chart like mid season replacements on Fox.  Heads are new, heads roll, money is coming but not quite here and redundancy is pretty much the norm.  So far everything that I've done has probably been done by someone else (one of my bosses) and I'm just retracing his steps without his input because he's on vacation.  I don't want to make any official statements until he gets back and he and his boss are able to get on the same page.  I don't think I have any actual authority, but hey, I have time to blog (not that I didn't when I was sitting on my ass all summer at home, but here at least I look like I'm working).

The best part (is not the pay) is that I can only work 23hrs a week, the school is closed on friday and I'm generally left to my own devices.  It's really boring, but I'm headed to CA for a family visit and the last thing I need is to show up unemployed after my parents were so kind to extend my stipend throughout the summer.  Basically I'm working here to get money from my parents.  It's pretty shifty, but it sounds good and if I don't pee my pants I should be able to save up enough for a cruise next summer with my mannimal.  That's the really important part.

My question of whether I'm being a know-it-all stems from an email I sent to an underling of the networking division.  I have yet to have any interaction with them even though my experience would have been best utilized as a netops guy and not helpdesk/AV, but hey, who am I to correct someone who doesn't know the difference (or lack their of) in physical transport media between IP and ATM at the endpoint level.  Sheesh.  So yeah, I emailed the underling requesting a comprehensive network diagram with subnet information, equipment types and bandwidth utilization and got an email back from his boss saying he would be taking care of it... something tells me I know more than I should.

It's kind of funny, actually, to be studying something completely unrelated to where I have almost a decade of diverse and extensive experience.  Most people my age haven't run the gamut from PC repair to digital imaging to network infrastructure and management to wiring to training to vendor management and I guess I just forget that.

See, I sound like an ass hole know-it-all, right?