Systems Administrator (Jul 2001 – Jul 2004)

Working as Systems Administrator for Truck and Trailer Components (TTC), a company within Unipart in Oxford, I was the sole contact point for all issues concerning a fully-featured UNIX Oasis database application. This involved many varied tasks:

• Solving problems encountered by the company’s 35 staff. Questions varied from the everyday (“Is there a report that shows me…”, “Why has a picknote not printed?”) to the longer-term (“It would be great if the system did…”). Questions concerning Windows applications and hardware and network issues were also dealt with.
• Programming to improve the business’ use of its data. Some examples included a report measuring warehouse efficiency for putting new stock onto the shelves, a program that sends a price list direct to a customer in an HTML-formatted email, and a system that stores historical availability figures. Existing reports and enquiries were often improved to fit in with the company’s needs.
• General administration of the database system: setting up printers, maintaining menus and permissions, killing runaway processes, checking disk space.
• Higher-level planning, development and research with co-ordination between colleagues, the software supplier and the parent company. Major changes to the UNIX application had to be carried out by the software supplier and were therefore discussed and specified with relevant colleagues before being given the go-ahead. Two major hardware projects were to switch on disk mirroring and to specify, quote for and ensure the smooth installation of a new server without any negative impact on the business. Such projects required acceptance from managers in the parent company as well as communication with the server support team. The final project I worked on concerned the company’s 2,000 weekly invoices that, due to external influences, had to be brought in-house. Various alternatives were investigated, paying attention to technical requirements and costs of labour, paper, envelopes, postage and printing.
• Initiated a five-phase plan to give a much-needed overhaul of the company’s website. Before leaving the company I specified hardware requirements, drafted designs and helped identified customer needs. The ultimate aim is to have an online ordering service linked directly to the UNIX database.

In addition, I developed print and online systems to share information. These included:

• Production of a bi-monthly newsletter that I designed, wrote, and proof-read in QuarkXPress to inform staff of the latest system changes.
• Documentation using self-designed Word templates to provide a variety of support ranging from step-by-step, English instructions to detailed hardware and database information.
• An intranet to make information easily accessible between the company’s four sites. As well storing copies of the newsletter and documentation, the site provides an FAQ page, manual procedures in case of database failure, an interactive logbook of problems and requests, contact details, a ‘Report Finder’ and daily sales graphs.

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