1

Recently, the Need for a help desk technician in my current company has slowed way down. so im left with several hours of free time throughout the day (which i hate because im usually sitting at my desk just “looking” busy and i hate that because id rather be working on something)

Im afraid i might get laid off because of this surge of free time i have. so what are some ideas or plans fellow spiceheads might suggest to allow me to “stay busy” or at least have something to do.

my current list i do is.

Go around each office and check on machines general performance from the user

Clean up my emails(get alot of spam)

Check the Email filter for spam emails and clean it out

Document/make tutorials for the office for common issues people have.

Browse through spiceworks posts

And when i get the cubicle section im in to myself. i watch youtube videos on powershell so i can improve my current powershell knowledge.

21 Spice ups
2

you forgot to mention the number 1 source of all info… Spiceworks Community

1 Spice up
3

Use any and all spare time to make sure documentation is up to date and to keep learning. Check if your sysadmin has any projects he/she could use some extra hands with.

2 Spice ups
4

You forgot to read the whole post. :slight_smile:

2 Spice ups
5

Tidy and maintain asset db. If you don’t have anything really good in place at the moment consider using Spiceworks inventory for the task.

1 Spice up
6

Audit mobile phone accounts, email accounts and cleanup SW inventory. Read some TFTS on reddit and post on SW.

7

update documents, check my logs again, study for different cert exams, plot world domination, SW community, etc.

2 Spice ups
8

Sit in on webinars hosted by Spiceworks to learn stuff and possibly win swag.

9

free time what the heck is free time? school + work + kids = budgeting time for the bathroom

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Document things, self-study to improve, and check stuff and fix it before it becomes an issue…

11

I read for certs and look at Spiceworks if there is any issues that may/will be relevant to our company.

12

All of our items are saved and maintained in our SharePoint 2013 server. Which is mostly maintained by me and our front desk receptionist/administrative assistant. However, i might try and push to see about moving to possibly using spiceworks inventory just to see if we could try it out to see if its better/easier than me going through and digging for everything by hand, then writing down on a notepad, and then adding to sharepoint

13

I’d say some time spent on Spiceworks would be time well invested.

1 Spice up
14

Write documentation, browse spiceworks, study for certs, and building my lab network are good ways of making the day go by faster

1 Spice up
15

Learn some PowerShell.

1 Spice up
16

Generally I try to learn something new in my down time, sounds like you are doing this with powershell. I also try to be proactive with other departments to see if all their needs are being met or if there is any way I can automate anything to help them do their job faster. Depending on what your job duties are or role you can do this too, even if it is outside your current role you can always get the blessing from your manager. I work in the credit union industry so all of our departments deal heavily with flat file reports from our core system, at my previous CU I found myself in the same situation as you. I started sitting with various departments and learning how they do their jobs I generally found they were doing a lot of manual work with these reports to get them into a usable format for internal use or as reports to management/board. Generally I would automate the task with Excel (everyone has Excel) and usually get some pretty good returns once its automated some tasks were taking 4 hours weekly to do so I trimmed down to under 5 minutes. Other tasks were 40 hours a quarter, again down to about 5 minutes. Shortly after doing this for a couple of departments I started getting in requests to help other departments since the word had spread. I went from being a good employee that got the job done to an excellent asset that helped departments trim overhead and lessen the requirement for expanding the employee pool. The key in your current position is to be proactive and try to make yourself as useful as possible.

2 Spice ups
17

Go to your company website and look for any advertised job openings just above your position (hopefully out-of-range of the redundancy).

Make your preparations for taking over that job (studies, labs, and what-not).

Go to your immediate supervisor and express your interest in that position.

Begin excellence.

1 Spice up
18

Could you tell your manager you have a lot of free time and ask if there are any projects that others need help with you could work on?

19

I always ask both my co-worker and manager if they have anything for me to work on. and since i dont have passwords to admin accounts and dont have full clearance i really cant do much that they do.

20

Ask them to set up a test lab that you can learn in. That way, you have all of the power with none of the worries of breaking something.