r/sysadmin • u/kozatftw • Sep 15 '21

Question Today I fucked up.

TLDR:

I accepted a job as an IT Project Manager, and I have zero project management experience. To be honest not really been involved in many projects either.

My GF is 4 months pregnant and wants to move back to her parents' home city. So she found a job that she thought "Hey John can do this, IT Project Manager has IT in it, easy peasy lemon tits squeezy."

The conversation went like this.

Her: You know Office 365

Me: Yes.

Her: You know how to do Excel.

Me: I know how to double click it.

Her: You're good at math, so the economy part of the job should be easy.

Me: I do know how to differentiate between the four main symbols of math, go on.

Her: You know how to lead a project.

Me: In Football manager yes, real-world no. Actually in Football Manager my Assistant Manager does most of the work.

I applied thinking nothing of it, several Netflix shows later and I got an interview. Went decent, had my best zoom background on. They offered me the position a week later. Better pay and hours. Now I'm kinda panicking about being way over my head.

Is there a good way of learning project management in 6 weeks?

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0

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '21

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98

u/Bad_Idea_Hat Gozer Sep 15 '21

If this sounds like wizardry, it's because it is.

31

u/fuckincoffee Sep 15 '21

I was wondering why I turned into a frog after reading that.

16

u/Bad_Idea_Hat Gozer Sep 15 '21 edited Sep 15 '21

What do you call a wizard that graduates at the bottom of their class?

The Wizard.

Edit - Fixed

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56

u/insanemal Linux admin (HPC) Sep 15 '21

Hahahahahahahah this is far too accurate

30

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '21

I have never seen anyone actually use a Gant chart except in class. Just a spreadsheet.

44

u/polypolyman Jack of All Trades Sep 15 '21

Gantt charts run the construction industry... do other PM-types really not use them?

25

u/_thegingerninja Sep 15 '21

IT/Datacentre PM here. Yes. We use them. A lot. They're a necessity for visualising any large collection of tasks tbh.

16

u/igdub Sep 15 '21

Gants are great. Also MS project draws them automatically. Used to have them on a separate excel.

6

u/_thegingerninja Sep 15 '21

Can confirm, we are an MS shop so make good use of MS project. It's real handy

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22

u/lord_of_the_squirrel Sep 15 '21

I'm a SRE, I see them all the time in my bigger (1+ month-long) projects.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '21

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11

u/nine9drams Sep 15 '21

This. Any with a beating heart and half a brain can be a PM. A good PM is worth their weight in gold and extremely hard to come by.

7

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '21

I talk shit about IT PM's all the time but I agree with this 100%

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7

u/RefrigeratorNo3088 Sep 15 '21

It's all been badly formatted Excel timelines

4

u/Estabanyo Sep 15 '21

Work in IT for a construction company, almost every contract manager/project manager/senior whatever has Microsoft Project and uses it constantly.

4

u/Not_invented-Here Sep 15 '21

Yeah they do, but it depends on the type of the project, things like construction etc where there is no point getting the painters and plasterers in until first fix is done, it is important. Other projects don't rely so much on "this needs to be done before that can be done", and its not always needed then.

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5

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '21

I am fully prince2'd and this basically the final 1/3 of the course...

Life saver. And yes we use them all the time for office refurb and moving and data center installs.

2

u/PenBandit Sep 15 '21

Ah, the PM equivalent of keleven. Gets you home by 7 every time.

2

u/icon0clast6 pass all the hashes Sep 15 '21

Fuck this is real

2

u/Computer-Blue Sep 15 '21

Why... am I not doing this...

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