A word or two of intro⌗

As you might suspect, neither the title nor the cover are sufficient to fully describe the whole situation. Moreover, not only are they not enough, but more importantly, they are misleading because technology is a vast ocean that is both dangerous and fascinating. Therefore, one cannot encapsulate its essence in a mere picture or a few words. But putting the geeky talking aside, some explanation is required to give a big picture.

First off, my time at Urząd Gminy Suchy Las wasn’t really an internship. I mean, on one hand, it may be regarded as such because technicians there taught me a lot. On the other, not really, especially considering what was written on my contract. Loosely translating, I was “help and maintenance for the IT department” on the introductory period. Basically, what I’m trying to say is that I wasn’t there just to learn, but also to provide real help. And I was expected to work 6, not 8 hours per day.

That’s it on the whole. But did all turn out fine? Was it meaningful? Let’s find out!

My work⌗

While discussing what I did, I’d like to talk a bit about those who showed me “how it’s done” as well. They both deserve my admiration, but my workflow looked different with each of them. Therefore, I’ll divide the following section into two parts - with and without Szymon.

Without Szymon⌗

During my first two weeks, Szymon - the chief informatician - was on holiday and the person to initially introduce me was Tomek. Tomek is a great guy because he’s knowledgeable, kind, and doesn’t dig deep into your life just to gossip with others (favorite hobby of office people.) I learned much from him. Under his supervision, I got familiar with Linux (a family of operating systems about which I’d heard many things, but with which I hadn’t interacted in any way), installing operating system, cleaning HDDs, resource management tools, writing user documentation and many more. It all may sound pretty impressive, but it’s actually rather simple. He hadn’t been working there for long before I arrived and didn’t want to risk too much. I understand it, but it was still a very meaningful experience.

Things changed when Szymon came back.

With Szymon⌗

With Szymon it just must have been different. It’s because he’s known me since I was like 12. The funny part is, I haven’t seen him in a very long time (well, long for me) and didn’t quite rememeber how he looked like! But he did remember me!

I met him back in the time when there was a different crew. I had a “techie” question and was directed to them. We had a nice conversation and they gave me a CD with Windows XP installer and a Linux command to clear hard drives. Later that year, Szymon prepared for me a whole bunch of electronics for constructing circuits on my own. All those gifts I hold up to this day!

Coming back to the main thread, Szymon didn’t treat me with kid gloves. Just as he showed up again at the place, he hit the ground running and put me in the motion.

First, he gave an exercise to set up a whole server on a virtual machine along with a host computer and whole network. Then, I created Active Directory (software developed by Microsoft to manage resources inside a network).

Second, he pushed me to connect to others’ computers remotely. As you can imagine, managing more than 100 computers is a dauting task and not particularly fast, especially if you had to make a walk to each of them. That’s why Remote Desktop Connection was invented - to speed things up. I must admit that fear not to screw something up is huge at the beginning, but you get use to it really fast. Especially when all you need to do is to show people how to print stuff 😝.

Third, on my last week, there was no Tomek and not much to do, but plenty of time to talk. And I talked with Szymon a lot. He showed me his programming projects, more networking using Cisco’s tool called Packer Tracker, and persuaded me to request an Academic License for a DataBase Management System (DBMS) called DBeaver (like this animal). It was awesome! It’s not everyday that I have an opportunity to talk with someone about advanced IT stuff. It was great, seriously!

Why is this reflection so short?⌗

The above question. The reason why this reflection is so short is to avoid disclosing some sensitive information that may endanger the whole system. I mean, I’m not a specialist and I don’t posses such comprehensive knowledge that I know what I’m doing. Since I’m not completely sure how important is what I do know, I’m reluctant to talk much, just in case. I’d love to describe every single detail of my journey as an IT guy, but it comes at risk. As simple as that.

Ending⌗

This ending will be quick because I already mentioned several times how I felt. I can just emphasize it.

Experiencing real IT job was both important for my growth and opened me many doors for my future jobs (besides, my English skills are a big asset in this regard.) I’m glad and thankful for everyone who made it possible for me to work there and learn.

Learning outcomes:⌗

• LO 1 Strength and Growth
• LO 2 Challenge and Skills
• LO 4 Commitment and Perseverance
• LO 5 Collaborative Skills
• LO 6 Global Engagement
• LO 7 Ethics of Choices and Actions