What I actually do

Both Chiho and Chiho's mom have been asking for some sort of short description of what it is I actually do at work. When someone asks them "so, what kind of job did Matt take in Tokyo" they can't actually answer. All technology workers have probably come across this problem because it doesn't distill into a single word like "lawyer" or "architect". I suppose if I was a programmer, I could come a lot closer to a single word description.

My group is called the Collaboration Engineering Group (CEG) and we make sure that e-mail, chat, and SharePoint systems are up and running. What I do is broken into these parts:

• Respond to problems that people are having with e-mail, chat, or SharePoint
• Maintain, backup, test, and patch the 30+ servers that run those systems
• Plan for improvements and major changes in these systems

It is probably a 20%/30%/50% split at the moment between those parts.