Friday, May 30, 2008

CMS World

So, in case anyone has ever wondered what I actually do for my job on campus, here's an explanation for your enjoyment. CMS stands for Classroom Multimedia Support and it's a division of OIT here at BYU (...hehe, lots of abbreviations). Now, that might sound really technical and fancy, but in all honesty it isn't.My main duty as an employee is to deliver and pick up equipment that professors have ordered for their lectures (i.e. computer projectors, TVs, etc.) So, if you can walk and push a cart at the same time, then you pretty much have that one covered. But during the rest of my 4 hour shift, I'm on-call for any technical difficulties professors might come across during class. This might sound a little intimidating but just remember, there needs to be an actual "technical difficulty" for there to be a problem. With my 2 years of experience at good 'ole CMS, I've only gotten emergency calls 10% the time. And within that 10%, 99% of the calls are due to lack of technological smarts on the customer end. (I mean, honestly, don't these professors have PhD s?)

But amid my frustration with having to fix yet another problem my 6 year old cousin could figure out, I get the amazing gratification of helping someone. Granted, I don't look like your average tech-savvy geek (especially when I'm wearing huge earrings and a blingin' ring ;)), but after I press a few keys and their laptop magically begins working again, they thank me profusely and I walk out a more respected lady. It's a great feeling. But alas, that feeling only comes during 10% of my work days. Every other day I'm watching youTube videos and chatting to anyone who's online. All in a day's work!

1 comment:

Bill said...

Ooh, I forgot about the huge earrings and the ring when I was describing your superhero persona! You've got a ring of POWER! Awesome!