How much spare time do you have?

You should have downtime if you are doing your job right. However, those 20 hour days when something goes wrong will MORE than make up for the time you spend slacking. ;-)

Seriously, sometimes in smaller shops you have down time. This is the time to write SOPs, get cabling cleaned up, and run around with the lysol :-)

That's an easy one. Lose yourself in the pandemonium of Miscellaneous Discussions.

Work on more ways to have more leisure time to work on more ways to have it, I suppose!

I'm still working on the 30-hour day in my spare time!

G

As Unix admin of several systems that are really stable I also tend to have spare time... sometimes days. I use it to learn things like...

-Disaster recovery.. on a spare box. Veritas, Oracle, TSM, and other UNIX applications that are absolutely mission critical to the organization have now been tested from bare-bones recovery successfully.

- Certifications.

- Planning for OS upgrades, projects, etc.

I am the sole IT person. Like you my network is small 3 servers 50+ users one remote location and it pretty much runs itself. My boss is the VP of Ops and states that the company doesn't pay my for 80% of my time, but for the 20% when things go awry. I take the slack time and study for my recertification in windows 2k3 mcsa/mcse. After that is done, I am going to learn every little thing about AD that I don't already know.

As the sole IT guy in a shop of 50+ users with 5 servers, I use my spare time to learn more about web development, perl or other new areas. For example, During a recent downtime, I redesigned our Intranet to pull things like phonelists from a database using active server pages. It can be challenging to keep yourself occupied, but you can do (and learn) some really cool new things when you have that downtime.

I agree with those that say if you do it right, that can happen. But, if you want a real challenge...get a public service job! No time, no money, no security, too many hats, not enough time to learn any one skill properly. I think I am approaching burnout!

I am also the sole IT person in a small bank with 125 users and 20 servers. When things are running well, I continue to monitor everything from updates on all 125 workstations to anti-virus definitions, and intrusion detection. Almost all networks need regular updating, nothing stays "status quo" anymore. Keeping up to date with Windows and Novell patches is a contining job.

Spare time but what little I do have is spent reading up on Tech manuals and emerging technology.

What is state of the Art today is outdated within 6 months so I constantly need to make time to read up on the new things coming and I attend every conference that I can get away to get to.

Lately I've had slow days for weeks and then when I have something to attend I get an emergency call out so I can not attend the meetings which is a real pain but I always seem to get at least half a day for the really important ones.

I spend what little spare time I have learning what I'm going to be supplying or facing tomorrow so I have a half way decent chance of getting it right the first time and not wasting more time than the job really requires.

Col

The one thing you have to do:

LOOK BUSY

For some reason, seeming busy is more important than actually being productive. I actually had a manager tell me at my last job that perception was more important than reality.

It didn't matter if I was beating deadlines and making things work ahead of schedule. If I was seen outside too much on my cell phone, I was considered unproductive and unprofessional because I wasn't at my desk at all times.

Just look busy no matter what. Read a book on something in your field, read a tech magazine in your field, read articles on websites that won't get you fired, etc.

Just stay at the desk and look busy and keep things up to snuff.

BTW, I read wikipedia too. Never get tired of it.

You can never go wrong reading up on the latest and greatest in Security. Get your self an RSS reader and subscribe to the Antivirus and Security RSS feeds for companies like Securina, CA, FrSIRT, F-Secure, Kapersky. Since we are encouraging our users to start using Firefox, I'm trying to maintain a presence at mozilla.org, including a couple of their RSS Feeds so I can keep myself fresh on Firefox incase our users have questions.

As others have mentioned, Certifications and Planning are a couple of other things I build into my workday.

In the last few weeks there hasn't been a night I haven't been in the office, including the weekends. I thought most IT was the same - understaffed and 30 projects behind. I dream of having a day where I could have even two hours to read an IT magazine or load something up on our dust covered "test" server.

Consider yourself lucky!!!

I work for a small architectural millwork company with 3 servers and 30+ employees. Most of the time my system runs fine. The company has given me extra tasks that have nothing to do with computers or networks. I have learnt how to read shop drawings, assist with purchasing sheet goods and hardware for the manufacturing process, take care of job costing, etc.. This was because I was getting bored and couldn't stand pretending that I was working all the time. The only problem is when the system goes funky they still expect me to be able to fix it and do all of these other things. Oh well, at least if I decide to leave I will at least have some other skills to offer employers.

Don't be too apparent about the slack time, keep
out of sight and don't let the manager know.
Always keep by the phone, as the users will
want to know where you are if you're not near the phone. A couple of missed calls from an
upset user could sink the boat. I read alot,
usually a book a week, but will jump and run
when trouble arises. Looking busy can actually
be harder than actually working.

This is something I am constantly fighting when I work on the weekends. I work 12 hour shifts in the call center. There are times when the phone is quiet, the systems are running well and everything is done. I know I have created projects for myself that help the department. I spend a lot of time researching for documentation. How to topics and fix it's.

spare time that is..
wow..and here i am trying to do out a work plan to take me up till xmas (which by the way is taking me hours, which is only taking me away from work i need to be doing)...i have a free hour on Nov 6th, 3-4 pm. I think i just might grab a coffee and arrange my sticky notes according to color. If i have time i may organise the email from august that i still haven't got to.
Yikes..i think i made a post this summer about how great my job was and how laid back it was..when the h3ll did that change???
Its been a sh1t week, and i am sitting here wondering why i quit smoking..its over a year now and wow...i can almost imagine having one..but i will resist..only because i;ve no time to go have one!!!!

*3 hours till quittin time*
then my most important choice is beer, wine or spirits? OR, should i make a cocktail of all 3 and just drink myself unconsious>???

Whatever is spare time?? It doesnt exist in my dictionary..I work in a media monitoring company and am the only techie between 15 sales people....

they dont let me breathe....I am usually doing 593 things at once !!!