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So I started a new IT job just over a week ago. The interview went great, I met the people I would be "working" with and reporting to. At the time, they had a contractor in that was doing all of their IT work, and from the way they spoke in the interview, it sounded like I would be working with the contractor for a short period of time sort of as a hand off. I am the ONLY IT support for the entire company.

Well, first day on the job, I walk in, she introduces me to the office members, sits me down at my desk and says "Let me know if you have any questions" and proceeds to her desk. To this day, I still never received any kind of formal training, 90% of the questions that I ask are responded to with a smile and a "I don't know".

Without going into too much detail, this job is a complete 180 from how they presented it in the interview. The company is completely unorganized, I don't have passwords to anything, I had to setup all of my own accounts, and I have no one to go to for questions since she will not bring the previous contractor in, since they will have to pay for it.

Back on the main topic, I am currently searching for a new job, after one week. I already went through the process of seeing if my old position was still available, but my boss had already found a replacement that would be starting soon.

So my question is, do I list this job on my resume, and how do I present it so it doesn't seem like I am just hopping around? My other jobs have been in place for about a year plus, as one was an internship and the other was a contract.

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    As overwhelming as that sounds, to help save your own sanity I would suggest writing down any and all questions you have. Then work to answer them, either by your own research, or working up the management chain until you reach the top. At that point, you ask the top boss who exactly can answer these questions if no one else can?
    – fubar
    Commented Aug 19, 2018 at 4:53
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    Why are you not requesting hand off information from the contractor and looking for documentation?
    – Kilisi
    Commented Aug 19, 2018 at 5:12
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    Why you don't want to fix things? Do you think you are not skilled enough or is this too much work for you taste? Personally I see this job as a fantastic oppurtinity, you are in charge of yourself and can set up the company IT services as you prefer.
    – Cris
    Commented Aug 19, 2018 at 13:58
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    @JuliaHayward That is exactly what happened. In the interview, they mentioned that I would have about a week with the contractor so I can get a general grasp of the environment. Well day 1, I ask when the contractor is going to be in and I get "oh yeah, we let her go". The last 2 employees just walked out after wiping their laptops, so I dont have any of their old documents either. Some of the information I can get, but the others, I honestly don't know how I would.
    – achris
    Commented Aug 20, 2018 at 14:06
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    "The company is completely unorganized, I don't have passwords to anything, I had to setup all of my own accounts, and I have no one to go to for questions" - In the meantime, take control of the systems since you own them. If you need passwords then reset them. Use Linux Boot CD to rewrite the machine passwords (Linux and Windows) if no one has them. Second, patching policy and ensure hosts are patched. No viruses running through the place due to unpatched hosts. Hot restores suck. Third, documentation like systems and network topology. That should keep you busy. You will be a rockstar.
    – user25792
    Commented Oct 9, 2018 at 14:04

4 Answers 4

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The worst thing that can happen, whatever you do, is that you are without a job next week. Leaving after a week is not "job hopping". It's an acknowledgement that you made the wrong choice. It's much better to leave after a week than dragging it out for a few months. (The record in my personal experience was a guy who started a new job 9am on Monday, and called his old company at 9:10 am. Got his job back, and they pretended he never left).

Since the worst that can happen is being without a job, you might take one more week to practice how forceful and successful you can be if there is something you want and there are people in the way, and one week to prove to yourself how good you are. Monday morning you go in with the goal that you will fix your problems. That you will not get fobbed off with "I don't know". You spend a day focussed on creating a list of all the things that need to get done, together with all the obstacles.

The company, you say, is disorganised. That's not a negative, that's your opportunity to shine and turn things around. Make sure the state of things when you arrived is documented, and then you change things. Bit by bit. It's not going to happen in a week. It will take a year.

The things you dislike now are not "bad working environment". They are your job.

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  • Thanks for the reply. I told myself that I wont leave until I find something else (I waiting 4 months for my security clearance and don't want to run into a similar issue again). As for finding information I don't have, I can do some of it, but the information that is needed for my job, I don't have a way to fine. For example, at every location, we have a firewall with a configuration to allow certain things and not others. She/no one has the passwords for these, and the only way to get it, is to reset it to factory default. Without a backup of the config, I cant do this.
    – achris
    Commented Aug 20, 2018 at 14:12
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    @achris You can document this situation, assemble some alternatives, and pass it up the chain. Alternatives could include: pay a security company to crack a password for you, stand up new hardware and start from scratch, tcpdump the link for 3 days and generate a list of allowed/blocked connections to reverse engineer the config, etc. Highlight risks: i.e. without access to the config, some mission critical software might be blocked at switchover, and we don't have a catalog of those either.
    – Peter
    Commented Aug 20, 2018 at 16:35
  • Well, here would be my approach: Buy a new firewall. Put it in place, and see who screams. You'll find out real quick what those forwards were for, and you'll have the old unit "hot" if it's life-or-death. Also, I'll bet a couple rounds of that will get them to write a check to that old contractor for 4 hours of critical knowledge transfer.
    – Wesley Long
    Commented Aug 21, 2018 at 18:15
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Based on my experience what you describe is what you can expect in the majority of the companies when starting a new job. Yes, there are some cases where the new hire is given introductory courses, list of useful intranet links, explanation on the company processes and what more to ease the onboarding, but those are still rather rare (in one of my job I was even asked to use my personal laptop to do my work, which included accessing company secret documents). The norm is what you describe, and since you are the only IT support for the entire company, I guess you are not working in a 20k+ employees company.

You are in your job for just 1 week, I would wait some more before deciding to leave: settle down in the new environment, get to know your colleagues, and only afterwards sit down and reflect if what you do is the job that you want to do. You might even turn this into an opportunity to stand out: note done where you struggled, see what could have been done to ease that particular aspect and do what you can, like setting up all the accounts before the person starts.

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In a comment, you say that they dismissed the contractor without allowing any transition time, and the last two employees just wiped their laptops and walked off. (One employee is likely to be just disaffected, but two is suggestive.) These are not promising signs. They suggest that the company might be in trouble, or that you will run into treatment that will make you want to wipe your laptop and just leave. Keep looking for another job, at least until you're sure the company is stable and that you're not going to run into any deal-breakers.

In the mean time, do the best you can with what you've got. If you haven't already searched for any documentation the contractor may have left behind, do so. Use your initiative.

I've always listed my jobs on resumes with month and year start and end dates, partly because I can never remember anything more specific, and I've never been asked about it. You could leave a one- or two-week job off and nobody would notice.

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First of all, the Problems with your new Company you describe, are a common Thing in small non-IT companies with under 300 employees (my personal experience). Usually, you have one or two IT-guys employed there who are responsible for anything about IT and communication tech. If you do not like the pros and cons that come with such a work mode, you should leave. Alternatively, you can stay and use the Problems of your new Company to your Advantage by changing the organization in a positive way and, if done correctly, get into higher positions with better pay.

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