60 seconds with Greg Blow
Greg Blow is an IT Officer in the Oncology IT Team.
In this interview, Greg gives an insight into the team and his responsibility for specific software, outlines what a 'typical' day looks like and talks a bit about his career path so far.
What does your job involve? Do you have any particular specialities within the team?
The IT team has responsibility to support IT systems within the Department of Oncology, as well as to provision and configure new systems where required. This includes workstations for staff, students, and visitors within the department, as well as helping with more specialised equipment such as our audio-visual kit, VOIP phones, networking and servers. We also work closely with MSD IT and Central IT services to support the use of their systems in the department.
Within the team I handle support calls, but am also called upon to support and configure specific software used within the department including Calpendo, Sharepoint and Filemaker Pro.
Is there such a thing as a typical day for you?
A typical day begins with reviewing my e-mail inbox and the teams ticket queue to apprise myself of any developments since the close of the previous day of work. There will typically be at least one request that can be immediately attended to. As requests come in through the day that require my attention, I will try to fit in work that allows me to progress with longer term projects.
What's the most common issues you deal with?
The most common issues that are raised tend to pertain to the things everyone uses, such as e-mail and authentication credentials. This might involve resetting passwords, requesting accounts be unlocked, or adverting users to the e-mail web browser client should they have difficulties with Outlook.
Additionally, people often require new permissions to be granted and new hardware to be ordered and configured to replace obsolete equipment.
How did you get to where you are today?
Since finishing my A-Levels, I have achieved a qualification from a programming course with the University of Oxford's Department of Continuing Education and undertaken some study with the Open University on the subjects of Computer Science and Mathematics.
I was previously in a series of non-technical roles, mostly administrative. In these positions I sought to make of programming skills to make myself useful beyond the immediate remit of the position, which permitted me to practice technical skills in a professional environment.