Amacom (2004)

As one of only two technicians at the dial-up and fixed-wireless ISP in my home town, I had a wide range of responsibilities. Amacom not only provided Internet access to business and residential customers all over town, but also offered general computer repair services. When I was not busy tracking down runaway growth of someone's e-mail inbox, I always had at least a few machines that had a hard drive that was failing or a modem that had been damaged by lightning.

ISP Systems Operator

• Deploy and maintain Red Hat Linux servers hosting DNS, RADIUS, SMTP, IMAP, and HTTP services for Amacom customers
• Install long-range 2.4 GHz fixed-wireless equipment on customer premises, including Wi-Fi network adapters and Wi-Fi/Ethernet bridges, high-gain outdoor antennas, and signal amplifiers
• Troubleshoot network connectivity issues for customers, including resolving IP addressing issues, Windows driver conflicts, defective hardware, damaged coaxial cable, etc.
• Work with the upstream network provider (AT&T, later Savvis) to diagnose and resolve T1 connectivity problems, bandwidth constraints, and link congestion

Desktop Repair Technician

• Diagnose and repair all manner of consumer-grade software and hardware issues
• Replace damaged or defective computer hardware including CPUs, memory modules, video cards, sound cards, modems, and network adapters
• Locate and remove viruses and other malware from customer machines
• Troubleshoot software compatibility issues