In 3 years, Michael Feighan levelled up from Support Engineer ➡️ Senior Support Engineer ➡️ Partner, so I caught up with Mike to get his perspective on his recent promotion to Partner and working at Office Solutions IT.
Mike, thanks for taking the time out of your day to pick your brains, let's start with an easy one, how long have you been with OSIT?
Almost three years.
Three years, nice. And prior to joining us? What where you doing?
I worked for myself for 7 years. I had a shop at Whitfords shopping centre called Netway computers. I helped a mixture of home users and small businesses with their IT needs. It was great for a while and then it wasn’t so good. Terrible in fact. The downtime in the economy at the time hit our clients pretty hard and the knock-on effect of that meant that I had some tough decisions to make.
Reflecting on it now, I really value the lessons and experience that working for yourself provides. Sure, I did a lot right, but I also did a lot wrong and the learnings from that have really helped me to develop ever since.
What did your role involve when you first joined OSIT?
Well, I replied to a job ad that I saw on seek for a support engineer. I was fortunate to land the position and I was placed in our purple team alongside Anthony Zorbas (Partner) and Stuart Downing (Senior Support Engineer) to provide day-to-day IT support for our customers.
And how has your role and career developed today?
My role transitioned rather rapidly. I started in the purple team, and after a few weeks, just when I was starting to find my feet, I moved to the blue team. This wasn’t for long though. I soon helped out the red team for “just 3 days” which turned into one year!
It’s safe to say things move really quickly here, it’s exciting, you can see the growth and you feel like an integral part of that success.
So, let me get this straight, you were employed for Purple, helped out Red and they said, “this guy’s too good, we’re keeping him”. And the purple vs red rivalry was born!
Hahaha. I think it was a really good cultural fit. We have a really strong culture here at OSIT, and to add to that, there’s also a sub-culture within each support team. And I think I’m quite noisy, so I quickly found my home with the red team. 😊
So, c’mon, out with it – can you share a little insight on the other teams?
Well, when I first started, Green were the “Quiet! I’m working here” group. Purple were known as “the library” and definitely “the quiet achievers”. Blue were a little like red – louder, which suited the environment that I thrive in.
And how did your career develop from Support Engineer to Partner? Can you share some insight on what that looked like?
I remember it well; I was Support Engineer in the red team and James Sutton called me down for a meeting one day and my immediate thought was “Oh... That can’t be good. What have I done!?” and I was immediately running through all of the tickets and projects I’d been working on trying to figure that what it could be about…
The meeting didn’t last long. James spoke about our growth and that we were going to expand our services with a sixth IT Support Team (aka the Yellow Team). And he asked me if I wanted to be the Senior Support Engineer for the new team.
I was trying to play it cool, so I said, “Hell yeah!”and did a mini fist pump on the way back to my desk. 👊
From there my role began to change. There was lots of training and learning from my peers as I made the transition. And my day to day changed too. Where I was primarily responding to service requests and helping people to get back up and running asap. I was still doing that, but I was now the escalation point. I was responsible for quality control, deep seated problem solving, investigating underlying issues and helping to manage a team of three support engineers.
Fast forward to this year and I found myself reading a post that James Sutton shared on our Teams announcements page. We grew a lot! You could really see it and feel it. The teams were busy, and lots of businesses and NFP’s made the switch to our support services. He explained that we were expanding and going to create our seventh IT Support team (aka Teal Team) and welcomed applications for a new Partner to spearhead the new team, so I threw my hat in the ring.
It was an interview with the directors, James and Igor. And I thought I fudged it. Igor threw in some curly questions and it was only when I walked away that all of the great responses came to mind! Typical!
About a week later they called me into the office to tell me that I got the position. I was shocked and elated… Again, I acted super cool, let out a customary “Hell Yeah!”, did another fist pump and phoned my wife.
What does a typical day to day look like?
My day is very varied at the moment. I was promoted to Partner about 2 months ago and while I am still responsible for all of my Senior Support Engineer duties I am scheduled in for a lot of training. Some days it’s one on one with James, and I join the other partners when they attend client meetings to get a little experience, observe and take note of the skills that I would like to learn and add to my utility belt.
With Yellow team soon to hit capacity, new clients will be supported by the Teal Team which I am really looking forward to! Essentially my days are filled with doing everything I can to prepare the new team to onboard clients seamlessly so we can provide them with the IT support that we are renowned for here at OSIT.
Do you have a mentor or role model at OSIT? And if so, what’s the best piece of advice you’ve received from them?
Everyone! Seriously, everyone at OSIT have so many great traits and skills; actually, that’s one of the things that James asked me to do before sitting down for my Partner interview. He recommended that I have a discussion with each of the six partners to get their perspective on the role and to leverage a combination of their skills to supplement my own, which I thought was great advice.
Let’s talk growth, as a partner, you’ve obviously leveled up your skills since you joined as Support Engineer. What role did Office Solutions IT play in that levelling up?
I thought I knew a lot before I came here. And I did. But only on a very small scale.
Office Solutions IT gives you the opportunity to be able to work on a big scale, and they provide you with the responsibility and encouragement to take ownership and run with it. It’s funny, looking back on three-years-ago me, I’d laugh. I have grown so much with not only my technical ability, but my soft skills too. I have always been a driven guy, but the support you receive through a combination of the culture, training allowances, and so forth really make a difference.
What excites you most about leading our new Teal team?
I really look forward to providing a seamless experience for our new clients - from legal and accounting practices to mining and NFP organisations and everything in between. I’m excited about helping to grow the new team to capacity and creating the same opportunity I have been given for another team member to step up and continue the growth journey.
So, Monday mornings, it’s a Monday today actually, how were you feeling walking into the office this morning
I look forward to Monday mornings, I still do. You know everyone is going to think this is scripted right? I remember being asked this question by our HR team a little while ago, and my response hasn’t changed - excited! I still am. There’s so much to do, there’s so much to learn, and there’s so many great people to work with.
People keep telling me the culture here is amazing compared to other organisations they have worked in, but I can’t give it a baseline because it’s all I know. I was either working for myself or here. But holy moly, if everywhere is like this, I should have given up working for myself a long time ago! This place is amazing. It’s hard to crystallise in words, but the culture feels good and it’s not just me, a lot of people say the same thing about it.
Let me give you an example, on Friday night, we had an impromptu team dinner at Lapa’s with the Yellow team. This wasn’t a company-initiated thing or even a company-wide thing. We have a Team Happiness fund that the Partners can use however they like to bring happiness! So, the yellow team got together to celebrate Andrew (who passed his probation) and also a little bit of a celebration of my promotion too. We went there, had a few drinks, ate too much and got meat sweats. But we were so happy! We’re a really close-knit bunch and it’s just the little things like this that bring us closer together.
If you could give applicants one tip to landing a job at Office Solutions IT what would it be?
Honesty. Just. Be. Honest.
I knew I wasn’t good at some of the technology OSIT was using when I applied. But I owned it and demonstrated that I am driven and willing to learn. It’s ok to not know stuff, so own it, be honest and show that you’re committed to growing.
And finally, I think I can guess, but can you share one thing you love about working for OSIT?
The endless laughs, the people, and the culture.
