Well stated.

Honestly, it doesn't really bother me. We don't get paid as much as we should (which is what anyone would say about their current employment), so I understand why they don't give 100% all the time. I just like to be busy. I don't find the excitement in finding an empty classroom to take a nice nap in for a few hours, as others do.

"End of Microsoft support for XP does not mean XP must go away for all machines."

I agree. We even have a few '98 machines still floating around because they have certain software that a few departments still use, and do not have the funds to upgrade. Or, at least, do not want to use funds for that purpose. But, even though there are those still out there, we will move forward to the newer OSs.

I guess I didn't realize how much "Suck it up, do as your asked, don't give us feedback" there is in this field.

I have been trying to read all of the comments, but yours is probably one of my favorites so far. Thank you very much for the insight.

"If you are still excited about technology, enjoy the buzz while it lasts. When I started in IT, it was my dream job. It was a hobby I turned into a career. After about a decade, I no longer had the fastest computer of all my friends because the last thing I wanted to do was build another computer when I got home from work."

I sincerely hope that I continue to be as involved with technology as I am now, but I do realize that it is most likely inevitable. The first thing I bought with my shiny new, non-movie-theater paycheck, was a bitchin' computer. After only a year into the business, I don't use it as much as I thought I would. My weekends used to consist of having buddies come over to my place with their computers and a couple cases of beer. Now, honestly, I would much rather have just the friends and the beer.

I am coming to the realization that this is true. Just as I was hired, one of our net-admins retired and gave me similar advice. Thank you for your response, and I'll take your advice with open arms.

Because getting my story on the front page of Slashdot will land me a job at Microsoft. Use your brain.

We are pretty much all-in-one techs. We have a network admin, one person who manages our work orders, and one "superior," who handles the business aspect. Everyone else in our department is expected be able to troubleshoot basic hardware issues, fix printers, troubleshoot network issues, build images, work help-desk, write basic batch files for troublesome installs, breathe, walk and chew gum at the same time, etc. If one person doesn't know how (or isn't in the mood) to handle a certain situation, then they are expected to contact someone who does.

Possibly the reason that some of our techs feel the need to be reluctant to try something new, is the fact that they are simply "expected" to do the work of 6 different areas of IT, but only get paid a third of that. I'm a youngster, apparently, and am somewhat satisfied with the money that I make, where others are not.

We would have sent back 100+ machines, just to get 100+ machines back with the same issue.

About spending time on certain things? A year ago, I didn't know what I was getting into; thinking that IT was just "reseat memory here," and "replace a motherboard there." I found out quickly that my battles must be evaluated prior to opening fire, especially when it came to solving problems that didn't need to be solved in the first place. Thank you for your response, though.

Thank you for the input. From the comments, it does seem like that is about the average, in regards to my three questions, and my situation isn't much different.

Because, just as stated before, the end of the support date is drawing near for XP. There is, and forever will be, pros and cons (usually more cons than pros, according to Microsoft's track record) to moving to a new operating system. But, there's no avoiding it. Especially in a work environment such as mine, where if one person out of 10k+ of the company whines enough, they will get their way; I.E. "WE WANT WINDOWS 8 BECAUSE IT'S FAST AND COOL AND I DON'T CARE WHAT THE REPERCUSSIONS ARE"

It would make the department happy, but it would make the 10k+ other employees in the school district very confused ;)

I very much appreciate the honest response. Like I've stated before in a few other comments, I did not mean to sound arrogant, and I find it disappointing and unfortunate that so many people translated it as such. They were non-sarcastic, honest questions.

The problem was the fact that our previous vendor had UEFI set in the bios when they initially came out of the box. They never had to change it before.

"You pay vendors and data center people to perform tasks, and the vendor in this case failed to provide what they are contracted to do."

Even though they we were putting XP on brand new boxes that should have been W7 in the first place? The vendor probably would have asked the same question as a few people here did: "Why put XP on these things?"

My knowledge does not stop at the web browser, as I'm sure yours does not either. But, If there is something that I do not know, I do not simply say "oh well."

Simply put, I am not an arrogant person, nor did I even mean to sound arrogant. Maybe I didn't read my post over carefully enough. Asking if age is a factor does not signify ageism. If I had said "Everyone older than myself is stupid and unwilling to learn," that would be ageism. My questions were honest ones.

Actually, I am very quiet about the work that I do. I was not trying to sound sarcastic, snarky or otherwise arrogant; those were honest questions. My willingness and motivation to achieve come from me, and not a need to feel better than others.