Emilia Keeney, IT Technician

Emilia Keeney, Episode Summary

In this episode of Automox Insiders, Maddie Regis interviews Emelia Keeney, an IT help desk technician at Automox. They discuss Amelia's background in IT, her time at Automox, and the unsung hero of IT. Amelia shares her journey into IT and how she found a career in the field. She also talks about her experience working at Automox and the importance of automation in IT. The conversation concludes with a fun word association game.

Read the Automox Insiders Transcript

Maddie: Hey guys, this is Maddie Regis, Account Based Marketing Manager at Automox. And I'm bringing you another new episode of Automox Insiders, which is our new podcast that introduces you to the people behind the product. So today we're talking with Emilia Keeney, who is an IT HelpDesk Technician at Automox. We're going to talk with her about her IT background, time at Automox and what she thinks is the unsung Hero of IT. So welcome Emilia.

Emilia Keeney: Thank you.

Maddie: Super excited to have you here. So tell me a little bit about your role and also the name you'd give our company if we weren't called Automox.

Emilia Keeney: Okay, well, I am the Internal IT Technician, although that really doesn't exactly say much to the entire scope of what I do. I kind of do a little bit of everything because we are a small IT team, so I do manage quite a bit of the infrastructure as well as managing the help desk. A name that I would give Automox if we weren't called Automox.

Emilia Keeney: I've never even thought about it. I've got nothing.

Maddie: It's just Automox. That's all it's ever gonna be. That's all it ever will be.

Emilia Keeney: Yeah, I can't think of anything else it would be, you know, I can't think of anything. Drawing a blank.

Maddie: Cool, I'm partial to Automox, I like it. And I know I have sent you many in IT help desk ticket as well. So I appreciate all the help every day for all the stuff you do. And yeah, at Automox, we definitely understand, you know, a lot of our clients also have small IT teams. So we get it for sure. But give us a little more background. Like, why did you end up getting into IT?

Emilia Keeney: Um, I've, you know, I've always been a computer person, always been into different tech stuff in general, you know, um, and then back early 2022, I was just kind of, I stumbled across this IT program for accelerated IT. And I was like, you know what? I've always loved doing computer stuff. Why not actually try to learn something and maybe, you know, make a career out of it, you know?

So I went through that program. It was this accelerated IT program through an organization called Merit America. The nice thing was is you don't have to pay for it until after you secure a job. Cause one of the biggest things with that organization is they actually do help you find a job and then they don't actually make you pay them back until after you've been hired at a certain salary cap. So.

It was definitely worth the risk at that point. And yeah, no, it's been a blast ever since.

Maddie: Awesome, that's super cool. Yeah, I think that's a great, for anybody that might be listening, that's just getting into the IT space, it sounds like that's a really good program. So that's super cool. And what.

Emilia Keeney: Yeah, because you know, you just see a lot of those different IT programs, but they all end up, you know, you got to pay up front or you got to do all of this. And the nice thing about that one is it was also one of the things I've always struggled with my entire life is knowing how to build a resume and professional development. That's all the skills I didn't have. I knew my computer stuff. I didn't know all the other things.

Maddie: Yeah, well, that's definitely an acquired skill, right? You're like, I, computers got that down, but yeah.

Emilia Keeney: Yeah, right?

Ones and zeros make sense. You know, how to phrase a sentence on a resume in a cover letter. That's foreign concept to me.

Maddie: For sure, for sure. And what made you actually end up going with Automox?

Emilia Keeney: You guys were the first ones to hire me for one. The other day when you sent me those questions, I was thinking to myself, I was like, oh, this is not a really crazy answer because really when it comes down to it, Automox was the first company to interview me and it was my first offer, which is actually incredible. I can't believe that the first interview I got was here and that I've been here this long. So, you know, pretty cool. Although I will.

Maddie: Yeah.

Emilia Keeney: I will point out, I went through the whole interview process. David ended up picking someone else instead of me first. But then when he didn't work out, I came along. So just sometimes David needs to make better decisions.

Maddie: All right, I'll pass that back to him next time we're on the pod together. Yeah, but we, I will just say we got to you first, right? That's, that's what, uh.

Emilia Keeney: Yeah, you got to me first, you know? And you know, it's actually kind of hilarious. I, up until even as recent as last, as you know, the last fall, I was still getting rejection letters from jobs I had applied for the year before. It's kind of...

Maddie: Wow. Yeah, the market is crazy right now, that is for sure.

Emilia Keeney: Mm-hmm. So definitely very grateful to be here at Automox. I absolutely love it here.

Maddie: Well, I think it froze again. Say that last, the like, grateful thing. Say it one more time just so we get it.

Emilia Keeney: I'm just grateful that Automox picked me up. I absolutely love it here. You know, I've, you know, I know in the IT world, you know, people tend to jump from job to job, but I, the team here, I couldn't be happier, you know.

Maddie: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I'll echo that on the marketing team as well. I just think it's, it's a great place to work. So we're plugging Automox a lot, but it's, it's true. It's, it's just awesome.

Emilia Keeney: Mm-hmm.

Emilia Keeney: Well, you know, it's fun and it's like, and what I also think it's funny how everyone we always have meetings with, they always talk about how great the IT and Security Team is and how much fun we are. And it's like, do you guys have, are those your just normal meetings? It's like, yeah, that's pretty much our, uh, that's normal meetings for us. We're just, uh, we're just a pile of fun, I guess.

Maddie: Yeah, you guys, you know how to have fun. And I think that's great. So, okay, kind of jumping back, you know, you do like a lot of what some people would call like basic IT things day to day with help desk technicians. You know, you're solving a lot of basic tickets. I know some of my requests are super simple, but I don't always know what I'm doing with computers. I'm like, Emilia, help.

Emilia Keeney: You know?

You know what, I'll tell you this. You may submit tickets, but here's the thing. Some days, those basic tickets make me very happy because sometimes I really like just doing the really simple stuff. I swear, half of my work is spent doing stuff that makes zero sense to me and confuses me for days on end. But sometimes it's nice to have you just requesting access.

to an app or a license for something. It's so nice, because it's so easy.

Maddie: Okay, alright, well that makes me feel better. Yeah.

Emilia Keeney: So don't ever feel bad about submitting tickets. Never feel bad about submitting tickets.

Maddie: Okay, good. Well, yeah, for everyone listening, just think about that. But what do you think of all that, that, you know, like basic IT? What do you think is like the most under-appreciated, like the unsung, unsung hero, quote unquote?

Emilia Keeney: What do you mean?

Maddie: Like of your day-to-day job, what do you think is like the most under appreciated? You know, like something that maybe people don't, you know, even realize is so important going on behind the scenes kind of thing.

Emilia Keeney: You know, I can't speak to anything exact, I think, but I feel like the most under-appreciated thing that goes on is all of the absolute just pile of automations we have set up throughout the org that no one even realizes is there, that does so much work that nobody even realizes. And it took somebody, you know, long time.

to a long time to set all those things up and then people don't even know that those normal things are being handled by automation.

Maddie: Yeah, for sure. And it's like, you know, if we didn't have all of those things broke, we would be, we wouldn't know what to do. No, I-

Emilia Keeney: Yeah, if we had to do everything that goes on during the day, manually, we would need a help desk team, we would need an IT team of like 30 people, you know, or more. Cause there's just so much that happens behind everything that nobody even really realizes.

Maddie: Yeah, for sure. No, I think that's a great answer. That's definitely, honestly, not, even though I'm very much aware of automation because of what we do at Automox, it's not something I ever would have thought of. So I like that a lot.

Cool. Okay. So we've asked you a few questions. On this podcast, I always wrap up with a little game. So before we go, I've got one last little thing. This week, it's just kind of fun and silly. So I'm going to ask you, I'm going to name a couple of words. I'm just going to ask you for like the first word association for each of those words. So the first word is patching.

Emilia Keeney: Alright.

Emilia Keeney: Automox

Maddie: Okay, the second word is Automox.

Emilia Keeney: Werk

Maddie: Zendaya.

Emilia Keeney: Pretty.

Maddie: Sixth grade report card.

Emilia Keeney: Homeschooled.

Maddie: Amazing, love it. Okay, well, Emilia, thank you so much for coming on and giving a little bit about your background and everyone appreciate your IT Helpdesk staff, appreciate your automations and yeah, we'll see you next month.

Emilia Keeney: Cool, have a good one.

Maddie: Okay, I'm gonna say that automations thing one more time because I panicked and I was like, wait, how often is this podcast coming out?

Okay, well, Emilia, thank you so much for coming on and everyone appreciate your Helpdesk technicians, appreciate your automations and have a great rest of your day.

Emilia Keeney: Thank you.