What's your job about?

Essential Energy organises the distribution of electricity to retailers for customers to purchase. My responsibility is part of the graduation program in training and development to create and maintain servers for Essential Energy employees, contractors, and customers.

I am currently in the graduation program in training to create, maintain and resolve any server issues in AWS, Oracle and Azure cloud. I am also on a rotating roster throughout the eTech department the teams learning about an IT corporate environment, and what we do to provide energy solutions to improve life. I am currently writing reports for projects that need to be completed like:

• Purchase of 6 x Encrypted External SSD’s
• Removing built-up log files in our AWS non-prod server
• Studied AWS and Microsoft Fundamentals
• Studying Azure AZ104 certification
• Attending stand-up meetings as well as specific meetings I need to be involved with.

In summary and long terms, I provide energy solutions that improve life. This is creating, maintaining and supporting cloud-based servers upon support requests. I study and train to know what the latest information there is for security, Microsoft, Cisco, AWS, Oracle etc. No, IT Support means no support for IT cloud servers.

What's your background?

Work

• I worked at Go-Lo during my high school years 2007-2012 and Pizza Hut as a delivery driver in 2010-2011
• I worked for a local Port Macquarie IT company completing my traineeship in IT Support TAFE Certificate 3 from 2011 to 2012

• I worked at Centrelink as a CSO for 3 months in 2013 whilst working for myself in IT support.
• I worked at Domino’s from 2013 to 2019 whilst I was studying my Bachelor of IT at CSU
• I was also working at Oliver’s Real Food as a Café All Rounder between 2018 to 2020 whilst I was studying my Bachelor of IT at CSU
• For Whilst I was studying my Bachelor of IT at CSU I worked at MidCoast Council as a Technical Support Offic and between 2020-2022.
• This brings me to my current job as a Business Support Office at Essential Energy as part of the Graduation Program

Activities

• Played indoor and outdoor soccer since 1997 to 2015
• Went to Darwin when I was 11 years old (2003)
• During high school (2005-2010) I played bass guitar and now and again play it still.
• I refereed outdoor soccer since 2005 and finished up 2013
• I also enjoy 4WDing (Owned a 1993 Suzuki Vitara JLX) but haven’t done for 10 years due to finances and other commitments. I also sold this vehicle.  
• I currently train with the Australian Hapkido Association (since 2016) I am currently a red belt and 2 levels off becoming a black belt.
• I also enjoy gaming nights with mates playing retro/current Nintendo games as well as PlayStation current games.
• I enjoy Lord of the Rings especially “The Rings of Power” on Amazon Prime
• I enjoy cooking a BBQ on my Weber Family Q whether this is Pizza’s, Roast’s, steak, sausages capsicums etc.

I also enjoy riding road motorcycles. I have had my motorcycle license since 2011 and have owned many motorcycles like:

• 2007 Kawasaki KLX250R
• 2011 Honda Lead
• 2013 Honda CBR250R Repsol Edition
• 2014 Honda CB650F (Non-LAM Model) Current motorcycle

• I have also recently been married since November 2022
• I also have a newborn baby boy named Theo Brenton Fazzolari (born 18/02/2023 at 6:58AM). He is only 3 weeks old. Me and my wife love him to bits.
  Me and my wife own 2 x Shetland Sheepdogs and 3 x ferrets. We take our dogs to dog shows to show and win certificates so they can get their titles.

Education

• I attended Tacking Point Public School from K-6 (1996-2004)
• I attended St Pauls High School 7-10 (2005-2008) I enjoyed, woodwork, music, math, cooking classes and sewing. I completed my SC whilst studying here.
• I attended Newman Senior Technical College 11-12 (2009-2010). I enjoyed practical woodwork, furniture making and CAD/CAM graphic designing. I was looking to start a school-based apprenticeship in Carpentry or furniture making whilst completing my HSC. After I completed my HSC (2010) I decided Woodwork (Carpentry and CAD/CAM design) wasn’t for me, I wasn’t as good with my hands as I thought I was. I decided to try building custom desktop PCs as well as support these. From here I knew this was the career path I was going to achieve as I could do it so well and found it so easy to achieve and study.
• So naturally I started studying IT at TAFE 2011-12 to complete my Certificate 2, 3 and 4 before using this to get into SCU to complete my Bachelor of IT in 2014.
• I studied at SCU in 2014 for 1 year in a Bachelor of IT before switching to in 2015 CSU to complete my Bachelor of IT (Systems Administration) (2022)

I applied through Seek and completed a Math questionnaire, IT and workplace questions. I already had experience working at MidCoast Council as a Technical Support Officer as well as working for myself supporting users which helped my application as a Graduate System Administrator at Essential Energy. I’ve been in this role for roughly 3 months.

We love life Stories! You can also include any kind of personal information on important life events or decisions if you want to that has shaped you we consider as valuable!

Could someone with a different background do your job?

Yes. It doesn’t matter what culture, family, height, weight, shape, language, gender you are anyone could do this job. All you need is speed and accuracy to problem solve any IT scenarios that arise to you. You also need lots of patience and a systematic problem-solving hierarchy of steps as well as the ability to follow instructions and be able to work independently when training and researching IT related problems. This also applies when you are creating any sort of IT content whether it be servers, building a PC, building an operating system etc. You should be easy to do business with and be able to communicate with your colleagues and customers on an IT level that they can understand you on.

What's the coolest thing about your job?

I love how I can think mentally and technically and be able to build any online server, OS etc and see it used by our customers and colleagues. I enjoy being able to apply updates, use PowerShell code, and data for blob storage and see it saved online and be secure with high reliability of no data loss.

I also like the variety of IT Systems I am learning about which is a good opportunity to learn what corporate companies utilise, create and maintain.

What are the limitations of your job?

In my role and future roles in IT there is a lot of responsibility. If there are any servers that happen to fail at odd hours let’s say 2am there needs to be a Sys Admin to be on call and remote in to resolve this. This may be software, hardware or network related when problem solving to resolve this issue. Again, this requires speed and accuracy to resolve these issues. Sometimes if you don’t like working shift work or surprise calls at odd hours of the night and early morning this can be a negative of this job.

Always sitting down and not being outdoors. Sometimes I find it may wear your eyes down and may need glasses earlier in life like I have after being in front of computer screens for over 10 years. Also look out for neck, should and back issues when sitting down all day. If you don’t like sitting down all day this may not be the right role for you. This can be prevented by getting up regularly and stretching as well as going to the gym and taking up physical activity.

3 pieces of advice for yourself when you were a student...

I would have told myself to worry about getting my degree done quicker and try to take it on full time rather than part time. I would have applauded myself for how hard I studied and tried. I would have also told myself to study internal/on campus at CSU rather than online as I may have met more uni students studying IT and made more uni friends and learnt more off peers rather than studying online.

Never stop trying and always have more breaks and fun! Don’t’ be stuck in a dead-end job whilst studying muck around and try to learn more about IT even if it is:

• Basic support
• Building Operating Systems in VMWare
• Building your own network at home
• Watch as many Pluralsight videos whilst completing your degree
• Try to get a basic IT support job with my current TAFE Certifications whilst studying my Bachelor of IT to be in the IT field and keep my mind active.