Leilani Cruz is a Systems Support Specialist with the San Diego Workforce Partnership. Here she describes her role, discusses what she likes best about working in workforce development and shares one of her proudest professional moments.
Tell us about your role at SDWP.
I am part of the Help Desk team here at SDWP. We provide technical assistance to the 200+ users on our network. When people are having issues (i.e. “I forgot my password,”) they call us to help troubleshoot and resolve them. In the last few years we have gradually added another operating system into the mix, so I have had the opportunity to learn to support any issues with this as well. I like to refer to our team as “tech therapists” since we periodically have to reassure our users that their issues can and will be resolved.
What do you like best about working in workforce development?
It is a good feeling to know that by extension we are contributing to the success of the clients we serve as an organization. IT is a department that operates in the background and may easily go unnoticed. But we know the kind of work we put into keeping things functioning so that everyone — from CEO to finance analysts to program specialists — always has the appropriate tools available when they need them.
What professional moment or project are you most proud of?
It’s not easy to pinpoint one specific moment; for me it is more about daily moments. We have the opportunity to work with different departments on new challenges each day and this makes our work varied and enjoyable as it allows us to build relationships with our coworkers. I feel that learning from and about the people we are surrounded by contributes to the quality of support we provide.