Employee Spotlight: Q&A with Abdi

My name is Abdi. Currently, I live in Dorchester, Massachusetts, but I was born in Somalia and grew up in Kenya.

I am a Managed Services Technician at GraVoc. I started as an intern in 2019 after graduating from the North Shore Community College and became a full-time employee in 2021. When I was job hunting, I was looking at different IT companies in the area and GraVoc popped up. After considering all options, I decided I wanted to be a part of the GraVoc family!

At GraVoc, I set up workstations, perform monthly back-up and recovery testing for our managed services customers, conduct patching and anti-virus scanning, and provide IT support.

I have certifications in Google, Microsoft 365, and Datto. I enjoy learning new things and building my knowledge of the IT world.

I have a lot of favorites! But one that comes to mind right now is a workstation upgrade and setup project we did for our long-time customer, ISG, a while ago. They needed to upgrade their workstations to Windows 10 from Windows XP. I had just started at GraVoc, so this project was fun for me because I had to learn and work fast. Completing all the workstation imaging and upgrades helped me, because I was able to learn a lot.

When I’m not working, I am almost always spending time with my children! Mostly, we go bowling or visit parks. We also go to Carson Beach in Massachusetts a lot. Whether it’s 5pm or 7pm in the evening, if the sun is out in the summer, you’ll find us at the beach! In my free time, I also try to read, study, and travel.

Teamwork! My IT team and I consider each other family, so we always help each other. Every day, we exchange ideas and learn from each other.

I love how GraVoc functions – we are not just employees; we are all family! Here, they never say duty comes first; they always say YOU come first. That’s always good to hear!

In the U.S., my favorite spots are Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles. I love these places for the food, the people, and the atmosphere because there are so many fun things to do! Outside the U.S., I would recommend traveling to Malaysia and London.

Restart everything that you think is not working! We always tell customers that if their application is acting up, they should close it and restart the program. If that does not help, then reboot the workstation. That solves a lot of problems!