Only three people in DIT have more years of service than Sandy Cain.  A 37.5 year veteran of state service, Sandy is the latest DIT employee to be featured in “A Day in the Life.”  Sandy works in DIT’s Technical Training Unit, which is within Infrastructure Services’ Implementation and Integration area.

If you’ve ever used a DIT form, you are familiar with Sandy’s work! As the Forms Officer for DIT, Sandy is responsible for maintaining the forms database and the forms section on TechTalk.  She oversees the standards for the layout and design of forms and works with others in DIT to create new forms.  She also gets a lot of calls from elsewhere in state government, from people looking for non-DIT forms.  Though these “random calls” aren’t in her job description, Sandy is nice and does her best to help find what the caller needs.

Currently, there are 157 DIT forms and 21 other agency forms that Sandy works with.  Another 38 are in progress, meaning they are being revised or developed.  Forms alone would be enough to keep someone busy 40 hours a week, but Sandy has other duties, as well.  She is a second-level responder to Remedy tickets dealing with Microsoft Office, and she is also on the DIT Intranet Steering Committee.

Sandy came to DIT from the Department of Human Services, which was then the Family Independence Agency.  Because DIT was being created from the ground-up, there was a need for an experienced forms manager, and Sandy was just the lady for the job! In her 30-plus years with DHS, Sandy worked as a typist, word processor, and manuals and publications supervisor.  She also worked on implementing desktop computers in state government.  She says she remembers the first desktop computers making an appearance on state employee desks around 1977.

Sandy loves her job.  Her favorite aspect is that there is “never a dull moment.  There is always something new and different and challenging,” she says.  She also enjoys making things easier for her clients and forms users.  Part of the reason Sandy has worked so long is that she really enjoys being around her co-workers.  She senses that employee morale is low right now and she says she wants to stick around and be a cheerleader.

If she is not at work, Sandy is probably farming!  She owns 20 acres of land outside of Laingsburg and raises pigs and chickens.  She also grows a variety of produce for a stand she runs.  She says she loves farming because she gets to see the end result.  Though she enjoys her work at DIT, it’s not often she sees someone using a form she created.  “But when you’re out on the tractor and you look backwards, you see all the land you’ve turned that day,” she says.

Sandy has two daughters (one who works for DIT!) and 4 grandchildren who also keep her busy.