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Published: 2016/12/29
Taken from my http site prior to decomm 2022/03/01
While I love what I do and enjoy work that I do, I feel stuck in my career and constrained at times in my position. I enjoy learning and implementing what I’ve learned to solidify the knowledge I’ve gained without budgets, deadlines, or limitations in what can and cannot be implemented or applied to an environment. There always seems to be a cavalier attitude toward security or the implementation of better security by those around me in my daily work that adds to this feeling of constraint and frustration.
I desire to the master of my own domain, the architect of my own network, the enforcer of my own system and security policies and general all-around Bastard Operator from Hell when it comes to managing it all. If it were financially possible as well as physically possible for me to build such an environment for myself I would have done it long ago. I simply do not have the financial resources or the physical space to have my own private data center at home. I can, however, dream about it and plan it out how I would go about accomplishing such a thing in hopes that one day I will be able to. A google document helps me to define the requirements to be met and equipment that I would purchase to achieve this private data center. There a many times in my day to day work where I wonder “why the hell am I doing this right now, there are so many more important issues I could be working on” as if it will suddenly make the things I don’t want to deal with go away so that I can work on the things I do want to work on. So many times do I wish that I wasn’t working on anyone else’s systems but instead working on my own systems and my own private network. I love private networks as much as networking in general but it’s something about a private network that draws me in as if it’s my own little corner of cyberspace and no one else is allowed to use it, touch it or see it.
I think because I enjoy learning and researching things at are and aren’t possible within certain realms of technology I would much more suited to that type of job and feel much more successful than I feel now. That’s not to say that I don’t feel unsuccessful in where I am and my career, it just that opposite. I feel as if I’ve come a long way and succeeded in establishing myself in this field but I’d feel much happier if I didn’t feel like I was restricted in my ideas, my ability to do with I do best, or held back from my desire to implement and administer secure systems.
I don’t think I would ever be a good fit for a management position where I’m unable to put my fingers on the keys of the console to a Linux server. I’ve been in supervisory positions before but not as a manager, and having to be hands-off wouldn’t mesh very well unless of course if I had my own dominion to rule over at home. So I guess maybe there will come a time in which I do pursue management to allow me to have the financial income to achieve my desire for a small private at home data center.
When I got into this career I got into it for the desire to implement secure systems while managing rights and access restrictions. The position which I currently hold at the place of my current employment has allowed me to start towards my desire to implement security in an insecure environment however I often am unable to work or dedicate the time I would like to towards improving security. I’m very thankful for the job that I have and the salary it provides that allows me to take care of my family, but when my job becomes a routine of meeting key performance indicators (KPI) and meeting a minimum of billable time it no longer becomes a job in which I can pursue knowledge to help both myself and the company I work for without the restraint of achieving numbers on a spreadsheet.
I say this not as a rant or to complain because at the current company I work at it’s a very open environment and employees are able to voice their concerns openly. I also understand the purpose of KPI’s and the need for a managed services company to keep track of and charge customers billable time, it’s good for business and helps a company know that they are succeeding. However my preference when it comes to working is that I put in my daily time, be it 8 hours or 12 hours, and work on whatever projects I have been assigned without needing to keep track of my time. I’m paid on salary not hourly even though I clock in and out on a time clock, and if I work over 8 hours in a day or 40 hours in a week I’m not paid any extra so why should I have to do my job as if I’m paid hourly.
On that note, I want to point out that if you’re overworked as systems professional you’re not doing your job correctly or you have problems in your systems that need to be addressed to reduce your workload. Delegate tasks as you are able without adding a burden to your fellow co-workers if there is more than one systems person on your team. Delegating tasks is something that I embraced once I realized that I couldn’t do it all and that my effectiveness as a systems professional was reduced by trying to take on more than I could handle. If you can automate a task I recommend it but not before reading Priti Biyani’s article on When to Automate and Why
Also as a systems professional, you also have to learn to properly prioritize issues and tasks. Just because the person requesting your attention to a issue does not mean that it’s a critical issue for you. It may be a critical issue for them but chances are there are higher priority issues on your table than the one you’ve just been handed. It’s permissible and beneficial to let people know at times that their issue is not critical and will be given the proper attention at your discretion. That doesn’t mean however that you are judge, jury, and executioner over what you deem to be a high priority. If an item is causing downtime or prevents others from doing the jobs they’re paid to do then that might be higher priority than anything you have demanding your attention at the time.