I will add my 2 cents ...
I read all the posts. Experience on a specific system will allow
a person to respond quickly but will not allow them to
specifically solve a problem, especially if they are not as
educated on a system as they think they are. If the Server is the
documentation, you are riding by the seat of your pants and it
will catch upto you. In addition, a business is more nimble and
can accomplish more if there is redundancy in the understanding of
systems in place. You must have a well documented system/process
that a competent person can follow and update.
I will now move my comments a little more off topic ...
Now answering this as an employer hiring staff, experience counts
for me; but I put more weight in an employee's education, ability
to be agile, solve problems, communicate clearly, and work with
others. I expect to train new staff from the bottom up on a
system/process.
Now we are off topic and maybe offending ...
Some may disagree with me or feel I maybe belittling their career,
but most jobs in IT, in my opinion, can be done by almost anyone
if they are in the right mindset and given proper training. IT is
not magic.
Gilbert T. Gutierrez, Jr.
Phoenix Internet
On 5/16/2013 9:03 PM, Lisa Kachold wrote:
Across the board, the number 1 worst attribute that I
see working with the PLUG, technology teams, and mentoring (at or
around year 3 in academics, and year 3 - 10 in IT/linux
professionalism) = arrogance.
What exactly is arrogance anyway. Where is this found? Why?
It's the place in the discussion where one person dominates
assuming that their position or knowledge is greater (without
investigation). This is also referred to as "OneUpManShip".
It's the place in the presentation where students and PLUG
peers write off the person who has taken on the role to "present
on the subject" based on their ability to verbally spiel
acronyms. This is referred to "Minimizing".
It's the place in the team dissemination of project roles and
tasks where a member's enthusiasm is downplayed based on
experience. This is referred to "Dues Hierarchy".
This is the place in the interview where the employer fails
to realize all they need to do is very the work history, since
everything for a Linux professional is motivated by and driven
from an ethical systems administrator viewpoint (not any
communications with or responsibilities disseminated from the
employer); just as we are woken from sleep to work on or check
systems; and jazzed beyond belief by a well engineered hardware
server like IBM Blade (can you say Fiber channel switched
backplane?)...
There are a great many examples where an ego based emotional
assumption of or judgement is placed on our peers, our work, and
even ourselves at one point or another.
The ability to understand linux systems requires a certain
type of systemic theory; which can be daunting for some people;
such systems integration can be hard to troubleshoot [and
successfully negotiate within] without inherent abilities but
can be done with a great deal of complex experience, however
this is NOT ROCKET SCIENCE. So the people who do well at what we
do, are usually those that find that they inherently find this
easy.
It is, however, far from easy, since most of us work long
hours, without adequate physical exercise and balanced stress
free environments. The sheer amount of responsibility and
ultimate reliance in all shops on the unique abilities of the
Unix/Linux systems administrator are daunting to most once they
get a full view.
However, we each learn standard process applied across the
OSI stack and/or fed through the kernel/memory/processor for
systems or DevOps applications performance and integration,
security or troubleshooting.
Standard process, which includes a few easy to learn rules,
relies on logs and linux tools, completely supplants any
experience, past systems history knowledge (available on/in the
server), most visio documentation or RunBooks (which should not
exist unless something cannot be known by server view alone).
Ironically, to people who are not linux-ish, the statement
that "The Server IS the documentation" seems incredibly
arrogant, when in fact, it simplifies all the arrogant
posturing and 7 deadly sin based profit from the
misunderstanding of unix/linux administration and engineering.
We all intimately understand the concept of "obnosis" or
Knowledge by Observation - rather than what is imparted via
formal rote learning and scholastic pursuit.
What do you think? Is the adage "There is NO substitute
for experience" correct or can anyone using standard process
(as opposed to documented process) and NIX command line
skills (yet bringing no experience) get to the finish line at
the same time?
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