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I want to visit upon a different view on one of my tips from a post back in January with ideas of what to do after being hired in IT.  In a effort to try to continually evaluate and present multiple facets to my thoughts, I wanted to describe an alternate view on tip #1. A colleague of mine, who can be at times a controversial figure within the organization, came back at me when I began discussing issues around a new member of the pack.

My coworker felt that a person with good intentions who made aggressive mistakes was a positive trait.  That the resulting “conflicts” would shape and mold both the environment and the new individual.  I didn’t agree at first, but after reflection on his words, I did find that he may have a valid perspective.  My only counterpoint to his was that, true genuine desire to make things better and aggressive mistakes have some value.  However, if you alienate everyone around you and they don’t want to even be around you, say nothing of cooperating with you, then what value does the aggressiveness ultimately provide?

A second incident of a new person violating tip #1 occurred just the other day.  It again, brought back my thoughts around the aggressive mistake point made above.  This new person, his first day I believe, started to hijack a meeting.  He did provide what sounded to me as valuable knowledge of a product that we are not familiar with.  So, on that level I was generally okay with his talking so much.  However, the wheels came off when he started to suggest things that aren’t standard for us and that’s when I knew he talked too much.  Your first day, don’t say how things should be without understanding the company and the environment first.  I’m sure he will provide value as he seems intelligent, but he must show some respect and maturity in seeking to understand before he seeks to be understood.

I did get the feeling with the newest, new guy that he is or was a consultant. This constant desire to demonstrate immediate value is the life blood of that role and may explain his behavior to me.

I was reading this blog over at Inter-Sections (blog: Inter-Sections » Blog Archive » How to recognize a good programmer) and some of the topics brought up I thought could be of value. I also thought that I would apply it SysAdmins and Technical Architects. I think these are good food for thought items People, jobs, and companies have all their own idiosyncrasies and these items are not the beginning or the end on hiring people.

Let’s start with some excerpts from Daniel’s blog entry.

#1 : Passion

Can you get this guy to excitedly chat up a technology that he’s using, for a whole half hour, without losing steam?

#2 : Self-teaching and love of learning

If you’re thinking of hiring someone as a programmer, and he ever utters the words “I can work with that, just send me on a training course for a week and I’ll be good at it”, don’t hire that guy. A good programmer doesn’t need a training course to learn a new technology.

#3 : Intelligence

In fact, good programmers are usually among the smartest people you know. Many of them will actually have pretty good social skills too. The cliché of the programmer who’s incapable of having a conversation is just that - a cliché.

#4 : Hidden experience

A good question to ask a potential “good programmer” in an interview would be “can you tell me about a personal project - even or especially one that’s completely irrelevant - that you did in your spare time, and that’s not on your CV?” If they can’t (unless their CV is 20 pages long), they’re probably not a good programmer.

#5 : Variety of technologies

Learning a new technology is one of the most fun things a programmer with any passion can do. So they’ll do it all the time, and accumulate a portfolio of things they’ve “played around with”. They may not be experts at all of them, but all decent programmers will be fluent in a large inventory of unrelated technologies.

#6 : Formal qualifications

The key point to outline here is that formal qualifications don’t mean squat when you’re trying to recognize a good programmer. Many good programmers will have a degree in Computer Science. Many won’t.

I have to say that these six points are very good and apply similarly to System Administrators and Technical Architects.  I want to add more thoughts around some of Daniel’s points and add some of my own as well. 

Passion & Hidden Experience

I do think that a good geek can talk your ears off about technology.  I also believe for the best, it is the continuation of a hobby or something they are good at.   This plays in line with #1 and #4 above.  I also think there has to be some amount of perfectionism or OCD as well.  I’m not talking about to the unhealthy levels, but a little bit of wanting it done 100% correct.  In my mind, the difference between a true geek and a manager is a geek doesn’t want to settle with something being 90% correct and a manager knows that with all projects, compromises will be made and nothing with 100% right.  The geeks that get into trouble are the ones that are so fixated on the getting to 100% that nothing else matters.  I have seen geeks lose good jobs because they were okay with “burning a village in order to save it”.  Needless to say that these types of geeks would never survive in a management role.

Passion also comes out in discussing around choices on how to do something and how well they can convince others as well.  It can go too far with fixation about being “right” and wanting to beat people into submission but the exuberance about the choices is usually a positive trait.  You want a person that cares about quality of work and taking care of others.  The individuals who are, don’t want to discuss with or convince others and will settle for the path of least resistance is the people who shouldn’t be hired.  Nothing frustrates me more than those who ,“have turned being unengaged into a Zen-like thing.” , a quote from one of my favorite fictional characters. 

In regards to hidden experience, good Systems people tend to don’t view being a SysAdmin or Architect as a “day job” it is more like a part of them or more than just a vocation.  I would be cautious about the passion levels or commitment levels of those who aren’t interested or fiddle around with technologies outside the office.

Self-teaching and love of learning

I totally agree with point #2.  With the tempos of projects individuals who insist on always having a training class before wanting to work with something typically is going to be trouble.  I do believe in training classes and believe that a company should provide people with training.  However, my experience has taught me that most people use this as an excuse as a crutch so they do not have to support or learn something.  I have found that I always want to learn something about and how to use technologies before I go to the training classes.  I have found that understanding many aspects of the technology before hand helps get the most value for me out of a training class.  I have also seen some of the “gotta have the classes” individuals are the same that have more initials after their name than my medical doctor does.  It could be that they want to milk the company for as many certifications as possible so they can go somewhere else and get paid more.

Variety of Technology

I think senior people should have a variety of experiences.  I think that some experience in different disciplines is excellent as well. (e.g. SysAdmin, Security, Network Admin, Management, Project Management)  For more of my thoughts and pontifications on career paths see this post.  I also want to place technology biases in this category as well.  We all use technologies and products that we are all comfortable with and the natural tendency is for us to reach for those tools whenever we have a problem to solve.  That’s normal and natural but that is not exactly what I’m talking about.  It’s the folks who flat refuse to work with Microsoft Windows, or think that mainframes are dinosaurs that need to be put out to pasture.  Talented people like exposure to all kinds of technologies and feel like any technology can be the correct fit given it meets the requirements.  If someone wants to run their data centers off of a bunch of Blackberry phones chained together, if it meets the business requirements and can be supported properly, what is the problem?  Ultimately, you are looking for someone who feels that they can provide the most cost effective solutions that are in line with business requirements.

Self-confidence vs. Hubris

Often times there is a thin line between self-confidence and hubris. Self-confidence is the thing that gives one the ability to take on challenges and new technologies.  It’s the positive part that fuels #1 through #6.  However, hubris is the biological weapon of mass destruction that will eventually destroy everything it comes in contact with.    It manifests itself in numerous ways. I’ve seen it come out in “smart people” who called the less knowledgeable or people with less memory capacity, STUPID!  I have also seen it people who think they are above doing certain types of work because of their title.  I have also seen it appear wearing the disguise of “efficiency” .  It sounds harmless as, why can’t someone else do this, I’m paid $100/sec and wouldn’t it be more efficient for someone else that is paid less to do instead of me.  I’m not knocking efficiency, but come on, what company thinks it normal to breaks down every task down to who is the cheapest person to the job.  I’m sorry, if they want me to take out the trash, I agree that it’s not an efficient use of the company’s money, but that is their call and I’m not above taking out the trash.  Here is both sides of that argument, the company pays for my time and I should be willing to do whatever the job requires(as long as it’s legal and moral) but I also have the choice to continue to work there as well if I don’t feel challenged or like what I’m being asked to do.

The Star Trek test

This one is mostly for a bit of humor, but I have noticed some correlation between how ”geeky” a person is by discovering how much they were into Star Trek (original series, spin-offs, and movies) and or other Scifi shows,  Dr. Who, Battle-star Galactica, etc.  I’m curious if others have seen this too.

This is only part one, I have so many different topics to discuss. I was afraid that if I added too many more characters that this post would require a warning statement about reading it why operating heavy machinery.

As all ways, if you have feedback or comments, either comment below or email me:  feedback at itminddesign dot com.   If you found it useful or entertaining please share it.

As I was scanning through my RSS feeds the other day, I ran into this blog post from this poor guy who got canned from CNN.  I’m sorry he lost his job.  Apparently, CNN has rules about any writing done for a “non-CNN outlet” must be run through the network’s standards and practices department. I’m sure California is an at-will state so they could fire him for having green eyes.  Unless, green eyes is a protected class of people. He actually had created a blog and wasn’t running his content through CNN.  Oopsies… What started to go through my mind centered around if my company had such policies.  I don’t work for a media company like CNN, so I wouldn’t think my employer would care.  Well, I am checking into any policies the company might have, just to be sure.  At the urging of good friend, I searched for some information on legal issues with employers and their employees blogging.  I found this article at the ibls.com site very informative.  It highlights for areas of trouble for bloggers:

• Defamation Claims
• Harassment Claims
• Economic Damages to Employers
• Disclosure of Confidential Information

Seems reasonable enough.  Don’t say things that are false and a unprivileged statement of fact that is harmful to someone’s reputation.  Don’t make statements about people at work that can be construed as sexual harassment or create a “hostile” work environment.  People shouldn’t do that stuff at work so they probably shouldn’t do that in a blog either. I don’t think that means you can’t talk about coworkers. I do in my blog and will continue to, but I usually want to discuss issues or situations, not attack someone personally.  Attacking people, what good would that do anyway?  Don’t disclose confidential or proprietary information.  Again, things you shouldn’t do at work, don’t do it in a blog.  It seems relatively simple.  Though nothing legal is ever simple.  I did also find this guide from the folks very useful at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). 

 Part of one of the statements on the ibls.com page is what really worries me.

 an employer may also be liable for an employee’s defamatory private blog

The article crafts this around some specific circumstances. What I don’t understand is how what I do on my own time opens my employer up to being sued.  They can’t control my actions outside the office.  Maybe one of the three people who may read this posting is a lawyer and as some understanding they can convey. I am all about being educated in these matters. Though these days, just being my employer maybe enough for them to get sued.  Lots of litigious folks out there. 

I understand that the things I do and say while “on the clock” means I represent my employer and they have some liability for what I say and do.  This though thread leads me down a related tangent.  If I am a salaried employee, legally how is my “on the clock” defined.  If I’m shopping at the grocery store on the weekend and “harass” someone and they find out who I work for, can they sue my employer? (I guess can anyone can sue anyone for any reason?) I think I’m looking for legal culpability.  Here is one that seems even more gray to me.  If I’m getting on a plane to fly somewhere on Sunday for a work assignment in another city and I do something “wrong” at the airport or on the airplane, does my employer have any grounds to terminate me? Not that they can’t terminate for those green eyes I mentioned before.  I just wonder what happened to the world when the things you say and do not only gets you in trouble but gets your employer in it too. When did employers who don’t  have anything to do with what you say and do on your own time become liable for you?

 I shall post an update once I find out what (if they have one) the company policy on blogging is.

I have been married to a wonderful man who I compassionately call my geeky husband. At first it was different calling him a geek because to me geek just sounded really derogatory but he says he’s okay with it because he is a geek. He even calls himself a geek.

We have been married seven and half years now and it’s been pretty good. Yeah, I know, I said pretty good because there were times when we first got married that I felt like I was competing with the phone calls in the middle of the night, the cell phone that would ring in the middle of dinner when we would get to go out and the pager going off in the middle of the night then the phone ringing right after the pager going off. I thought, jeez give him a chance to get to the phone to call but it was what he lived for in the beginning. He would jump out of bed grabbing the phone, of course cordless so he could talk while he walked down the hall to the office he had. I didn’t always feel like I was competing at first though. I told myself that this was part of his job description and it’s to be expected. He was this way before we were married and I just can’t expect him to drop everything because we were now married. I figured it would change over the next couple of months or that I would get used to it but it didn’t change nor did I get used to it. It stayed the same and it actually got worse. When he wouldn’t have calls or the pager going off, he would call into conference calls just to listen to see what problems were going on to see if there was something he could do to help, which is nice and all, but there were times it was a Saturday night when we were supposed to be going somewhere to spend time together. I felt robbed of my time with him, especially since we weren’t working the same kind of work schedule. He was Monday thru Friday and I was Tuesday thru Saturday, so the only true day we had together was Sunday and that was usually spent doing housework and getting things ready for the coming week. Possibly, you can see where my frustrations were coming in to play. Usually when he would get his calls or be working on the problems they would call him early in the evening and I would end up having to go to the bedroom to watch TV or be really quiet with what I was doing because there were several people on the phone with him and sometimes he would have a hard time hearing them. By no means am I quiet person either. I try but every time I try to be quiet, I make the most noise. Go figure. During all of this, which was the first three years of our marriage, there were times that I would step back and take a deep breath to think if things were to change, we may not have had the house we were in and be able to do some of the things we would do when we could. Most of the things we had were due to him working the way he did at the time. We were able to take little trips when we could get the time off together. We were able to go out to dinner then to a movie and have that large popcorn instead of coming home and cooking dinner and having really nothing on TV to watch. I took what I could and let him do what he had to do to keep us going. Yes, my contribution monetary wise was helpful, but not like his. He was the breadwinner in the family and I’m not saying I just let him walk over me because of it, I’m saying it was because of him doing all of this we were able to have a life where we weren’t fretting over the little extras that some people can’t afford when they first get married. Yes there was fretting but it wasn’t the the type of “how are we going to pay the electric or phone bill”, etc..

Here we are though seven and half years later and things have changed. It just took time and a couple of moves in the company, good moves. He no longer has the calls in the middle of the night or the constant calling from those he works with to ask questions. There is though however the one thing he can’t get out of his system completely and that is the occasional calling into the conference call to listen to a problem. It’s not as often as it was but he still gets a rush when there is something he can do to help.

After all of the “competing” as I call it when we first married, I wouldn’t trade it for anything because after a few times that you get frustrated and you want to pull your hair out because they called in the middle of the night and woke you up, you start to get an understanding of the job and like to watch your geek work and sometimes get a little rush by the way he reacts when he does get that problem that no one else could fix, fixed. At least I did. If you start to feel overwhelmed by it, it will take you down and take you down hard. Sometimes it takes talking to your geek to get things on a page where you can compromise to work things out. You may have to page him with an emergency though to talk to him or grab him by the collar and say ‘Look we have to talk’, but hang in there, remember you said you would stand by him in sickness and health, through good times and bad times. Well sometimes those good and bad times take the form of his “geeky” job but remember he’s doing them so you can have a life to do what you want.

Every survey of employees I have heard people reference rate money below #1 as the biggest motivator or what makes employees’ the “happiest”.  I know that some would disagree and that’s fine.  I am as rapacious as the next guy and go to work to make money.  However, I don’t understand how people work at jobs they hate.  I respect that people have families and bills to pay, but long term how can any person be miserable for so long in a job they don’t like or don’t feel accomplished in?

I guess I now know what it might be like to go to a support group and realize that there are others out there who feel like I do.  I was touched by this article I read in the Wall Street Journal.  The title was “A Modern Conundrum: When Work’s Invisible, So are its satisfactions.” written by Jared Sanberg.  The link to the whole article can be found by clicking  Cubicle Culture - WSJ.com.  Several times through out my career I have moments of existential crisis.  I think most people want to be able to see their value and feel that they have left something positive in/to the world.  I often wonder, if I die today, would anyone in a hundred or thousand years ever know I existed and did I do anything to add value to humanity.  I’m not saying that I have to cure cancer to feel a sense of success, but at a minimum I want to give back to humanity at least as much as I have taken.  I truly relate to this in part the article:

In the information age, so much is worked on in a day at the office but so little gets done. In the past, people could see the fruits of their labor immediately: a chair made or a ball bearing produced. But it can be hard to find gratification from work that is largely invisible, or from delivering goods that are often metaphorical. You can’t even leave your mark on a document in increasingly paperless offices. It can be even harder trying to measure it all. That may explain why to-do listers write down tasks they’ve already completed just to be able to cross them off.

I actually do add things to my to-do list so I can just mark them off. I do feel good when I mark something completed. (It also allows me to keep a written record of what I do week to week) 

The team does have some metrics (KPIs) that measure our accomplishments but its hard to see how the company is doing any good in the world. I believe we do make products that make people’s travel process easier but seeing their impact to the end customer is hard.  I think when companies want to improve productivity and want employee buy in on the mission, they must find something for the employees to get behind.  The mission statements are usually a bunch of BS bingo and considered a joke at most places. It can be powerful if used correctly.  Saying that ABC company wants to be leader of XYZ industry and make $999 Billion dollars by 2010 isn’t very emotional to me.  Though if my salary is tied to revenue, I might get teary eyed thinking about my bonus. :)  Seriously, if I’m GE medical and we make defibrillators, then a mission statement of saving a million lives a year with our devices is an awesome mission to create.  I know I would want to contribute and work hard to help save a million lives a year.  Working late seems more trivial when lives could be at stake. I think meeting those people and know the good that is done by devices like that, that’s how IT people working in the “intangible” products get to see their work. 

The goal is to help each company find out how they contribute to something emotional and provide the easiest way to see the effects of everyone’s work.  All of us out there, we work for companies and have to help them find those things, so we can bring meaning, success, and fulfilment to our coworkers.  Until that’s true everywhere, including at my company, I will take comfort in knowing that I’m not alone out there, and others feel the way I do.  For now, that’s enough to help me keep digging for the emotional meanings in my world.

Comments/feedback always welcome.   email feedback at itminddesign dot com or hit the comment button below.