From owner-freebsd-newbies Tue Jul 31 20:59:55 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-newbies@freebsd.org Received: from uhura.concentric.net (uhura.concentric.net [206.173.118.93]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CD48C37B401 for ; Tue, 31 Jul 2001 20:59:50 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from mlduke@concentric.net) Received: from marconi.concentric.net (marconi.concentric.net [206.173.118.71]) by uhura.concentric.net [Concentric SMTP Routing 1.0] id f713xnI12417 for ; Tue, 31 Jul 2001 23:59:49 -0400 (EDT) Received: from ts004d10.mer-id.concentric.net (ts004d10.mer-id.concentric.net [206.173.184.166]) by marconi.concentric.net (8.9.1a) id XAA09874; Tue, 31 Jul 2001 23:59:47 -0400 (EDT) Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2001 20:57:48 -0600 (MDT) From: ML Duke To: freebsd-newbies@freebsd.org Subject: Unix skills at work Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Hi all. I know a rather rather skilled Unix fella. Recently asked him about his work. What he said follows. Thought some of you might be interested in some views of an engineer/admin who works within the enterprise environment. --------------------------------------------------------------- Not much to say, really. It's work. Everyday, what weren't broken gets upgraded and broken. Philosophically, they're paying me a large amount of money to accomplish nothing beneficial in the long run. But I've come to understand that this is the way most of our educated professionals think. It is very clear, though, that they don't understand syllogistic logic. 'Course, I ain't been college educated, but I would have thought logic would be a prerequisite to computer science. Then again, if I had the benefit of an education, I might understand why it no longer applies. I am something of the problem child at (X-Company) -- I have trouble getting with the "program" and staying on the "same page." On one hand, I'm expected to think independently and be "pro-active." On the other, I'm tolerated and guided because I forget about the "vision" and cut straight to what works. They find that an annoyance, since it's "old-fashioned" and indicates a lack of innovative reasoning. In a way, though, it's worked out well. They tolerate me because my systems don't break and they keep me away from the visionary innovations because I can't get through my thick skull why they want broken (err... 'scuse me) innovative systems. Ah, well... it seems like the really serious systems, they leave to me and don't bother me about it -- and -- the pay checks have always cleared the bank, so far. So I would have to say that this is just another gig. I remember when the old linotype operators struggled with the "new" qwerty keyboard. Most couldn't make the transition. At the time, I couldn't understand why and figured it would never happen to me. As it turns out, it has happened to me. I won't be able or willing to make the transition to the new way of thinking. Mostly, I think, because I don't like it, don't respect it and have been there, done it. Still, it's their time in the sun and mine has passed -- they deserve the chance to repeat the same mistakes as I did. There is truly an interesting symmetry in all this. anonymous To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message