Redneck Geek

I’ve entered a new realm in my professional career. I’ve jumped from just a geek to a geek with sub-geeks. I was recently promoted to “IS Director” for the company where I work. This is definitely a challenging position, where I am responsible for a fairly substantial budget, technical direction, and overall uptime of the 150+ systems, along with making sure the 3 people on my team are effective at what they do each day.

I’ve had the privilege of working for a few really good managers, as well as some that shouldn’t be in management. The one thing that stands out to me for the better ones is that you always know where you stand. Consistent feedback on performance is important. I’ve personally been blind-sided during annual reviews with things that should have been brought up 9 or 10 months previously–I don’t want to manage like that. I want my team to always be striving to perform their best and knowing where they need to make improvements. I also expect them to share their feedback about my performance.

Micro-management is also one of the problem areas in the IT world. There are many ways to accomplish the same thing. The end result is the primary goal, not always the way we get there. This is something that is going to be hard for me. My personal style is to want to do things my way, unless someone can show or describe to me a better way. The company hires some of the best talent available and they should be treated as such–this is decidedly an area they will need to provide feedback to me about how I am doing.

I see this as a significant challenge, provided by God. He knows my future and this is an opportunity to learn and grow, and lean on Him more over the next chapter in my life.

-Geek

I’m sitting at church right now, behind the sound board, listening to my pastor teach. I am simply awed by the privilege it is to serve, to help people worship the Almighty Creator.

Over the years, I’ve struggled with serving under certain people’s leadership. I have to serve. God has wired me this way. I haven’t always had the right attitude when serving, and I apologize to those I have offended or hurt over the years.

I feel so blessed to serve with so many people talented, giving people. Service is so much easier when everyone has a single goal of bringing people to the throne of grace. We all need grace, and it is only by the grace of God that I am sitting here.

Thank You, Lord

I just read “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” on a friends status. It’s a line in a Casting Crowns song, American Dream. The basic premise is that Jack doesn’t have time for his kids because he’s chasing the American Dream–of having too much stuff.

It’s made me think about this past year and how much, or more aptly, how little, I play with my kids. Now I need to figure out how to be less dull…

I’ve spent the last 9 years administering email systems. I’ve had the privilege of working with a wide variety of system from HP OpenMail to Exchange to Lotus Notes/Domino. Not to mention the many open source apps like Cyrus, Courier, Sendmail, Postfix, etc.

The past few weeks have been somewhat frustrating implementing Exchange 2010. I need to configure some high availability aspects and they just don’t have an all-round elegant solution, specifically on the Client Access and Hub Transport side of the application. MS has done some good work on the Mailbox side with DAGs. They really need to work on the multi-site failover concept. I’ve got to give credit to MS for the client side with Outlook–the auto-configuring client really is nice, especially when doing testing.

I long for the simple, but extremely effective, Lotus Domino clustering. Server failover and load-balancing is relatively simple without the limitation of specific roles being in the same site. I know most people cringe at the thought of Lotus Notes, but from an admin standpoint, it really is an awesome system. The client side has finally been getting the attention it deserves, but its only effective if people actually upgrade the templates…

Just some semi-random thoughts as I wait for some load tests to complete…

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So far, I’d have to say hunting this year has been decent, at least for PA. I harvested a doe during the rifle season and I’ve seen more deer this year than in previous ones–not massive numbers by any means, but seeing 20 deer in a season is unheard of for me. I just don’t seem to have the same skills as others to pick out the movement. Despite that, I really enjoy the peacefulness of sitting in the woods. It seems to be the only time I can sit and not have a million things running through my head. A time when I can converse with God and thank Him for his blessings, and his creation.

I still have another month of hunting in the Pittsburgh area and I’m hoping to get another doe to fill the freezer. And now that we have some snow, maybe, just maybe I’ll see the deer now…

-Geek