[Ale-study] Linux system administrator

[JD]

On 05/03/2014 08:46 PM, Paul Cartwright wrote:
> On 05/03/2014 08:21 PM, William Bagwell wrote:
>> One bit of advise I did not see mentioned by others, is you *must* be willing 
>> to go where the jobs are.
>>
>> Live in the rural burbs myself (boonies to you city slickers) and not being 
>> willing to drive to Atlanta killed my chances. Entry level Linux jobs are 
>> few and far between and I have only seen *one* in ten years of lurking on 
>> the ALE jobs list (ale-jobs at mail.ale.org) that was close enough to me to 
>> bother applying for.
> yup, living in Athens, all the jobs are in Atlanta/Alpharetta.. luckily I get to
> work from home for another year:)
> contract work.. not permanent.
> 

Ah ... moving to a different state will likely be necessary. I've lived in 9
different states, 11 different cities.  We are a mobile society.  Interesting
work happens more than 200 miles from here.  I've known people who commuted from
rural NC to Atlanta daily - crazy.  If a job isn't fun/rewarding enough to move,
then I probably don't want it.

Some recent Linux group people moved 4 states away for positions. Just sayin'.

I've had some amazing jobs over the years ... and as great as they all were,
left each for career growth reasons.  That made me more valuable for the next
and the next and the next jobs. The more, different, experience you get, the
more valuable you will be to companies. Keep moving forward. Eventually, even
the greatest job gets boring.  I loved most of those jobs and liked the people
at them (mostly).  After 3-5 yrs, it is time to move on, learn something new - IMHO.

Also, while using a Linux desktop is important, it is not a substitute for
running linux servers.  Do everything from the CLI/shell. Forget point-n-click -
that just isn't how it is done on servers.  Try to automate everything possible
on 1 machine, then try to automate across multiple machines. Have computers work
for you, not the other way around.

There are exceptions, of course.  But many things we P-n-C today are a waste of
time. That's ok, provided we have the time to waste. RSS feeds are 50% more
efficient (at least) than browsing and don't interrupt other work.

Contract vs permanent.  I much prefer contracting. Very little politics. Usually
higher pay and MORE time off!  Just do the work.  I've worked places with major
layoffs - it was always the employees being fired, NOT the contractors actually
doing the important work.  Plus, as a contractor, it is less likely you'll have
people reporting to you. For me, that is a plus. My last job as an employee had
me in a leadership role and it didn't agree with me. I hated NOT being able to
do technical stuff - their just wasn't time. They say we are all promoted
1-level beyond our competence level? I suspect that happened to me.

Anyway, hope to see some of you at the GA-400 meetup today.