The daily writing prompt is asking – What skills or lessons have I learned recently?
I’ve been learning some brush techniques while trying to paint. Today I hope to learn how to photograph interesting things in my own home, being I’m not 100% and don’t want to go out in this cold for fear of catching pneumonia.
I learned that dealing with companies AI phone systems is a very frustrating experience. I’ve learned that age does affect your ability to fight off illness.
I learned that what came about to create WWII is possible again. When people won’t stand against corrupt power.
I’m working on skills to improve my writing and photography.
A little color on a grey morning. Photo by Mike Hartley
Describe something you learned in high school. – The daily writing prompt is asking me to go back into the memory banks for this one.
I learned so many things during those years. Not all of them in class.
I’ll start with an odd one. I learned how to type on a typewriter. Yep, back then (early 70s) a room full of clacking typewriters. When taking this class (on the suggestion of my mom) I couldn’t imagine how big a part of my life it would be. For it’s the start of my IT career.
I didn’t use it immediately after high school but a few years later when early PCs were being introduced it was easy to remember those skills and they took off.
Actually, that was the first time I got suspended in high school. Somehow in the first semester I got the hang of it well, so I started to skip a class here and there. Got a B in the first quarter. As my twisted logic worked back then I thought I had some wiggle room, so I skipped a few classes. I was cruising along doing well on tests the second semester but got suspended for a few days, when I got caught missing too many classes.
Over the years I got pretty good at typing and I’m sure I hit triple digits in speed. But my fingers have aged and injured over the years and I’m back into double digit speed.
No this isn’t my keyboard. Photo by Mike Hartley
I also learned I like taking photos. I got on the yearbook staff and took some pictures that year. Luckily, I kept that passion and have returned to photography after retiring.
The Daily Writing prompt asks me to – Describe a decision you made in the past that helped you learn or grow.
I recall a decision to stay in something comfortable and known or move on. I was in a lead position under a manager I loved working for in the Publishing System group. The move to take a step down in position to transfer to the UNIX Systems group as a Senior System Admin to work under a hard-ass former Marine.
I went through the interview/testing and got the position. I was so excited. Well, the VP returned from a long vacation as the managers worked out the transition, got wind of the change, and immediately killed it. I was informed by what was then the manager of the UNIX and Windows Admins. This was the day before I was supposed to start in the new role.
I walked out of that office more depressed than I’ve ever been in my professional life. But that only lasted a few short minutes, I became enraged and highly pissed off. I paced for maybe 5-10 minutes and headed for the Gold Coast. That term Gold Coast was one for the upper management row of Directors and VPs.
The VP was in a meeting but his door was open so I just stood at the opening. A couple of them looked over and a minute or two passed and then he looked up and said I’m in a meeting, I just replied with “I’ll wait” and didn’t move an inch. There was a minute of uncomfortable silence and one of the Directors started to talk but the other were looking at me.
Mike said let me call you when I’m finished. I stood there, said “I’ll wait” and crossed my arms and locked eyes. Another minute of uncomfortable silence till I said “We talk when you’re finished here or I’m out of here.” He excused the others and we went at it.
He didn’t want to change his decision and gave all kinds of good reasons but I had mentally moved on. If I could land that position here, I could certainly get one on the outside. That was the most intense back-and-forth I’ve ever had with a senior executive and I’d had several before that one. I stuck to my position and told him he’d have me in that old position till I found a job elsewhere.
He finally agreed, reluctantly to let me move to the new role. It was the most technically intense learning period of my life in that UNIX group. It was an incredible opportunity. Lots of big IBM and SUN UNIX racks and storage systems from EMC and NetApp. We did, OS, security, backup, performance, and network while dabbling in all the apps and databases that ran on them with the respective teams.
It was all I knew it would be when I fought for it.
Learning is great. Challenging myself to pick up new skills each day now. There are so many I’d like to acquire and master. A greater amount of time to devote to it is fast approaching giving me a new level of excitement about the future.
I’m not an open-air painter but I’ll be strolling around with a camera. Photo by Mike Hartley
The tools we have to learn with and the resources seem boundless. When I was growing up everything was trial and error with at best poorly written instructions or bad diagrams on paper. No YouTube videos. No dozens of reviews, phone numbers, or manuals to refer to. YOU figured it out. You cussed a lot, you left many layers of skin on various toys, bikes, furniture, yard equipment, and mysterious blood stains around the house.
Oh, and the cars, a whole other level of learning and pain. Anyone without money learns to work on a car. And when you get some money all of a sudden you’re supporting a family so you continue to work on your cars. You learn some tricks like taking the part you’re replacing with you because then you can prove to the newby behind the counter he just gave you an exhaust gasket for the wrong motor.
And then there were the early days of computing of mainframes to racks of servers and networks where if you had touched it you were the expert. Even the limited courses offered were one thing and the real world another. You learned by doing. You learned never to repeat a mistake. You learned to plan, question the plan, test the plan, have fallbacks to the plan, and test and test and test before moving to production. List of commands in order to run. And then you better be able to pull out any solution needed because of course you have the test equipment that is different than you run in production.
In the early days, you would never convince management to have a high availability test system to match what they have in production. So even if you had matching OS, DB, Apps you couldn’t test failover with all the new elements. Oh yeah, most of the time DB and OS upgrades are done at the same time to minimize any downtime to production. And why not throw in different storage subsystems as another variable? Ah, the early days.
So the curve to getting better at my crafts should be shortened if I take advantage of this information. The first task is out with the old and in with the new. Decades worth of print and computer knowledge will get pushed to the archives or probably trashed.
New skills developed, ones of my choosing. Brings a smile to my face.
Keeping in Touch
I make it a point to stay in touch with family and friends on a regular basis. I write a lot, I will also pick up the phone and get in the car often to talk and see those important to me. Being a good friend takes lots of effort. Being a good friend to a lot of people takes a great effort. And when you make great efforts, usually you get great results.
Keep in touch with those important to you. Photo by Mike Hartley
Random Thoughts of the Day
It bothers me that so many innocents suffer for the actions of so few so often.
This change of season has my body doing a hard reset.
Unlike a bear, I shed most of my fat insulation recently. I hope that doesn’t mean I’ll be even colder.
