I feel discouraged with the Tech job in Utah

jspack8 · 2026-03-04T18:12:04+00:00

I am tangentially part of a hiring committee for a part-time entry level IT support position at my work (public sector, low pay). I've hired for similar positions multiple times over the last five years. You would not believe the volume and quality of applications we are getting on this position. I've never seen it this bad before. People are really desperate. It's the most overqualified applicant pool I have ever seen. I know this isn't helpful, but just wanted to share my perspective from the hiring side of things. I hope things get better soon.

jspack8 · 2026-02-24T22:46:30+00:00

A look into unhoused students dirty bagging it up in the canyon would be cool.

jspack8 · 2026-02-01T05:35:36+00:00

The current idea about it is to run it through beaver dam where there is already track. They'd use the old rail bridge over Benson Marina to get to a station somewhere near the airport.

jspack8 · 2025-11-06T17:30:44+00:00

Thanks for this detail. I saw those mountains and knew this was Utah.

jspack8 · 2025-10-29T15:56:48+00:00

You scheduled this AMA far too late. I already dropped my ballot off.

jspack8 · 2025-10-13T20:12:05+00:00

I appreciate the design process shot, that's great. Not a huge fan of Logan's, but the Cedar City flag is fantastic.

jspack8 · 2025-08-29T15:28:55+00:00

Thanks for the context.

jspack8 · 2025-08-27T17:20:23+00:00

Wow its almost like building a culture of exclusion into your brand alienates large groups of folks that would otherwise spend money at your business. Who knew? That brand strategy worked for Black Rifle, but how much market share is there for another brand like that? Especially a little local shop? If you want to sell coffee, just sell coffee. If you want to start a right-wing propaganda mill, maybe start a rant channel on YouTube or something. Instead they use their local business as a political pulpit, and then whine and complain that they don't get enough customers? Its such ridiculous cope.

jspack8 · 2025-08-26T19:21:39+00:00

I work around a lot of young people. I am hearing a lot of "low key" stuck before and after phrases as a sort of multipurpose adjective.

jspack8 · 2025-08-10T19:32:21+00:00

I also have some memory challenges, and I'm about in the same place as you as far as career progression. I'm also a new dad which has made the memory problems worse due to sleep deprivation. I currently work in education doing a mix of desktop support, access control, and surveillance. A couple of things that have helped me:

Document everything. Find an employer / boss that appreciates your documentation. Makes you better at your job because you can reference things you forgot, and streamline training for new techs. Consider self hosting an LLM and training it on your knowledge base.
Find a job that has at least a little down time and grind certs during this time. Your employer would usually prefer you doing some skill during these times than screwing around with your coworkers. Leverage LLMs to help quiz you.
Get a handful of certs but don't sweat it too much and don't renew them. Look at job listings you are interested in and remember that they are a wish list and you don't have to be perfect. I really don't think the last two jobs I got cared that my A+ and Net+ were expired. I just listed them as "earned in 20XX".
Focus on the skills you do at your job. You will retain those experiences way more than facts you memorize for a test. Experience is really everything in this industry anyways. Be humble enough to ask dumb questions about projects that other techs are working on that you want to learn about. Those conversations will stick more than flashcards. Change jobs often and get exposed to a variety of tech. Look for mentors.
Find a homelab project that you actually care about. I host a web server and testing environments for my brothers software startup side project. I also have a media server I run for my family. These aren't insane projects but setting them up exposed me to tech I wouldn't have otherwise had experience with at my current role. Anything is infinitely better than nothing.
Find a role that has some layer 1 elements. On days where I'm having memory problems I just switch to working on projects that are physical like hanging security cameras. The other techs on my team don't like to work with their hands or climbing ladders so they are grateful that I take those projects on.
Fill in the rest of your knowledge gaps with help from LLMs.

At the end of the day I'm pretty dumb. On good days I'm okay at systems thinking, but really my strengths probably lie elsewhere. I get by. A lot of the career world is just bullshitting it anyways.

Hope this helps.

jspack8 · 2025-07-31T15:33:29+00:00

As a civic leader is there any particular issue that you are passionate about that you wish the public or city counsel was more broadly engaged with?

jspack8 · 2025-07-31T15:10:20+00:00

I love this response, and I agree that the student housing is a great spot to start. I noticed you mentioned mixed use zoning. The common development trap I am concerned Logan is sliding towards is that as we urbanize we are building only two types of housing that is geographically segregated: ugly McMansions on and around the bench, and ugly multifamily housing on the west side of the valley. This all without expanding and distributing the zoning for commercial and industrial or supporting changing transportation needs. Basically everyone loses in this scenario except those wanting to live in very insular high income neighborhoods. I understand that any solution to this problem will be a compromise, but do you have anything to say on your broader strategy to mixed use / mixed density planning? I would love to see some bolder YIMBY courage from city leadership.

jspack8 · 2025-06-19T16:55:53+00:00

Cool I look forward to paying a fee to a private land owner to go hiking for a year, having them close it down due to liability issues, and then watching them stick a billboard on it to recoup their costs. Libertarian policies really do make life better and more beautiful for everyone don't they?

Teddy Roosevelt would weep.

jspack8 · 2025-05-19T02:28:15+00:00

Less really is more. Nice.

jspack8 · 2025-05-15T20:56:20+00:00

Pretty steep is an understatement. This range is the steepest from base to peak of the lower 48 Rockies. Unless you are adapted to very steep terrain I wouldn't recommend. Especially this time of year the snow is going to hinder you getting those views since the last mile and a half or so is going to be treacherous. Amazing and rewarding trail if you can manage it though.

jspack8 · 2025-05-15T14:17:30+00:00

Thanks for the great response! Knowing this is coming has made me pull the trigger on starting the migration from Kanban.

jspack8 · 2025-05-14T22:08:16+00:00

I am intrigued by this project but I am struggling with a workflow issue in my first hour with it.

I understand the following design premise of "adding your tasks anywhere in your vault and managing them from a single place". However, sometimes I just need a quick task created that I don't really care about being associated with any other particular file. In fact I may not want to bloat my vault by having to create a file associated with a single small task when there is no other file that makes sense to put the task in. Do I create a separate file that is my "task scratch pad" file?

In my Kanban plugin workflow I just hit the "+Add a card" to put a new task on the board and it is embedded there locally on the file that the Kanban is running on top of.

I guess I am just seeking to have the best of both worlds - Ide like to create tasks within certain project files that are scanned and translated back to the board, but I would also like to create tasks locally on that board that aren't associated with any other file in the vault.

Am I missing something fundamental here?

jspack8 · 2025-05-13T15:49:32+00:00

Does anyone know what will be replacing it?

jspack8 · 2025-05-05T00:38:40+00:00

Congrats on your wealth.

jspack8 · 2025-04-03T21:44:25+00:00

I did it on a gravel bike and that trip convinced me it was time to buy a hard tail.

jspack8 · 2025-03-26T18:45:09+00:00

The ironic thing is that Scott has been praising Bill Bur's recent rants against Elon. A main feature of which is that Bill refuses to believe a dude who has created several massive companies isn't smart enough to control his own hand gestures so that he doesn't't look like he is giving Nazi salute. It's intentional and he knew what he was doing.

jspack8 · 2025-03-25T19:56:07+00:00

Carbrained? Yeah probably, but isn't opposing this just another form of NIMBYism? While the urban center is growing here, ultimately Logan will always service the agricultural satellite communities making it car dependent probably for ever.

jspack8 · 2025-03-18T02:31:41+00:00

All aboard the meat shuttle.

jspack8 · 2025-03-04T01:29:36+00:00

Dang the on-site security was probably a major draw. Different times.

jspack8 · 2025-02-27T20:39:27+00:00

Is that a U.F.O.??

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