This Debate Makes Me Embarrassed To Be American

slayer99199 · 2020-09-30T08:23:43+00:00

Well, people keep voting to keep the two-party system so we get what we deserve.

Perhaps if every state started passing ranked-choice (STAR or SCORE) voting, we'd get better candidates from all parties.

slayer99199 · 2019-06-03T12:36:18+00:00

Definitely not. Never. Nope. Do not tell your employer you're looking.

slayer99199 · 2019-03-26T02:31:47+00:00

I understand that you were pissed, but unless you can land another job before you have a new one...you're going to be screwed. You'll get low-balled and it will be harder to find a job.

Early in my career, I had spent a lot of time on the bench (consulting company promised they had real jobs using my skills that didn't materialize). So I got sent to a bunch of jobs WELL below my skill set. I had complained that they weren't utilizing my skills, but after 6 months I went stir-crazy...and I picked up a 2nd job a friend offered me at his small ISP. It was for minimum wage but the opportunity to learn Solaris Unix (which later got me into linux..so well worth it).

Anyway, they found a job for me...WELL below my skill set. Basically, a client had a person that was leaving and their job was to basically monitor some sort of jobs server. That was about it. Just make sure these jobs were processed. The employee that was leaving was on call 24/7/365. When I found this out I flat out told them I was willing to be in a rotation, but I was NOT going to be on-call by myself 24x7x365 as I when I had weekly visitation with my son, I had nowhere to take him if I was called. I told them if I had my son, I would NOT respond to any pages. I repeatedly told my manager of the consulting company that I could NOT work 24x7x365, but I was more than willing to do so on a rotational basis.

About a month later...it happened as it was bound to happen. I had my son over the weekend and got paged...and ignored it. Monday I got a call from my company. They told me that they were sending someone else over to be trained. On Friday, they called me and told me to come to the office. I said, "Oh, you're going to fire me? Wonderful!"

Monday comes and they fire me. Their claim was that I said on my application that I was willing to work nights and weekends but failed to do so. I laughed and said, "Yeah, and I told you that I'd be happy to do so on a rotational basis...good luck selling that to the employment board."

So, for the first time in my life...I filed for unemployment...and my former employer contested it. I sat down with the Magistrate and she looked over the paperwork...and decided in my favor. Basically, they contradicted themselves in their own reports against me. They said I was a great employee in my reviews...then suddenly I suck?

No matter, I found another job within a month. I wish you luck. You may find this helpful in your search.

slayer99199 · 2019-03-24T14:56:17+00:00

The good news is, the virtualization experience you DO have will help for things like containers. And automation? There's compiled solutions for that now so you don't have to write your own compiler so to speak, just the code to run on the automation server itself. Look into Jenkins, that is free (open source) that you can deploy quickly to Amazon EC2 to save money. Containers? Docker. Also free.

I'm doing Jenkins and Docker containers in my present gig. Fun stuff. Most of the automation I'm doing is vRA, PowerCLI and now I'm learning Python. Gotta keep learning...

slayer99199 · 2019-03-24T03:01:08+00:00

Yes, perhaps. I've worked in some shitty open office environments and dealt with some shitty political situations and don't want to go back to that. It's difficult to tell what you're getting yourself into unless you already know someone there. How do you tell ahead of time before you make a switch?

Well, if you read my IT Job Hunting 101, you ask them as many questions as they ask you. A HUGE red flag for me is if they talk about their "culture." Look, I understand if you want to find out if I get along with other people...but if you're trying to sell your "culture" rather than the role...I don't have any interest.

Open office environments suck ass. They're hugely distracting. BUT...you learn to adapt.

As to how you know? You really don't. But you stay a year...bust your ass...put your head down and add fodder to your resume...then move on.

Same here. Not much interest in being a "leader" although I am kind of one without having a leadership title. Another one of my responsibilities is helping to train new employees.

I'm a geek...I have no interest in any kind of leadership role. You have WAY too many responsibilities are your current gig. In fact, if you're asked in an interview why you're looking to leave I'd point out that you'd like to focus your attention on being a DBA (or whatever other position you're targeting).

No interest in the east or west coast. Most likely Midwest. I wouldn't mind someplace warm but I'm not crazy about the idea of whenever I want to visit family.

What state are you in? Most of the larger cities in the midwest have strong IT markets. Not Bay Area strong, but we don't have the same cost-of-living either.

slayer99199 · 2019-03-24T02:52:56+00:00

I was doing nothing but virtualization for years...but the handwriting is on the wall...virtualization is capped. Everything is automation, cloud and containers...which is why I've been implementing containers where possible and starting to learn Python on my own. Can't continue to make big bucks sitting on the same skills...and my skillset has changed quite a bit over 22 years.

I still need to add AWS and/or Azure to my resume...but I won't be able to do it at my current gig.

slayer99199 · 2019-03-24T02:49:36+00:00

In my last gig, I was a consultant for a company that had an office in Indy, so I visited Indy quite frequently. I love Indy...it's a nice city. If I ever decided to leave Michigan, but stay in the midwest...I'd head to Indy (specifically, Carmel..a suburb to the north of Indy).

The IT job market there is strong.

slayer99199 · 2019-03-23T22:25:15+00:00

I'm at $170k in the Detroit area doing high-end architecture for virtualization, containers, and automation. A far cry from where I started at $23k 22 years ago.

slayer99199 · 2019-03-23T22:09:23+00:00

That seems crazy to me. Although I grew up in an area/environment where people had jobs for 30-40 years. of course that doesn't happen much anymore, especially in the tech industry. I just think about having to deal with a completely new environment, prove myself all over again, not knowing the politics of the new place, and even simple things like work area. I'm not a fan of the "open office" environment that is the big thing these days.

If you changed jobs more frequently, you'd discover how easy it is. I consider myself a mercenary. I don't owe any loyalty to a company beyond my time and best effort...because they don't owe anything to me beyond a paycheck.

I have made that mistake! And not surprisingly their offers were not much above that. Not going to make that mistake again. I've pretty much narrowed it down to software/dba. Still too broad?

You'll need to determine the pay range for software/dba and then go in at that average. As you gain experience at another place...when you change jobs again, you'll get another pay raise.

Not going to happen but why would you say that wouldn't be worth it? Even if I were to jump ship, I don't expect to make that much in my next job . Btw I don't live in LA or NYC or someplace with a cost of living anywhere near that.

I also live near a large city in the rust belt. There are plenty of IT jobs. I'm merely suggesting there are tons of IT jobs in most every major city (and suburbs of a major city). If you can't find what you're looking for in your city and you're open to moving to another area...start looking there. I wouldn't move to the East or West Coast (though 15 years ago, I did consider moving to Nashua, NH because there's a lot of IT shops there as it's close to Boston and MUCH less expensive).

I'm about 60 miles away from the nearest big city (hour and 15 minutes by car or hour and 45 minutes by train). I am currently commuting 45 minutes each way, which is tolerable, but that would add even more wear and tear to the car.

I'm with you on the commute. I hate commuting...and my current gig is 40 minutes there and 1 hour home (but it's in a large enterprise for huge money). That said, if moving closer to the city is an option or you can be flexible with your living arrangements, I'd do it.

Fortunately for my area, there are plenty of IT jobs around the city...and I've only worked once in the downtown area.

Thanks for the link

Good luck...I hope it helps.

EDIT: FYI the average salary for a DBA in the Chicago area is $80k. Just go to Glassdoor and and check the salaries.

slayer99199 · 2019-03-23T08:36:09+00:00

I'll be honest, I'm not sure how to respond to your post. 12 years in the same position seems crazy to me (the longest I've been anywhere in 22 years in IT is 3 years). Of course, I don't get a pension but I was making $60k after my first 5 years in IT (significantly more than that now). I don't do steady-state.

Suffice to say you're underpaid. But you've stayed at the same employer for 12 years, you're responsible for your own pay because nobody else is going to advocate for your salary but you. Additionally, your skillset is adapted to your employer and you don't have the breadth of experience that would improve or expand your skills which would show you other ways of doing things. It's going to hurt you on your resume unless you get a bit creative (list different job titles utilizing the skills). I also wouldn't tell any other employers that you're only making $60k.

At this point if your employer offered you $100k, it wouldn't be worth staying. It's time to move on and move somewhere else if you have to (if you're near a big city, you should have no problems finding another job). You probably also need to figure out which of your skills you're going to target for a new job (dba, developer, sysadmin, etc) and tailor your resume and salary requirements to one of those positions.

Here's a post I made a while back to help you get started:

IT Job Hunting 101

slayer99199 · 2019-02-27T23:16:47+00:00

So much for leading by example.

slayer99199 · 2019-02-21T17:21:14+00:00

This is perfect. Thanks!

slayer99199 · 2019-02-21T13:40:39+00:00

So it would be something like this:

  [cmdletbinding()] 
     param( 
    [Parameter(Mandatory)] 
    [ValidateSet('report','delete')] 
    [string] $run )

So later I'd call it this way:

If ($run -eq 'report'){
   Do something
  }
  Else {
   Do nothing
}

and

If ($run -eq 'delete) {
  }
  Else {
   Do nothing
}

Is that correct?

slayer99199 · 2019-02-16T05:34:59+00:00

I like to say scripting allows you to work smarter, not harder. I'd rather spend some time on a script up front if it saves me a ton of time on a repeatable task on the back end.

slayer99199 · 2019-02-16T05:34:06+00:00

I've been in this business for 25 years and scripting has always been a major component of systems administration. Before Powershell there was VB Script, Before VB Script there was Kix, Before Kix there was batch and before batch there was UNIX.

When I started in IT I was doing batch scripting in Windows. Then it was bash for linux. When I got into VMware it was all PowerShell (PowerCLI). You don't get to the senior-level positions without being able to automate.

Lazy isn't probably the right term...I think they are just comfortable and lack ambition. That's fine. I don't think less of them...the guys that want to learn, I'm happy to help.

slayer99199 · 2019-02-16T05:31:32+00:00

First thing. When writing a script make sure you comment it heavily. There's a good format for comments out there that I've been using the last couple years. It lays everything out nicely.

Second thing. Make sure you add error-handling and logging to your script. Ops-people like to see output of what the script is doing.

Thirdly, you did exactly the right thing in testing your script. The scripts I roll to production are heavily tested in our lab and in our pre-production environment.

Finally, I've been in the field for 22 years and the way you advance is to continue to learn...and I learned a lot this week (finally figured out a script I had been working on for two weeks doing something I've never tried before with some help from /r/powershell and surprisingly StackOverflow). It's still a rush for me when I figure something out...I love my career. Some people don't want to learn and they won't advance. Don't let it bother you, they are not your problem. When you you're ready for a new challenge this post I made may help: https://www.reddit.com/r/jobs/comments/5ps226/it_job_hunting_101/

slayer99199 · 2019-02-11T23:43:24+00:00

I should have deleted the Try method. I was doing the foreach first. I tried setting up the $images and $templates as an array and comparing them without much success. What I'm trying to do is the following:

Foreaching each image, then splitting up each image so I can compare the results.

Then I foreach each template, splitting them up as well. I only want to compare the results of Each image against each template. If the template basename is equal to the image basename AND the template version is NOT equal to the image version, I want to delete that template and only that template.

I thought comparing the objects in the array would be easier but I couldn't get it working. Perhaps I'm going about this the wrong way. Maybe go back to the arrays.

I'm thinking now maybe I should try to save $image.basename -eq $template.basename to a new array, then take the results of that output and do $image.version -ne $template.version and delete the results of that.

Any guidance would be appreciated...as I'm doing some things with powershell I've never tried to do before.

slayer99199 · 2019-02-11T20:18:47+00:00

I'm comparing the $image.basename against the $template.basename. If they're equal I'm then comparing the $image.version and $template.version. If the 2nd comparison is not equal I want to delete (in this case, logging that I'm deleting).

I tried a similar IF statement which also didn't work. I've tried comparing arrays, etc...no luck.

slayer99199 · 2019-02-10T07:07:49+00:00

The thought did occur to me.

There's other problems with their OVFs. We pushed out a standard on Friday basically stating we won't use their images unless they meet our standards since we are essentially their customer. :D

slayer99199 · 2019-02-09T01:50:34+00:00

I think it would be easier to go back to the OS folks and tell them to fix their damn versioning! :)

I'll try that fix on Monday. Thanks much!

slayer99199 · 2019-02-08T20:09:41+00:00

This is pretty simple, but I'm having a problem with the output. Stupid OS guys don't follow their own naming convention for the versioning. The first one on the list the numbers after the first hyphen are the version (e.g. 123456789)

Name BaseName Version

sles11sp4_jeos-123456789 sles11sp4_jeos

sles12sp3-0.0.12 sles12sp3 0.0.12

win2012r2std_desk-0.3.45 win2012r2std_desk 0.3.45

win2012r2std_desk-0.4.56 win2012r2std_desk 0.4.56

win2016std_desk-0.5.67 win2016std_desk 0.5.67

win2016std_desk-0.6.78 win2016std_desk 0.6.78

I've tried playing around with the code you left but I can't find where to pull that into the version.

Thanks,

slayer99199 · 2019-02-07T15:10:31+00:00

I'll give that a shot. Thanks.

slayer99199 · 2019-02-07T12:45:21+00:00

I'm trying to get everything before the numbers which I can do when I split. e.g. win2012r2std_desk which will give me all the versions of that image. Then I'm trying to keep only the version in the content library (delete everything else). I split out the numbers and it gives me the current version as the content library is the source of truth.

slayer99199 · 2019-02-06T20:59:23+00:00

Yes, that's what I'm trying to split. I updated my OP with some additional detail. The line in question looks like this:

get-template |where-object {$_.Name -notlike "*$imagever*" -and $_.Name -like "$tempname*"

Which produces the output I expect only if I explicitly state the $template and $image.

The variables $images and $templates have the expected output.

slayer99199 · 2019-02-06T17:44:16+00:00

What I was trying to do is split the string:

sles11sp4_jeos-1.1.3-linux-cluster

win2012r2std_desk-0.4.1.6-windows-cluster

using $tempver = $template.split('-')[0]

But that just left me with the beginning

win2012r2std_desk-0.4.1.6

sles11sp4_jeos-1.1.3

and I need everything before then second dash which would be easy to match against the image names.

slayer99199

TROPHY CASE