RejectReality

On Friday, I received my very first Blogger’s Prod™ (and hereby declare ownership of this term should it not already exist). Any bloggers that are reading this would know the gentle nudge you receive from friends when they want something to read and your blog has not been updated anywhere near frequently enough.

Oh well

Truth be told, the last two weeks have been absolute chaos, primarily because I had completely forgotten how much starting a new job throws you around. To really throw myself completely in the deep end (because I’m not known for doing anything less), I’ve not only started a new job, I’ve also started work in a different IT discipline to what I’ve done in the past and joined a new company.

To give some history, it was roughly 2 1/2 years ago when I started my last position where I was in the deep end - I’m now starting to remember those days quite vividly.

Still, the experience has been good so far and I’ve learnt heaps. Now I’ve just got to keep the momentum going, get my head back in the books and hopefully catch up on some sleep…. sometime.

Other events that have occurred in the last two weeks:

• I celebrated another nail being put in my coffin. Damn, 27 feels old
• I hit 100 k’s ridden in a week (103, actually )
• I found out how far out of practice I am at Quake 3 (although the after-work tournaments should fix that relatively quickly)
• I saw Stealth (not bad, although I would consider it a rental) and the Dukes of Hazzard (well worth it!)
• I knocked off 1/2 a semester of CCNA coursework in just over a week
• I’ve learnt exactly how bad the state of internal wiring in some buildings is, especially for DSL lines (and don’t get me started on DSL end-user hardware )
• I’ve reaffirmed my rather average experiences with Linux over the years are still valid, even with one or two of the latest-and-greatest out there.

I think that will do for now - more as I can remember it (and after I grab some sleep).

I received a phone call this morning with the outcome of the interview.

It looks like I’ve got a career change on my hands!

After close to five years of helpdesk, desktop support, system administration, engineering, and application support, it’s time to play with all sorts of networking stuff.

I’m really looking forward to this opportunity - great company, great position and a friend on the inside that’s already vouched for the work, culture and conditions.

This is going to be interesting, and it can only go up from here.

I’m usually not a big fan of job interviews.

Most interviews that I’ve had for technical positions feel like a dog’n'pony show, where a bunch of psychological and personality based questions are asked in preference to technical questions. This sometimes occurs to the point where you are unable to obtain the opportunity to prove what you know and what you can do.

As an example, around 6 months ago I went though a bunch of interviews for a Systems Administrator / Engineer role, the mix was around 90% psychological, 10% technical - spread over three sessions, each over an hour long.

From what I’ve seen, this usually happens when people too high up interview for a position without someone already in that position being around to keep them close to what the job actually is.

Now, don’t get me wrong; the psych stuff is important - it’s the mix of the questions that needs to change based on what the interview is for.

To drag this theory back to a recent event, today I rocked up to an interview for a network support / administrator position - an interview where I was extremely surprised. I was in and out in just under three quarters of an hour. A good mix of questions where my technical knowledge and logical thought processes were able to be demonstrated reasonably effectively and any personality traits that they were looking for had been exposed. The interviewers were good at asking the questions, and good at interpreting the result.

Overall, I would have to say this was the smoothest interview I’ve been through in a loooooong time. Here’s hoping something comes out of it.