This quote says it all:
It’s from an article on the 9/11 memorial and how an algorithm was used to inscribe the names in particular places.
That could easily be applied to your career as well. The connections you have, with people that know you, respect you, like your work, like you, etc. are the most important things you have.
Your skills matter, but the skills help build those connections.
Learn to network.
Cross posted to The Modern Resume
I recently had someone post this after I made a comment about someone taking responsibility for their database server.
“So Steve, what would you recommend then for those poor souls? As being one of them it drives me nuts to constantly be told I can’t get more training as it’s not my true job position yet I’m responsible for making the databases work. “
I’ve been in this spot a few times, in and out of IT. I’ve been tossed into cooking or bartending jobs without training and had to learn quickly how to do the job, and I’ve had the same thing happen in IT. In a few cases the companies knew it was a bad situation and they eventually got me training, in others they didn’t. Here’s the advice I have for you.
Ultimately you are responsible for the job. Tough love, but you’re being paid for that job, so you are responsible. That means you have to learn how the technology in your environment works and how to solve the problems you have.
First, get your resume up to date. Make sure it is ready for submission, and you are prepared to get fired every week. Keep an eye on the job market and save some extra money, because to me, the financial security for my family comes first.
Second, learn to restore data and then make sure you have backups in place. This is secondary because if you have a failure quick, you want to be ready to get a new job. But ultimately no matter what breaks or doesn’t work, getting data back first is crucial.
As you go through all of this, you might be fighting fires. So while you practice restores or document the environment, you might be trying to fix things and asking questions of others, but invest the time to get yourself into a solid position.
I’d also talk to my boss regularly. Every time I found a place I didn’t know something, I’d make a note and let my boss know this is a hole. Maybe I can learn it, maybe I can’t, but I could use help. That might be the best ROI for conferences. Go, make friends, get contacts that can fill your knowledge holes. Or find consultants you can call.
Steve Jones
We have just kicked off The Mentoring Experiment after talking about it for months. There has been a lot of interest and quite a few applications submitted. We’ve even had a lot of people ask if we needed help mentoring people, which is great. If you’re interested, you still have a couple days to submit an application.
The past week or two, after getting started, I’ve been surprised just how often I’ve seen or heard the word “mentoring” used in many ways. I’ve seen it talked about on TV, on the radio, and in various Internet spots. It’s almost like our experiment kicked off a slew of other projects from other people. That’s not the case, and my guess is I’m a little more aware of how often mentoring is used by various people.
Webster’s dictionary says that a mentor servers as a guide or advisor. Wikipedia sees a mentor as a counselor, friend, or teacher that helps to advise a protégé or serve as an example.
Those tend to fit my definition which is someone that is providing some counsel, advice, and perspective to another in a way that has the best interests of the mentee or protégé at heart. It’s private, at least to the extent that the mentee wants it private, and there isn’t any exchange of money or quid pro quo for the time. It’s a volunteer effort on the part of the mentor.
Mentoring is part setting that example in your own career, which allows the mentor to help the mentee learn from experience. This experience and wisdom should establish the respect that is needed for the mentee to take a mentor’s advice under advisement. Mentoring is also acting as a sounding board, almost as a psychiatrist does, in listening to the mentee, asking questions, and helping to give an outside perspective on a situation or decision.
A mentor should act as a guide, helping and leading, but not setting the direction or goals, but helping the mentee to find their own way to a better career.
Would you take a pay cut to be able to telecommute? I would, and I have in the past. I took a pretty substantial pay cut to work full time for SQLServerCentral almost a decade ago. It was an impact to me life, both positive and negative, but overall I think it was for the better. We had less money to spend, but I got more time with my kids, which was infinitely more valuable to me.
It seems that I’m not alone as over a third of IT professionals surveyed would take some pay cut to stay home. The quality of life increase, lower costs, and less stress are definitely worth the trade off and I think more and more people are starting to try to convince their employers to allow remote work.
However employers are slow to catch on. Most of the jobs that are posted don’t have telecommuting as an option, and many managers are reluctant to allow remote work. I know that I interviewed for two jobs in 2002/2003 and in both cases, they were reluctant to allow me to work at home. For one job I offered to take less money and work from home 4 days a week, but my offer was refused.
I think we are a long way from telecommuting becoming a common way of working in IT. It will likely take a newer generation of managers and directors that have grown up with the idea of working remotely and with the technology that allows effective work from home to change the prevailing attitude.
Not everyone wants to telecommute, which is fine. However for those people that do, I think you should make a case for remote work, show examples of how it can work and maybe even decide on some SLA for the way you work. Show your manager that you are willing to work with them to prove it can work and maybe you’ll get the chance to perform an experiment.
Steve Jones
