neurological dryer lint

hopefully i've been as discreet about this as possible, and now the wraps are off and i'm allowed to talk about this... well for now...

honestly if you had told me two weeks ago that i would be working for CBTS, you'd have seen me laughing. if you'd then said, you'll be working with GE on your first project... doing network security... well i probably would have cried and told you to stop toying with me.

but those guys decided to offer me a job. as a "security engineer". and i'm going to take it, and leave sant. i get this weird, excited, nervous, tingly rush when i type that. a few months ago at breakfast with steve and b, after complaining about how things at work weren't that great, i felt overwhelmed and undervalued and completely unappreciated... the radical idea dawned on me (thanks to those guys) that i'm not limited by my school schedule anymore - i could actually leave, and not be worried about finding another job to pay the bills and allow me to be flexible. so i posted a resume on monster, and then about a week later, things at work got better, i realized i was kind of overreacting, and i settled back in. and things were better - i was getting treated with more respect and appreciation, and i was given a little more elbow room to run the department, get resources i needed, plan some projects, etc.

it didn't change the fact, though, that i was on call 24x7 still. never had a break. when i wasn't at work i would have a process running in my brain worrying about whether something was going to die tonight or not. you know, if i was going to have to drive in that night, get woken up at 2am cause the mailserver was dead and we couldn't afford a new one. or someone deleted our company financial data and i needed to drive in and restore from a set of tapes on the other side of the city.

and that i was, like bilbo, feeling thin, stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread. hah. i was managing too much stuff - keeping the servers and the network running, doing desktop maintenance, fixing printers and fax machines, database administration and cleanup (the last two weeks have been manual de-duplication of our whole CRM database, staring at a screen hitting enter like a monkey on ritalin).. supporting so many complex pieces of software... securing the place... i never gave myself real time to think it all over, but when my brain is running at high usage, the process with the most CPU time is always work. the prophet peter gibbons: 'we weren't mean to live like this.'

geez, i'm way overdramatizing this, it's just a new job. no, though! this was a big issue, and the reason i decided to take the job offer.

because when they proposed the position, i immediately thought "i'm way underqualified". i probably shouldn't have told them that in the interview, either, but i guess it didn't matter after all. because they're assembling a team of people - a REAL LIVE TEAM! other people to WORK with! - and we'll SHARE responsibility and work together! no more floating alone.

so many thoughts. sorry if this is rambling.

so they told me about the job, it sounded neat, if i could pull it off, do what was expected of me... what kept me in that race was thinking about the transition between onenet and sant - when i walked into an all-windows house and was forced to learn Active Directory, SQL, Exchange, Saleslogix, on my own, with no help, and no money, only google. i did it, and the network runs smoothly. it's not like my job is taxing 24x7 - but the point is not, things break all the time and i'm always panicking - it's that there's always something to do. put a mechanic in a shop with thirty different brands of cars, different makes, models, and years, and have him bounce between different cars, working on different problems. trying to fix each of them in a day. that's the best analogy i can think of.

it was hard figuring out what to do. people tell me "do what's best for you" and i don't know in what context to fully attempt that, or if i should. does that mean follow the money? they pay me more at CBTS. i can provide a better life for my fiancee, take care of us, pay our debt faster, get a house. i can learn more, be focused on JUST security - worms, viruses, spyware, instrusion detection, patch management, things i know. one smaller area.

but i leave behind a company that i've seen at its lowest point, just about to collapse, and seen it grow and grow into double the size it was when i started, and it's excited. there are great relationships i'm building, good friends i have there that i really, really like.

the battle, though, is largest in one arena: comfort. as subliminally stressful as sant is, i could spread my work out through the day, and if i was just putting out fires all day i wouldn't be overwhelmed. now - i have to WORK. we have policy to create, an architecture to build, and roughly 1,000 times the number of nodes on our network to be responsible for. it's a challenge, something that mentally i will simultaneously embrace and run screaming from.

so does that mean i'm selfish, looking out for myself? can i say with certainty that i'm looking out for renee, who won't have to have her husband driving out at 2am to press a power button? or our kids, who i'll be able to provide for better someday? that's how i'm looking out for myself?

yeah.. i think so. never taken a step like this before, it's validating - i'm not just a college kid pretending to be an admin anymore. i used to think, inside, i'm a really good actor and can fake that i'm an admin and i'm skilled at this. but these people saw me for who i am, a guy who knows windows and a little linux and can learn things, and they took me.

what was interesting - this decision took a little longer. most big calls like this, i know right away what to do, no real consideration necessary - being a younglife leader, going to uc, marrying renee... this one wasn't as obvious or easy. but it still came. i'm grateful that God answers when i ask and that maybe this is a response to my subconscious cries for freedom. who knows, he's a mystery.

now for the fun stuff:

i won't talk about this job here. very rarely. i don't want my blog to sabotage my work. this may be the most detail i ever publish. it's a contract thing.

and isn't cincinnati bell the devil? there are definitely some really crappy parts of it. residential customer service, for example. but CBTS, the people i've met there in the past years have been really pro-level, accomodating, friendly, innovative, ready to work for me. it made me think 'working there must rule, these guys genuinely get to do what they like and work with each other on teams and accomplish some sweet projects.' maybe i still work for an evil company. i don't think so anymore. ask me to explain it in person and i will.

so! now comes a few weeks of training someone and documenting everything i do. anyone want a job as a sysadmin? we're hiring. :) oh, and mikey, b and steve listened to me complain about not knowing what to do and were really cool about it. thanks fellas.