Today on my way into work we were talking about skillsets and career talents. It started off with a discussion of my daughter, who once was not as good of an artist as me and is now probably the best artist in the entire family. But it got us onto a conversation about my role in IT. Getting this BBS up, I enlisted the help of a guy who used to work as my employee. He went on to become a Linux guy at his next job. 

Working with him, I realized I was watching what he was doing and I understood what he was doing, I just didn't know how to do it. Little shortcuts like running ps -ax | grep cit that I could get done, but I would do it in a lot less direct way (just the ps-a then manually scrolling through the list and maybe writing down the PIDs by hand, for example. 

But... I'd see what he was doing, understand why he was doing it, understand what it was he was trying to do - but realized he was applying his troubleshooting in the wrong area. So there was a lot of watching him working and going, "oh... yeah... try that... but do it HERE... or use THIS as the criteria you're searching for... or..." 

And through this process - I actually ended up coming with the solution most often. 

Which brought up another story. My staff in Ohio, one of the developers was working on a problem with our EHR/EMR solution (Electronic Health Records/Electronic Medical Records). He had been troubleshooting an issue for two weeks, and he knew it had to do with a particular .dll misbehaving - and his approach as a developer and programmer was to find programmatic solutions. The Development team was assigned under a different manager than me for some reason - justified as IT being about the engineering and development needing to work closer with the process teams. Anyhow, I came walking by, he asked me to have a look at it. I knew that our lead engineer used this hokey method of installing the EHR program by copying bits and pieces from already installed and running instances. I never believed this was the correct way to do it, but I had researched with the company who distributed the EHR/EMR solution and could find no install or build documents nor any discussion or install media. My engineer had learned from my predecessor how to create a new instance of an EHR/EMR server. My ultimate impression was that the software company had come in and done the initial install, and they didn't want original media available to partners or resellers - so they had advised the guy before me on how to basically make a new instance manually and that had been passed on by tribal knowledge. 


Tribal knowledge is something I'm always trying to fix, professionally. It is a huge liability that almost all IT shops have too much of. 

In this case, I knew about all of this - so once the developer explained the issue with the .dll, knowing how the engineer created the servers, I asked him, "have you checked the version number of the .dll?" 

Of course, from a support engineering perspective, the developer had no idea that there was even a way to check the version number of a .dll. This isn't surprising to me. The guys who code don't often understand the framework architecture at the systems level that lies underneath whatever they're working in. So I showed him how to right click on the .dll, select properties, go to details, and verify the .dll version. 

"That is the wrong version of the .dll," he said. 

We worked for a few more minutes to ensure that the .dll version mismatch with the installed executable version was an actual version mismatch - then brought in the engineer, who found the correct version of the .dll, and the issue was solved. 

Now the thing is - this is difficult to put on a resume - and it is the kind of thing that I know because I've been working in IT since I was in my 20s - and really, have been working with this kind of technology, DOS, Windows, AmigaOS, Linux, and others, since I was 15 or 16. People who meet this criteria are almost exclusively straight white or Asian males over 40. There is a problem right now in the Technology Industry in that these are exactly the kind of employees IT companies are trying to replace. 

Inclusion and diversity in the InfoTech workplace really is a code word for less white males in the InfoTech workplace. There is no other way it works. But the way it plays out at places like Intel and Microsoft and across the IT industry - is that senior and expensive white male IT workers are replaced by young, green, and inexpensive H1B workers, mostly from India. Increasingly, at places like Intel - these H1B workers are female workers. It is a win/win for Intel - who can bring in Indian female H1B workers for even less than male ones, meanwhile claiming to be a leader in hiring minorities and women (because the H1B Visa worker is a minority and female). 

In the exchange, they're losing the kind of broadly applicable experience I describe above from high tech companies. Being an unemployed technology worker at 50 is like a career death sentence. Which is OK. In the current corporate Fortune 500 atmosphere in high tech companies - I have little or no interest in putting in 60 hrs or more a week to be surrounded by that kind of toxicity aimed solely at older white male workers. The interesting thing is that older white GAY male workers face the same discrimination, unless they are willing to telegraph their sexual orientation openly. If you're closeted or private and discreet about your sexual preference and you're a gay male over 40 in technology - you might as well be a straight male. There is an important subtext between the lines there about why this agenda of diversity and inclusion is so important in corporate America today. It isn't about actually caring, it is about the value of being able to virtue signal that your company embraces progressive policies. 

Ultimately though - it results in less stable information systems, less innovation, increasing issues that last longer - a general decrease in the depth of knowledge available to the industry. 

I'm fairly content to sit back and watch this happen, though. 

At my last startup job, diversity in the IT department meant that one of the Koreans was from Hawaii. XD

I'm at the point in my career where I just don't see myself working in a place that virtue signals "diversity in the workforce," ever again. I prefer companies that encourage meritrocity and constructive confrontation - not politically correct companies that virtue signal their focus on women and minorities and worry about sensitivity training so you don't hurt another employee's feelings by telling them you don't think they're doing their job. 

Yeah ... I'm hoping that enough such companies remain to keep us native Americans (you know what I mean) employed.  Despite being very competent and well-regarded by my peers, I wouldn't survive in Silicon Valley.

Tank you for callink Dell tekneecall sou-port! My name es John Smeeth! How kan I help you to-day?!?

So, I unterstant dat yer Dell Perc haz lost ets confeegera-ceeion. In kase we get dees-co-neck-ted, may I have yer name and number? 

(head bob)

;) 

Yeah, and you thought my productivity was bad before I had to play "ask the same question 20 times to a support technician in Bangalore who speaks pidgen English? Just wait." 

I'm a bit annoyed that I've been a tech geek since I taught myself DOS at age 9 and installed my 2400 baud modem in my Hyundai 286 IBM-PC clone at age 12, and I've never been able to convince people that I know enough about computers that they should hire me to do techie things.  Now I'm a 38 year old amateur who knows more about IT than most "diversity approved" teams and I'm still trying to get a decent job in the industry.  Hell, I'd work support desk but I'm too white dude for them.

The late 80's, the early 90s, were our time. By 2003 - that bubble was literally bursting. 

But here is the deal - you had to get your foot in the door. I started at a used computer retail store, and I learned the basics of IT administration running Citadel BBSes. Everything I know kind of starts there - including using obscure text editors to modify flags in flat text config files. Linux is really just a COMPLEX Citadel 86 system in a lot of regards. 

But a guy there got treated bad... a black guy, coincidentally - and left. He got hired by MCI to do Internet Tech support, and told our boss, "I'm going to take your two best employees," and got me and my assistant manager, a guy named Matt, jobs at MCI. At MCI I had a Latino woman boss, a black woman director, and later a white female boss. There was an Asian female boss in the Network Operations Center who hated me. One day I had gotten called in as a 3rd level tech support agent by the person working at the NOC - and after I figured out and fixed the problem for her, she asked, "Why do you still work in the Tech Support and not the NOC?" I told her I didn't know why and she said, "my boss said she would never hire you." 

My friend, Matt, had already left to go work for a bay area company, Legato - who became EMC. That night, as I was writing my resignation letter, he called me and asked if I wanted to come work for him, for twice the pay with the ability to work at home 4 days a week. 

And from there, I ended up working at Intel. 

I *never* had a degree or a certification and ended up being the sole owner of Intel corporate platforms that transacted 11 billion dollars of Intel business a year. 
Then things shifted. The first wave was an influx of Indian middle managers. Over the next 15 years, I watched Intel turn from a diverse company to a company mostly employing female H1B Visa workers from India, all while claiming they had the most diverse and female workforce in InfoTech. In their last round of layoffs, every white male over 40 I know there except one got laid off after decades of positive performance reviews - and EVERY employee I knew got a "Corrective Action Program," review in the quarter before the review - which made the *eligible* for the layoff when it came down... coincidentally. 

I do IT for a real small family owned industrial rigging and transport chain company. I don't make six figures, but I'm not really on call, and the hours are super flexible, and I'm unlikely to be offshored, outsourced, or downsized. Unless the company gets bought out by a bigger company. 

You don't want to be in IT unless you're a developer. For the rest of the industry, it really sucks a dick now. 

I'm a bit annoyed that I've been a tech geek since I taught myself DOS at age 9 and installed my 2400 baud modem in my Hyundai 286 IBM-PC clone at age 12, and I've never been able to convince people that I know enough about computers that they should hire me to do techie things.  Now I'm a 38 year old amateur who knows more about IT than most "diversity approved" teams and I'm still trying to get a decent job in the industry.  Hell, I'd work support desk but I'm too white dude for them.

Shit, the reload double posted my last comment lol, how do I delete it?

Oh wait it's citadel, I can't lol

Anyway yeah, I'm probably about to land a job at Keap doing support while they grow and I'll be working hard at moving into a developer role there.  Got a friend on the inside, so that's helpful.  Gonna try to hit that six figures, but even if I don't my expenses are really low so I should be able to buy a piece of land within a couple years.  Maybe have a cow.  That would be nice.

You can delete from the web client - there are lots of things the web client is doing that you're not seeing from the Telnet client. Give it a try... 

secure.wallofhate.com

Wed Jun 05 2019 13:44:44 MST from ParanoidDelusions

You can delete from the web client - there are lots of things the web client is doing that you're not seeing from the Telnet client. Give it a try... 

secure.wallofhate.com

 

 

I've only ever connected with the web client despite my preference for telnet.

Maybe you don't have high enough access permission to delete messages. That seems likely. :) I suppose once you do... you can delete ANY message. 

So, yeah, I guess - that works JUST like Citadel. 

Wed Jun 05 2019 22:32:57 MST from ParanoidDelusions

Maybe you don't have high enough access permission to delete messages. That seems likely. :) I suppose once you do... you can delete ANY message. 

So, yeah, I guess - that works JUST like Citadel. 

 

LOL no wonder I always wanted to be a sysop

Originally, being an aide made you a sysop, you could see everything. 

But over time, even being an Aide didn't mean you could see ALL the rooms. 

I could not delete a message.

Yup. Regular users don't have this level of access. Only admins. My bad. :) 

So, when I was 15, I had this girlfriend. Her name was Eve Crofoot - and she was kind of a psycho. She was going out with a guy who wasn't a friend, but was an associate in my circles... and she was sneaking over to my house after school so we could fuck around. That should have been my first clue... but I was young and horny and willing to overlook the lack of moral fortitude required for her to act that way...


Anyhow, she was rich as fuck... She had a maid she treated like shit... a live in maid... a black woman. She had a jar of money on a shelf in her room, and it always had at least a couple of hundred bucks in cash in it. In 1985. 

She had a Walkman... and man I wanted one of those. A real, Sony Walkman. When they got cheaper, my rich Aunt Tess had a Panasonic one... but that was probably 1987. Aunt Tess took care of me. She bought me my Atari 2600, my Atari 5200, my Vic 20, and my Coleco Adam. She bought me a JC Penny Stereo system with a turntable, cassette player, and 8 track player, in 1980, when I was 10, and that lasted me all the way until 1987. 

In 1987 my grandmother died, and I was the last heir, so I got more than half of all of it - and it was sizable. I went from living in a duplex to living in one of the most prestigious parts of town. I owned 3 cars, plus my own car that my grandmother had bought me. But by then, Walkman cassette players were old news. My first portable music player was a portable CD player. Bigger, by necessity - that a Walkman... but kinda cool. ate AA batteries all day long. I mean, by that time, I had a car - and I had a sweet Pioneer deck with a separate EQ and huge speakers that are part of the reason I have hearing loss today. So I didn't care that much about portable music. 

But right now -

my Note 4 is playing an 80s playlist on Google Play from my library and... I can *kind* of get to the place where 15 year old me can understand how mind blowing the technology that 49 year old me takes for granted... is. 

And a Note 4 is a busted-ass 4 year old piece of technology. 

Wow... and in some cosmic moment of kismet... on my playlist, right as I'm about to save this post... 

"How to Be a Millionaire" 

Comes on my 80's shuffle. 

*perfect*

All this wonderful, modern, powerful high end technology... 

And tonight I spent the evening playing Fornza driving my yellow Datsun 510 that I owned in 1987... then using a MiSTer to recreate my Amiga 2000 that I owned the same year - then I logged onto a Raspberry Pi running Citadel that hosts my BBS, The Sanitarium, that I also ran in 1985-1987. 

I see a theme here. 

1987 was a great year for a lot of reasons, not least the music that came out then.