Where are you in your career arc right now? Trusting simple statistics, I can say that the majority of you are either just starting out, or somewhere in the middle. Relatively few of those reading this essay will be at, or near, the end …
Recently, my friend Phoummala Schmitt, aka “ExchangeGoddess” and Microsoft Cloud Operations Advocate, wrote about her struggles with imposter syndrome. It’s a good read that I highly recommend. But one element of it stuck with me, like an itch I couldn’t quite reach. I knew this itch wasn’t …
My wife called me for the third time, and I could hear that she was working hard to remain calm but was undeniably at the end of her rope. She had missed the freeway exit. For the third time. And was going to be …
For THWACKcamp 2018, I had a chance to return to a task/skill I haven’t really done much of in a while: programming. That may be a surprise for some people, so let me explain. I have done a lot in my career, from desktop support to …
As we all know, lists and their thinly-veiled derivatives, listicles, drive social media. Post the “top 5 kinds of belly button lint” and you’ll probably get at least a few clicks from people with 5 minutes and nothing better to read. One of the …
Recently a coworker was giving a talk and he just froze up. When I asked him about it later, he said, “What happened yesterday has never happened before. It was like my throat clenched up and I couldn’t get words out. It psyched me …
It was LinkedIn that reminded me how long it’s been. A sudden flood of “Congratulations on your work anniversary” messages (thank you, by the way, to everyone all the well-wishers) hit my inbox, little popup messages lining the bottom of the dedicated tab in …
(“The Echo Chamber” is a semi-regular series where I reflect back on a talk, video, or essay I’ve published. More than just a re-hashing of the same topic, I’ll add insights as to what has changed, or what I would say differently if I …
A recent conversation on Twitter struck a nerve with me. The person posited that, “If you’re a sysadmin, you’re in customer service. You may not realise it, but you are there TO SERVE THE CUSTOMER. Sure that customer might be internal to your organisation/company, …
The person I mentioned in my last two blog posts was back, and I didn’t even bother asking them why. Honestly, I wasn’t sure whether they were here for the technical descriptions or the creative analogies, but I gave the next one my best shot. …
