Recently in Work Category

God. November was my last post? It's been a while.

Life has been crazy busy. I just got back from SCALE, where I worked the FreeBSD booth. On Saturday night, I participated as a contestant in "The Weakest Geek", a play off "The Weakest Link". I got second place, but there's no shame in losing to a old bearded unix dude. It was a fun weekend, and I met a lot of great people. Everyone was very nice which I found very surprising, being as how I was a BSD person at a Linux convention. It was the first SCALE I've gone to, but I'll definitely be going again in the years to come.

I submitted a paper for BSDCan, and I'm still waiting to hear back to see if I'll be presenting. If you thought I was freaking out in my last post about MCing a conference, just imagine how much I'll be freaking out about standing in front of people lecturing them. Oh, boy. Time to get that Valium bottle refilled. I do not do well in these situations, but it's time I learned.

I just solved a problem at work that I've been beating my head against the wall about for the past month or so. I slept 14 hours last night. I think if I sleep another 60 hours, I might just be caught up.

So there's this neato Canadian dude I talk to online almost every day, Colin Percival. He is insanely smart and I am so totally not, but he keeps talking to me anyways, so I'm kinda OK with this. You may have heard his name before, as he's the Security Officer for FreeBSD (sends out those cute little security announcement emails), and he wrote portsnap, bsdiff, and freebsd-update. If you run FreeBSD and you haven't heard of these tools, you really need to get with the times. I've been playing around with one of his new programs called tarsnap. Don't let the webpage fool you, it's an extremely useful tool. (Seriously, Colin, hire someone to design a webpage for you. This isn't 1990.) Tarsnap is an encrypted and inexpensive online backup service that's designed for the paranoid. Most of us probably aren't paranoid enough about our data, I know that I'm not. I keep ssh private keys on usb drive keyfobs. I know this is retarded, but I can't help myself. Despite this personal failing, I can feel a little better knowing that I've got my other important stuff backed up by tarsnap. Check out tarsnap's webpage to learn more, or join #tarsnap on EFNet and bug cperciva yourself.

Now that I've grinded my cooking skill for the past 6 months, I'm ready to re-enter the workforce on Monday. I've accepted a position at IronPort, which means I'm a Cisco employee. It's a 100% FreeBSD position. Hooray to not selling out at a Linux job! :)

There's an unfortunate stigma associated with IT recruiters. You can't even mention the word "recruiter" in a room full of geeks without half the population rolling their eyes. I've been optimistic, up until now.

Some recruiters don't care enough about the quality of their work to bother reading my resume in full; why else would I get so many emails about .NET positions? One recruiter even had the gall to tell me he knew I didn't fit any of the 10 positions (including full descriptions) below, but could I please forward it to any of my friends that might be interested? This email was 15 pages long. He wanted me to do his job for him and read through all of this stuff? Sorry, but no.

The job market in CA is nothing like what I was used to in GA. There wasn't really that much IT in GA, so you took what you could get. Here? It's the land of the plenty. You really can pick what you want to do and what kind of company you want to work for. There's a trade-off, though. The number of recruiters is directly proportional to the number of jobs.

Yes, there are a lot of quality recruiters out there. I've been lucky enough to deal with quite a few of them. They are having a hard time contacting me, however, since I've had to stop answering my phone. One particularly persistent recruiter called me 15 times in one day. Just this morning, a single recruiter called me 6 times in 3 minutes. He didn't leave a voicemail until the 6th call. I'm getting (on average) about 10 recruiters trying to talk to me about 15 jobs every day. I know this is really nothing to complain about, but sometimes I really don't want to answer the phone. One time I was on the phone with one recruiter, and another one kept calling and hitting my call-waiting for the entire conversation. Argh!

Were you one of those dicks that doesn't understand that one voicemail is adequate? Then take heed. I'm not the only one that's angry about this. You'd get a lot more respect if you followed a few simple rules.

Rule #1: Read the resume in full. Read the job requirements in full. If it isn't a match, stop here.

Rule #2: Email the candidate with a complete job description before attempting to call him/her. This is key. I hate it when recruiters try to describe a job to me over the phone. It's easier having a full list of requirements up front.

Rule #3: Wait 24 hours after sending the email before trying to call the candidate if you haven't yet received a response. If there is no answer, leave a voicemail.

Rule #4: Do not call over and over and over and over and over and over again. All cell phones have a 'Missed Calls' function. We can also tell how many times you've called. Patience is a virtue.

If you're one of the recruiters I've been dealing with and you haven't done these things, then rest assured, I'm not angry at you. I'm just angry at the people that are giving you a bad name.

I just posted my resume online on Friday, and since then my phone has been ringing off the hook. I know that some potential employers will probably check out my blog, and I should probably be prudent and not post pictures of my boyfriend holding the ASCII pr0n cake I made him for his birthday. Hopefully, they'll just figure out that I'm quirky and run with it.

I haven't posted in a while, and I know this site is well overdue for an update. A lot has happened in the past few weeks, but I've been trying to lay low and relax - with little luck.

Some of you may have heard that I quit my job at Yahoo!. Yes, this is true. I put in my year there and I left. You won't hear me talking any smack about Yahoo!, and although I've certainly heard about (and seen first-hand) the "mass exodus", I don't really consider myself a part of that. Yahoo! is a great company to work for, and I'd still recommend any of my friends apply for jobs there. I just don't think I like working for big companies. My stress levels were getting absurdly high, and it just wasn't worth it. I'm taking some time off from the IT scene for a while. I'll be doing little consulting jobs here and there, but I don't plan on entering the real workforce again until December or January. I need a vacation.

Igor asked me to move in with him, so this cut my living expenses down considerably. My rent is absurdly cheap, but I'm living in Sunnyvale. Yuck. Not that there was a whole lot happening in Belmont, but at least it's closer to San Francisco than Sunnyvale is. Trying to fit all of my servers into this small apartment is a nightmare. He didn't even have gigabit. I thought everyone had gigabit. When I moved in, the first thing I did was sign us up for Comcast Business Cable. If you've got the option to get it, do so. They've got a promotion going on right now that puts the 8Mbit/1Mbit (the best they offer) at just $10 or $20 more than standard residential. We got 5 static IP's as well, not that I'm entirely sure what I'm going to use them for.

Last Tuesday night, I got robbed. To be more accurate, someone tried to rob me and failed miserably. It was Igor's father's birthday, so we all went out to a nice restaurant and drank way too much wine. His mom and I were both pretty buzzed when we left around midnight. As soon as we got home, I fell into a dead sleep. I'm still rather surprised that the popping noise coming from the living room at 4:30 AM actually woke me up.

I've heard that noise before. It sounds just like a power supply shorting. I completely freaked, remembering that I had just moved incubus and succubus and powered them on a few nights before. I pushed Igor out of bed, threw off the covers, and ran into the living room. My servers looked fine, and there was no funky burning electronics smell. Then I saw the window.

I saw a hand holding a lighter just outside our window. At first I thought some guy was just smoking a bowl or doing something equally retarded just outside our apartment. I am not the brightest thing right after waking up. It took a minute to register that the hand was actually inside our apartment. He had been using the lighter to weaken the links of the screen. The popping noise had been him ripping it open. He was trying to reach around to unlock our door.

Now what would your first thought have been? A reasonable female would have retreated back into the bedroom and called the police. Once again, I'm not all that quick to think when I'm all that tired. So what do I do? I think to myself "heh, I have a leatherman." I started yelling at him, and the hand quickly retreated back through the window. I was about to open the door to confront him, but then I realized oops - I'm naked. He apologized profusely and took off running.

When I talked to the landlady the morning after, we put together that he already tried breaking into another apartment before mine. It looked like I scared him off. That's right. If I was on Heroes, my super power would be naked leatherman wielding. Robbers beware.

I seriously miss being able to say "I'm bored". Not that I've even uttered those words more than a few times in the past year.

I turned 26 last Saturday. I don't really feel any older than I did when I was 25. The goods? A new nvidia 8800 gts from Igor. Mmmm. Having a gamer boyfriend is nice - he buys me hardware in lieu of flowers. I always said that I'm not the kind of girl that guys buy flowers for. He gets this.

So what's been keeping me away from my blog? Work, work, work. When I'm not working, I'm packing my stuff. Igor asked me to move in with him. Originally we were looking for a place in San Francisco, but his contract with Yahoo! was extended until the end of this year at least, so instead I'm moving into his tiny dark pit of an apartment in Sunnyvale. No, it's not exactly the best location, and calling this place a pit is probably being a bit kind. I don't think he's ever cleaned it. Ever. I'm not exactly a neat person; I've got way too much stuff for that. Even so, other peoples messes bother me, so I'm working on cleaning it before I move too much of my stuff. I can't complain too much, though. My half of the rent will be $400, and this is unheard of in Northern California. His internet connection is much faster than what I had at my house in Belmont, so that more than makes up for it. Insert perverted joke about his pipe here. I'm too tired to think up one myself. Have fun with that. It's not so much a serious relationship move as it is a lowering my rent move. I'm not all that happy about not having my own bedroom, but I'll deal with it.

The Shuttle PC I bought is working out splendidly. I manage to steal a few moments now and then to play Bioshock and Heroes of Might and Magic V. Ok, not so much Bioshock. Yes, it's a spectacular game. I love cuddling up to Igor and watching him play it. I installed the game (Igor bought it for me, such a good boy!) while azn_jesus was over during one of The L Word marathons, and I managed to swim through the plane wreckage and get in the elevator that took me down to Rapture. Then I saw one of those Splicer chicks, and she started going crazy and trying to get at me. I freaked out and turned the game off. I am such a wuss, I know. My old video card, an NVidia 8500 GT, was all I had at the time, and the game played horribly. If I can't play in 1600x1200 with the video settings turned all the way up, I'm not a happy camper. I still haven't put the 8800 GTS in, as I need to stop by my house and get a Y power splitter. The 8800 is a beast. It takes up two slots (which is all the Shuttle has) with it's massive heatsink and fan and requires *two* power connectors. I really hope the shuttle can handle it. It claims to only need a 400W power supply, which is what the Shuttle came with. If all goes well, this absolutely adorable tiny PC will make a killer gaming box. All it's missing is a window kit and blinking lights.

I keep glancing at Igor's kitchen. I'm dreading having to clean iit, but I guess I should get the worst over with. I'll attempt to update more often in the future, but it may be a few weeks until things get back to some semblance of normal. I can't wait until I get my desk here. I may be buying a car soon, as well. My boss is considering selling me his BMW 323i. It's a totally cute black convertible. Definitely my style, even if I'll only put the top down at night.

If you haven't heard the news yet, SCO got fucked. Heh. Point and laugh. I nearly fell over laughing when I read this:

According to Judge Kimball's ruling, Microsoft paid SCO approximately $16 million for license rights and Sun paid approximately $10 million. SCO neglected to turn over the licensing fees to Novell, which "gave SCO its first profitable year in history," Kimball notes.

Props to Kimball.

Today, I'm working on capacity planning. Capacity planning is by far one of my least favorite aspects of my jobs. It's an exercise in futility, in my opinion. It reminds me of shopping for pants. I find the perfect cute pair, and then I'm reminded of how much soda i drink, leading to the question "Will these pants fit me a year from now?" Capacity planning for large networks like I'm responsible for now is the exact same way. Will this number of servers still properly support my butt after so many late night coding sessions? Hmm.

I've had several people ask me if I'll be appearing at DEFCon. Fuck, no.

I was planning on joining the World of Warcraft masses at Blizzcon, but it sold out. Sad.

I will be at PAX. I've always adored the guys over at Penny Arcade. PA is usually how I start my work day, followed by xkcd, Ctrl+Alt+Del, Questionable Content, and a bagel. I love bagels.

Yahoo! is still doing well. I know I've been misquoted by the press a lot lately. Dear press, Fuck you. Learn to read. Love, Randi.

I'm still dating Igor. He also works at Yahoo!, which makes life interesting. At least he's in a different group (Yahoo! Photos). He's a coder, gamer, photographer, and he looks like Harry Potter. Yeah, it's great. I'm the envy of 16 year old girls everywhere.

Yahoo! is taking over a movie theatre tomorrow. We're all taking off work early to head over to see the new Harry Potter movie. Well, not all of us. Specifically, just people in engineering.

I don't even like Harry Potter. I've never read the books (come on people, it's a book for children. I don't care if the latest ones have started being "dark". You're still a grownup, now act your goddamn age and go watch some porn). I've seen one of the movies, I think. It was ok, I guess. Even so, I'm looking forward to this. A bunch of Yahooligans taking over a movie theatre? Heh. Heheheh. Bring it.

This is highly unlike anything I usually write, and it's going to sound preachy, even cheesy, but bear with me.

Today, I was talking to a few friends in a NetBSD chat forum. A few of the guys were discussing their respective careers, until I became a bit indignant when one wrote "I've learned that using my voice is the path to destruction... being a yes-man is the way to go."

This is not what IT is all about. You may think I'm wrong; maybe I'm just an idealist. I still think that IT is about breaking all the rules. If you're just another yes-man, you'll never do anything innovative. You'll never get your own Wikipedia entry. I wonder if you'll ever even really be satisfied with your own life.

There's a fair number of people in IT that did what they were told all of their lives. They got straight A's in high school, went to Ivy league colleges, got their CS degrees, and continued on to get good, well-paying jobs in corporate America. A lot of these are yes-men. However, when it comes to innovation, these people fall into the minority.

So many of us have never fit into that mold. When we were younger, we didn't play sports. We didn't have many friends. We were told that we had to get good grades in school so we could go on to a good college and get a good career. All hail, society. We ignored this. We spent most of our time on our computers. Our parents didn't understand what we were working towards. We probably didn't really have much a plan either, but we were driven to do more - to learn more than we felt our schools could teach us. We were truly a unique generation. We broke the mold and still succeeded. You could get the good job, have a career more lucrative than anyone ever could have dreamed for you, but break all the rules doing it.

Maybe you got kicked out of high school, or perhaps you just got bored and dropped out. You were probably in Honors/AP classes, but you were flunking out of all of them because you spent all of your time programming or messing around on your computer instead of doing your homework. College? Doubtful. Maybe you got your GED. Maybe you even tried a community college for a while, but our generation was lucky enough to be able to hop onto the dot com bubble before it burst. You didn't need formal education to get a job, you just needed the knowledge to do the job. High school didn't prepare you for this, but all those hours you spent late at night in the dark on your computer certainly did. You probably made more at your first job than your parents currently do combined. You won.

So what's up with this "yes-man" ideal? What happened to breaking the rules? Let's face it: providing that you have the skill, they need you more than you need them. Why become a yes-man when you became what you are now by telling so many people no when you were younger? Why are you so scared?

I mean, look at corporate dress code. The majority of us go to work in t-shirts and jeans. There's a few companies that require business casual in their IT department, but these are the exception to the rule. Think about your parents and how their work environment was when you were growing up. People working skilled jobs such as these had to wear collared shirts, sometimes even suits. You could not get paid as much as we do without making a concession when it came to your wardrobe. We changed this. Our generation changed so many expectations when it came to the work environment, this being one of the most minor examples. It's rare to find an IT company that doesn't have a game room, or at least a foosball table. Do you think people really had that kind of luxury 20 years ago? 15 years ago? Do you think if we had just rolled over and said yes that we would have these luxuries?

We have more responsibilities now than we did when we were younger. We have so much more to lose. We have families. We have a 401(k). Don't lose yourself, though. Remember how you got to where you are. Be proud of breaking the rules. Becoming a yes-man isn't about growing up. It's about giving up.