another one of those 0330hr realizations that I get in the shower... tho this one is nothing new just a reiteration of my belief in the fact that "you need to love what you do to be any good at it".
Recently I had hired a couple of sysads and one of them was kindof iffy. He was supposed to join yesterday and just to check out his attitude I setup a bunch of hoops for him to jump through. He had earlier worked as a desktop engineer (by that I mean he worked fixing desktops at a company that has a few hundred PCs per floor).... anyways so I asked him to tell me what all he wanted for his PC at work as we will be placing the order. I went a step further and suggested that he build it himself after going around and getting the best quote from the vendors near our office. Now I believe that 10-12years back at his level I would have jumped at the amazing opportunity to learn and to have such control over my own office PC. This guy comes back all weak and dumbed up "but sir hum to server pe kaam karne waale the naa" and "I have never assembled a desktop I don't know how"...... basically making me feel as if I was trying to take advantage of his hardware background to get him to build the desktop
Personally I was vindicated. First time I had seen this guy (all of 250lb) I had thought "a struggler can't be that heavyset"....(not saying that you have to be a model to succeed in IT)... I was probably 130lb when at his level... Since he came recommended by a colleague from one of the companies I have worked at I told him to come over part time and we'll evaluate........ the way I had to drive out to meet him, then pick him up coz he lost his way while coming to office on the first day.... I don't know for sure but it just gave me an uneasy feeling about this guy.... now the incident with the PC assembling completely decided it for me...... I sat him down and had a talk.... seems he was in sales earlier for 7 years and then he heard about "networking".... as is the case with a million such kids in India, he probably joined a "course" to get certified as a CCNA.... spent a fortune on the fees and then got a job at Reliance hauling desktops. He's been there for 7months now. Says they had promised him networking related work but are keeping him on desktops only and also not giving him work in server admin.... again that persecution complex of people in a job they do not want to be in.... deadly. It was clear that this guy just wants to do one thing in life "gain a bit of experience in the high value field of networking/server administration" and then make a very swift exit to riches in the Middle East. Cannot fault him on his dream but where is the value. You are not willing to do the job of setting up your own desktop and you want to be working with mission critical production servers?!!
I have done stuff that is way more mundane than hauling desktops... I used to run around in college from one customer to another installing Linux on a secondary partition for them making INR 300 in the process.... all because I loved the OS and wanted more and more people to use it and switch to it.... in fact I remember friends and seniors teasing me "does Redhat pay you something for all the praises you sing all day for Linux"... at that time Linux and Redhat used to be synonymous.... I used to assemble desktops for college friends, seniors, juniors their friends in other colleges and make 2000 bucks from each of those projects.... I loved doing it coz with every such project I learned more and my horizon grew.... it was work I was proud of and work that gave me entry to server rooms at places where my classmates never even got to set foot (later maybe but not while we were rookies doing our MCA). Infact a hilarious incident was when at the final semester VIVA VOCE I entered and the external examiner got up and exclaimed "oh you are a student here... come come I have a lot to discuss with you".... he was one of my customers, a high ranking official at NIC... I scored 97% in the practicals :))
Anyways so back to the present today I am doing stuff that I have always loved... yes still on linux still on open source... only difference is that now I'm the fire fighter who gets called in for the really tricky bits of the puzzle.... if there is a problem no one else can handle throw it at this guy and he will figure it out.... that is the sort of attitude I want from my employees as well. Not a weak "sir I have never interacted with the vendors that part admin does for procurement".... I don't want you to be perfect at your job but dude show me the fire.... show me the passion for work.... because for me no job is below me or beyond me as long as I am convinced that it will teach me something new.
enjoy your work and work only on stuff that you enjoy.... you'll be happy in life.... and like Chef Gusteau says in Ratatoulie "food will come, food always comes to those who love to cook!"
peace
