“What Kind of Job Are You Looking for?”

Someone e-mailed me that question, which led to my discussing with Deb the perhaps silly difficulty I perceive myself as having; not being able to name a position or job title and a coherent, specific job target.  I was thinking of writing a post on the topic - as well as a related topic of my pair of almost opposite work style comfort zones - but instead I think I’ll start with my moderately verbose reply, which helped me focus my thoughts.

That’s a really good question I’m still pondering the answer to myself.  Which makes the expansive answer a set of what I’m qualified to do, and the narrower answer that list as modified by what I like best.  Please forgive the fact that this is verbose/thinking aloud in nature, rather than a concise “I want to do thing X where I could Y” type of answer.

Software/computer support is what I have done forever, so it’s logical.  You always have to learn newer stuff if you don’t know it, or specifics of a product, which is easy enough.  It’s as much about being able to find out as about knowing, anyway.  Like it or not, that’s my default and presumably speedy option. 

Managing/supervising the above would probably be better.  I’ve been there at a low, still technical level before.

Managing/supervising development project(s) would be appropriate, and I’d enjoy it.  I couldn’t do programming myself as more than entry level (though I wouldn’t mind it, or user interface/usability design working with programmers, to pursue a pet interest), and am not up on newer stuff, but I make a good speaker to geeks as well as laymen, have done a modest bit of such work (though that is tough when it involves partners and there’s no way to enforce anything), and have read some of the literature avidly.  Then again, the same ability to interpret between geek speak and plain language is an asset in support.

If I could make a living blogging, or enough of a living to supplement readily with, say, side computer work or Deb taking a job, I’d probably be all over it.  By extension, I could undoubtedly do the dime a dozen job of helping company(s) establish, maintain, position, or cope with blogs.  The blog thing is almost a natural extension of doing written support on the web for Visual Basic, which I did full time, the first person there to do so.

I guess that’s not that wide a range.  Then again, taking my skills and background and all, there are any number of positions by names I couldn’t even tell you that would be appropriate, and perhaps more ideal than anything I’ve mentioned.  A former colleague became a training coordinator, for instance, and I could do that as well as she can.  I’d just never want, nor would I expect to be able, to do sales.

1. why wouldn’t you be a network administrator?
   Deb described the IT support people she saw when she was doing admin stuff in the Navy, as the ones who come around and make sure your desktop won’t work.

   all of us who worked with a bunch of different networks at work were always glad to see the IT people so they could fix the glitch in our latest software update.

   Posted by  on  10/09  at  04:06 PM  from 

2. To be honest, at the time I was writing that up, I never thought of “running the IT department at a company” as a distinct thing from support.  Technically to be a “network administrator” I would need to bone up some more, become more up to date, or work with somehwat to very obsolete stuff as I was doing for Lynch & Lynch.

   I’d far rather do help desk in a smaller (or even large) place than do support in a call center.  And in a large enough place to have someone else working there who knows the networking and network security stuff better than me, I could easily enough be the IT director/CIO person.

   Posted by Jay Solo  on  10/09  at  04:16 PM  from  Nowhere, Man

3. they were always updating the software where I worked, you need to get into something so you can come up with bizarre requirements for strong passwords.  One network I was on you had to come up with a new password every two weeks, but you could
   start reusing the old ones after 9 months.  I had 15 different passwords for 15 different networks.
   whatever you do get into you’ll get a lot of love from the people you help because most people don’t have the patience to do what you do.

   Posted by  on  10/09  at  04:50 PM  from 
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