Bay 12 Games Forum

An update:

We were supposed to upgrade to v17 on Monday (yesterday).  This is in preparation for the big ol' point-of-care thing on November 1st.

On Saturday we find out that the backup has not been operating correctly since we put in the new tape library.  An entire partition has been skipped.  Repeatedly.  There is no solid backup.  That has just become priority #1.

The upgrade to v17 is delayed until we can get solid backups.

My supervisor calls in sick for two days straight - yesterday and today - which leaves me with even more work to do.

Our director of nursing also calls in sick this week, which means my other IT worker is now conducting the training that our director of nursing was supposed to be doing.  Which leaves me with even more work to do.

And then the head of our healtchenters informs me that the logging they need for the state-mandated reporting hasn't been working right for the last six months or so.  Which, technically, is also priority #1.

First of all, it's important to remember that this is just a game.  No actual elves were harmed in the making of the elf-bone throne that menaces with spikes of elf-bone.

Folks do lots of things in games that they would never do in real life.  It's escapism.  Nothing more.

Secondly, a lot of these horrifying things are side affects of the game itself, not really intended results of deliberate actions.  It isn't really anyone's fault that dwarves carry their babies into battle.  Nobody specifically ordered them to.  And I doubt if Toady intentionally coded that behavior in.  But they carry their kids around...  And there's no handy dwarven daycare to drop them off at when you go to war...  So, you get baby body shields.

Thirdly, a lot of these horrifying things are actually pretty reasonable responses given the context of the game.  Your mayor wants some leather hats?  Ok...  But we don't have any leather...  So, do we slaughter the puppies for leather to make the mayor happy?  Do we ignore the mayor and have him throw half the fort in jail because they didn't make his leather hats?  Or do we depose the despot and replace him with somebody who will hopefully not demand things we can't deliver?

Finally, it's Fun.

My current, on-going bit of rage...

I work at a small hospital.  We're basically chronically understaffed and overworked.  That's OK though, it keeps things interesting and it really is an awesome job.  Normally.

We're in the process of rolling out a big new hospital information system.  Electronic health records for everyone!  Means we need to set up a pile of Toughbooks for the providers...  And those machines need wireless access...  And those access points need to be wired...  And that all needs to happen before we bring the servers up and get the software up and running.

So we've got a good pile of work to do.  A bunch of laptops to roll out, a bunch of access points to install, a bunch of cable to run, switches to install, tons of wiring to patch down...  Lots of stuff to do.  And we should have had plenty of time to do it, too.

But then we got struck by lightning.  Literally.  Our phone system, a server, and a telemedicine unit all died.  So now we've got to scramble to get those fixed.

And then another server just up and dies for no good reason.

And then upper management announces that we're absorbing one of the health centers in the area, and we have to take over all their IT support.

And then stuff that we've ordered stops showing up.  Critical bits of hardware are back-ordered for weeks.

And the folks in maintenance who were supposed to be doing most of the grunt work involved in getting these cables run are just not helping out.

And, of course, we've still got random bits and pieces breaking here and there that need to be fixed.  A VPN falls over here...  Some doctor needs a lab test set up over there...  A virus pops up on a workstation...  An update comes out for something...

So I've been working 9+ hour days, 6+ days a week, for the last month and a half or so.

We were supposed to go to an Octoberfest thing a couple weeks ago...  Couldn't.

Couldn't take Columbus Day off either.

I'm getting seriously worn down...  I wake up exhausted, and come home barely conscious.  I've got hardly any time with my family these days.  It absolutely sucks.

And how do I get to spend the little bit of time I get with my family?  Listening to my wife bitch and moan about how much I'm working.

After getting a bit of experience there, you can move up to work somewhere larger and more well-known.. If you even want to. Many of the people that I know in that kind of role love the job satisfaction that comes with it, and have no desire to move on to other employment.

Your mileage will obviously vary...  But generally speaking, the larger the organization the more specialized your job will be.

I work at a small hospital.  Our IT department is just four people.  This means that I've got my hands on literally everything.  VoIP phone system, network operations, telemedicine, security, various health information systems, digital radiography...  You get the idea.

It can get a little overwhelming at times...  And there are days when I find myself scanning a workstation for viruses or installing Microsoft Office and thinking Seriously?  At this stage of my career I'm still doing this shit?  But it keeps things interesting.  And even the mind-numbingly simple work can be a nice break from the mind-bendingly complex stuff.

At one of our sister-hospitals they've got a couple dozen folks in their IT department.  They've got one guy up there who does nothing but program Cisco equipment all day long.  I think that kind of uniformity would drive me to distraction very quickly.

A 4-year degree is not going to teach you any specialty.  It really isn't going to get you trained to do anything terribly specific.  It's more of a general education.  If you really want to specialize you'll be going for a Masters and/or PhD.

All a 4-year degree shows an employer is that you can be taught.  Nothing more.  It implies that you managed to pay attention in class, take notes, and put the right answers on a test.  It implies that you had enough dedication to show up to enough classes to pass.  It implies a certain level of competence and responsibility.  It implies that you can probably take instructions.  It does not imply that you actually know what you're doing.

I always tell people that a 4-year degree is a great way to figure out what you want to do.  Take the classes that look interesting, not practical.  You'll quickly discover what you actually do and don't like doing.

I started my BS in Computer Science absolutely convinced that I wanted to be a game developer.  Then I discovered that I enjoyed playing games a hell of a lot more than I liked writing code.  And eventually came to the conclusion that managing networks was far more fun than building software.  So now I'm a sysadmin.

As for what is actually useful...

Degrees and certificates are great for getting your foot in the door.  Lots of folks in HR just throw out resumes without the required words on them.  So I'd certainly recommend getting as many as you can.  Seriously.  Just any degree or certificate you can get your hands on.

When it comes to an actual interview though, I find it's best if you can actually have an intelligent conversation about the work you've done.  Even if it isn't 100% relevant to the work you will be doing.  Somebody who understands the technology and concepts, who knows what they're doing, and can communicate that clearly to somebody else - that's the kind of person you want to hire.

Any kind of practical experience is going to be a plus.  Fix computers for your friends and family.  Throw together a website or two.  Contribute a patch to some open source project.  See if you can get involved in managing any of the on-campus networks.  Get an internship somewhere.  Even if you aren't getting paid for it, you can use it to pad your resume and it'll give you things to talk about.

I'll also suggest that if you aren't genuinely interested in IT, that you pursue something else.

IT is not a glorious career.  You will wind up working long hours, you will not get paid spectacularly, and there's relatively little recognition for the work you do.  If you're passionate and genuinely interested in what you're doing it can be very rewarding...  If you're just slogging through the day for a paycheck you're going to get burnt-out very quickly.

Somewhat unrelated question...

But everyone seems to want to keep their fortress up near the surface.  The discussions are all about either bringing magma up to the surface, or having your dwarves trucking back and forth all day long.

Why not relocate the whole place down below?  Other than immigrants/caravans, why do you need to stay near the surface?

I always find the easiest way to set up farmland is with a bucket brigade.

Embark with a couple buckets.  Dig out a room.  Dig out another room 1z below the first.  Channel out a section of floor in the first room, so that you can drop things through into the one below.  Now designate that open space as a pond.

Your dwarves will attempt to fill the pond by throwing buckets of water into it.  That water will evaporate and leave mud.  Just un-designate the pond as necessary, then construct a floor over the hole when you're done.