cisco 4 class

Back to class for Cisco 4, and I wonder where the passion is.  There are a lot of people in the class spouting the typical stuff.  Worried about how much homework they have and how to get out of it.  A lot of spurious griping and complaining from people.

I wonder why they are there.  What's the purpose of giving up your Thursday night for a class you don't care about?

I guess it's part of the degree plan.  But where's the drive to be the best?  Where's the drive to do something great in the world?  To make a name for yourself in your position?

It doesn't exist in the classroom I'm in.

I guess they haven't learned yet.

You do not rise to the occasion.  You fall to the level of your training.

And if your training sucks, so will your response in stress.

How did we get here

I work for an established company.  The company has changed since I've been a part of the company.  Partly because I keep driving change.

Why in the world would I want to do that?

And that, is the essence of this tirade.

It's very easy to sit back and say you are an original thinker.  It's also very easy to sit back and criticize someone else's plan.

So I present the Dale Carnegie/man solution.  The next time you find something that doesn't make any sense at work, don't gripe.  Seriously.  Don't gripe.

Ask people why that policy is in place.  Ask questions about how the policy was put in place in the first place.

If the answer becomes "because that's the way we've always done it" then you are ripe for revision.

"I don't know" is also a good one to work on.

Whether you believe it or not, there are many policies and procedures that end up "because that's the way its always been done".  And there is a lot of "I don't know" in the procedure.

So... once you've find something like that, figure out whether you have the ability to change it.  If you are in IT, you aren't going to change marketing without some deep evidence.  You aren't going to change operations.

Initially, look to change your own department.  Because then you are dealing with people you know and policies you have internalized.

There are two ways to approach producing the change.  The first is to get permission.  The second is to implement and ask forgiveness.

I usually go with the second approach for two reasons.  1) No one understands the need to adjust the policy, and rocking the boat is probably not going to happen.  2) Your idea might sound great on paper, but suck in implementation.

So implement the easiest possible answer to the problem, and start using it.  You might come to the conclusion that your idea sucks.  Good.  Kill it then.  Go back to the drawing board and come up with a new solution to the problem.

If the idea is awesome, show other people.  Get them to start using your idea as opposed to the other policy.  See if people gravitate towards the new policy or the old.

I ended up implementing a Cacti server in this way.  I think it was a great idea, but no one uses it other than me.  So to me that's a partial success.

What I've been working on recently is a different way to document.  It's mostly a combination of PHP, Apache web pages, and a MySql database.  So far, the implementation doesn't work.  But the idea seems valid.  So I'll keep working on it until the idea is operational.  Documentation is always the hardest part of the IT world.  The second hardest part is designing a knowledge base that people are going to use.  You want a solution that is easy to implement and follow.  And a webpage seems to be a good idea.  But the non-technical parts of my team aren't going to run queries against a database.  That's beyond them.  So I have to provide a solution for them.  And that's what this approach is.

Try it.  You may find the cruddy company policies go away.

And you may find yourself with a load of new work.

Either is good.

Those who have seen war...

To those that have seen war know that the war never ends.

The location changes, the faces change.  The weapons change.  But the war starts and never ends.

I remember when the war started.  It was March 20, 2003.  Since then, it has never stopped.

The battlefield has changed.  I haven't been in Iraq since 2007.  No more sunsets in the desert sand storms blocking visibility.  The M4 has long since been returned to the armory, and I probably couldn't even set the headspace and timing on .50 cal any more. Those skills have atrophied with lack of use.

New skills have replaced the old skills  I use a keyboard and mouse now.  Electrical scissors and crimpers.  The speed at which I used to be able to disassemble and reassemble an M16 has been replaced with the speed of making Cat5 ends.  I fight with command lines and code.  Programming languages and interfaces.

The enemy hasn't really changed.  The enemy is still amorphous and dodgy, never wearing a uniform or showing his face.  Sometimes its Haji.  Sometimes its the apathetic indifference of your own coworkers.

The war is still here.  Fought in bursts of insanity and boredom.  Sheer terror and force of will.

It has never ended.  It just moved locations.

And it will never end.


And the rest will choose not to see it.  War exists all over the world.  Right now.  And nothing is changing about that.

It will never change.

Accomplishments

So, a few weeks ago I started reading my goals twice a day.   You can read about that here.  So I've been reading them.  And making some progress.  But not the progress I want.  See, reading is just a simple action.  It requires little effort.  You are effectively done reading your goals in a few minutes.   But reading goals and accomplishing goals are two different things.

So I've started to keep track of my goal accomplishment in a spread sheet.  I just started today.  I'm not sure how well this setup is going to work, so I may tweak it.  But at the moment its something.  The end result is to start accomplishing goals more.  To do the work to accomplish the goal.  Which is a lot harder than just writing the things down.

I have to admit.  Writing them down and reviewing them on a daily basis is causing me to  put some effort in.  Just not the effort level I want to put.  The hope is small accomplishments spread out over time resulting in a big goal being accomplished.  Not some giant, one time step to accomplish the thing.  There's no exoneration in this plan.    Just straight up dirty labor.  Never ending dirty labor.  But that's what gets things done.

Now, back to reading.  I've got 6 more pages on one goal today, and I want to get those knocked out.