RE: Looking for a Tier 1 ISP Mentor for career advice.
---- On 12/1/2011 10:21 AM, Leigh Porter wrote: ---------
I am looking for just such a person now. Good Juniper, some Cisco and Sysadmin experience with an ISP background.. [...] So if anybody is looking for something to do around London...
Something I'd like to tell hiring folks lurking out there based on my experiences from living on an island far from population centers where all the jobs are... :-) One way to get such folks, as described in the previous posts, is to allow telecommuting. Have them come into the main office immediately after hiring them for 3-4 months, evaluate them and show them what's expected. Then let them go home to telecommute and have them come into the office a couple/few times a year for a week or two each time. They can even be required to work the same hours as the location where all the other engineers are. Or, on the big networks folks living in places like Hawaii can be the carry-over shift from US timezone to Asian timezones. This allows for a more productive employee many times because they are enjoying life where they live, rather than be forced into the larger population centers. In our industry, especially with all the tools we have today, it would seem that telecommuting would be more accepted, but it's not and I don't understand why. scott
The reason it is not more accepted is too many people still think "If I cannot see you you must not be working." Since I like to work and code (I spend 10 hours a day on the computer at the office, think about work related stuff in the shower, and often write Perl code at home to deal with various household tasks) I work quite well at home. There are more distractions at the office and my productivity is greater in my home computer room during those times I have to put in some extra for the office. Actually, the best reason I have for working from home is I work much better when naked and they have asked me to stop showing up that way at the office. On Thursday, December 01, 2011 01:47:22 PM Scott Weeks wrote:
---- On 12/1/2011 10:21 AM, Leigh Porter wrote: ---------
I am looking for just such a person now. Good Juniper, some Cisco and Sysadmin experience with an ISP background..
[...]
So if anybody is looking for something to do around London...
-----------------------------------------------------
Something I'd like to tell hiring folks lurking out there based on my experiences from living on an island far from population centers where all the jobs are... :-)
One way to get such folks, as described in the previous posts, is to allow telecommuting. Have them come into the main office immediately after hiring them for 3-4 months, evaluate them and show them what's expected. Then let them go home to telecommute and have them come into the office a couple/few times a year for a week or two each time. They can even be required to work the same hours as the location where all the other engineers are. Or, on the big networks folks living in places like Hawaii can be the carry-over shift from US timezone to Asian timezones. This allows for a more productive employee many times because they are enjoying life where they live, rather than be forced into the larger population centers.
In our industry, especially with all the tools we have today, it would seem that telecommuting would be more accepted, but it's not and I don't understand why.
scott
-- David Radcliffe Network Engineer/Linux Specialist david@davidradcliffe.org www.davidradcliffe.org Nothing ever gets solved better with panic. If you do not know the answer, it is probably "42."
On Thu, Dec 01, 2011 at 04:35:27PM -0500, David Radcliffe wrote:
The reason it is not more accepted is too many people still think "If I cannot see you you must not be working."
actually, i've heard the real reason is corporate liability ... that said, there is an advantage for team f2f mtgs on a periodic basis. /bill
Am 12/1/11 9:35 PM, schrieb David Radcliffe:
Since I like to work and code (I spend 10 hours a day on the computer at the office, think about work related stuff in the shower, and often write Perl code at home to deal with various household tasks) I work quite well at home. There are more distractions at the office and my productivity is greater in my home computer room during those times I have to put in some extra for the office.
The downside of this is that you are not around in the office in case someone wants to talk to you. I often end up with guys from our operations team or other teams stopping at my desk and ask questions. Or guys who want to have a quick chat about a problem and want to ask for an advice or idea. Or people who want to learn Perl and have a question that you can answer in 30 seconds. Yes, I know, they can call you, or send an Email, but nothing beats the good old "Let's go for a coffee, I'd like to ask you a question". cheers, Thorsten
On Fri, Dec 02, 2011 at 12:25:41PM +0000, Thorsten Dahm wrote:
Yes, I know, they can call you, or send an Email, but nothing beats the good old "Let's go for a coffee, I'd like to ask you a question".
Some people just put up a dedicated netbook with a permanent video/audio link (can be a problem with limited residential upstram) for a poor man's telepresence. What could potentially work even better is to build a virtual office using e.g. OpenQwaq http://code.google.com/p/openqwaq/ (not sure the codes are fully done in the open sourced version yet, but they'll be there in a few months).
-----Original Message----- From: Thorsten Dahm [mailto:t.dahm@resolution.de] Sent: 02 December 2011 12:28 To: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: Looking for a Tier 1 ISP Mentor for career advice.
Since I like to work and code (I spend 10 hours a day on the computer at the office, think about work related stuff in the shower, and often write Perl code at home to deal with various household tasks) I work quite well at home. There are more distractions at the office and my productivity is greater in my home computer room during those times I have to put in some extra for
Am 12/1/11 9:35 PM, schrieb David Radcliffe: the
office.
The downside of this is that you are not around in the office in case someone wants to talk to you. I often end up with guys from our operations team or other teams stopping at my desk and ask questions. Or guys who want to have a quick chat about a problem and want to ask for an advice or idea. Or people who want to learn Perl and have a question that you can answer in 30 seconds.
And it means you do not get 'noticed' as much. I work from home when I have a task to get done that benefits from not having to talk to people. A specific document that needs completing or some more PowerPoint waffle for a pointless meeting with people who won't get it anyway. Other than that, I try to be in the office. -- Leigh ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the Symantec Email Security.cloud service. For more information please visit http://www.symanteccloud.com ______________________________________________________________________
Am 12/1/11 9:35 PM, schrieb David Radcliffe:
Since I like to work and code (I spend 10 hours a day on the computer at the office, think about work related stuff in the shower, and often write Perl code at home to deal with various household tasks) I work quite well at home. There are more distractions at the office and my productivity is greater in my home computer room during those times I have to put in some extra for the office.
The downside of this is that you are not around in the office in case someone wants to talk to you. I often end up with guys from our operations team or other teams stopping at my desk and ask questions. Or guys who want to have a quick chat about a problem and want to ask for an advice or idea. Or people who want to learn Perl and have a question that you can answer in 30 seconds.
Yes, I know, they can call you, or send an Email, but nothing beats the good old "Let's go for a coffee, I'd like to ask you a question".
Which really stops being practical once you exceed (approx) one building in size. It was interesting during the early days to note that there were certain people who did a lot of their interaction on IRC, even when in the office, even when sitting a few cubes away from each other sometimes. It definitely enabled telepresence - obviously not as good as "being there", but it was funny every now and then when you'd go looking for that person and find out they were out today at a different office, or telecommuting. It seems to me that we've not been as successful as we might at this whole telecommuting thing, because people - especially at small companies - ARE used to being able to grab a coffee, and there's a reluctance to lose that. ... JG -- Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net "We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN) With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples.
Am 12/2/11 1:16 PM, schrieb Joe Greco:
Thorsten Dahm: The downside of this is that you are not around in the office in case someone wants to talk to you. I often end up with guys from our operations team or other teams stopping at my desk and ask questions. Or guys who want to have a quick chat about a problem and want to ask for an advice or idea. Or people who want to learn Perl and have a question that you can answer in 30 seconds.
Which really stops being practical once you exceed (approx) one building in size.
I think it often depends on how you define practical. Normally, you sit with your own team, that means it is a practical solution for the network engineers, but perhaps not for the server admins and the network engineers anymore, since the server admins may sit in a different building, different city, different continent, .... cheers, Thorsten
Am 12/2/11 1:16 PM, schrieb Joe Greco:
Thorsten Dahm: The downside of this is that you are not around in the office in case someone wants to talk to you. I often end up with guys from our operations team or other teams stopping at my desk and ask questions. Or guys who want to have a quick chat about a problem and want to ask for an advice or idea. Or people who want to learn Perl and have a question that you can answer in 30 seconds.
Which really stops being practical once you exceed (approx) one building in size.
I think it often depends on how you define practical. Normally, you sit with your own team, that means it is a practical solution for the network engineers, but perhaps not for the server admins and the network engineers anymore, since the server admins may sit in a different building, different city, different continent, ....
While any absolute rule would be silly, of course, I would have thought my point was sufficiently clear. There comes a point at which all the people you may want to talk to are no longer sitting in the same building. That doesn't mean all buildings will successfully allow F2F meetings (Pentagon) or that having groups within the same building will encourage F2F meetings. It's a simple fact that once you *must* deal with someone in another building, the amount of time and effort involved gets much higher and more inconvenient. If you manage to find a way to keep your group small and all in the same building, then what I said doesn't apply, but that can itself become impractical as a company grows. ... JG -- Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net "We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN) With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples.
On Friday, December 02, 2011 07:25:41 AM Thorsten Dahm wrote:
Am 12/1/11 9:35 PM, schrieb David Radcliffe:
Since I like to work and code (I spend 10 hours a day on the computer at the office, think about work related stuff in the shower, and often write Perl code at home to deal with various household tasks) I work quite well at home. There are more distractions at the office and my productivity is greater in my home computer room during those times I have to put in some extra for the office.
The downside of this is that you are not around in the office in case someone wants to talk to you. I often end up with guys from our operations team or other teams stopping at my desk and ask questions. Or guys who want to have a quick chat about a problem and want to ask for an advice or idea. Or people who want to learn Perl and have a question that you can answer in 30 seconds.
Yes, I know, they can call you, or send an Email, but nothing beats the good old "Let's go for a coffee, I'd like to ask you a question".
cheers, Thorsten
Actually, that is the upside. Everywhere I have worked there are the people who will come to you before they even try to think of an answer. Your work gets interrupted because they did not have to send an email and wanted an excuse to socialize. It's much better to have a record (email) of most conversations especially when there are technical points which may be helpful to refer to in the future. F2F is fine when you are working on pushing your point as it is easier to create "presence" but 99% of all meetings and impromptu discussions in the office waste more time than provide any real benefit. I know plenty of people (my wife included) who disagree and feel there is great benefit in F2F but I contended they are just more comfortable with the old fashioned way they have always done things. There are people even today who will print and bring me an email to discuss the reported problem rather than forward information electronically. That is just because it is difficult for people to break their comfort molds to see a more productive method. I do not say it is easy. I understand people think the way they do things, the things which make them comfortable, seem best but in this case F2F is not best for everyone. If someone says to me "Let's go for a coffee, I'd like to ask you a question" what I hear is "Gee, you are not busy. Why are you getting a paycheck? Let's go talk shop and other non-work related stuff. I have a legitimate question and I want to socialize." I have a better idea, send email. If the question is too deep we can "meet" on the phone. I have a TeamSpeak server. Want to get together? Let's grab a beer after work or we can chat on TS while wandering through Left4Dead. F2F is for semi-work related activities. If you need to paint a picture we can bounce a diagram back and forth (please use open standards -- .odg, .dia, etc. -- and not proprietary -- .vsd) or we can draw simple stuff in Coccinella or OpenMeeting (I have servers set up). We can use email. We can use chat (I have Coccinella and a local server for our in-house and use Pidgin for AIM, Yahoo, MSN for my outside contacts). I have Logitech 9000 cameras so if you really, really want to see me I will configure my VoIP (Asterisk server at home) so we can look at each other. The whole "I have to be in your space in an office for work to be effective" is so nineteenth century. Seriously: "You talked to Ted the other day about the NetFlow based bandwidth billing project. What were the details and decisions? Can you remember the important points?" "No. But the discussion was electronic so I will pass you the email chain/chat log/etc." My dream is roll out of bed, make coffee, walk upstairs into my computer room and begin work. Deal with conversations via email/work the online job queue. Maybe attend a quarterly face-time meeting with the company. Maybe the people are nice. That would be cool. Maybe a monthly meeting at the home office in Atlanta on the 3rd Friday because the company provides tickets to Jazz at the High Museum. I can dream... -- David Radcliffe Network Engineer/Linux Specialist david@davidradcliffe.org www.davidradcliffe.org Nothing ever gets solved better with panic. If you do not know the answer, it is probably "42."
In a message written on Fri, Dec 02, 2011 at 12:25:41PM +0000, Thorsten Dahm wrote:
The downside of this is that you are not around in the office in case someone wants to talk to you. I often end up with guys from our operations team or other teams stopping at my desk and ask questions. Or guys who want to have a quick chat about a problem and want to ask for an advice or idea. Or people who want to learn Perl and have a question that you can answer in 30 seconds.
I've both delt with remote employees and been a telecommuter. After those experiences, and reading a few books I've decided the hardest thing about having successful telecommuters is dealing with the folks in the office. Telecommuters quickly turn to technology, they want to video-chat with collegues. Are eager to pick up the phone and talk. They reach out (generally). It's the folks in the office that are reluctant. They don't see the point of figuring out how the video chat software works, of setting their status to indicate what they are doing, and so on. The "water cooler" conversations can be moved to Skype, FaceTime, Google Hangouts, or any number of other solutions, but it requires everyone to be in that mindset. If you have telecommuters _everyone_ in the office should be forced to work from home at least 2 weeks a year, including the manager. It's only from that experience you learn to deal with your telecommuting co-workers in a way that raises everyone's productivity. Once over that hump there are huge rewards to having telecommuters. You can pay lower salaries as people can live in cheaper locations. People in multiple timezones provide better natural coverage. People are much more willing to do off hour work when they can roll out of bed at 5AM and be working at 5:05 in their PJ's, rather than getting up at 4 and getting dressed to drive in and do the work. -- Leo Bicknell - bicknell@ufp.org - CCIE 3440 PGP keys at http://www.ufp.org/~bicknell/
----- Original Message -----
From: "Thorsten Dahm" <t.dahm@resolution.de>
The downside of this is that you are not around in the office in case someone wants to talk to you. I often end up with guys from our operations team or other teams stopping at my desk and ask questions. Or guys who want to have a quick chat about a problem and want to ask for an advice or idea. Or people who want to learn Perl and have a question that you can answer in 30 seconds.
Yes, I know, they can call you, or send an Email, but nothing beats the good old "Let's go for a coffee, I'd like to ask you a question".
"Private IRC server". Cheers, -- jra -- Jay R. Ashworth Baylink jra@baylink.com Designer The Things I Think RFC 2100 Ashworth & Associates http://baylink.pitas.com 2000 Land Rover DII St Petersburg FL USA http://photo.imageinc.us +1 727 647 1274
On Sat, 03 Dec 2011 11:40:54 EST, Jay Ashworth said:
"Private IRC server".
Amen to that. I've decided that our private Jabber server has resulted in an order of magnitude improvement in dealing with "quick question for ya" requests, as you can cut/paste to/from as needed (it's still kinda hard to cut-n-paste what the co-worker said over coffee or over the phone ;) with less overhead than e-mail (especially for things that take 3-4 RTTs to resolve).
On Thu, Dec 01, 2011 at 10:47:22AM -0800, Scott Weeks wrote:
In our industry, especially with all the tools we have today, it would seem that telecommuting would be more accepted, but it's not and I don't understand why.
People are social primates, alphas like access to nonverbal cues for reading and control of their supposed underlings. Same reasons for concentrations in big cities: interaction density is higher for business dinners while underlings are not too far away. Net ops are more like hunter-gatherers than anything, so there's considerable culture clash.
participants (10)
-
bmanning＠vacation.karoshi.com -
David Radcliffe -
Eugen Leitl -
Jay Ashworth -
Joe Greco -
Leigh Porter -
Leo Bicknell -
Scott Weeks -
Thorsten Dahm -
Valdis.Kletnieks＠vt.edu