11–20 of 44 posts
Moving to contracting/b2b had a much larger effect on my quality of life than I anticipated. I don't lose sleep over the insurance or investment options my employer provides. Flexible hours with most contracts. I feel more in control of my life.
Easy answer: the extra time spent every day helping my daughter with her homework. This has paid off enormously. Not because she's a grade-A student (far from it; she has a lot of difficulty). But because I've been able to consistently, calmly teach her the following skills that I'm now starting to see her pick up: 1. Everything looks difficult the first time. The hardest step is always the first one. Take a deep bre…
This was early aughts, trying to set up Puppet to run OpenLDAP + Kerberos + samba (+ldap integration) + mail + webserver... learned a ton. I think I still have that hard drive in an ammo case around here somewhere. ;) Never did get OpenLDAP + Kerberos going again, but I keep thinking, someday, again. Slightly different next time.
But in general, that pursuit of knowing how things work, of giving myself a real experience with computers, going in & rolling up my sleeves... I was already a bit of a programmer, but chasing my desire to know & to see & to learn into operations & running systems has made such a difference, marks me apart from so many of my programmer peers & has been a lifelong gratifying way to build & grow & see & experience.
Starting a business. I had no idea what I was doing when I started, went into pretty heavy debt at one point and worked way more than anyone else I knew. But this taught me far more about what I wanted out of my career than anything else. Truly owning something end to end teaches you a lot about life.
Starting a business. I had no idea what I was doing when I started, went into pretty heavy debt at one point and worked way more than anyone else I knew. But this taught me far more about what I wanted out of my career than anything else. Truly owning something end to end teaches you a lot about life.
Easy answer: the extra time spent every day helping my daughter with her homework. This has paid off enormously. Not because she's a grade-A student (far from it; she has a lot of difficulty). But because I've been able to consistently, calmly teach her the following skills that I'm now starting to see her pick up: 1. Everything looks difficult the first time. The hardest step is always the first one. Take a deep bre…