zenmastr's recent activity
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Comment on Introductions | March 2025 in ~talk
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Comment on Introductions | March 2025 in ~talk
zenmastr Link ParentWhat are you most interested in about IT stuff? I can try to help.What are you most interested in about IT stuff? I can try to help.
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Comment on Introductions | March 2025 in ~talk
zenmastr LinkHow long have you been on Tildes? How did you find out about us? Let's see.. a couple of years? I found tildes during the reddit API fiasco and never looked back. Happy to have found this place as...How long have you been on Tildes? How did you find out about us?
Let's see.. a couple of years? I found tildes during the reddit API fiasco and never looked back. Happy to have found this place as well as the corners of the fediverse.How did you choose your username?
This is a holdover from when I was young and edgy and thought it was clever or something. I used it at LAN parties back in the day and it was cathartic to be fragging my friends in the most zen ways possible haha.What are your interests?
Oof. What am I not interested in? I was recently diagnosed with ADHD, so getting that under control means my actual hobbies have slowed down, but I'm interested in just about anything. 3D printing, gaming, gardening, aerospace, pottery, welding, homelab, homebrew, distilling, scuba diving, photography, TTRPG, LARP. If you have a niche knowledge of something, I want to learn it. Probably so I can use it to make a very bad pun.A/S/L (age/(gender|pronouns|identifier)/location)
40/M/Colorado (for now)What do you do? This could be in your spare time, for work, your passions.
As previously stated, I'm interested in just about everything. I used to be an airplane mechanic, and a welder, but now I work on IT. I've worked on storage, networking, virtualization, clustering and high performance computing.Do you want other users to PM/DM you from this thread?
Sure? Might not respond quickly, but I'm happy to chat.
Give us a fun fact (or a link!)! If there is anything to know about tilderinos, it's that we value knowledge sharing!
Did you know that there is only one word in the English language that has three double-letters in a row?
The word isFun fact: stewardesses is the longest word you can type on a qwerty keyboard with only your left hand.spoiler
Bookkeeper -
Comment on Are most jobs not what you thought they would be? Expectations vs. reality. in ~talk
zenmastr LinkHmm. If I think about the different jobs I've had, I guess they lined up with my expectations more or less? The more I analyze what I did/was expected to do, it really boiled down to being able to...Hmm.
If I think about the different jobs I've had, I guess they lined up with my expectations more or less?
The more I analyze what I did/was expected to do, it really boiled down to being able to do the same maybe... 5-10 tasks over and over again.
My first job was working electronics retail. That was easy enough; answer questions people had about stuff and restock/straighten things. It gets messy/crappy because, as capitalism does, it just became a directive to extract as much out of the customers as possible. Upsell, attach, etc.
I've worked IT support jobs where the idea is that you're solving problems for folks. But the vast majority of your work ends up being a variation of a handful of the same problem. Every once in a while you get a new/unique problem to solve. The real drag is the people who feel entitled to more/faster/better support. It can be a drag. Capitalism creeps in and a bad manager focuses only on metrics and expects tickets to be worked/resolved faster. Then they cut headcount and you do the same workload with less.
When I was an airplane mechanic, it was pretty straightforward. Here's a handful of tasks to do; rebuild this engine casing, hone these parts, weld this or that. The work was relatively steady depending on the season. Come to think of it, that wasn't a bad job except the exposure to some pretty gnarly chemicals.
When I was a welder it was kind of the same thing. You have a recurring set of tasks but get it done quickly, but also make sure it's high quality.
I agree with DialecticCake. Read reviews, network as best you can and use the interviews to your advantage. It's just as much about discovering the culture as the job.
Some of my favorite questions to ask are:
How would you describe your management style?(To a prospective boss obviously)What is one thing you like about your role/team/the company, and what is one thing you wish you could change?
What are your metrics of success 30/60/90 days into this role?
Why is this position open? (Did someone leave or is the team expanding?)
Ha! I often tell people that these days; I collect hobbies.
Probably the one that got the most longevity was homebrewing. I did that for about 10 years, and at one point thought about opening my own brewery(who hasn't?).
I still miss being a welder, but my body doesn't. Kind of the same with being the mechanic. I worked on turbo-propellar single and dual engine personal aircraft. That was a pretty great job too, but some of the cleaning chemicals we worked with are pretty nasty, so I decided I needed to get out. I grew up around computers and leveraged THAT hobby/interest into a career.