A funny thing happened on the way back to work....

Some of you may have caught my earlier blog post on the reasons why I choose Cisco equipment over everything else i.e. I can throw a brick out of the window and hit someone who knows it.

Well would you believe it? I threw a brick out my windows and hit.....well no not really but...

Here's the story I was driving back from my Cisco exam this morning and I was stopped to do a roadside census, I wound down my car window and the census taker asked me a few questions about my journey, he then spotted the CCNA book in my front seat and asked me how my Cisco studies were going!

I was a bit taken aback, I mean a census taker knowing about Cisco certifications! What are the odds? Last time I checked they weren't quite the "in" thing. He then told me he was a CCNA himself and he was working as a census taker while his visa got sorted out.

Life is funny like that!

Keep Learning

Learning is not compulsory but neither is survival (W. Edwards Deming)

Unleash your inner Creative Laziness!

“Progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things”

— Robert A. Heinlein

I have a special talent it's called creative laziness, it's a strange skill because it's driven by the tentative possibility of not having to do something monotonously in the future by putting near herculean effort in right now.

Why would you be crazy enough to do this?!? Well here's why:
I hate monotonous tasks! They tend to:

• Have highly complex routines and rituals ;
• Are extremely susceptible to error and;
• Take up time that could be better utilised on more important things.

Example?

Well if I find I'm doing a task more than three times (Remind me to blog about my 3 time rule!) successively, I instantly think... "Hang on! Can't this be automated somehow?" and 99 times out of a hundred it can be with enough effort and a "Can do" attitude.

In fact yesterday I was doing some operations across multiple systems and it was the 3rd time I was doing this within 2 weeks, I instantly stopped because even though the operation only takes about 3-5 minutes then that's 3 to 5 minutes of me doing something that I could [read should!] be saving by automating the process.

So I set about automating the operation and it took me over an hour of writing, testing, optimising and fine tuning the script so it could all be run at the proverbial "flick of the switch", when it runs the entire operation completes in under 2 minutes.

You may say, "You fool! You invested over 60 minutes to save yourself a couple of minutes, what a pointless waste of effort, you should be put against the wall and shot! In fact where did I put that rubber hose!!!"

But wait! In my defense, yes I did put in all that effort, however it doesn't require any mental distraction to run the script over and over again, so I don't actually lose those 2 minutes in fact my input approaches near zero and the process can be easily delegated to someone else who does not need to have the high level skill or knowledge that the original process required, and those 2 minute savings start to mount up over time, and if god forbid I ever had to do that operation over 30 times I'll get back my hour!

Now I know my strengths!

I took the Strengths Finder test from http://sf2.strengthsfinder.com and here are my top themes:

• Deliberative
• Command
• Significance
• Relator
• Analytical

The results were so spot on I found it almost scary!

If...

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating, and yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken, and stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings and risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings and never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew to serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, if all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, and - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

-Rudyard Kipling

Personal values

What do you stand for professionally and personally? And at the end of the day and would you stick to them thick and thin?
Once upon a time I was asked one of the most thought provoking questions in my life at a job interview.
It's been over 10 years but it represented one of the most important points in my career as an IT professional and though I didn't take the job at the time and in hindsight it probably would not have worked out if I did (they didn't make it and were bought out by a competitor), even knowing all this I often wish I had taken that role because I was asked one of those questions that would have made me walk through fire for the person who asked it, the questions was "What would you like put on your gravestone when you die?", I thought for a heartbeat and said "All around good guy", the person who asked me was called Phil Tee and at the time he was running a Networking company called Riversoft, he may not remember me but I surely remember him for creating that singular defining moment, when all is said and done and at the end of the day, how do you wish to be remembered?