Newbie

Its been a long time since I was the newbie somewhere.  I was the newbie twice at my first non-checkout-chick job but I was really new to the IT industry – a newbie newbie if you want – so no one really expected anything much of me.  And let’s be honest .. most things at my first job were really just repetition.  If you can remember to get up and dressed in the morning, you could have remembered most things there

My second job was my big break in the world of networking.  Once again though, since it was the first time I was not just being a monkey, I was a newbie newbie again and no one expected anything much of me.  It was the first time however, that I was working with people less technical than me, so I got to start teaching people things.  The people I was teaching was basically the service desk (the poor bastards who had to go decipher engineer comments and pass it on to the customer) so they didn’t need to know much more than layman’s terms for what people said in faults.  Easy peasy.

My third job was the first time I got my hands really dirty.  Both of my previous jobs had been basically software only – I didn’t even really understand what a router or switch was, let alone what one looked like!  So, once again I was a newbie newbie for hands on hardware stuff and basic stuff (cos I started much higher in the chain than I should have in my second job), but just a newbie for the software side which I’d already been doing for a bit over a year.  At this point, people started expecting things from me because I was hired into a core engineering team.  The level 3 dudes after skipping level 2 world   That was a learning curve like I couldn’t believe.  I had no idea that there was this much more to learn in networking! 

Got through it though, got to the point where I settled myself into a niche and that was my life for 2.5 years.  I seem to be drawn to administrative type things.  I’m one of those people who will happily sit there documenting stuff.  Funnily enough, no employers believe that, but it’s true   So, when they ran dangerously close to having no IP addresses at this employer, shortly after I started, I scored the role of dealing with APNIC (basically the keepers of IP addressing).  To some, and I guess myself, it was an administrative nightmare, but deep down, I quite enjoyed it.  I put in processes to make sure the ball rolled smoothly, processes to make sure the ball was still rolling, and processes to make sure the ball never stopped again.

On top of the administrative world I was dealing with, I became a formidable force in the world of BGP, which was quite sought after back in the day   By this time, I’d been neck deep in BGP for about 4 years and I was officially the routemistress and gosh I loved the power!  MOVE TRAFFIC!! *clicks fingers and traffic is moved*  hehehehe

From there, I took myself a voluntary redundancy and we moved to Adelaide where I started at my last job.  I don’t think I ever hit the term “newbie” there.  There was pretty much nothing at this job that I hadn’t seen before at first, and then when I did start coming across things I hadn’t seen before, there was no time to be a newbie about it  

So, after 4 years in that role, added on to the 2.5 years in my previous role where I was last a “newbie”, its been 6.5 years since I’ve really been out of my depth.  That’s a long time for someone who’s only 27 and been in the industry for *thinks* 8 years.  Its nice to be firmly embedded in a role, but to be honest, you get a bit funny if you don’t learn.  You get to be like one of those people you wouldn’t ever suggest to “try it a different way” because “this is the way its done, dammit!”.  You NEED to learn stuff otherwise .. well, it all just gets weird

I’m now in a new job.  I’m a newbie.  I’m a newbie newbie for some bits and pieces.  I’m learning, I’m meeting new people and I’m achieving things.  I’m well and truly out of my depth.

Life couldn’t get better