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Counterpoint: Engineers manage to do it.
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Oct 26, 2015 20:07
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22 Eargesplitten posted:Counterpoint: Engineers manage to do it. Many don't. Leaving autism out of the picture, engineers in general have terrible communications skills and it would do many technical professions well to place more emphasis on verbal and nonverbal communication. psydude fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Oct 26, 2015 |
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Oct 26, 2015 20:08
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psydude posted:I agree that way too much attention is paid to processes over results, but it's wrong to think that engineering doesn't require the same level of interpersonal reaction that sales does, as he states in your quote. Actually, I'd argue that it requires more. Yeah I agree, but there are infinite other variables that define the requirements for a particular role. Using this sort of test to screen candidates is a Bad Way of doing that. If someone's a socially stunted goon, it will come through clearly in an interview.
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Oct 26, 2015 20:10
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AlternateAccount posted:Yeah I agree, but there are infinite other variables that define the requirements for a particular role. Using this sort of test to screen candidates is a Bad Way of doing that. If someone's a socially stunted goon, it will come through clearly in an interview. Yep, good point.
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Oct 26, 2015 20:14
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A really smart friend of mine got screened out of a technical position with Cablevision some number of years back because he's a philosopher by nature and basically built to overthink nonsense questions like "stealing candy is always wrong."
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Oct 26, 2015 20:14
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Vulture Culture posted:This is the only part that maybe I'd take issue with, depending on how this is applied. It's good that people are able to use critical thinking skills and apply them to their understanding of a problem instead of taking someone else's direction by rote. The problem comes when their mental model of a particular problem space is flawed, but I'd maybe use this as a teachable moment to figure out what the problem is with their model and why it exists, and maybe help them fix it. But then there's the people who will never admit that they're wrong, who come to you to have their opinions validated and get upset when it doesn't work out for them. gently caress 'em, let them learn that the hard way. We've had this happen with one particular individual more than once. But lately, he's realized that just because we tell him his solution is incorrect, it doesn't mean we're attacking him. It took a few times of him crashing and burning before he now admits "I don't understand". This makes it a much more approachable teaching situation without actually doing the work for him. Personally, I think he came from an environment where it was anathema to admit you didn't know something. He's finally getting that we're not going to ridicule or hold it against him that he doesn't know everything about everything. Hell, even at the senior engineer level, we all have knowledge that compliments each other, some with a deeper understanding than others for a specific technology. It's weird, but I think the higher you go in seniority, the more willingness I see for someone to say "I honestly don't know that". You've got me thinking that we need to make sure we communicate that better to our entry-level and junior team-members. Let them know that we're not going to laugh, make fun of, or hold it against them during review. Proteus Jones fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Oct 26, 2015 |
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Oct 26, 2015 20:17
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I'm looking at Logstash + Elasticsearch and got it installed on a VM. Did a basic log and this is neat, but, is there no browser or GUI to look at the data? Seems I have to query it using curl for everything? I just want something to see everything in the database easily edit VVV thanks! I'll check it out edit2: this is awesome Danith fucked around with this message at 20:46 on Oct 26, 2015 |
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Oct 26, 2015 20:26
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Danith posted:I'm looking at Logstash + Elasticsearch and got it installed on a VM. Did a basic log and this is neat, but, is there no browser or GUI to look at the data? Seems I have to query it using curl for everything? I just want something to see everything in the database easily K in ELK is for Kibana.
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Oct 26, 2015 20:27
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flosofl posted:It's weird, but I think the higher you go in seniority, the more willingness I see for someone to say "I honestly don't know that". People in Senior positions have probably been working in the field long enough to have a few spectacular gently caress ups under their belts. Once you've accidentally turned off the Internet for 5,000 people or cost the business $60,000, you stop worrying about looking like you know everything. I don't need to worry about looking stupid, because I already know I am.
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Oct 26, 2015 20:38
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flosofl posted:We've had this happen with one particular individual more than once. But lately, he's realized that just because we tell him his solution is incorrect, it doesn't mean we're attacking him. It took a few times of him crashing and burning before he now admits "I don't understand". This makes it a much more approachable teaching situation without actually doing the work for him. It's the Dunning-Krueger effect. There's a point where one's confidence in what they understand vastly outweighs what they actually know. Then it balances out.
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Oct 26, 2015 20:39
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Filthy Lucre posted:People in Senior positions have probably been working in the field long enough to have a few spectacular gently caress ups under their belts. Once you've accidentally turned off the Internet for 5,000 people or cost the business $60,000, you stop worrying about looking like you know everything. Yep, or doing a trunk change at the wrong end first. ::raises hand::
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Oct 26, 2015 20:40
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flosofl posted:Yep, or doing a trunk change at the wrong end first. ::raises hand:: Haven't done it yet. I absolutely know I will at some point. I had a buddy decommission an Exchange server and end up wiping out a solid chunk of the AD structure with it. Such is life sometimes. (I would have done this if he hadn't but now I will never forget that deleting mailboxes will also toast user accounts.) ChubbyThePhat fucked around with this message at 21:00 on Oct 26, 2015 |
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Oct 26, 2015 20:57
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Resume updated, Meeting a local recruiter for coffee on Wednesday. Goal:  yotj 2016. Since I'm not willing to relocate (Reno, NV), I'm thinking the local recruiter will be a good move.I've been at my current workplace for almost 9 years, I think it's about time to go elsewhere and get challenged to learn stuff again 
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Oct 26, 2015 21:06
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flosofl posted:Yep, or doing a trunk change at the wrong end first. ::raises hand:: I have done this on wireless links so many goddam times. "Right, so that's the firmware updated this end, now to just connect to the other end and update that so the radios can link back up again..." Oh.
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Oct 26, 2015 21:21
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psydude posted:Many don't. Leaving autism out of the picture, engineers in general have terrible communications skills and it would do many technical professions well to place more emphasis on verbal and nonverbal communication. Sorry, I wasn't clear. What I meant to say is that engineers manage to do their job despite on the whole being terrible at communication and social norms, just like people on the spectrum. I was just trying to say that in a funny way, and I failed, partially because I'm not funny, partially because I was writing it in 30 seconds under the heaviest ticketload I've seen in the 6 months I've had this job.
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Oct 26, 2015 22:37
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The CEO hired a high-end AV firm to revamp his home equipment and they brought along a tech consultant. The CEO’s home network is an unstable mess of years of random techs going through and fiddling with things so the consultant reviewed things and put together a list of recommendations with the emphasis being on security. Since the meeting the CEO has asked me to prioritize any security enhancements on my long-term todo list. The office manager was directed to invite me to a meeting with this guy. The directive was to implement any of his recommendations that will enhance security at both ends of a permanent VPN tunnel between home and corporate. Any weak areas would need to be beefed up before this fellow would tell the CEO that everything was in place to make his new home setup as secure as he wanted. Here’s what wound up on my task list: 1. Segregate wifi from our in-house servers at all locations. VPN client required to access servers from company wifi and anywhere else besides the HQ wired LAN. We already have a Dell/Sonicwall VPN appliance that is underutilized but it will need more licenses to cover having a lot more concurrent users. 2. Encrypt all laptop hard drives. He specified Bitlocker but with everyone on Win 7 Pro I will have to look into getting us all on Enterprise instead of our current OEM licenses. I don’t think Bitlocker is on any lower version. 3. Encrypt all server drives. 4. Move the OWA server to the DMZ. 5. Require VPN for Terminal Server access. I have to get quotes pulled together as quickly as possible for any licensing and manpower needed to get this done. I expect the CEO will approve anything that supports this consultant’s recommendations.
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Oct 27, 2015 00:38
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Dick Trauma posted:3. Encrypt all server drives. And on technical questions: does encryption work OK with all servers? What about RAIDs? What about VM servers, that have a virtual hard drive? Are you encrypting a SAN?? I had enough vendors tell me that this was a bad idea because of reasons, and have yet to encrypt a server.
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Oct 27, 2015 00:44
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Alfajor posted:Why? Are they not in a server room, behind locked doors already? Yeah, this seems like a terrible idea, but the rest of that list is reasonable as long as they're willing to pay for the stuff you'll need rather than trying to whitebox everything together.
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Oct 27, 2015 00:47
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Dick Trauma posted:1. Segregate wifi from our in-house servers at all locations. VPN client required to access servers from company wifi and anywhere else besides the HQ wired LAN. We already have a Dell/Sonicwall VPN appliance that is underutilized but it will need more licenses to cover having a lot more concurrent users. 1. That's pretty irregular. The right way to do it is network access control. VPN doesn't help guarantee a compliant client, but NAC does. 2. You're right, you need either 3rd party disk encryption, Win 7 Enterprise, or take the free upgrade to Win 10 and it's included in 10 Pro. 3. If the servers are in a secured area and you have good destruction processes for old drives, this is a waste of time. 4. Good lord, yes. I would make this my top priority. That's scary. Technically you don't move the OWA server, you just put a reverse proxy or load balancer in a DMZ in front of it. 5. You should have a remote desktop gateway role in front of it in a DMZ if it's exposed to the internet.
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Oct 27, 2015 00:48
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Vulture Culture posted:A really smart friend of mine got screened out of a technical position with Cablevision some number of years back because he's a philosopher by nature and basically built to overthink nonsense questions like "stealing candy is always wrong." In an interview you have to answer questions a certain way to get hired. If you answer why you left your last job honestly you are not putting yourself in the best position. You want to talk about how you outgrew your responsibility. If a personality test asks that, it is never OK to steal, you never use drugs, and you are a model employee. The whole hiring process is full of dumb stuff like this. Some companies expect you to reuse keywords from the job posting in the cover letter, and some don't even read it. Most large companies expect you to upload a resume, and then copy and paste different parts into a web based system.
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Oct 27, 2015 01:08
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Many large companies just have recruiters crawl LinkedIn these days. I don't like to make absolutist statements, but any company which expects me to post things into a web-based form is going to get ignored for job postings. That said, maybe, just being honest about your values and why you left your previous employer (even if you put a spin on it so you don't end up in a variation of this) leads to better outcomes than trying to game the process. Hiring managers understand leaving a company, as long as you don't trash talk it.
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Oct 27, 2015 01:28
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psydude posted:I agree that way too much attention is paid to processes over results, but it's wrong to think that engineering doesn't require the same level of interpersonal reaction that sales does, as he states in your quote. Actually, I'd argue that it requires more.
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Oct 27, 2015 01:39
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KS posted:3. If the servers are in a secured area and you have good destruction processes for old drives, this is a waste of time.
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Oct 27, 2015 01:46
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KS posted:1. That's pretty irregular. The right way to do it is network access control. VPN doesn't help guarantee a compliant client, but NAC does. I should've been clearer that I still need to run a sanity check on how I address each one of his recommendations. I just need to make sure that if the CEO asks I can tell him that all areas have been addressed. For #4 I only need to verify OWA's access is set up correctly. It was not part of my seemingly perpetual reassessment of what I inherited. I expect it's correct but have to verify. For #5... I haven't had Terminal Server available to users before so this is new to me. It's mostly used for people who want access to a couple of special apps that are available via RDC. EDIT: Does MS Network Access Protection still exist? Dick Trauma fucked around with this message at 01:54 on Oct 27, 2015 |
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Oct 27, 2015 01:52
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evol262 posted:Many large companies just have recruiters crawl LinkedIn these days. I don't like to make absolutist statements, but any company which expects me to post things into a web-based form is going to get ignored for job postings. At one point in my life when I desperately needed a job I had to use awful web forums but only with a creative use of Auto Hotkey. When it comes to leaving your employer, just say "lack of upward mobility" and they'll understand.
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Oct 27, 2015 01:53
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adorai posted:i disagree. Most disk encryption is accelerated to the point of being effectively free, why not add the extra layer of security? If you lose any PII and you didn't take this step, you have another thing to explain. If you did, you can say the disk was even encrypted. And to preempt the question, we are encrypting our nimble Sans going forward, because why not. Because you don't want to be these people in a few years. Even with secure destruction procedures, people make mistakes. Many regulatory and compliance bodies mandate data encryption for certain content, and it's (generally) a trivial penalty to transparently encrypt everything by default except where there's a specific reason not to. If you're only encrypting one server, you're far more likely to eff up the process than if you're doing 1000 servers, and lose some important data in the process.
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Oct 27, 2015 02:09
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Most storage arrays these days support encryption with self encrypting drives that have on drive encryption chips that run at port speed. Key management is often handled on box and key rotation and backup is made simple.
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Oct 27, 2015 02:54
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Tab8715 posted:What scrutiny? That employers aren't hiring those that are Autistic?
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Oct 27, 2015 03:37
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My current job had a personality test and a dumb poo poo wonderlic exam. I passed. I was talking to my boss about seeing my results and he's said all of his employees have been exactly like the personality test has said except one. I can imagine I'll be number two because I know for a fact I answered as the most outgoing people person ever when that isn't the case. I
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Oct 27, 2015 05:18
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SaltLick posted:I was talking to my boss about seeing my results and he's said all of his employees have been exactly like the personality test has said except one. There is one person in my HR department who has repeatedly complained to me about my team, and claimed that I needed to "do something" about certain members who may be less socially adept. Many of these people work with computers because they can't work well with people. Beyond the uncomfortable silence on the phone as they actually fix the callers problem, there is really nothing about their poor social skills that impedes their ability to do the job. When they say dumb things I play the politics game for them. In fact, just working quietly is a much better problem to have than poor written communication skills, in my opinion.
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Oct 27, 2015 05:49
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Here's a cheat code for you guys that are focused on work and not super social: Throw in a smiley in your emails every now and then. It's dumb as hell but it works
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Oct 27, 2015 05:57
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Dr. Arbitrary posted:Here's a cheat code for you guys that are focused on work and not super social: Emoticons are for people who are weak and can't rely on their writing to get their point across.
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Oct 27, 2015 06:16
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mewse posted:Emoticons are for people who are weak and can't rely on their writing to get their point across. Goons. 
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Oct 27, 2015 06:22
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Tab8715 posted:Goons. I frequently wish I had that emoticon in Lync.
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Oct 27, 2015 06:23
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 This'll show 'em you mean business. "I look forward to synergizing our core competencies.  "
Methanar fucked around with this message at 06:47 on Oct 27, 2015 |
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Oct 27, 2015 06:27
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Dr. Arbitrary posted:Here's a cheat code for you guys that are focused on work and not super social: Oh god I hope I never have to do that. My supervisor puts emotes in, and I don't mind it too much, but smiley faces just seem so unprofessional.
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Oct 27, 2015 06:32
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22 Eargesplitten posted:Oh god I hope I never have to do that. My supervisor puts emotes in, and I don't mind it too much, but smiley faces just seem so unprofessional. What if instead of a smiley face j accidentally send a winky face? 
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Oct 27, 2015 06:35
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Smileys are a part of our culture, deal with it. vvv Also exclamation marks. Both convey a sense of levity. MC Fruit Stripe fucked around with this message at 06:45 on Oct 27, 2015 |
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Oct 27, 2015 06:35
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My old supervisor would always use ! a lot in emails and I always though it was endearing. Me- Hey can you check this out and restart the server for me? Him- Server restarted! Good to go!
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Oct 27, 2015 06:40
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I also never want to change my lync text color or font. It's me, I'm the fun hater. In my defense, I present comic sans, as used by at least one person at every company I have been part of.
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Oct 27, 2015 06:46
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