DFW, day 5: I don’t have what it takes to be in mainstream IT.
Today started poorly. The nine-dollar buffet was a fucking colossal mess and the service was horrhendous. When you have to practically beg for silverware so you can eat your meal that’s really, really bad. Don’t ever stay at the Courtyard Las Colinas. It’s less impressive than the Riviera.
I drove by a guy in a blue 04 STi pulling into the Microsoft parking garage. Goddamn do I ever miss my car. The first thing I’m going to do when I get home is drive around the block a few times.
Training today was pretty cool. We’ve been stepping through this bigass lab a little bit at a time, taking a (virtualized) network of 30 or so systems segregated into different sites and upgrading Exchange to 2007 on it. We set up mailbox clusters today, which was pretty neat.
The more I talk to these guys in my class, the more I know I need to find the right job, and it sure as hell isn’t in mainstream IT. I just don’t have the wherewithal for it. Long hours, idiotic administrators, poor wages, weeks or months of travel to remote sites for a company you couldn’t give a shit about and who couldn’t give a shit about you. It’s bothersome. I need to find a small(ish) company that I can give a damn about and that can give a damn about me and work for them. It’s also quite clear to me that there’s no chance my current employer will ever assist me in pursuing what I actually want to do. They aren’t wired to do it. It’s understandable, as it’s not in their best interest for me to get Linux training. It doesn’t directly benefit their customers. Or at least, not from a manager’s point of view, so it won’t happen. I’d be phenomenally surprised if they would even reimburse me for the RHCE. Still, this training makes me want to get it more now than ever, and I’m going to start on it when I get home. I doubt I’ll get it on my first try, but it can’t hurt to at least try it.
Oh, and one of the dipshits in my class decided to come to class with a cold. I started taking Airborne immediately after class on Monday but even the magic fizzy shit couldn’t help me. I now have a cold. Since it’ll probably be getting really bad right about the time I’m going home I would imagine the trip home will be peaceful and uneventful. Or excruciating. Probably the last thing. Thanks, dickface.
The highlight of my day was being taken over to the Microsoft store. The Company Store has quite a rep among nerdkind, and if I had been in Redmond it is likely that it would have lived up to it. But I’m not, and it didn’t. I was hoping to pick up some t-shirts and whatnot for the crew back home but all they had was a few polos in skinny-ass sizes and one t-shirt in 3xl. It was really pathetic. Their software prices were fantastic, though. I stared at the Vista Ultimate box for about ten minutes trying to figure out whether I should buy one or not. Seeing a full-version box for significantly less than OEM was quite compelling. In the end, though, I decided to spend that money on a copy of Mac Office 08. It’s the one Microsoft product I really wanted that I can’t get through MSDN, and it was comparable in price (way, way, way less than retail. Way.)
They did have a SHITLOAD of Xbox gear for pretty damn good prices - although not the same ridiculous discount as the software, for obvious reasons. They had several games. I was seriously considering buying a 360 outright if they had one for a decent price, but they didn’t. Good for my wallet, bad for my soul I guess.
Oh, and you should have seen the Microsoft PR/training/whatever lady who took us to the store react when I walked up to the counter with a box with “Mac” on the front of it. I tried very slyly to do the “It’s for my mom,” wink wink nudge nudge thing. But since I don’t have a sly bone in my body I don’t think it came out right. I’m very bad at that sort of thing. Should have said damn right it’s for a Mac. It’s for my fuckin’ Mac. The one that’s in my car. In the Microsoft visitors lot. Hell, I haven’t been keeping an eye on it, for all I know it’s busy fuckin’ your Windows laptop in the asshole in cleaning closet 13A on the second floor right now.
But I didn’t.
And I still got the new flashy Mac Office with the new flashy media shit for pennies on the dollar, so there. It’s quite nice. I played with it at the Apple store.
You know, the place where you buy Macs.
Which was, in fact, the first store I went to here.
I’m really the worst IT guy ever.