Is it just me?

7/20/10 - As I get ready to speak at SHARE, I find myself realizing how my interests have changed, just as the industry has changed.  For many years, I was in love with performance and while I am still interested in the subject, the idea of being hands-on no longer interests me. I think it is possible to burn out on an area of IT; I see all the cloud issues coming and while I know there are performance implications, my interests have shifted to how this impacts the people trying to manage the systems.  After all, without people (support people and users), IT really has no value.  It exists in service to us.  As such, doesn’t it make sense that things should be easier?  And they seem (finally) to be getting there.  Windows 7 is almost intuitive - ask my husband - he picked it up with no difficulty even as he rails that PCs are too confusing.  CA has the Mainframe 2.0 initiative, finally acknowledging that managing them mainframe can be and should be easier. What’s next?  JCL that doesn’t require an advanced degree to write?  A UNIX editor that doesn’t require some kind of strange brain to understand (vi)?  Would it be so awful if our jobs were easier, thus freeing us to think beyond the basics and fire-fighting to what we could do in our way to make the computer interface easier for others?  What’s next in our field?  What could we do if we weren’t bogged down with basic management and could let our imaginations run wild?

11/11/09 - Working on Veteran’s Day, I find myself thinking about how much change our industry has experienced in just the last few years.  Is it just me, or is it really hard to keep up?  What you know isn’t right a few weeks/months later.  It’s such a challenge and the flood of digital information actually makes it harder - what do you focus on?  What do you study?  It’s times like this that I go back to certain sources that provide me good material on a regular basis (see the Links section for some of these).  But what about the new sources?  Can anyone possibly keep up?  I started on Twitter and just didn’t have the time.  I go to virtual conferences nearly every week and find some good value there, but have to watch the time - you can get lost in there.  What are you doing to keep up?  Or have you given up?

10/8/09 - still tired, but also inspired, after reading some stories of new mainframers getting the passion for the box. Even the stories about zPRIME and the DOJ going after IBM (again) can’t hurt that.  Will they ever stop calling the mainframe a dinosaur? Dead?  Now, for those of us on the cusp of retirement, how many of you have a good answer to their boss when asked “What are your career plans 5 years (10 years) down the road?”  Almost too tempting to tell them, isn’t it?  What do you say to them?  No one wants to look like they are marking time and really, who has the chance to do this?  We’re busier than we ever have been. But at this point in our lives, it is a good time to start thinking - what will we do in retirement? When the age was set so many years ago, most 65 year olds were near death.  Sitting on the porch and rocking was about all you could do. Now, we are healthy and younger and that’s not enough. So what are you planning? Do you know what your retirement will look like? I think it is just as important to plan your life as the money to fund it. What do you think?

I am tired. 
  I am tired of people who are supposed to be IT professionals who can’t seem to accomplish the simplest task.  It seems to me that very few folks have a clue about what they are trying to do, or how to do it.  Even the most mundane task seems to be beyond the ability of most people. 
  They seem to lack an overview of the whole.  Instead they concentrate on their one itty-bitty task. 
  There is a lack of skills.  They seem to take the long way around instead of putting the effort into accomplishing the goal in one step.
  They won’t learn anything new.  And “new” is defined as anything invented since they were born.
 
    Is it just me?  Or is anyone else tired?