!!rant

When I worked at a previous job, they only gave out decent titles (and salaries) to upper management. Everyone else... well... I was the Domain/Sysadmin, responsible for the domain and both DCs, upgrading the physical network (plus recabling it: the MDF was a *disaster*), as well as all backups, migrations, printers, servers, and workstations/lappys in the building, plus pushing software, antivirus, updates, security policies, etc. I had complete access to everything, and ofc was responsible for everything. Nothing on my network caused anyone (else) any trouble except one particular printer I wasn't able to replace. Also, nothing new appeared on my network without me noticing and tracking it down.

But my official title? "IT Assistant".
I made $11/hr.

Worth it? Take a flying leap into an overflowing outhouse during the height of a Vegas summer if you even begin to think so.

I eventually managed to switch to a developer position, and (after several attempts) got a ~$5/hr raise. The girl they replaced me with in IT with some ditz who had never installed an OS before, didn't know what the BIOS was, and couldn't figure out why a monitor... plugged into itself... wasn't working. Things went downhill from there.

Best thing to do after working for 4 hours in the datacenter? Removing the earprotection and hear EVERYTHING for a few minutes.

Server patching in 3 DCs

Enough rant

Inspired by netikras leg hair story reminded me of another hair story.

I was training to maintain a Bailey DCS system about 15 years ago. So I was working with the consoles and learning the software. My mentor at the time was talking to me about this. He was a heavy set fellow with a Phd in control theory. His eyes kind of naturally stuck out of his face a bit. I assume blood pressure of some sort.

mentor: "Hey, I can see you have working on the consoles on the system."

me: "How is that?"

mentor: "I found a curly hair." (I have curly hair when it gets longer.)

me: <me, saying this very slowly and deliberately> "How...curly...was...it?"

At this point he started laughing by rapidly blowing air out of his nose, his eyes bulged out further, he kept his mouth mostly closed. He was trying to be professional and not laugh at such base joke.

me: "I mean if its really curly it could be anyone."

Then he lost it and started laughing out loud. We never spoke about it ever again.

Anyone working with one the IEC61131-3 languages?