Es-Kay-Be

Hello WWW,

Still kicking, and a little harder these days. I went on a weeklong road trip to Oregon for some responsible vacationing (social distancing via camping) and then I started a new job - hurray! I'm now in the DevOps realm as a deployment engineer. It's been a very interesting transition as I start remotely training for my new role. It's not particularly tricky working from home, but it's certainly an added challenge to learning my new responsibilities. That's okay, though! It's just another skill in progress to add to my crayon box.

Remote aspects of all this aside, the process of indoctrination has been radically different. Whereas training for my previous workplace was almost completely unstructured, this one is the total opposite. I imagine in normal circumstances (not in a plague), the syllabus is even further fleshed out. The HR on-boarding is streamline, and there's clear, mostly upkept documentation and videos for many of the tasks under my role and the roles around me. That last bit largely supplements screen-share shadowing, which so far requests for have been well-received by everyone I've approached.

Like with all new jobs, familiarizing with "the way things are done around here" has been the biggest hurdle. However, the use of popular industry tools to get things done is a welcome undertaking. I'm excited to start using things like script repos and release automation software! And having had previous experience big data logging and RPA applications, I don't completely feel like a fish out of water. There's just so much to stay hyped about that, for the most part, it eclipses much of the anxiety of starting a new job.

Speaking of anxious feelings, who else feels their stress levels rising when they watch footage of crowded places? Like, from any point in time. I was watching a modern-day movie that was recently released, but obviously not filmed or set during the pandemic. During a scene where the main character was riding up a packed elevator (without masks!), I felt a sudden onset of panic. These are the time we live in, people! It's all still so crazy to me.

Anyway, so as we continue to live cooped up in quarantine, here are some of the recent ways I've tried to stay entertained:

• Binged Halt and Catch Fire. My god is this fictional show about the revolution of the personal computer and the growth of the internet good! Not only does Lee Pace make a sultry sales engineer, but the rest of the characters and the storyline are well-developed and stay within the realm of possibility. It's not cheesy or overdone; it's like if Mr. Robot and House of Cards had a baby.

• Listened to SO MANY episodes of the Darknet Diaries podcast on Spotify. 10/10 recommend this podcast to anyone in a relative industry, but also anyone interested in listening to fascinating and terrifying stories about the dark side of the internet and information security.
  • Subsequently, I went on a pentesting research spree, ordered a DefCon Safe Mode pass, and tried keeping up with some of the events.
    • Complete disclaimer: I'm 100% unqualified to make any claims to glory in this area of IT.
      • AKA, please don't come after me because you can absolutely crush me like a tiny, insignificant bug.
• Renewed my subscription to Duolingo. Duolingo can also be used for free, but I hate ads and the ability to use offline is pretty handy. Plus, sometimes I feel more motivation to stick with something if there's some monetary commitment. My interest in Japan, Japanese things, and (of course) anime has reignited, so I'm working on the Japanese course. I made it up to Ruby level once and I'm hoping to surpass it this time!

Well, that's all for now. I have a part 2 post in the works to follow the one I did on StreamReader. This one will be on automatically printing department reports on specific printers from a server. So, fingers crossed my distractions don't get the best of me!