A couple of months ago, one of the two Unix specialists over on the network side of WPNI left the company. During a conversation I had with the other Unix guru he suggested I should put in my résumé for the open position. “Me?” I asked, somewhat bewilderingly. “Sure, you’re plenty bright and you already work here,” he said. Well.

I had to think long and hard about doing so, though. For one thing, I really like working with Express and interacting with the rest of the company. The job itself is stressful but not disastrously so and the people are the best users I’ve ever supported; all the clichés about tech support that I’ve heard (and lived) are pretty much nonexistent at this job. Even though I’d eventually like to move out of user support and into computer support instead, that’s hard to give up. Even worse, I’d have to entrust that role to someone else, and that’s always been a problem for me wherever I’ve done support: frankly, I consider myself pretty damned difficult to follow up. Yes, I know everyone is replaceable, but I’m really good at what I do (one of the few things I may be good at, but still) and I tend to be a little protective of the people I’m responsible for helping.

My other major concern was that I might be a little inexperienced for the new job. Due to an assortment of factors, they were looking for either an experienced sysadmin who could dive in right away, or a less-experienced but familiar quantity—in other words, if they couldn’t find someone to fit the bill experience-wise, I would be pretty much the only junior candidate considered. Even though I know they would have allowed for some ramp-up time, I still felt a bit overwhelmed at the prospect of going from a help desk tech to a system administrator in essentially 2-3 weeks.

Fortunately or unfortunately depending on one’s outlook, they decided to go with the more experienced candidate, so I didn’t even have to go through an interview. The new hire apparently has extensive Solaris and WebLogic experience already, which can only benefit us all in the end (and yes, I’m still innocent enough to care about my employer’s long-term needs in addition to my own). Plus, she requested a MacBook Pro for her workstation. Yeah, we ought to get along pretty well. (If I were going to be in when she started, I’d put one of the eMates on her desk to gauge her reaction.)

What I’m hoping is that I can end up working with her and our other Unix admin to build up more skills over the next 6-12 months, in case another opportunity to move to the network side opens up. Apparently it was a tough call to pass me over, and I seem to be well-regarded by everyone, and I’m not really interested in looking elsewhere just for a Unix job (how many companies in the metro D.C. area don’t require a college degree to even be considered? very few, I’d guess) so I have no problem with being patient. All in good time.