Monday, January 19, 2009

Show me no mercy, Severine

I returned yesterday from an installation in Indiana. For the most part it was a snoozer, but it also tested me in ways I wasn't really expecting. It amazes me how little things can make a huge difference.

When I first started this job almost 4 years ago, my skills lay in troubleshooting PC problems and working with PC hardware. Networking was definitely a weak point. I have since learned enough networking to do my job, but I haven't really gotten beyond that. The only hurdles I ran into on this install were network related, and I'm proud that I was able to overcome them. The highlight was when I had to telnet into a Cisco router to dig out the info I needed to replace it with my Netgear router. I had never used telnet before, had only heard of it in passing. Shockingly, I got the info I needed and replaced the router without incident.

I am a very nervous driver. It took years before I was able to drive out of the state on I95, simply because there are *gasp* 3 lanes of traffic. Now, because of my job, I sometimes have to drive in 6, 7, even 8 lanes of traffic. Although I'm still not happy about it, I am able to make the drive. On this trip however, I not only had multiple lanes of traffic to deal with, I also had 3 snow storms to drive in! The fact that I was able to drive in and out of Chicago, and home, in the snow, without incident astonishes me. The fact that I was able to do that and actually walk after driving is proof to me that I am finally beginning to relax a bit. For me, that's a huge accomplishment.

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