Learning just isn’t what it used to be

Like probably almost anyone reading this blog, I’m a sysadmin. Specifically, I consider myself to be a pretty darned good one – years of experience, blah blah blah. One of the personality traits a “good sysadmin” has, is the drive and ability to learn new things. COMPLICATED things. No fear. Try out installing and setting up high-availability linux clusters without ever having done it before, try implementing SSL in apache, etc– you just roll up your sleeves and go. You’ll stumble, but you’ll LEARN. And you become a rockin’ sysadmin in the end because of it.

Lately, I have been wrestling with being able to do that any more. Specifically, the office in which I work has been reclassified as a “service center” of sorts. We have tons of campus customers, and we now charge back for our time. Which means *I* have to charge back for my time. It’s a result of the current economic situation, everyone needs to do what they can to survive.

The bottom line is, I am now primarily paid to simply “do”, and “do quickly”. I am no longer paid to “first figure it out really well first, then implement when it’s 100%”. There is no longer any part of my job where I am paid to learn- to improve myself, to improve my skills. And that’s a crime.

“Do, or do not. There is no try”.

Just call me Yoda.