by As a system administrator I get chained to my monitor most of the time …….I had to pause to make sure no hardware crashed where I have to run a few floors to the NOC. But it is true. If we aren’t replacing hardware or pulling cable we are looking at a monitor. Well some of us might be looking at two or more of them. We sit through on line meetings, read emails, logs, config files and much more. The one thing we can do to save our sanity, and our limbs, is to get up to get some more caffeine (except for us that beat out bodies up early on and have to do decaf) but we can put things on hold and take a stroll, or switch to a different project to change the pace.
Recently I started to see a new trend where training will be held on line for those that can’t make it. This is fine if it is a short video that you can stop, start rewind and maybe save for future reference. But to sit through a long training session that might be three days in person to me seems like torture. I don’t know what could be worse torture.
With cost cutting going on everywhere I think that type of training is not the way to go. True it is expensive at times but besides the training for the specific topic/device/protocol the trainee gets the benefit of other people in the room bringing a different perspective. The networking a person gets from an in person training session is much more beneficial than having them sit at a monitor and take the course.
Some of you may disagree and that is fine. At this point in my life and career I hope I am sitting by the lake with my Fishing pole and a beverage of choice before I am told to come to conference room A to have my Neural connection inserted into the back of my neck.