As some of you may have heard, as of Nov. 9th, Im leaving The Zimmerman Agency to become the Ops Manager for the FSU Northwest Regional Data Center. I am alternately sad, excited, and terrified about this. The first, because for as intense and crazy as it could be, Z is a place that defines itself. The folks there do things their own way, and win or lose, in a world where everyone is madly proclaiming their individuality all the while making sure to follow a trend or twelve, Z is one of a very few places that forges its own path, what everyone else is doing be damned. It is a mad, mad, wonderful place, and I shall miss it dearly. FSU is a huge change for me, a leap into an area I havent dealt with on a large scale, (or really anything you could call a scale) since 1993, when I separated from the USAF. Im going from a primarily technical position to a primarily management one. Im going to have an actual staff, and they, much more than I, will be responsible for how well I am seen to do my job. For someone whos spent the first 20 years of their civilian career being the one responsible for how well they did, thats a little terrifying. But its exciting as well, because thats the tradeoff, right? If you want to move from a place where you carry out other peoples decisions and policies and get closer to where you can actually help make the decisions and help set the policies, you have to learn to let go of the servers and embrace the spreadsheet. But at the same time, if the only person who knows what I know is me or primarily me, then what good am I really doing anyone but me? This is also a chance for me to do something I love, namely sharing, teaching, and learning on a level that requires well...size. Its a move from a small company to a much larger company, and from commercial to a state university. In its own way, its as much a change as going from a life insurance company to a small advertising agency was. I know tech. Even as much as it changes, it stays the same. And machines, things, after a while...theyre just machines and things. Early in my career, I lived to play and fix the things. But now, now it is people that interest me, that fascinate me, and the chance to move into that area, to have people be my first care and worry...its a leap, but its one Ive been ready to make for some time now, and this is one hell of a leap. But if you never leap, you never see whats on the other side.
Posted on: Thu, 02 Oct 2014 01:03:20 +0000
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