Aug 07 2018 46 mins 8
Welcome to episode 3 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two VMware Solutions Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode, we discuss career advancement’s effect on work/life balance and hero-worship in IT.
Original recording date: 2017-12-21
Topics
1:48 – How does career advancement affect work/life balance?
- Listen to Packet Pushers Episode 369 – Work / Life Balance in IT
- Does work / life balance exist?
- How do John and Nick define the concept of work / life balance differently?
- Departments operating shorthanded can cause imbalance.
- See Scott Alan Miller’s article The Smallest IT Department.
- In the podcast above, Greg Farrow says work / life balance of an individual could be a byproduct of the company using subpar products (software, hardware, etc.).
- Low product cost does NOT equal fragile.
- High product cost does NOT equal bulletproof.
- Having overworked employees impacts business financials by contributing to turnover.
- Do we properly track this and communicate it up the chain, especially for salaried employees?
- Career advancement often means taking on more responsibility.
- Does career advancement throw off work / life balance temporarily or indefinitely?
- Be aware of the ramp up time in a new role.
- Know the roles and responsibilities of your current job before taking on a promotion / change in role at the same company
- Listen to Dom Delfino’s (@domdelfino) philosophy as a manager and how it changed when moving away from individual contributor.
- What does Nick have to say about work / life balance after just a few weeks at VMware?
- How does PTO plays into work / life balance?
- Does loving what you do mean it’s ok to work all the time?
29:32 Tweetwatch
What do you guys think about getting away from the hero / rockstar worship in the tech industry? We’re all just people.
- Who is Lauren Malhoit?
- Cisco Blog Biography
- Datanauts Episode 82 – The Path to Automation and Coding for Ops Teams
- Co-host of the Tech Village Podcast
- Update: Though at the time of recording, Lauren Malhoit (@malhoit) was at Cisco, she is now at Juniper.
- Some folks are well-known / very successful in the technology field (blogging, podcasting, speaking at conferences, large impact radius, etc.).
- Often we want to look smart when speaking to these people, but that may not be the best approach.
- Putting people up on a pedestal is not helpful. Be appreciative of others for doing things to help you / the larger community.
- Everyone started somewhere. Listen to Virtually Speaking Podcast #64 and Duncan Epping’s first public speaking experience.
- What is John’s strategy for connecting with people in the community who have made helpful contributions?
- John’s Wade Holmes anecdote.
