On Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 03:25:23PM -0500, Lamar Owen wrote:
On Friday, February 18, 2011 02:54:38 pm Ray Van Dolson wrote:
In an industry where one-man companies are not uncommon, you learn to never read too much into titles. :)
True enough.
While my title is 'CIO' it probably should be 'IT Department' as I only have a consultant and a group of volunteers to help me out. But the title does open doors that other titles would not open, in those venues where such things count. Bob Hawkins at EMC calls me 'Mr. Make-Do' and I have been tempted to get some cards printed with that title on them....
On tech lists I find the title to be more of a negative, since the word 'suit' ends up being bandied about.....the only time I wear a suit is when the occasion demands (like the Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina is visiting). Otherwise it's mostly 'business casual' and even jeans, depending upon what I'm doing that day.....
In any case, that's one reason I typically drop the .sig completely on this and other lists, unless the situation warrants.
The problem with being essentially a one-man IT department (or a one or two or three man distribution release team) is that can create bottlenecks.
And I've found that having help doesn't always reduce the workload or make the work go faster, and I'm sure Karanbir and Johnny and the others doing the release (you know who you are) would agree.
Or, to pull out the standard computer science / information systems reference, read 'The Mythical Man-Month' and get enlightened.
You can change your .signature depending on who your audience is I guess. :)
I was thinking of times when we've interviewed people for $DAYJOB who are applying for a SysAdmin spot (because that's what their skillset essentially was), but they list such things as VP of IT, CIO, etc on their resume because they were at a small shop.
Obviously always exceptions.... but as you alluded to, "know your audience" is a good rule of thumb.
Anyways, way off topic, but interesting discussion.
Ray Undisputed (and sometimes Benevolent) Emperor of Ray's Linux Endeavors