Culture Shock

It's amazing how much a change of scenery can change your perspective on work.  I left my last job voluntarily in order to get my life under control and to find something that is a different pace.  I have found it.

This is an example of an average day in my previous life:

"Here's a link to something and get back to me in 15 min as to what your thoughts are... Why haven't you responded??? Why aren't you at your desk looking at what i just sent you? We have a meeting about this in 10 min and i need feedback!!!"

This week I'm researching SCCM and Identity Finder Enterprise . Both products will be going live in the near future and we have to set them up. I've never set up any Microsoft Server project of this size but I'm not worried. I've been given time to research this and find solid documentation. I've got a partner who knows the infrastructure better than myself to tag team this with. I'm not worried in the least bit.

Instead of feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of setting up an SQL server among other things, I'm more concerned with trying to prove my worth that i was the right choice to bring on board. I'm not worried about how I'm going to even find time to look at this while I have a hundred other problems, an obscure problem within Citrix that no one else is working on, and still need to orchestrate phone moves for people in the cube farm.

Last week I fumbled my way through an install of Server 2003 and then a very ugly install of SQL. This week I'm hoping to start from scratch and learn from my mistakes so that this guinea pig can be much much less ugly. Learning on the fly... with enough time to make notes!

So far I'm impressed with what I've read of Identity Finder. It looks very straight forward and has good reviews. I can't help but wonder if Microsoft has said anything about them creating a product that looks like it's copying the default Office 2007 theme. On the back end this looks like it'll take a bit of work to do but shouldn't be too bad. Right now we're in the middle of figuring out if we've got the green light for a license. If so we'll scan user shares first and then roll it to desktops. This could be done sometime in the next month or next year.

SCCM seems to be quite a beast to set up even with the step by step instructions . Everyone is saying that it'll be worth it. I'll be making notes of my mistakes with the hopes that I can learn from those too.

Scotty... Please don't beam me back up to the ship yet!