An exciting engagement!

An engagement, a raise, and Developers, Developers, Developers!

Adminisk8or

12/11/2022

It's weeks like these I wish I could take and spread out over the more dull weeks, so that there'd be more to talk about on those weeks, and less to overwhelm this one. But what can you do?

First of all, without a doubt, the biggest and most important thing to happen this week was my brother-in-law getting engaged. He and his (now) fiance are in charge of a comedy group event at their university, and we got together as a family to head up and see their last show before they leave. But what should happen near the tail end, but as part of a sketch, he poses and proposes to her, and she says yes... and everyone chuckles a little, but then he smiles and with a sober voice is like, "That wasn't a joke by the way, that was real". And we, as well as the whole audience were in an uproar! It was a really cool event! And I think I speak on behalf of the family when I say, we're excited to welcome her as part of ours.

So, now that I've mentioned that first, I don't feel too bad about stealing a little of the spotlight on myself this week, because a wonderful thing happened in my life, as well. For the past couple of months, I have been troubled inside, because I had a feeling that I should soon look for other work... but not a strong feeling. I would say "if that makes sense", but I think it's all too relatable for most of us. In any case, I started applying to other places, and probing out a bit. This past week, I had an interview scheduled with a city government for an IT administrator position- and a pretty well-paying one, too- which was scheduled for Thursday. I also had my annual review scheduled for Tuesday, so I knew if there was a prime time to pose my position, it was then.

Tuesday came, and my interview got bumped up from 4:30 to like 3:45- which I learned about 5 minutes prior. So, I was already anxious, and now I was all the more nervous. But to add to it, one of my coworkers just went through his interview, and I learned only an hour or two prior to mine that he decided to quit, because they weren't willing to raise his pay to what he wanted. I was now all the more anxious, and I started to realize, this was probably it. Where he was probably only asking for a fair, small raise, the one I would be asking for would be a 35% increase and probably even higher. I was a little anxious, because I love working where I do and doing what I do, but I knew that I also had to do what I needed to.

My review began, and I told them straightforward my situation- that my wife was out of work for the time, that we're trying to save up for a house (hopefully in June, crossing our fingers), and that I had a better offer potentially with another company. To my surprise and amazement, I was told, "Yeah, we could probably accommodate that". I walked away from that interview not exactly knowing what to think. But admittedly, I was kind of jumping with joy inside at the idea that things might just get better for me. As I returned to my work, a half hour or so later, the company owner (we're a somewhat small business) was walking by and asked me to "come help him with something". I followed him outside towards his truck, laughing a little nervously, but then, the moment we got outside, he turned around to me and, with a very resolute voice said, "Don't quit. Whatever you do, don't quit. We'll do what we need to, but please stay on with us." I was almost speechless. To be frankly honest, in that moment, there was a little lingering doubt in my head what to do, but looking back, the fact that not only were they willing to bump my pay to where it should've been, but that I was appreciated like that? I think I learned something that day about what it means to have a good job. At the end of the day, yeah, the most important factor is making a good buck- but there's a lot of work places that can offer that. Only a good workplace can offer that and make you feel like you are an integral part of the company.

Now, I say that with a lot of caution and with a big disclaimer. First of all, the reason they were willing to do that, as I was later told, is because I am a good team player, work hard, and do good at what I do. To be frankly honest, I didn't exactly think I was. Sure, I tend to put forth a good effort and put in my good share of work, and I will always do whatever I can to see a task through to its end. I suppose I even work with my team a good deal, but I seriously never did feel quite fully confident in whether my higher-ups saw it the same way, and it made me a little nervous, sometimes. But the fact that they apparently do is a really nice confidence booster. But it does go to show that some efforts make all the difference, and even only a few admirable traits, if they are practiced well, can make your light so shine. Second, I would be somewhat hesitant to write this on a public blog post like this, unless it was for the fact that I know this blog is still pretty niche, so by the time anyone I know at work reads this, it'll probably be quite a while from now- if ever, haha.

But yeah, it was a wonderful thing that happened! So wonderful, in fact, I accidentally stayed so long at work, distracted with my thoughts, I almost ran late to an event where I was singing with a group. And aside from that, it's been no quiet week, for me. I unexpectedly rebuilt a phone server at 7 AM, I remounted new lights on my dad's trailer, I replaced some hookups on my own car- that was a fun situation. I also staged an Office365 tenant-to-tenant email migration. About a year ago, I performed one from an onsite 2013 server to the cloud- this time, it was cloud-to-cloud, and let me tell you, Microsoft really makes it as stupid as possible. They really cloud have made an intuitive UI to do this all, but instead, you have to look up a KB article, follow along CLOSELY, use the Exchange web Powershell for two different clients, using literal scripts that should instead be UI features, and then deviate from the instructions a little, because Thank you, Microsoft. On top of it all, this migration method is a rather new one in Office, so of course the documentation on it is not only sparse, but stupidly hard to pull off unless you know all of their technical jargon. I'm serious, if I ever find myself within 50 feet of a Microsoft Executive, whoever is there with me, restrain me- for their safety.

And that's about all I think I can share this week. Wherever you are in this world, stay safe, have a good week, and if you see a Microsoft Exec, walk away quickly. Until next week, see ya!