After 4 1/2 years at Infinet/GMTI working as a Unix systems administrator, I left on October 31st and started a new job with EDS working on the Navy Marine Corps Intranet contract. In a matter of days I went from being “the man” to just “a man”.
I am now a Senior Systems Administrator working on web and win2k issues for NMCI users. I’ve been there for 3 weeks and I figure it’s time I shared a little about my thoughts and experiences.
GMTI was a great place to work. I was basically the senior troubleshooter there. I had many responsibilities, from backup administration to load balancing and network troubleshooting. I worked 5 days a week and had a very flexible schedule. The people are cool, and the work environment was awesome. Those were the positives.
I was also on call all of the time, and I felt underpaid for what I did. I was also very comfortable there, which I count as a negative. Comfort leads to apathy and I was not doing my best work over the past few months. I think you have to consistently challenge yourself in order to grow as a person. That includes your job, your religion, your relationships, everything. I reached a point where I was no longer challenged, and I wasn’t excited about any of the tasks I was working on. I had stagnated and was ready for a change.
A friend of mine who works on the NMCI contract forwarded my resume along and I was hired because of my experience dealing with web site issues at GMTI. I took the job for 3 reasons. I got a 15% raise, I now work on 12 hour shifts and am not on call, and I get to work in a new and exciting environment on new tasks. So far everything is great. I’m enjoying my 2nd 4 day weekend, and my family is enjoying it too. So maybe there were 4 reasons, and my family is reason number one.