Not to down play Rick's move or what he says, but I think nearly any sane person has concerns when moving to a new position. It is new, it is different, it is outside of your groove. People will express this fear in different ways, to name the extremes, some may be very quiet or shy, some may be over talkative and buoyant with just a touch (or more) too much excitement and trying a bit hard to prove themselves.
Before I start nearly every venture I have the whole "well this time I am going to fail" thoughts that flood through my mind. Actually I documented the latest case of it back in June on my blog concerning my work on AD3E (http://blog.joeware.net/2005/06/08/32/). I often get this feeling of "I really am a hoax and I have just been lucky so far" or maybe "people are going to realize I am not actually good at this, I just spend more time than most thinking things out ahead of time". I can think of only one job that I took in my life that I didn't have these concerns/fears/butterflies and that was when I returned to the "widget company" I had previously worked for through another contract house after a 6 month summer break and I was going to work for the same manager I worked with previously doing the same basic job but more focused on AD. I was completely confident in what I was going to do, who I was doing it with, what my ranking in that environment was technically, socially, and politically. There really were no unknowns for me other than some weird issue cropping up that I had never seen before and I had previously proven myself to the management as one of the best people to tackle items like that so knew I didn't have to prove myself to anyone. Stuff like that doesn't happen often though. I find that being a little fearful is good because it keeps you on the edge and paying attention. Don't, however, be paralized with fear, that isn't good. There are three basic things that will occur when you take a new job or take on some new project/task/whatever: 1. You will suck 2. You will do ok 3. You will do great So from that little list, you can see that the chances are mostly that something good will happen. Or at least that is what I always tell myself. I am in complete control on which of those I will fall into so I work towards #4 and hope to hit #3. My main advice to anyone taking a new position, in the beginning listen a lot, talk very little. When I first started at one of the smaller divisions of the "widget company" back in the mid-90's for the first month or two people thought I was mute. I said very little to nothing, I simply absorbed. As I learned the goals and dreams and aspirations and rules of the org such that I could make a valid suggestion in light of their goals, I started to speak more and more until I never shut up. The next piece of advice is to not be afraid to ask questions. It may sound like the dumbest question in the world, but if you don't know and you have to make a decision based on it, it is one of the smartest questions you can ask. Over the years I have asked thousands if not hundreds of thousands of questions that some people some where may consider dumb, I have no problem with it. I ask them here on the list as well. It is one of the reasons I try to be helpful and answer as many questions as possible that I have some form of answer for. Basically in the end, if you don't know. You don't KNOW... So ask. If you don't know or aren't sure and no one else seems to know, go for a logical guess and try to verify. Or if you are explaining something, use verbiage such as "I believe" or "I think" or "it appears" or "theoretically" to warn people that this may not be 100% guaranteed. If you go back through all of my old posts on this list you will see a lot of those word combinations. Usually what I said pans out as I try to not speak out unless I have a fairly good idea but sometimes I have been dead wrong and welcome being corrected so I don't say the same wrong thing again. Finally if you don't know and really have no good solid idea, say "I don't know but I will certainly try to find out.". This is one I went around and around with with MCS and PSS Alliance guys who worked the widget company account. We weren't stupid, we knew not everyone could know everything. Heck it is impossible to know everything about AD even if you are one of the developers. We much more respected and would listen far better to someone who would say "I don't know but let me find out" versus someone who would say something wrong but say it authoritatively. My advice to you Tom if you take this position. Find out what the scope of your position is and stick to it. Once the problems float outside of that scope, recommend things but do not push your help into those areas. In a small company you may have to fix everything, in a large company there is no way you can and trying to will simply spread yourself too thin until you can't manage what you are supposed to be taking care of because you are managing everything else. I learned this the hard way as I moved into larger and larger orgs until one of my greatest friends of all time sat me down and explained that character flaw to me. She was quite clear that I can't save the world or even a large company and trying to do so will just kill me. She was really concerned as I took on larger and larger projects and "became" each of them. Basically, at some point you have to trust the others and let them do their job because you can't do all of the jobs. When you move from smaller environments to larger environments, you have to watch out you don't take the "you are responsible for everything working perfectly" mentality with you. On the flip side, once you have done the Enterprise work well (or as a couple of my good MCS friends are wont to say "after we were wrecked for all normal work by doing Enterprise work at the widget company") it is tough to work in smaller environments again because you find it more difficult to look at the overall picture and be responsible for all of it. It is nice that you can say, that isn't my scope or focus. joe P.S. Change control means something very different in an Enterprise company with hundreds of thousands of people distributed globally than it does in a company of less than 1000. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rick Kingslan Sent: Saturday, July 23, 2005 11:06 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: [ActiveDir] OT: new job Tom, Make no mistake - you are experiencing many of the same 'fears' that I am. I have a BIG responsibility as I take on assignments here for Microsoft. The first question that I asked myself is "Am I REALLY good enough?" The first thing that I was told by my boss was "You have some couple hundred to a few thousand folks to call on directly. If that's not good enough - I have a Company of 60,000 that are interested in your success. We aren't going to let you fail." Though that makes me FEEL better, it's still a lot to take in given that I was _THE_ source of knowledge and architecture at my last company. Now, I'm a minnow in a big pond. And, it's really OK. You may not directly have the resources that I have to call on, but WE are still going to be here for you. Good luck - now go get it! :O) Rick -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Kern, Tom Sent: Saturday, July 23, 2005 1:40 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [ActiveDir] OT: new job Thanks for all your replies. This really helps. As I told Al offlist, I'm gonna start asking you guys for relationship advice. Also as Al pointed out,I'm most def a generalist. I'm the only engineer at my current job with 400 users. I do the DNS(Win and BIND) as well as the routers/switches,firewall,AV,DR,wan links,Blackberry server!on top of AD/Exchange. Pretty much everything but help desk. I'm a jack of all trades and master of none. My fear is that I hope I'm up to the AD/Exchange. In my current ebvoirment I never had to worry about unattended installs or RIS or security in a real specific way or object attributes and under the hood replications,etc. While I know a lot of this stuff in theory, thanks to books like Inside AD,2nd ed and Robbie Allen's cookbokks and screwing around at home(and sometimes with the live network:) ) We all know that's a far cry from really knowing it. I just hope I'm up to it. Thanks -------------------------- Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld (www.BlackBerry.net) List info : http://www.activedir.org/List.aspx List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/ListFAQ.aspx List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/ List info : http://www.activedir.org/List.aspx List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/ListFAQ.aspx List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/ List info : http://www.activedir.org/List.aspx List FAQ : http://www.activedir.org/ListFAQ.aspx List archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/activedir%40mail.activedir.org/
