----------------------------------------
New Horizons
Jun 17 2021
----------------------------------------

I will be keeping this brief today, but I thought I would take a
moment and talk about what's going on and why it is such a big deal.

This last week, I accepted a new job as a systems and cloud
administrator, leaving behind a position as a network administrator at
a small network management provider.  My long-term goals are to gain
more experience in high availability systems and cloud administration,
above all under Linux and enterprise technologies that run under it.
This move affords me that opportunity.

I made some wonderful friends here, among very qualified
professionals.  I had enough faith placed in me that I could
dramatically change how we did our deployments (utilizing Ansible and
Docker particularly), and there was even a chance to flex my
programming muscles and help develop a commercial product.  It was so
much more than network administration that the title barely fits.


Even so, my mid-term goal is to become a DevOps engineer, and I need
more experience in that department than my current job can provide.
My employers have been very understanding of this and wished me the
best.

Here is what they had to say:


"I wanted to let you know James has decided on a career change and
will be leaving us officially June 29th.  We've loved getting to know
him and hope he finds lots of success at his new company.  They're
lucky to have him!

James will be finishing up documentation and projects he's working on,
along with handling the daily tickets and showing his newer coworker
the ropes.  As you can imagine, we will all need to chip in as needed
until we fill the role.

I can probably speak for everyone when I say, best of luck to you,
James!  You'll be missed by everyone!"


And I will dearly miss them, too.  What a gift it was to have such an
employer.


Onward and upward.