The Work Thread

[Auspice]

OK.
Rant time again.

Being a professional writer is hard in a specific way.

I love it, but one thing is: people don't understand the 'creativity' requirement.

Many jobs are just sort of: get the work done did.

And I'm not negating the difficulty of said work. I've worked in various aspects of IT (help desk, sys admin, network admin). Even just 'data entry' levels of these can be grueling. The thing is, however, it's still often just 'buckle down and get it done.'

Writing, such as content creation and documentation has a creative component to it.

'Take this task, within this tool, and develop the best approach to walking a user how to achieve it.'

Esp. when you tack on creative the graphical elements.

Some days it might seem like I'm not getting a lot done, but I have on one of my screens a draft I've been writing/rewriting all day because it just won't gel. Because I need to keep stepping away until it 'clicks.'

Which makes it hard when a boss comes in and is like 'why isn't this done' in that 'Why is everyone else on my team able to get things done quickly and you can't?!' tone of voice (while everyone else's jobs are 'assemble this data into a presentation' or 'insert this data into a spreadsheet' or 'call these people').

I'm sorry.
Creativity isn't always 'on tap.'
The first draft is not always the last draft.
Some days what I write first gets scrapped completely (happened today) and I have to start over.

I love what I do, but I hate the effort in getting others to understand.

[Packrat]

@Auspice I can really sympathise there, not that I write for a living, but I started writing recreationaly and actually got an audience. I was running one of those 'write along as people vote' choose your own adventure type stories on a forum and it got to the point where anything up to a hundred and fifty people were voting each time along with probably a thousand readers. It was fun! Not to mention gratifying, I think I was up to fifty or sixty thousand words deep and people were recommending the thing I was writing to each other. Great!

Then I hit a complete mental brick wall, burnt out and stopped with basically no warning. I can only imagine how bad that would be if that was also one's livelihood not just a hobby.

[TNP]

@Auspice

Dorothy Parker (or someone) said

I hate writing. I love having written.

[L. B. Heuschkel]

@Auspice Well said. Especially about the creativity on tap part. I am a writer as well -- now retired and trying to get published, previously a copywriter -- and it could not be more true. I think part of my deep love for mushes and tabletop roleplaying is that it lets you tell a collaborative story, sharpen the pencils of your imaginations, exercise your tropes, and practise your writing all in one -- and have fun at the same time. I am hopelessly addicted to storytelling.

It's just that writing on your own is a very lonely experience. The process from rough storyboard to published novel is literally years, sometimes decades, during which you and your story are entirely alone with each other.

That's why I need to step out of my own head and into a fandom or a game to practise, or the well dries up due to lack of human interaction.

[silverfox]

finger steeples I just made the last second decision to throw out my lesson plans and go in a completley different direction.

The kids will be back in three minutes so LETS SEE HOW IT GOES.

(I think it'll be fiinnneee. They've designed and now are building compound machines from simple machines to complete a task. The only argument will be "BUT I WANT TO PUT THAT PIECE IN.")

[JinShei]

My first class of students had their test today. Some (who came to class regularly) did brilliantly, and others... well, least said. But it was exciting and exhausting!

[Tinuviel]

Well since we've turned this into the teacher thread, for the moment... I need to be more organised. I set year long assignments for a few of my classes at the beginning of the year. Now I have to grade them all in a week to get the reports done in time because I'm an idiot.

[JinShei]

@Tinuviel said in The Work Thread:

Well since we've turned this into the teacher thread, for the moment... I need to be more organised. I set year long assignments for a few of my classes at the beginning of the year. Now I have to grade them all in a week to get the reports done in time because I'm an idiot.

I feel your pain. I agreed to move the assessment to today, and then just now realised that the board is on monday and I have to write a report. Before Monday. Bollocks.

[tek]

I've discovered I can use the "Dear Baby Yoda" video to get students to complete work in class because they really want to watch it.

[Lisse24]

While this is the teacher thread ...

I just wrote a piece on teacher self-care during the holidays. In my intro, I argued that teachers needed to keep their stress levels low because it will help them, but it will also help their students!

I kinda hate that this profession is so mired in martyrdom that I feel like I have to convince teachers that taking care of themselves is really just taking care of their students.

So, all you educators out there: Take care of yourself because you work hard and you deserve it.

[JinShei]

@Lisse24 Very true! It seems to be a shocking idea to my colleagues that we take lunch, that we don't work on the weekend and that people don't call us on AL. Have you guys read the thesis whisperer? It is about university but... relevant

[Lisse24]

I have not, but I'll add it to my list!

[JinShei]

@Lisse24 She is excellent. I own her book but only by her kindness. It is called "how to be an academic" or is in Australia. It has another title in US. I couldn't find a copy to buy that wasn't large print, and so she posted one to me!

[Tinuviel]

@Lisse24 But how will I know I'm doing well if I'm not constantly panicked and losing hair?!?!

That was a joke.

[Ghost]

Confession.

I'm stressing the fuck out about this CISSP exam.

I've got a 1000 page book filled with test questions and material, done about 40 hours of online videos, and the test requires you hit a 70% or better in 100 to 150 questions. From 8 months ago to now I've watched my pre-test scores go from the 60s to the 80s. Haven't hit 90 yet but OMG WHO THE FUCK CAN REMEMBER THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN NIST800-64, ISO12007, and ISO12207 and THAT AES128 uses 10 rounds of encryption and AES256 uses 14. I imagine most people in the IT world have about 30-45% of those "number and acronym salad" terms memorized and use other resources for the stuff they forget. (Which one was 10 again? Oh yeah, 128.)

Danger zone? Every. Reddit. Thread. Says stuff like "oh the test is nothing like the pre-tests on any sites and this resource (one I didn't buy) is the best."

Probably going to cram hard on this for the next week or so, continue test runs, flash cards, etc. The test is not as crazy as some others, but what it does is that it will seek to run you through 100 questions in 3 hours with the following caveats:

1. If it detects with 95% accuracy that there's no way you can pass 70%, it will stop you early. YOU SUCK. GO HOME LOSER
2. Minimum 100 questions, all weighted with secret weights. 25 of the questions aren't scored and are designed to collect aptitude information. So the acronym salad stuff may or may not be weighted more by questionably (or more immediately) critical concepts like evidence gathering, core integrity concepts, and infosec logical thought questions.
3. If you hit question 101 (it hasn't stopped you because it detects you may still not hit 70%) you have until question 150 to get to 70%

However, if I pass I have the highest sought infosec certification in the current IT world and become a member of ISC(2). So...that would be sweet, right?

Anyway. Sigh. No pressure. The time is coming.

[Tinuviel]

@Ghost said in The Work Thread:

I imagine most people in the IT world have about 30-45% of those "number and acronym salad" terms memorized and use other resources for the stuff they forget

Absolutely. I can't speak for high-end IT, but academics of all stripes use every available resource they have to avoid having to rely on their memory. Not that we don't memorise things, we just know that it's far better to remember how to find a whole bunch of things than remembering a single thing.

The skilful use of search engines should be an integral part of school computing exams.

[Tinuviel]

To continue my point, but branch out a little, that's one of the biggest problems I have with the education system I work under. We're told to teach, rather than educate, and we reward memory rather than comprehension and understanding.

If you comprehend a subject, you might not necessarily remember exact details of which battle was where at what time, but you know how to use resources effectively to look it up. There is absolutely no way a human being can remember all of human history, or all of computer science, or all of mathematics. But we can remember how to find things out, and that's far more important.

I'd much rather focus my time on teaching how to learn than what to learn.

[silverfox]

@Lisse24 said in The Work Thread:

So, all you educators out there: Take care of yourself because you work hard and you deserve it.

This is not an easy thing.

[Ghost]

@Tinuviel Weird innit? During school, looking at other people's work or asking other students to double check your work is considered cheating, but its VITAL to adult survival in the corporate sense.

I believe that I can pass this test and that it's just this big scary gate to help weed out the IT people from the chumps that think memorization matters.

See, the reason this CERT is so desired is because...

1. Instead of memorizing terms it is designed to ask questions that ask "what is the right thing to do?" over "what is the definition?". So the cert isn't about having this ticket, but about vetting way of thinking
2. If you pass you become a member of ISC(2), which you are kicked out of if found guilty of improper infosec behavior, hacking, etc. You have to upkeep the certificate with study/conventions/seminars or you lose it. So it's like a kind of bonding.
3. You cannot get this cert without relevant work experience.

So I'm just nervous because this certificate would provide a whole lot of reassurance in one's ability to find work.

780,000 information security workers in America.
Approx 350,000 information security openings

Approx 87,000 CISSPs in America(11%)/136,000 in the world and it is predicted that the number of cybersecurity jobs waiting to be filled will soon hit 3.5 million.

I cannot stress enough that with leaner processes like Agile and Cloud growing, the headcount for system administration will drop and clearly security is where that headcount is going.

[Tyche]

@Ghost said in The Work Thread:

You have to upkeep the certificate with study/conventions/seminars or you lose it. So it's like a kind of bonding.

And pay $700 to pass go. It's a good racket.