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Hi Folks,

 

One topic that I don’t think has been addressed or discussed is VeeamON in relation to all of our many duties and responsibilities. How do you fit it in? How do you deal with the extra stress levels?

 

VeeamON was a success and thoroughly enjoyed by all who attended but we would be kidding ourselves if we thought that it did not add extra pressures in our daily lives. 

First of all some of us might have to convince the  bosses of this world that a trip to VeeamON is not, as the British would say just a “Jolly” i.e. vacation have fun only party. Yes we have fun but there is a lot of intense activity and knowledge transfer back and forth. I personally come out of VeeamON with my head exploding with new ideas and initiatives that I have gained from the sessions but even more from simple in person one on one conversations.

 

Then there is the fact that no one is taking away the day job. Some of the folks there were having to simultaneously work during the conference or after hours. I myself for two evenings had to perform a massive VM migration (leveraging Veeam replication 🙂 ) from 9 PM until 1 AM in the morning. As many of you know my last 3 years have been all Kubernetes and I only did enough Veeam to get me past the VMCE and VMCA exams, hence the preparation, reading and lack of confidence in abilities (if you don’t use it you lose it type of fear) made this procedure all the more harder. Luckily all went well.

Now saying all that I did not have the pleasure of sitting in an airplane on the tarmac for 3 hours as others did so I can’t really complain too much. 

Some of the folks travelled from far away and jet lag took its toll as did for me in Prague. 

 

So my question to everyone here is how do you deal with events, work, travel all the while running IT 27/7 IT shops? What expectations do you set to customers, employers and others about your availability? 

Finally, what is your recovery strategy and do you have one? Should I drop the books and K8S clusters for the first week back and just binge watch some zombie TV show? 

I think the people on the community can share not only their technical know how but their “life” skills as well, since many of us face very similar challenges.

 

 

 

Hey @Geoff Burke ...this is a decades-old dilemma really, at least for me. I think the first question a person should ask themself is ‘what are my career goals?’. If they wanna advance, then they obviously need to put in extra time both during work hrs (when time permits), and off hours..to gain the needed knowledge to meet one’s goals. The other question folks should ask themselves when it comes to (v)community involvement is ‘what contributions am I willing to provide?’, ‘what can I provide?’, and ‘how much?’. Depending on the answers to those questions, one then also has to decide what to contribute & when/how often.

At the end of the day, I think work, community, and recoup balance comes from knowing oneself. Truly knowing oneself. Sometimes we can surely fall into the trap of over-committing ourselves to the point of burnout. Several community colleagues have shared posts on this very topic. I think even Matt Crape did a post on this a few yrs ago or so? What I personally do is every so often take an inventory of what I have going on at work, and what I want to contribute to the community. The past 4-5yrs what I started doing is set & look to accomplish personal goals (learn new tech, new or renew certs, etc) at the beginning of the yr & continuing until I accomplish them, which generally goes from around mid/end of Jan till May, with a week break in Mar. I also start more community involvement during this stretch because some of what I do/contribute goes hand-in-hand with my personal goals. 

I generally focus more on my community contributions mid-year till the beginning of Fall. Then, I generally break away...not completely….but mostly...the last 2-3 mos of the year to recharge & refocus. 

Anyway, that’s my personal strategy. Hopefully you’re not overcommitting yourself, and if you feel you are, maybe it’s time you take a short (or long?) hiatus to recharge and rejuvenate. At the end of the  day, the communities you’re involved in will continue to function until you return, and the certs you want to achieve and/or renew aren’t going anywhere 😊

Reach out if you need a listening board or if I can help in any other way. 

Cheers!

@coolsport00 Excellent answer. I think your long experience in these programs (Vanguards & Legends) has helped you develop a very workable and logical strategy. Having a longer term plan seems to be key. I must admit I personally have been somewhat reactive instead of proactive. It is an area I need to work on. Also your point about knowing yourself is perhaps the most important point of all. How much can I do? How much rest do I need? There can be many answers to those questions due to our very different life situations. 

Thanks again, this has made me think more now about having a long term plan which encompasses not just work but community and activities which was simply not present in my case.

@Geoff Burke happy to help. The strategy I shared certainly is what I’ve grown to develop to work for me; others may need a different approach, or maybe take my strategy but tweak it a bit to do what works best for them. I think what you said is a very eye-opening self observation → being reactive instead of proactive. Certainly take a deeper look into why that is and what you can do to lessen the burden of doing so.

Yes, knowing oneself has definitely been a key for me. It can take time for people to get to that point, and even then it’s still a learning process because we get older and things change in our lives. One thing I had to learn over the years is to not feel guilty about taking a break and taking some ‘me time’. Remember, doing so is SELF-CARE, not selfishness. 

Cheers.

This is definitely a fine line of balance to focus on all these topics.  Working from home full time has allowed myself to do this with an easier time than travelling for 3+ hours per day to go to an office - this was the hardest part to do when you are wasting time travelling to work.  Now I love my job so don’t take this as travelling to your job is a burden just happens, I chose where I live.

Now that I have been full time at home, I am able to focus on the many things that make up my IT career like my job, community, blogs, etc.  I try to take time first thing in the morning to catch up on socials and emails before getting into my work.  This lets me enjoy the community for a bit before starting work.

I will then focus on work until lunch to get many tasks done.  I then have a block in my calendar from 11:30 to 1:00 that allows me time to step away to eat lunch or even do some training, reading, etc.  I then focus back on work for a few hours in the afternoon before winding down at the end of the day with maybe a blog post or other study activities.

This will be put to the test next week as I need to study for my VCP-DCV v7 exam on June 10th and need to pull out Shane’s notes.  😂

I also ensure to take the time away from the screen and keyboard especially on the weekends where I rarely check anything work related or even community related.  Weekend is family and me time to keep the balance.

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