RE: How to advance my learning as an Operator -- MIDRANGE-L

Agreed. I know that there are those in my organization (all under 25 or so)
wanting to break into IT who have instead created dubious reputations for
themselves as "Power Snoopers." I know it's an ugly Catch 22 situation (at
least it was for me for awhile) but I avoid these people like the plague. Be
open about your activities and you will find doors opening for you by those
who respect your candor (just don't expect it this instant, hard to
explain!).

Alan (still learning :)

-----Original Message-----
From: Booth Martin [mailto:Booth@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2003 10:36 AM
To: midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: How to advance my learning as an Operator


Don't do it on the sly.  The downside can be an undeserved reputation as a
trouble maker that dogs you for years.
 
Find some other way, please. 
 
 
 
---------------------------------------------------------
Booth Martin   http://www.MartinVT.com
Booth@xxxxxxxxxxxx
---------------------------------------------------------
 
-------Original Message-------
 
From: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Date: Monday, May 19, 2003 9:00:03 PM
To: Midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: How to advance my learning as an Operator
 
Hi everyone, 
 
Due to my being unemployed since Jan. 2003, I took a temp operators position
at one of the largest Pharmaceutical company's in the world, shift work, 3
days a week, 12.5 hours per shift with an alternating Sunday, fortunately
days. There are 15 AS/400's, mainframe, Win 2k, and Unix. Primary
responsibilities are AS/400. The company is constantly buying up competitors
and much of the Production and Development work is intergration. My work
involves monitoring job completions via a checklist, tape backups via BRMS,
checking for serious job halt messages and escalating. Takes up about 40-50%
of my time. They are all on V5.2, some machines have websphere, MQSeries,
advanced Java, DataMirror. The apps all home grown, not one package.
Standard third party tools for security, bar codes, etc...The problem is
what can I focus on learning that will add to my knowledge and future
marketability as the programmer that I was, or as a Senior Systems Admin
that I would prefer to be over this!
spot? I would like to learn about Websphere but I am not sure how much I can
do without a client machine. They are starting a Websphere project very
shortly. I have a PC that is connected to all the systems via client access.
Is this something that I can set up by myself? I probably will need to ask
permission. I think that focusing on Java might be the easiest and least
detectable. But I don't think I can go and create my own library. Even
compiling a program in some dead library would not work. They are very
security concious, but I am prepared to take a mild risk.
 
I am just looking for any ideas. I haven't been able to come up with much
yet.
 
Any ideas are appreciated, 
Rob 

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