Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab
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@DustinB3403 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
I don't mind working the range between hardware and actual IT, it breaks up the day. What I do dislike is things like such as troubleshooting non-working mice, or monitor issues.
@DustinB3403 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
I personally have no qualms about reporting a lack of user fundamentals to my manager, and they can pass it onward if the issue(s) persist.
For really simple things like non-working USB mouse, but the trackpad works. So the user blames IT, gets no work done on a deadline.
Um it was a battery, we have those on the shelf here, where they've been before. Plus the trackpad works without issue (and requires no batteries). This is purely on you <user>
I've never worked anywhere where troubleshooting these things were the end user's responsibility.
Heck most home users don't troubleshoot these things on their own either - they either call whomever they purchased it from, or they take it to geek squad - or simply replace it.
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I don't have any an issue in a small one man IT shop checking hardware - is it a waste of my salary - maybe/probably, but it's one of the reasons they have me here.
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Currently my home lab consists of a Raspberry Pi B+ and Raspbian. I currently have Home-Assistant and Pi Hole. Not doing much with the Home Assistant but the Pi Hole is definitely saving us some internal bandwidth as its sucking out the ads of the web pages.
Next goal is to take an old Dell desktop and turn it into a SmoothWall firewall. I have a DuckDNS but need to setup a VPN to phone home. The current problem is the absence of knowledge of server-level Linux, which I plan to start on.
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@NerdyDad said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
Currently my home lab consists of a Raspberry Pi B+ and Raspbian. I currently have Home-Assistant and Pi Hole. Not doing much with the Home Assistant but the Pi Hole is definitely saving us some internal bandwidth as its sucking out the ads of the web pages.
So the Pi Hole is outside you're local network? You're still paying the bandwidth "bill" for those adds if it's local. At least you're not seeing the adds, which is a plus with most websites anymore.
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@travisdh1 So you do have a point there. It is still within my network but, like you said, at least I'm not seeing the ads anymore. This is both more of convenience and security.
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@travisdh1 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@NerdyDad said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
Currently my home lab consists of a Raspberry Pi B+ and Raspbian. I currently have Home-Assistant and Pi Hole. Not doing much with the Home Assistant but the Pi Hole is definitely saving us some internal bandwidth as its sucking out the ads of the web pages.
So the Pi Hole is outside you're local network? You're still paying the bandwidth "bill" for those adds if it's local. At least you're not seeing the adds, which is a plus with most websites anymore.
You don't save the bandwidth? I must be forgetting how it works - I thought it blocked the request to the ad pages?
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@zuphzuph said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@zuphzuph said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
Would I hire a hardware geek on the other hand? Yes, chances are this person knows at the very least BIOS configurations, tons of software solutions and has basic troubleshooting skills. I guess it would really come down to the role I was hiring this person for in the end.
Maybe for bench work. Hardware geeks tend to hate IT.
Hmm... I must be the exception, I only ended up in IT after building PCs as a child. Still a hardware nerd to this day, by having the occasional problem/issue I learned basic desktop troubleshooting.
There have to be crossovers, but there is no direct connection between the two since the tasks are totally unrelated.
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@DustinB3403 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
Just no reason besides being in an IT generalist role that I have to deal with these kinds of tasks.
It's being in IT Generalist + Bench Generalist that causes it.
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@Dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
I don't have any an issue in a small one man IT shop checking hardware - is it a waste of my salary - maybe/probably, but it's one of the reasons they have me here.
To waste money? Interesting assessment
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@travisdh1 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@NerdyDad said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
Currently my home lab consists of a Raspberry Pi B+ and Raspbian. I currently have Home-Assistant and Pi Hole. Not doing much with the Home Assistant but the Pi Hole is definitely saving us some internal bandwidth as its sucking out the ads of the web pages.
So the Pi Hole is outside you're local network? You're still paying the bandwidth "bill" for those adds if it's local. At least you're not seeing the adds, which is a plus with most websites anymore.
Ads are blocked by not being requested, even if you block them on the desktop you still save on the bandwidth.
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@Dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@travisdh1 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@NerdyDad said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
Currently my home lab consists of a Raspberry Pi B+ and Raspbian. I currently have Home-Assistant and Pi Hole. Not doing much with the Home Assistant but the Pi Hole is definitely saving us some internal bandwidth as its sucking out the ads of the web pages.
So the Pi Hole is outside you're local network? You're still paying the bandwidth "bill" for those adds if it's local. At least you're not seeing the adds, which is a plus with most websites anymore.
You don't save the bandwidth? I must be forgetting how it works - I thought it blocked the request to the ad pages?
It does. It's not a pushed stream or something of that nature.
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@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@Dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@travisdh1 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@NerdyDad said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
Currently my home lab consists of a Raspberry Pi B+ and Raspbian. I currently have Home-Assistant and Pi Hole. Not doing much with the Home Assistant but the Pi Hole is definitely saving us some internal bandwidth as its sucking out the ads of the web pages.
So the Pi Hole is outside you're local network? You're still paying the bandwidth "bill" for those adds if it's local. At least you're not seeing the adds, which is a plus with most websites anymore.
You don't save the bandwidth? I must be forgetting how it works - I thought it blocked the request to the ad pages?
It does. It's not a pushed stream or something of that nature.
Huh, I need to look into this then. More like a proxy than the add blockers I'm used to then?
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@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@Dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
I don't have any an issue in a small one man IT shop checking hardware - is it a waste of my salary - maybe/probably, but it's one of the reasons they have me here.
To waste money? Interesting assessment
Well we already know that you believe that no company should have a one, or probably even two man IT department. Instead they should have a MSP taking care of them because they should save money this way.
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@travisdh1 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@Dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@travisdh1 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@NerdyDad said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
Currently my home lab consists of a Raspberry Pi B+ and Raspbian. I currently have Home-Assistant and Pi Hole. Not doing much with the Home Assistant but the Pi Hole is definitely saving us some internal bandwidth as its sucking out the ads of the web pages.
So the Pi Hole is outside you're local network? You're still paying the bandwidth "bill" for those adds if it's local. At least you're not seeing the adds, which is a plus with most websites anymore.
You don't save the bandwidth? I must be forgetting how it works - I thought it blocked the request to the ad pages?
It does. It's not a pushed stream or something of that nature.
Huh, I need to look into this then. More like a proxy than the add blockers I'm used to then?
As far as I know most if not all ad blockers work by preventing the browser from making a request to an ad network - thereby saving all bandwidth.
Do you know something that works by downloading the content, then just preventing it from displaying? While there is the possible advantage of getting past some paywalls that way, I'm sure scripting could be setup so the content providers would know the ad wasn't actually displayed, so in the long run, it wouldn't help much.
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@travisdh1 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@Dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@travisdh1 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@NerdyDad said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
Currently my home lab consists of a Raspberry Pi B+ and Raspbian. I currently have Home-Assistant and Pi Hole. Not doing much with the Home Assistant but the Pi Hole is definitely saving us some internal bandwidth as its sucking out the ads of the web pages.
So the Pi Hole is outside you're local network? You're still paying the bandwidth "bill" for those adds if it's local. At least you're not seeing the adds, which is a plus with most websites anymore.
You don't save the bandwidth? I must be forgetting how it works - I thought it blocked the request to the ad pages?
It does. It's not a pushed stream or something of that nature.
Huh, I need to look into this then. More like a proxy than the add blockers I'm used to then?
They ALL do the same thing... stop the request from happening in the first place.
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@Dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@Dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
I don't have any an issue in a small one man IT shop checking hardware - is it a waste of my salary - maybe/probably, but it's one of the reasons they have me here.
To waste money? Interesting assessment
Well we already know that you believe that no company should have a one, or probably even two man IT department. Instead they should have a MSP taking care of them because they should save money this way.
Correct. All businesses should strive to do business well. Distilled to the highest level there
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@Dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@travisdh1 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@Dashrender said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@travisdh1 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@NerdyDad said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
Currently my home lab consists of a Raspberry Pi B+ and Raspbian. I currently have Home-Assistant and Pi Hole. Not doing much with the Home Assistant but the Pi Hole is definitely saving us some internal bandwidth as its sucking out the ads of the web pages.
So the Pi Hole is outside you're local network? You're still paying the bandwidth "bill" for those adds if it's local. At least you're not seeing the adds, which is a plus with most websites anymore.
You don't save the bandwidth? I must be forgetting how it works - I thought it blocked the request to the ad pages?
It does. It's not a pushed stream or something of that nature.
Huh, I need to look into this then. More like a proxy than the add blockers I'm used to then?
As far as I know most if not all ad blockers work by preventing the browser from making a request to an ad network - thereby saving all bandwidth.
Do you know something that works by downloading the content, then just preventing it from displaying? While there is the possible advantage of getting past some paywalls that way, I'm sure scripting could be setup so the content providers would know the ad wasn't actually displayed, so in the long run, it wouldn't help much.
All, most definitely. There is certainly no exception to that.
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This topic came up on SW today and I noted something there that I think might have been missed here and is well worth discussing - one of the key reasons that you want people who are doing IT at home is because those people are more likely to be passionate about IT and bring that passion to work. Happy workers are good workers. But more than that, I don't want to create jobs that people hate. Why hire someone into a job that they inherently dislike and don't want to do when there is someone that actively wants to do that job waiting in line for it? Makes no sense to punish someone that doesn't want to do the job and punish someone who does want it by hiring the person who doesn't like doing the work.
You should WANT to take your work home with you. If you love what you do, there is no reason to desire leaving it behind. Likewise, I'd never ask people to forget their families when they come to work. The idea that work is a place to ruin your life for 40+ hours a week is insane. If someone dislikes IT, it would be best for everyone if they found a career that they loved. Certainly better for them, more than anyone.
It's not about company greed, hiring passionate people is literally a form of compassion.
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@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
This topic came up on SW today and I noted something there that I think might have been missed here and is well worth discussing - one of the key reasons that you want people who are doing IT at home is because those people are more likely to be passionate about IT and bring that passion to work. Happy workers are good workers. But more than that, I don't want to create jobs that people hate. Why hire someone into a job that they inherently dislike and don't want to do when there is someone that actively wants to do that job waiting in line for it? Makes no sense to punish someone that doesn't want to do the job and punish someone who does want it by hiring the person who doesn't like doing the work.
You should WANT to take your work home with you. If you love what you do, there is no reason to desire leaving it behind. Likewise, I'd never ask people to forget their families when they come to work. The idea that work is a place to ruin your life for 40+ hours a week is insane. If someone dislikes IT, it would be best for everyone if they found a career that they loved. Certainly better for them, more than anyone.
It's not about company greed, hiring passionate people is literally a form of compassion.
If you don't love what you do, then why do it?
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@nerdydad said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
This topic came up on SW today and I noted something there that I think might have been missed here and is well worth discussing - one of the key reasons that you want people who are doing IT at home is because those people are more likely to be passionate about IT and bring that passion to work. Happy workers are good workers. But more than that, I don't want to create jobs that people hate. Why hire someone into a job that they inherently dislike and don't want to do when there is someone that actively wants to do that job waiting in line for it? Makes no sense to punish someone that doesn't want to do the job and punish someone who does want it by hiring the person who doesn't like doing the work.
You should WANT to take your work home with you. If you love what you do, there is no reason to desire leaving it behind. Likewise, I'd never ask people to forget their families when they come to work. The idea that work is a place to ruin your life for 40+ hours a week is insane. If someone dislikes IT, it would be best for everyone if they found a career that they loved. Certainly better for them, more than anyone.
It's not about company greed, hiring passionate people is literally a form of compassion.
If you don't love what you do, then why do it?
Exactly. In the SW thread, the first thing that I noticed is how much people who didn't like the idea of having a home lab literaly hated their jobs (and I assume, their lives.) They said things like they would never bring their personal life to work and they'd never bring their job home (and by extension, their career - they seem to connect their job as the sole manifestation of their own careers, which makes no sense - very 1890s industry factory worker mentality.)
I would never want people to ignore their families and personal lives when they come to work. What an awful thing to expect. And I'd hate to hire people who hate their jobs and see coming to work as some sort of punishment for being human. The expectation that work is awful is palpable.
