{"id":118455,"date":"2021-07-28T21:36:58","date_gmt":"2021-07-29T01:36:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/?p=118455"},"modified":"2023-01-18T14:39:07","modified_gmt":"2023-01-18T19:39:07","slug":"have-you-been-in-it-for-too-long","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rbach.net\/index.php\/have-you-been-in-it-for-too-long\/","title":{"rendered":"Have You Been in IT for Too Long ?"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

\"Have<\/a>Friday, July 30, 2021, is the 22nd annual System Administrator Appreciation Day<\/a><\/strong>. to commemorate this special international day of thanks for System Administrators – here are 7 signs you have been in IT for too long. Apologies to Jeff Foxworthy<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n

If you still “burn” CDs – You have been in IT for too long<\/h3>\r\n

\"100Have you burned critical files to a CD (or DVD) as a backup? There was always the risk of an unreadable disk, especially if you used rewritable (CD\/R+) media or cheap media. Writing in one device and reading in another could be tricky too. Good luck getting a new computer with a CD reader in it to read those disks if you still have any.<\/p>\r\n

If you still have a box of floppies – You have been in IT for too long<\/h3>\r\n

\"5.25Floppy disks<\/a> were called that because they were floppy. You could bend them. They come in different sizes. In my first tech job, I spent a lot of time with 8-inch floppies IML-ing (rebooting) IBM equipment. Image the amazement when the 3.5-inch rigid floppy disk that held 1.44 MB came along. A full Windows 95 install required 21 1.44 MB floppy disks (and several hours).<\/p>\r\n

If you know what a modem sounds like – You have been in IT for too long<\/h3>\r\n

\"\"<\/a>Before the days of cable modems and 5G we had to connect to the Internet with phone lines. The modem would convert the computer’s digital signals to some analog noise<\/a>, that would be transmitted through the wires and reconverted to digital again on the other side. A typical connection speed was 9.6 kbps.<\/p>\r\n

If you know how to disable call waiting – You have been in IT for too long<\/h3>\r\n

\"Call<\/a>If you ever had to use *70,,xxx-xxxx to disable call waiting (rb-<\/strong> Yes- only seven digits<\/a> too<\/em>). \u00a0You had to add these special characters to your modem dial string to prevent call-waiting from dropping your glorious 9.6 kbps connection in the middle of an AOL session<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n

If your coffee mugs have logos on them – You have been in IT for too long<\/h3>\r\n

Before COVID killed tradeshows – you could always score a few coffee mugs for SWAG<\/a> at trade shows.\u00a0 Now I am going to have washout my coffee mugs.<\/p>\r\n

\"\"<\/p>\r\n

If you know what a punch card is – You have been in IT for too long\u00a0<\/h3>\r\n


\"\"<\/a>Before personal computers were a thing, companies used mainframes. In order to program the mainframe, people had to use punch cards<\/a> that could hold 80 columns of data. They would need to punch a deck of cards, keep them in order and feed them to a reader.
I never had to deal with punch cards in the workplace. I did take a Business Computing class and did have to write a “hello world” COBOL program. That was enough.<\/p>\r\n

If you played Pong\u00a0 – You have been in IT for too long\u00a0<\/h3>\r\n

I remember going to Sears and getting Pong. We came home and attached the splitter thing to the antenna terminals on the back of the TV, turned the dial to Channel 3 (rb-<\/strong> No remote controls in those days<\/em>) and presto we were playing PONG for hours. Sure looking back at the low-resolution images (sometimes a ball would look more like a square), the 3 monotones of the blob moving back and forth, and controllers with just one button, pale to what an Xbox<\/a> puts out. But it was a lot of fun for an 8-year-old.<\/p>\r\n