anotheranon | I *know* things

For most of the week before the Atlanta trip, I was in training for work.

We've been working with the latest version of a web traffic analysis software package for the better part of 18 months, and around December the analytics team (me and another woman) decided that we'd learned all we could on our own - it was time for one of us to go to training. I'd missed my chance to take it in the fall when the class filled up, so I jumped on it.

And rather (un?)surprisingly, I've picked some things up in the 10(!) years I've been in this industry.

Some history: I've worked with several versions of this software, and remember way back when I'd have to run it on my own PC and go to lunch because it ate all the CPUs :P Over the years it's expanded into a server-based behemoth with a lot of capability and corresponding "moving parts", all of which have to work in concert to generate sensible data.

I've long felt like an inadequate IT professional because I'm not a comp sci major and I never specialized - I've done HTML, programming (not the same thing), database design, and taken classes in various scripting, graphics, backend etc. over the years: jill of all trades, mistress of none. Yet it's taken me this long to realize that my patchwork background can be helpful in some contexts: I "speak" just enough developer, database, and backend to make this software do a lot of swank things, now that I know how to get at everything.

It also helps that I can translate tech for "laypeople" - non computer professionals can get pretty sick of the jargon and seem relieved that I can explain stuff to them in terms they can understand. I've been helping a couple of friends with things and I think I've actually helped rather than confused them further!

And none of this should surprise me as

jlsjlsjls, among others, has lectured me over the years about the value of being a generalist and how the world needs more of us, but this is the first time I've managed to translate that to something useful at work instead of jumping between things.

It's a useful, integrated, nice feeling.