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Muted-Part3399@reddit

> but in my day we made a cup of tea for the more senior tech's and then got them to show us some stuff so you can go play with it at home in a lab

I feel like there's a generational shift here. we don't need a senior tech to show us something new in order to do somtehing new, its all online. Ofcourse if you want to learn something in particular you talk to the senior maybe more infastructure wise

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hkusp45css@reddit

I build teams and have for 20 years. One thing I see in your process is that you're expecting them to be productive off the clock.

Stop that.

Give them the time and space and tools (paid) top learn while they're at work.

I give my teams about 5 hours a week, paid time, to learn new tech and develop interest in new skills. I pay for 3rd party training platforms (HTB, CBTNuggets, Udemy) and we buyu Ebay hardware for "development infrastructure" to give them the hands on they want.

What do you mean you still don't know how to do xyz? It's been a year.

Oh, did you finish all that other 8-12 hours of work yet? Why are you on plural sight?

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sysadminalt123@reddit

Exactly. When I was in college or in a internship, I had a homelab, studied for certs, etc. Once I got a real 9-5 job I lost interest in my homelab. I just didn't have the time for it and a full time job

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Yep, I just have a unraid server and call it a day. It's easy and simple enough that I don't really need to tinker much with it. In the past I had 4-5x Vcenter cluster of servers and everything which now just makes me feel bleh

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It's a fine idea, but that's all it is, an idea.

What jobs don't? Nobody who is head of their class in any industry got there by just learning on the job and not investing in themselves on their own time.

It was really frustrating for me. I wanted to use the pluralsight subscription, but genuinely felt like I did not have time. My employer would not let me expand the team so I was desperately trying to get people to skill up to take on more workload. If he had wanted what I wanted, he might have provided me with the ability to do it myself.

The kicker was a couple of months later when he came and asked about getting a raise and potentially applying for a different role. I was straightforward with him, we need people that can do the job, not people that we are going to train to do the job. If you want a job like this, you need to be working toward that, not just expecting us to give it to you and then hands on train you in every aspect.

He was a great guy, but man he drove me crazy.

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TerryLewisUK@reddit (OP)

I like this idea

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TerryLewisUK@reddit (OP)

Do they end up respecting the privilege or does it just get normalised after a while ?

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brillant_yogurt6748@reddit

As somebody who was afforded this luxury when I started my career - yes, the privilege and autonomy is respected. It’s great for morale, and being afforded that time made me pretty damn grateful to my employer. It showed that they wanted us to succeed together, I was a worthy investment to them. When you’re in that position, you just end up doing better work. Less autopilot through the BAU because you truly want to be a team player.

It’s anecdotal, and of course there are exceptions to this, but it can really bring the best out of people in the right circumstances.

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umpfke@reddit

I'm an older guy trying to get into the sysadmin / hands on it infra world. Hoping for this exact scenario.

HR gives me a shot.

Having a used laptop or whatever lying around is more helpful so they can practice screwing something up then reverse engineer the solution.

Final, no senior is willing to sit down and teach fresh people who barely know cmd prompt or powershell etc.

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Tsujack@reddit

Another thing coes to mind now.

You could use something like HTB and still they have no clue as to what's going on and it is explained better with a face to face or teams,discord etc call and be far more productive and they get better training from it.

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SkankinPickle@reddit

Are you hiring? 👀

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anderson01832@reddit

where do I apply?

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silent_guy01@reddit

We got a genius right here

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PenguinsTemplar@reddit

I always insisted on at least 4 hours of professional development on the clock. When you pay them to do it, you can TELL them to do it.

At home? That's when I paint my Warhammer figs and pretend I'm an ork. I want quad pay to interrupt that.

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hkusp45css@reddit

When you pay them to do it, you can TELL them to do it.

This is actually one of the chief reasons I do it.

I can require it, track it and use it as an opportunity to coach and develop the team.

I haven't had anybody fight me on it yet.

I *can* say that I'm not interested in firing someone over it, but I don't think someone who was having trouble meeting the ProDev requirements in my team would be a good cultural fit in a lot of other ways.

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Standard_Ad_2484@reddit

Actually sane take and the mark of a great leader. It is completely unacceptable that my job gets to monopolize my free time as well.

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UncleToyBox@reddit

I 100% agree with the paid time to develop skills.

We have a test domain configured where my guys can go crazy without breaking anything.

This was common at both of the previous shops I worked in over the past 20 years.

Mentality has always been that tech changes all the time so we need to invest to be prepared for those changes. How do we know the best way to apply AI to end user roles if we're not reviewing?

I give my teams about 5 hours a week, paid time, to learn new tech and develop interest in new skills

Secretly_Housefly@reddit

Yeah, if tinker time is important, schedule it. If learning is important, schedule it. If skilling up on a new tech is important, schedule it. What the OPs post really sounds like is "Why don't these folks want to donate free labor to the company?"

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apandaze@reddit

its not as cool to make your job your entire life anymore

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WWGHIAFTC@reddit

It was always weird.

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kahmeal@reddit

Nah it was alright when there was good reason for that kind of passion — still is. It’s just those reasons are a lot more rare than in the heyday of the tech boom when we all couldn’t get enough of everything.

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Zenkin@reddit

The problem is that this doubles or maybe even triples the burden on the business. The business pays for training/materials/certification. The business pays for the time the employee is in training. The seniors at the company must spend time training or otherwise pushing the junior employees down the path. And then there's the risk the employee leaves after being trained.

I'm struggling with this same issue. We have spare hardware, and lab software, and explicitly approve of them spending company time training, and reading materials, and a budget for training materials. But the juniors I have still won't drive themselves to the point of actually learning things on their own. I have to trade running training sessions with one of our other seniors, and it's the only time they seem to make any visible progress. Despite multiple requests, they do not provide input on training materials they would find beneficial, or structure which could make them more successful. It's like they need to be force fed.

I honestly want to help, but I'm starting to lose my mind here. They make more money than I did with similar experience, even accounting for inflation. I've never given an annual raise below 4%. We never call when they're on vacation, and our on-call situation is very mild. I do everything I can to treat them like professionals. I'm starting to wonder if I'm harming their long-term development because they aren't being pushed into "sink or swim" scenarios like I was at MSPs, and it's stunting them because they don't seem to have the initiative to do this at their leisure.

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Responsible-Win5849@reddit

That's wild to me, I'm assuming there's room/opportunity to move up and take on additional responsibility and roles as they complete training and prove competency?

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Zenkin@reddit

Yeah, some of the training is explicitly to be a backup for and eventual partner of the current network admin. We have a fleet of Linux systems which could really use more time and attention than I'm giving them. Although I guess that's not a specific role, it would certainly come with more money.

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SirLoremIpsum@reddit

The problem is that this doubles or maybe even triples the burden on the business.

The flip side is that it doubles or even triples the burden on the individual.

I need to work X hours.

I need to then study, at home in my off hours to be better at work (Y) hours.

Then I need to purchase lab hardware / virtual equipment at home to do so.

And you may say "yeah investing in your own education is an important thing, mechanics have to buy their own tools etc" and I don't necessarily disagree but expecting people to put in their own hours for what should be work sponsored training is off the nose.

We never call when they're on vacation,

Should be the norm, not a 'wow well done' lol.

On the job training should be the expected part. Just as everyone is decrying "no one wants to work anymore", I decry "no one wants to train anymore". Everyone wants to hire fully qualified people as entry level wages.

You offer entry level wages, and entry level titles - this is what you get. You get people new to the industry that need hand holding and training.

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Det_23324@reddit

Perhaps since they are juniors they don't really know what they need to learn or what they should be doing. They may be waiting for the more experienced members to tell them what to do which makes sense. I would plan some projects for them that you believe will enhance their learning and make them do those. They could setup their own AD environment. Just point them in the direction of googlefu and youtube videos that they can follow.

The other part of this is that unfortunately not everyone is super self-motivated and willing to do these types of things. These people typically aren't going to move up the ranks and if they don't have a desire to do these things.

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TommyVe@reddit

Well, thing is that many of them won't ever get paid enough unless they start trying beyond the necessary business tasks. Don't take me wrong, I am definitely not sweating a promotion or whatever, but unlike many of my colleagues, I'm constantly intrigued to learn something new rather than just passing it onto a more experienced person.

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ButtThunder@reddit

Some of us want to learn more and advance our careers, some not. Those that don't shouldn't be looked down upon, but if there is someone more capable when it comes to promo time, you will know who to choose.

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Simply_GeekHat@reddit

I also have seen this but Motivation to do it is key. I too am a Greybeard back in the day I was putting my hands on everything tech because it was new. It isn't new for these kids it doesn't excite them. One of the bonuses of setting up home labs and putting in the "work" is that you could get certs and improve your pay. Most companies don't care anymore if you get a cert or save the day, you might get a pizza party. So why put in effort if it doesn't excite you and you aren't getting any more pay?

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Xaphios@reddit

I resisted going into IT as a career because I wanted to keep it as a hobby and I simply can't have both. I'm either able to hit it full steam all day or be interested in the evening.

I don't want a home lab, and I will NEVER try to get any of my guys to have one. If they WANT to have one, cool, good for them.

I tell them to enjoy their time off, and to use time at work for learning. To take classes if they want, but we will schedule them some learning time and classes as well that they will get paid for.

Let your juniors enjoy their time off work.

I will also gladly learn new things, but during a time period when I'm being paid to do it. There is no reason that I should have to sacrifice my family time to learn something new, when I can easily do it during paid time.

Work/life balance.

It really is important.

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therealtaddymason@reddit

I would never MAKE someone have a homelab because I said so but it's... Disappointing to see the lack of interest when I bring it up or ask about it.

I don't tinker around in mine as much anymore because it runs the way I want but the stuff I learned getting it all to a good spot just doing some self hosted stuff has been invaluable to a point that is hard to put into words. There's a certain amount of self direction that is required and expecting some kind of formal learning plan with classes is.. nice if it's possible but not that common in my experience.

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Bogus1989@reddit

thank you. this….

reading an article and clicking the preselected areas isnt “training”

to me.

the fully working, system, live and all of its components running in a live domain environment ….over in the corner…

thats makes one feel a whole lot more confident.

in general online training doesn’t prepare you for all the in betweens not mentioned.

however i understand the training on the companies time concept, your time is your time….

companies should offer real labs like the guy mentioned above.

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therealtaddymason@reddit

Companies should do lots of stuff but they usually don't. So younger folks can do the penguin meme and cross their arms and go "well now I'm not doing it" or come at it a different way.

Should it be that way? No. Is it? Yes.

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JimmyMcTrade@reddit

It's interesting, during the pandemic I was changing careers. I was learning as much as I could at all times in the day. But I also was not working and was taking a "diploma" course in the field.

Now I am working and I still want to learn a lot of stuff but after work I can't. I need to work out, cook, do laundry, take care of the pets, and have some time with the missus.

As much as I'd like to learn to set up some cluster of whatever the hell in a homelab, it's like... nah bro. My soul's well-being is not replenished with a homelab.

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InvoluntaryNarwhal@reddit

Fucking this. Fetishizing unpaid work and decrying its absence as lacking ambition is one of the biggest blights on our industry.

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ErikTheEngineer@reddit

I absolutely hate how some people claim that if you're not putting in 50+ hours a week, then coming home and spending nights and weekends in a homelab, that you're not "passionate" enough for this line of work.

Yeah, I had one, and I worked on it enough that it actually caused problems with my life outside of work.

I've since learned that it was something that I would NEVER subject my people to being required to have.

I didn't have it just because I "wanted to learn". I had it because it was expected by my seniors that I would have one, and that I would learn and study outside of work hours. Because that is how it was done.

That bullshit cycle needed to be broken, and if I'm the one who can break it in my chain, then so be it, I'll be the first one to break it.

It's bullshit to even intimate that if you don't have a home lab, then you aren't working and learning hard enough.

My guys have time to take CBT's and study for certs. On the clock. During the working day.

It is scheduled in there if they want it.

Period.

End of story. There is no requirement or even hints that they should have a home lab. I tell them straight up when they get hired. "If you WANT a home lab, good. But don't spend a lot of time on it, thinking I'm going to promote you faster because of it. I won't. If you want to learn, get with me, get with the CBT's that we have, or sign up for a class for a cert. We will pay for it. We will pay YOU for it."

The bullshit ideology that you need to be working and learning outside of office hours is just that. Bullshit.

My family is more important too me, and yours should be too. So should all the people that work for me.

Life isn't what happens at the office. Life is what happens outside of the office, and it's WAY more important than any bullshit that you are going to learn stuck in a home lab.

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logoth@reddit

Do you provide a non classroom style and/or non certificate based learning path for your staff? A test lab that they can tinker with, break, etc while on the clock?

I had a home lab because I learn by reading, trying things, observing, reading more, and adjusting. I'm capable of classroom learning and tests, but I hate it. For me it's slower and a frustrating experience, causing me to not want to pursue it. The only reason I take any cert test is to verify my knowledge or add it to my resume.

Understandably, you need to verify that they've actually learned something, somehow.

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Banluil@reddit

Yes, that is what the CBT's are for. They sit in their office, and work on it at their pace.

Not sure why you think that it's in a classroom.

Certs are there if the WANT them. We do not require them for promotions or for anything.

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logoth@reddit

I misread your initial post some. That's awesome. (I was also counting things like boot camps or video lessons in the classroom style umbrella)

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jordanl171@reddit

tech was a hobby for me..still is. like I said, I wanted to do it outside of work. that's all. I agree with your points in general. for sure, home lab can't be forced on people. and what's a homelab anyway these days? a web browser.

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dlongwing@reddit

"I know im competing with Netflix and Gaming"

I wasn't going to comment, but I have to admit this set me off. If they're off the clock, their time belongs to them. What they do with it is up to them and the world is hard enough without expecting junior techs to work an extra 20-40 hours a week on training for their role.

If you want them to learn new tech? Give them interesting projects with real impact in your environment. Pick a backburner project and ask them to research it. Give them space in their task list to get that done.

My boss assigned a T1 helpdesk tech to spin up our first Proxmox server. Is it perfect? Heck no. Ready for prod? Nope! The dude made a bunch of mistakes.

We'll probably burn it down and do it again before making it live for VMs, but you'd better believe that tech LEARNED something from the process.

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Ducaju@reddit

sadly, enshitification makes tech less and less fun over time. there is just less interest. i'm 38 and would not advise young people to go in this direction.

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ms6615@reddit

Idk man I have an office 365 license and my personal computers are set up through intune/autopilot and it’s sick as fuck. If I break anything or it gets goofy I just go to the settings, reset from cloud, and come back in 3 hours to a fresh computer that works and has all my apps reinstalled. I’ve never had more fun playing with computers.

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42 here, yeah I feel similarly. A lot of the people gawking in admiration of 100k+ salaries, don't realize you'll spend at least the 1st 5 years at a much lower rate and working a brutal oncall. I went through the crucible years when I was younger so I could tolerate it but now in my 40s, I'm grateful I was able to get into a Senior enough of a role that I don't have regular oncall responsibilities, beyond the implied that all SME's have.

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Massive-Chef7423@reddit

its more like the 1st 10 years now FYI, source I'm at year 8

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Intelligent-Throat14@reddit

It is same situation here..hard to compete with the smartphone in their hands 24/7

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Weak_Fan4541@reddit

I’m a junior in tech and it’s so bloody hard to find a senior willing to give the time of day haha

Perhaps it’s not a generational thing but more of who’s actually working for you… Maybe when hiring next ask what personal projects they’re doing in their spare time rather than focusing on commercial experience and education exclusively. Gives you an idea if they see this as a career or just a job.

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This is exactly WHY I have a lab. To me, a “career” always seemed like something with reciprocal investment. You work hard for a company and they invest in you in return by helping train you and give you new skills and further that career.

That isn’t our culture anymore though. You are expected to have all the skills before you get any job and they won’t train you or give you new skills because you’ll just quit and go work somewhere else for more money.

So if I want to make more money at any job, it’s my responsibility to go out and get the knowledge and skills myself. I think the Gen Z kids have half of it right, in that you don’t owe it to your employer to improve your skills on your own time…but there is a high chance you DO owe it to yourself.

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Weak_Fan4541@reddit

Yeah but I would say you owe it to yourself to learn in your spare time. When I say career I don’t mean just within one organisation but rather your own professional journey.

I have no intention to stay in one organisation my entire life and I don’t think many people do these days.

Personally, I see it as a two way street, whether both parties always put in their fare share is another story

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New_Enthusiasm9053@reddit

My homelab is so I can learn to do everything, true full stack from server deployment through to backend all with the goal of being able to transition into working for myself.

I can't stand the idea of working for someone else for 40 years.

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brianinca@reddit

Half of what you make is what you learn. True in 1985, true in 2025. HOW you go about learning may be different, but if you're in this biz and DON'T want to learn all_the_time, then go somewhere else for a career.

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bitslammer@reddit

Yep. Been caught up in orgs being bought up, laid off during COVID, offshoring etc. and quickly learned it's just business. I then started taking the same stance in the opposite direction.

424f42_424f42@reddit

Well id want them paid to do it as well.

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Simply_GeekHat@reddit

u/Secretly_Housefly Some jobs do require practice—I'd hope a surgeon practices plenty! I wouldn’t want someone operating on me who hasn’t spent hours perfecting sutures and identifying the squishy parts of the human body. Pro athletes practice constantly, and chefs are always experimenting with their craft. The same could be said for tech professionals who see it as more than just a job.

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ProfessionalEven296@reddit

"I'd hope a surgeon practices plenty!"

Yeah.... but not at home off the clock.... :D

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Simply_GeekHat@reddit

there is not off the clock for a Surgeon... and you are not comparing apples to apples. To make it to the level of Surgeon you need to put in the work. If you have a JR admin that doesn't want to be a Senior or higher then they will not put in the work. 90% of the admins I know in the industry do not even have a BS degree.

Total Hours Invested

Based on common estimates:

Undergraduate Study: \~4,000–5,000 hours (assuming \~1,000-1,250 hours/year).
Medical School: \~6,000–7,000 hours (\~1,500-1,750 hours/year).
Residency: \~15,000–20,000 hours (assuming 60–80 hours/week over 5–7 years).
Fellowship: \~3,000–5,000 hours (optional).

Grand Total: \~28,000–37,000 hours over 13–16 years.

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Simply_GeekHat@reddit

Sysadmin:

Total Hours Invested:

Education: \~4,000 hours (for a bachelor's degree).
Certifications: \~1,000–2,000 hours (over time).
Work Experience: Assuming 2,000 hours/year:
Junior to Mid-Level Roles (5–7 years): \~10,000–14,000 hours.
Senior Roles (5+ years): \~10,000+ additional hours.

Probably has already been mentioned before. But me at 28m. I’ve seen both sides to this. Ultimately, our industry is severely overworked and undervalued. Expectation of keeping up work after our work hours have been the norm in the past. That and basically being force to be available 24/7 every day of the week.

Younger peeps are just seeing how messed up it is. I recently became a manger with a team of 4 in a separate division of my company. We hold firm with our work life balance now. We don’t take calls first thing in the morning and after 4:30 pm. If it’s an absolute company stopping emergency. User have to notify their managers while making the ticket and my boss has to be notified.
Stuff like that. We work very hard and keep things running. But I want my guys at 100% when an emergency happens. Not mindless zombies that are drained. Now I am going to pour a bourbon and listen to a c suit vm tell me how he can’t remember his PW again. Love y’all.

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TerryLewisUK@reddit (OP)

Learning is Eustress (happy stress) not bad stress though ?

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Apfaehler22@reddit

Oh yeah 100% agree. My first job out of college was a MSP. Trial by fire and fire hose of information. But my thing is, IT is constant learning no matter what. But closing that door and turning it off. Allows me to keep and retain that information.

I don’t need to know everything in IT and I don’t want to. Things constantly change. It’s more valuable in my eyes to understand how to quickly research, troubleshoot, and documentation.

You understand those processes, you don’t need to be constantly learning after working your 9-5. End of the day it’s just a job. Love my work but I need clarity and peace of mind to come back to the job I love.

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94711c@reddit

I think this is a bit of survivor bias. What percentage of the people you worked with actually went "above and beyond" and how many just drifted off after a while? I'm willing to bet you don't really remember many of them, espeically those that didn't stick to it and moved on. But you might remember those who wanted to know more.

Fast forward to today - I think the percentage of people "really interested" is the same, but now you have visibility of everyone, including those who don't give a fuck and go home and play. So it feels like most people today don't care, whereas it has always been like that. You simply didn't have a full picture.

When it comes to work/life balance, people are absolutely entitled not to learn new things OOH and game and watch movies all day. And companies are also entitled to hire, and compensate better, people that don't. I'm not saying everyone should put in 12 extra hours free labour every night. I'm saying, in a competitive market, you have to show something that others don't if you want to stand out. If most people play games and you're the only one that in their free time learns, experiments, and upskills.. then you stand out.

I think you should try to find the gold nugget person that cares and has the insatiable curiosity you need, and mentor them. Everyone else can work 9-5 and go home and YOU SHOULD NOT CARE ABOUT THEM.

One last remark - not everyone can put the extra time OOH - some have family, special needs, care duties, hobbies and whatnot. These people will become probably your best allies in the future because you saw the individual and not just the co-worker.

PS: that bright kid that goes above and beyond you helped grow and learn and invested so much time into..? They'll fly the nest faster than you can expect, and that's OK. If you can be truly happy for them, they'll remember you and do the same to people they train and the good message will be passed on :)

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Imaginary-Raccoon704@reddit

Maybe the thought of 'you have to go and do some stuff in your free time' is rather outdated. Life in IT can be mentally draining enough without further tasks at home.

It's not unreasonable to not want 12 hours of screen time a day. Hobbies and free time are for yourself, not for your employer.

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I guess it depends on where you work. I'm the most senior guy and I'd love to share my knowledge, however the 4 other team mates don't care to spend the time. They just want me to hold their hand through it all like it's some youtube video.

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mad-ghost1@reddit

Same over here. I stoped teaching them , what I really love, because when the workday is over everything gets flushed out. When they have a question, which I encourage, they forget the answer when asked next day. they don’t need to put the grind in to learn something. It’s rather passive YouTube style and maybe something is sinking in. i envy another department which has a so driven person. Always eager to learn. Knows her stuff. You can see heir eyes sparkle when she talks about it. Nothing gets the majority of juniors engaged anymore.

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Catfo0od@reddit

I think it's just that the more senior guys don't have the time, but I've told him I'd jump at the opportunity to even observe what he's doing. He agreed to show me some AGPM stuff next time he has to work with it, so that's exciting lol

Idk, I'm genuinely excited whenever I get to do something more technical that re-imaging or plugging a monitor back in, but the higher up guys are in meeting pretty much all the time and usually working from home

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TerryLewisUK@reddit (OP)

Yeah to hear that is a real shame, thats the one good thing about our culture that we enjoy people will help each other out to learn new things when the passion is there. Ping me a note on what your interesting in learning on a private message ill see what we can do to help you out.

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TerryLewisUK@reddit (OP)

I've really appreciated all the feedback in this post its been really great and we have got some great data from it. I probably should of given a bit more context, our of about 60 people in our team 80% of them have come from entry level apprentice junior and make their way up to being either Software Dev, Cyber Security, Architect, Networks Etc. So we do train everyone, within work time. What I would like to see is more of the some of the people in this post who have jumped career pay grades by taking some initiative to learn on their own. Some of my engineers can take 7-8 years to get into senior roles, some of them did it in 2 years.

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bjornabe@reddit

When you were a junior 20 years ago - the equivalent to us - 40 year old something seniors you were looking up to were born in the 60s!!

60s guys are old school cool and -

1) Entered the IT industry because they were technically minded and interested in it. 2) Never dreamed of free lunch, pets & massages at work. 3) Never joined their first company with an eye on how it would affect their plans for FIRE 😂 4) Crunch required? Sure let's do it.

So before we compare juniors - compare ourselves to the above 😁

But I agree with your post - nowadays we get juniors who have 'done' schooling but don't care about the technology. At 10 we were messing around on tape based computers - at 10 they were playing in VR.

I'm sure I'll get loads of replies

"Dont expect me to be interested in my work outside of working hours la la la la - in still the best at it..."

just admit it if your not interested in IT things outside of work... you have less POTENTIAL than someone who is.

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TerryLewisUK@reddit (OP)

Yeah i think that is it, more about not being interested in tech as opposed to "working for free". Or learning for free even.

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KJatWork@reddit

I'm a line manager at a Fortune100 company and a few years older than you, so also been around a while in IT. I have dedicated cross training time to allow my engineers to pick up new skills across the tech lanes my team covers. I have arranged for tens of thousands in training classes with vendors and to maintain their certs. I do not have the sense of entitlement where I expected them to take any of that home for a lab.

Any manager that would push the narrative, "in my day we made a cup of tea for the more senior tech's and then got them to show us some stuff so you can go play with it at home in a lab" can take a hike.

Networking, so many tools are cloud subscription based with no offering of lab licenses or trials long enough to really gain comprehension. If you can get a switch and AP but half the features are locked out behind a license subscription or cloud management portal how are you going to learn it in a home lab?

Server hardware is one of the few things that is still relatively easy to get and use within reason.

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TerryLewisUK@reddit (OP)

Yep i do miss older propper tech, that isnt cloud cloud cloud

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youdumbshlt@reddit

I wish I had approval for more head counts to give my team even 2.5 hours a week and make it a part of their KPIs... its too chaotic busy for my team. And continuously nagging my upper management to give me more head counts.

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djgizmo@reddit

You can’t ’make people’ to want to learn. You have to hire (and pay) people who have the tendency to do so.

Learning on the clock as a KPI also helps.

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TheBlargus@reddit

Pay them more? 25 years ago the compensation went further and was more meaningful.

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BlackFlames01@reddit

My seniors mentored me, but I also showed I was willing to learn... and I've learned to view my work as just business, the same as my company when they conducted several rounds of layoffs.

"In 2022, CEOs were paid 344 times as much as a typical worker in contrast to 1965 when they were paid 21 times as much as a typical worker."

Source: https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-in-2022/

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evantom34@reddit

Purchasing power relative to median wage is significantly less now as well. I don't blame newer generations for being cynical and apathetic.

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mimic751@reddit

Dude I make six figures right now low six figures like 120 and it was my entire goal in life to get to that point in my career. My quality of life isn't that much better than when I was at 70,000 I felt like my dollar went a lot further a few years ago it's a huge bummer

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evantom34@reddit

Yep. 200k is the new 100k.

SirLoremIpsum@reddit

Sorry to sound like that guy, but in my day we made a cup of tea for the more senior tech's and then got them to show us some stuff so you can go play with it at home in a lab.

So you are that guy haha. "Back in my day".

Back in your day you spent your own money, and spend your own time at home to develop a lab. And sorted out work problems on your own time.

And today's employees are pushing back on that. And that's a good thing.

I know im competing with Netflix and Gaming

You need to rephrase this.

You are not competing with Netflix and Gaming, as if it's a disobedient teenager you need to get off the couch and help with chores.

You are competing with people's leisure time. You are competing with how they spend their personal time, that is not at work on the clock. By phrasing it as "netflix and gaming" I can hear the eye roll and the "urgh" from you.

But what people do in their own hours is their own business. If you want to talk down on what they do - then you're a boomer no matter how old you are.

does anyone have any good things you think works to try and get juniors more excited with playing with tech outside of their normal role.

Accept that the world has changed, and people want to do their job and go home?

Just because you were emotionally invested in a company at a young age and needed to butter up senior techs, doesn't mean anyone else is. That was a choice you made.

If you want to incentives learning and performance - you need to offer $$$ and titles, promotions based on achieving qualifications.

"new policy if you get your CCNA the company will pay for the test and you'll get a $4,000 raise. You don't pass test you pay for it yourself".

That's an incentive.

Not making tea for senior techs. That is a disincentive.

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no_regerts_bob@reddit

The demographics of IT have changed. It used to be mostly people who were naturally motivated to learn about tech, now its a much wider range of people who end up in the industry. If it's your job to create some kind of internal interest that just isn't there for a lot of people, maybe look at gamifying it? Leaderboards, challenges etc.

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many_dongs@reddit

Instead of blaming the people, maybe stop to consider the environment has changed? Most IT jobs are just fiddling with knobs on a SaaS panel now. People adapted.

Seriously, this idea that juniors are supposed to fiddle with shit came at a time when people really had more time than work. The work got way easier, the technology interfaces got WAY simpler, teams are way less staffed now, and everyone loads up their team with more work than they have time for now anyway.

I used to tinker in spare time. I still want to. But the industry and jobs changed. Don’t blame the people who had nothing to do with the changes.

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Comfortable_Gap1656@reddit

Chances are they are into tech just not into enterprise vendors. Gaming and game modding is fairly common as far as I can tell.

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I will accept free hardware if it suites me. That's about it.

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I go through period where i dont do anything at all, however i do get some kind of itch each year and need to have a crack at something new

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GosuNate@reddit

Wish you were my Manager

I’m a sys admin working for a state agency in his late 20s. I daily drive arch Linux(btw). Have servers at home hosting dev environments, databases, web servers, pihole, a trillium knowledge base, PXE, dockerized mailcow, VPN, an ansible control node. I’ve been exploring network protocols by reading RFCs and implementing them in pure python(except for the socket library). I look for creative and useful ways to use bash and powershell . I’ve created powershell scripts for standing up domain controlled AD environments in my home lab. I secure it using DoD STIGS and a compliance framework i am familiar with, then I attempt to exploit it. I do hackbox, tryhackme labs and challenges when I find the time. I secure my own network with separate security zones for different services and device types. I’m participate in a knowledge exchange discord with IT, Security, and Intel professionals who believe in the free exchange of skills and information. Im fighting uphill through a computer science degree knowing damn well I’ll never be a programmer. I even admin my Mom’s azure tenant for her business in my spare time.

All I want is for some colleague to share a common interest in technology. I want to grow in my career or for someone to notice all of this energy I have to learn and explore tech. This may not be a lot of ground covered for some people but given my unmedicated adhd, I feel like I’ve learned a lot by this point. I wish I had a manager or colleague to bounce ideas off of, but it’s the state. Everyone is phoning it in, everyone is tired, aging, and doesn’t care about tech anymore. I get it. You guy have families and dreams of retirement. I’d go elsewhere but this job market is kinda rough.

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TerryLewisUK@reddit (OP)

I agree the Job market is rough at the moment, however in my estimate you are about 5% of teach teams who want to treat their career like a sport and not a job, most of the people i know that did that in their career usually did well in life :)

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ItaJohnson@reddit

many_dongs@reddit

Of course it’s impossible to explain to people who do nothing why they shouldn’t crack the whip on the slaves

Management who actually know how to do the work their teams do, don’t have this problem

However, in America, we culturally approve of having morons in charge of

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Hacky_5ack@reddit

Some techs are hungry and others coast.

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Comfortable_Gap1656@reddit

Even more just get burnt out

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ms6615@reddit

We have 2 desktop support people who are often asking for more administrative access and more complicated things to do. Meanwhile, they can’t process terminations on time and we are constantly getting tickets from security to beg for accounts to be disabled weeks or months after the user stopped working for us… It’s really hard for me to reconcile that they want a bunch of new system admin access when they are demonstrating a clear inability to perform basic job tasks.

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Comfortable_Gap1656@reddit

Have you talked with them?

The interesting tech is not the tech that is widely used. Up until recently Proxmox was pretty much unheard of outside of the Homelab space.

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Valdaraak@reddit

IT is becoming way less interesting

Yep. That's why my interest in it has tanked these last 6-7 years. There's no hooking up a giant rack of servers or a big ole server room upgrade. It's clicking buttons in a panel. Need to upgrade your servers? Just click a few buttons and suddenly you have more space, more RAM, and more CPU. You don't even have to right-size beforehand these days because you can just change it on the fly as needed.

"Microsoft Azure offers $100 of free credit"

Yeah that is all well in good but my physical hardware doesn't place any limitations budgetary or otherwise. Telling young people to learn the cloud doesn't do much since the learning happens best in a local environment with no budget worries.

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TerrorToadx@reddit

So cringe to expect people to have a home lab and spend their free time basically working

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Izual_Rebirth@reddit

From my end it’s not an expectation at all. Just an acknowledgment that there are more people in IT these days who don’t really have the “bug”. To them it’s just a job. And that’s perfectly fine.

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Comfortable_Gap1656@reddit

I think part of the problem is the Cloud and the idea that old hardware is useless. As it turns out you can build some crazy things with junk acquired off of ebay. A lot of the younger folks are chasing high performance not realizing that a old workstation can be anything.

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Comfortable_Gap1656@reddit

People have entirely thr wrong idea for what a Homelab is suppost to be. It is suppose to be a place just to screw around. The problem is that management seems to think that you should be getting something out of it.

It is for people who enjoy it or have a reason to do it. Expecting someone to go home and then learn everything there is about some random vendor product is totally ridiculous.

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frothymonkey@reddit

It’s not possible anymore because IT departments are strangled to absolute death and management expect the entire department to run perfectly with only 2 people who are doing the work of 6

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Comfortable_Gap1656@reddit

Netflix and Gaming are tech if you didn't know. You aren't going to get someone excited to do more work especially when you aren't even paying them for it.

I personally maintain a decent Homelab for mostly for self hosting but also just to play around. The thing to keep in mind is that I do it purely for fun and the stuff I play with is not necessarily anything that would be useful in a work setting.

If you haven't addressed that last bullet point, lukewarm interest from your juniors is no surprise. People respond to incentives. I've done the "work shitty burnout job and take night classes" routine. I wanted to get out of awful jobs into better ones. But sitting in front of screens every waking hour is not healthy. Doing that is sending the tachometer into the red. You can only manage it so long. And burnout takes a long time to resolve.

As for Gaming, they could learn to do their own scripting for some games; that may use Javascript or Python. I'm the same age as you, and hell, I learned about editing .bat files playing Civilization 1 back in the day. My TTRPG group pushed Google Sheets to their limits for automating character sheets. Or you can play with Unity. They already may be doing things like this and you don't know.

You can learn more, and happily, putting into a different context. But you DO have to get off the computer eventually and be a contributing adult to your household. There are only so many productive hours in a day.

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TerryLewisUK@reddit (OP)

Yes im all with you on the family thing, and having to marshal kids around is generally really good fun, and good chill time compared to work. It is though why you should try and get as much of your career learning done before you have dependents, im not saying dont have a life, but if you play a lot of computer games and watch a lot of netflix then you probably have some scope to improve your life a bit more when your young as you wont do so much as a fully grown adult ;)

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jlharper@reddit

I’m technically a junior tech.

The honest truth is that if it’s a system we use in house I’m already learning it both on the clock and in my own time.

If it’s not a system we use or are considering implementing I am much less likely to care to learn about it - I like this job but it’s not my only focus or passion. It’s just a job.

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Read only Fridays, i like the sound of that, how does that work ?

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Valdaraak@reddit

You don't do any deployments, upgrades, updates, or any changes that can affect production environment on a Friday.

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kiddj1@reddit

No one wants to fuck up the platform before the weekend right?

We essentially say no deployments or changes happen on a Friday across the business. Unless it's mission critical.

The mornings are usually finishing the tasks in the sprint, then by the afternoon dive into pretty much what you want. I spend my Fridays playing with things I want in prod but don't get the time to explore

Every senior member in the company backs no changes on a Friday and no one wants to be the reason a major incident has kicked off at 4:57

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itishowitisanditbad@reddit

Pretend the industry is accounting and then you'll see how incredibly silly it is to just expect people to be working on it as a passion outside of work.

Its a job.

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Valdaraak@reddit

in my day we made a cup of tea for the more senior ~~tech's~~ accountants and then got them to show us some stuff so you can go play with it at home in a ~~lab~~ Sage test company. I know im competing with Netflix and Gaming but does anyone have any good things you think works to try and get juniors more excited with playing with ~~tech~~ tax codes and balancing the books outside of their normal role.

You're right, it does sound silly.

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LazyCassiusCat@reddit

Honestly, as a tech, I'd love to learn this stuff, but on my own, I have no clue what to do. I do much better with some sort of mentor, otherwise I tend to overthink and am unsure of where my time should be spent. Do I learn programming? Do I learn VM's? I'm never sure of what I'm missing.

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TerryLewisUK@reddit (OP)

Thanks, but in your office if you wanted to learn Software dev and you were a service tech would you happily take the initiative to lean this new career in spare time at work, on the train and at home etc ?

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vNerdNeck@reddit

OP - We've been around the block about the same number of years. Only thing I can tell you is that just like in our day, not everyone wants to actually reach the next level or improve. A lot of folks a find finding a niche and just living in it, even if what they say might be contrary. Put in the effort you get out, if someone is leaning in then you do the same. If they just want to do the bare minimum, let them. Your not gonna magically spur them to have grit and drive in getting better.

It's a sad reality to have to face.

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Valdaraak@reddit

Well, pay them enough to justify them doing tech work in their off hours for one.

The days of people willingly putting in effort outside of work in home labs just for the sake of knowledge are fast approaching their end and has been a dying breed for a while now. You're not going to motivate them to do so unless they already are.

It's your job to train them, not theirs, and that will require some time and money spent during business hours. You can't expect people to do that stuff for free on their own time any longer. IT is just a job these days, it's not a "I do it because I love it" like it used to be.

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Korochun@reddit

Are you going to pay your junior techs overtime to perform their job tasks in their off hours?

No? Welp, good conversation.

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ancientpsychicpug@reddit

No one is mentioning this but I’d leave the second that someone expects me to make them tea?? For someone more senior??? Fuck. No. I’m in a senior position and a mentor and manager to a few people and I would NEVER expect them to ever do that. Favors always go down, never up. I will get them pizza, catering, free tech, etc. it should never be the other way.

That time needs to be scheduled and paid. I have a home lab only because I genuinely need a network, VPN, and NAS setup for my secondary business.

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guisilvano@reddit

When I was at uni for compSci I had a homelab and was always tinkering with some sort of DIY Linux distribution, setting up BSD machines for the sake of it and showing the guys that lived with me (and where studying other areas) the new cool thing they could use on their PCs at our house. Even tried a little OSdev.

Now that I work on IT I wanna get home, boot into Windows and not even think about any of that. It happens when your hobby turns into your job.

Hi, 28 yo SD guy here. It’s not like that. It is that we have little hope for appreciation of our work and long time sucessfull carreer. Long time, it is better to apply in another company after few years and get a raise. If we are capable, we can get to a higher post that way much easier, than trying to get

If you want to find a curious person, borrow them a steam deck and ask them to install a Peacock server for Hitman WoA. Trust me, this needs basics in linux logic and finding info over the internet.

Or give them a real problem you have. IE How to identify an improper registry value on multiple PCs in a specific group. Or how to upload a PST file into a proper mailbox folder.

Prepare to spend money on training and universally aplicable certificates. Everyone here knows their way around Azure and AD, but how many of us have AZ-104 or MD-102? Don’t forget to ask them about their future in the company. What would they want to do, where they can see themselves in professionally in the future. Provide them higher job opportunities and train them for it. Dont skip them for contractors or some cheaper newbies.

And lastly, most importantly, prepare money in your budget for projects and overtime. Be prepared to pay them extra for doing extra.

Otherwise you will find those juniors in few years on the other side of the table when you will be searching for contractors. And they will cost you thrice as much.

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No_Strawberry_5685@reddit

I never really bothered showing the juniors anything haha like keeping my tricks to myself like if I hold some esoteric knowledge

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WWGHIAFTC@reddit

GTFO of here with expecting anyone to work on their own time. "Learning" the specifics of new tech for an employer, or researching for future use at your place of employment IS work.

Research, Learning, Demoing, Testing, Deep Dive Lab Work, etc. is ON THE CLOCK work.

I know im competing with Netflix and Gaming but does anyone have any good things you think works to try and get juniors more excited with playing with tech outside of their normal role.

You're asking them to work, literally asking them to work on their personal time.

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Bright_Arm8782@reddit

Can we end this expectation that we have no life and spend all of our time playing in a home lab? This is my job, not my hobby.

I've been in IT for 24 years, but, after the first couple when everything was shiny and new, I stopped wanting to tinker with technology at home and keep my home as low tech as possible.

Also, there's not that much of use you can do in a homelab now. I haven't touched a physical server in the last 10 or so, all of the on prem stuff is going away, switches are configured by software etc.

I'll study if there's certification I or my employer want, but that's the extent of it.

It is just a job, but I have a couple of ideas you might try.

Demonstrate rewards i.e. promote someone who displays the behaviours you want, give them raises or bonuses.
Link explicit rewards to specific accomplishments you might get some traction. Pay bands increasing for acquiring certifications relevant to their jobs for instance.

pdp10@reddit

To get intrinsically-motivated staff, we do our utmost to let staff collectively choose their tasks and projects from an itemized list, and let them work on tasks and projects that they initiate. The self-initiated work isn't always as technical as you'd think -- several memorable ones have been collaboration projects with only a bit of tech.

We're biased toward systems with visible and user-serviceable parts inside, which I think helps a great deal. Techs are naturally going to be discouraged to spend time with vendor-only and sealed-for-your-protection systems.

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dinoherder@reddit

Carve out a couple of hours of an afternoon every week where you + junior(s) have a meeting on a range of topics. You suggest starting topics that you think would benefit them, they suggest things they'd like to know more about.

Make sure that if you get dragged into stupid things and are tied up for a week (as I frequently am), there's a sufficiently experienced replacement person who can attend the mentoring meeting.

Fostering a culture of learning that can happen during paid hours is the important thing.

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Ethan-Reno@reddit

I’m huge on homelabbing, and I always try to branch out and learn more at work, especially from my surperiors.

I’m working hard so I can escape my job, though. Not at all so I can be better at my current workplace.

People need to relax and spend time living when they get off the clock. That’s the sign of a healthy workplace! It helps fight stress, fatigue, and keeps turnover low.

There needs to be time during the workweek for learning. Even an hour or two a week helps. If you’re expecting all after-hour learning, that’s not going to have a positive impact. You’ll end up with people like me.

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I'm about the same age, I started in my 20s clawed my way up the ladder from doing ISP phone support, then helpdesk, desktop, jr admin, lead admin, syseng, sre, arch etc...

I think the culture has shifted though, What I saw in my early career is you'd have 3 or 4 people all competing for the next internal promotion slot. So we'd all be looking for some edge and running a PR campaign to set yourself apart. I remember volunteering to come in on the weekend to help re-rack server blades etc and I was probably making less than 40k at the time. I was also writing scripts and creating tools to differentiate myself, and a bit of homelab'ing. It was very competitive as I recall, and then after multiple attempts when I finally found a Jr Admin job the OnCall was pure hell.

I think younger people realize the fix is in, just the economic state of the world gets you far less and expects far more from you. I know for myself I got in on the knife-edge of upward mobilitiy in my career that I was able to break into the middle class, but even now when I make well over 150k a year, it doesn't buy you anywhere near the security you thought it would when you were making far less. So if you're a junior you have far less motivation to do well because you don't have the same opportunities...

Still even in the current state of affairs you still do get the occasional opportunity to mentor and build people up. My general approach for a while has been to give EVERYONE a chance, try to teach them things you know try to build them up so they might too climb the same ladder you climbed. Some of them you'll give them a challenging problem and offer to help them, and you'll be blown away by how much autonomy they took and what they delivered. Others you might find you're answering the same question several times, they disregard your advice and just want to do exactly what's required of them and nothing more, and I don't disagree with that, I've even become that way more in recent years following that example I try very hard just to work my 40 and not put in extra time to "catch up", the exception I make is when I believe something is high visibility and will give me political capital having my name attached to it that helps me make my case for raises and promotions. I also try to point this out to the Juniors when something I assign them is high visibility that it can have similar impacts for them to afford them the same opportunitities.

I’m a senior tech.

The problem I see every day? Lack of management 100% kills any motivation to work.

Boss won’t back you up? Boss won’t flight for you when something isn’t right? Boss doesn’t give you real goals, and direction?

You’re not gonna get good work out of those employees.

You need good direction/management. That’s why good directors like senior techs, because sr techs can self manage, making the boss redundant where he just sits and collects a paycheck.

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Aggravating_Refuse89@reddit

I think gaming has changed this industry. Back in my day, nerds were techy. Some may have been into things like DnD but there wasnt this weird almost in crowd expectation that anyone techy would be a hard core gamer of any sort. Now I am the odd one because I have never really been into any sort of gaming. Whether tabletop or video. So now nerds think they are nerds by being social with other nerds. In my day, the nerdiest thing to do was be an outcast and build your own shit for the hell of it. Nobody does that anymore. Tech is so mainstream now I have even lost my love for it.

Yes, on the clock. As a manager, I have zero to do with my employees off clock time unless the world is burning then its my job to figure out how to compensate them in some way for their hard work.

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Essex626@reddit

I think burnout is a real factor here--both for the junior techs and the senior techs who could be mentoring them.

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NowThatHappened@reddit

You need to employ the right people. Find people who do have a home lab, who do enjoy playing with stuff and experimenting, and then keep them well away from your tier 1 clients for at least a decade.

Also employ yourself, don't let HR or an agency do it, or you're going to loose 1 in 4 because they simply aren't suitable.

FWIW, I'm hard on the juniors but only because I want them to progress and move up. I deliberately give them jobs outside of their comfort zone, but put in the time to teach when they get stuck, and reward them when they nail it. Young people seem to be very sensitive to reward, whereas people our age just got to show up for work another day when we rocked it.

This is of course just my opinion, its all relative and its entirely possible that I'm trapped in a bubble universe.

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chefnee@reddit

Many just want that quick fix. That quick answer, so they can move on to the next task. I got tired of answer their same questions. I wrote a documents about getting to the answer with bread crumbs. Don’t answer all their questions!

This will help gauge whether they actually read said documents. I wrote for several years, and I’ve only had one taker. He turns out to be spectacular! As for everyone else, who knows.

Not only that, but take out one of them to grab a sandwich. Lay it out there. See what there level of dedication is about. It doesn’t have to be a serious conversation. Just a hey, I’ve noticed… you will find out so much of what’s going on with their lives that will tell you what’s on their plate. They may have other pressing matters. Hope this helps.

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rcp9ty@reddit

So I'm 39, I've been working or with on computers in some way since I was 9... At the end of the work day I want to do nothing related to work. Let your juniors have their work life balance if they want to do something work related it's their choice to make not yours and unless you compensate them for their time your expectations are just inconsiderate.

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progenyofeniac@reddit

I don’t expect anybody to have a home lab to learn things. If I’m hiring a junior, I plan to teach him what he needs to know while on the job and give him the ability and resources to learn at work. More power to him if he wants to learn in his free time but that’s not an expectation.

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notta_3d@reddit

Either you love it or you don't. Most people I have worked with, it's just a job to them. Tech work stops when they leave for the day. Then you have the others that are at home working on stuff in their free time.

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MNmetalhead@reddit

I used to be into tinkering with tech as a hobby starting in the mid-1990s. I learned a ton and it was foundational to wheee I am today. But, to be honest, when I’m done with work now for the day, I don’t want anything to do with a computer unless I have to.

Asking, or encouraging, junior techs to work on things outside of work hours can be a very problematic situation. They could put in for overtime pay if you’re making it sound to them that they should be doing this to advance their careers or be better at their job. You’re essentially asking them to work/train on their time, which may entitle them to additional pay. People have their own motivations. If they want to spend their free time on tech, that’s up to them. Don’t push them to do it as a work thing.

Instead, make advancement paths clear for them so they know what they need to do and know to move forward and earn more. If they choose to go after those opportunities through training or tinkering on their own, that’s their choice. You should also make training opportunities available through the workplace either as formal processes or as tuition reimbursement.

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largos7289@reddit

We use to build quake servers and "burn" them in when i was coming up. I know i did a Minecraft server for the new guys and it wasn't hard but got them working together.