been in infrastructure for 12 years. the field is not what it was.

when i started, the senior engineers were the people who had grown up taking apart computers on weekends. they stayed late because they wanted to, not because someone was watching. you earned your access by learning things the hard way. if you didn't know something, you found out. there was a real culture of mentorship, the kind where a senior actually sat next to you and walked through why something broke.

now the teams i see are completely different. nobody wants to troubleshoot anymore. every user expects a fix in under ten minutes, and if you don't respond on teams fast enough you get a follow-up message before you've even finished reading the first one. managers who have never configured anything in their lives are telling engineers how to prioritize tickets.

and the mentorship thing is basically gone. the way i learned was from a guy who had been doing this since the nineties. he showed me how to actually think through a problem. now people just ask a chatbot, paste the output, and move on whether it works or not.

took a short test that maps which of 5 patterns is running you and what's actually behind it. mine came back overdrive. why nothing sticks when the system is in constant alert mode. that landed because i realized i had been running at 100% for years trying to compensate for the gaps left by people who wouldn't slow down and actually learn.

and i've seen what happens when that pace finally catches up with someone. the engineers who just stopped. still showing up but not really there anymore. that's collapse. i've felt it in myself some weeks more than i'd like to admit.

i'm not complaining. i've made a solid living in this field and i don't regret it. but it's a different profession than the one i came up in.

if anyone wants to know what the test was, just ask.