I haven't been able to post much, but I have been reading and following the thread whenever I have the chance. I was wondering, am I the only one who reads this thread backwards to catch up on new posts?
Anyhow, I've been busy updating my servers in the datacenter where I work. It had been four years since my last visit, and I needed to replace a failed hard drive with new SSD drives, as well as update some old cPanel VMs.
All was going well until I forgot the admin password - un-fucking-believable! Panic set in as I never forget passwords or at least have them securely stored somewhere. This hypervisor contained 12 important VMs and our Primary DNS, and after an hour of trying every possible password, websites and webapps started dropping! I knew I knew the password, as I remembered rebooting it a few years back (it had over 1000 days of uptime). It was late, and the stress and pressure were really getting to me - I'm not usually like this, I work well under pressure. In fact, back in high school, I used to complete my assignments the night before and still do better than 95% of the class. Eventually, I managed to crack into the box, change the admin password and booted everything back up. Just the thought of what would have happened, caused this sinking feeling I wouldn't want to have again!
I think I'll pull the plug with working at the next ATH (whenever that may be). While I've always thought that I don't need to work, but rather want to work, the truth is that many people rely on me to show up, causing me to need to work! However, it has all started to really get to me.
As you may know, I work in IT, and the ever-changing landscape is starting to affect me negatively. I used to enjoy it, but now, even small things are starting to bother me - dropping support for "screen"? What the fuck? My muscle memory for ctrl-a-d is ingrained in my fingers! Now they want me to use tmux? That stuff is dreadful - or am I just getting too old for this shit?
CentOS has stopped development of CentOS 8 in favour of CentOS stream, and I'm not sure why. I couldn't be bothered with digesting the information to work out the advantages, etc. How does this affect me? cPanel will drop support for CentOS 7 in June 2024, and I think they've already dropped support for CentOS 8, and will not support any Stream variants. Anyhow, they're pushing for a paid version of CloudLinux, which I was very tempted to use to replace the current setup as I thought there weren't many options.
I was wrong - AlmaLinux and RockyLinux are excellent alternatives. The younger me would have realized this years ago! What I'm noticing is that I'm not doing my due diligence or researching. Has the landscape gotten so big? Am I just getting too tired to learn more, or am I holding onto the past? Or has YouTube Shorts and Instagram rewired my brain to have the attention span of a 10-year-old?
TL;DR - CentOS is now AlmaLinux
I know where your coming from.
Having worked in IT for a number of years the appetite for learning yet another distro or windows install wanes.
Eventually you get to the stage of not giving a cr@p and thats when I got out.
Too many people rely on your skillset to not care so it was time to change my job.
To be fair the size and scope of IT these days is so vast that you need many specialists.
I now enjoy my retirement with more sedate things but still tinker with computers on things that interest me.
Also remember that if you were to drop dead today your position at work would probably be filled within a week.
Life is too short to not enjoy it.
The last few months have taken its toll, both mentally and physically. I feel the under appreciation and the demands from some clients/customers to have things finalized in an unrealistic time frame hasn’t helped!
My dilemma is that I own the business and while some clients are a pain, I still consider them almost family. Some have been with me for almost 20 years, the thought of just dumping them and running, doesn’t sit well.
If I was an employee, I probably would have been relaxing on the beach with @El duderino_, posting “Where Am I?” clues.
But starting to come to terms with the idea of letting it all go! Maybe it’s time to start planning an exit strategy.
I am happy you got out and are enjoying retirement. You are right, life is way too short!
