Jeremy Smith's blog

Entry Is Labelled

Hats

I wear a lot of different hats. No, not hats as in the literal clothing accessory you adorn your head with. I am referring to metaphorical hats – hats I wear at work – labels, if you will.

For example, if you are reading this blog entry, you most likely consider me to wear the hat: The Blog@Case Guy. But, I wasn't always The Blog@Case Guy. Actually, I am rarely The Blog@Case Guy. Most of the time, I am (and these are used sorta synonymously):

There are other hats. A lot of the time, it depends on the context. If the person is talking blogs, then... well, I'm that guy; but if the topic suddenly turns to the email system; suddenly, I am The Email Guy. (Which, I assure you, I really am not. Sure, sure, I help with some aspects of the email system; but there are others far more qualified than myself in that respect. I am not the one who can, from memory, telnet to port 25 and send an email. We have others who can do that like the back of their hands.) In similar respects, I can become The Directory Server Guy quite suddenly in the middle of a conversation, which can be somewhat accurate depending on the specifics of what the conversation is about.

I am, also, very often labelled The Open Source Guy. I find that one to be funny. The blog system is based on a non-open source piece of software. The email server is not an open source product. The directory servers are not open source. I use Windows as my desktop. I want to move to OS X. I think I got labelled with that because, in addition to normal software, I do use open source software, too; like Apache and Linux. So, I guess the logic that followed might have been: "he uses or is a proponent of using at least one, if not two or more, pieces of open source software over proprietary alternatives; he must be The Open Source Guy." Oh well, there are worse hats to wear. I just wish that, instead of Open Source Guy, I was The Guy Who Chooses the Right Tool for the Job Regardless of Pseudo-Religious Affiliations with Software Development Methodology and Weird Yet Strongly Powerful Affinities for Certain Corporations' Products.

The hat(s) I wear are, also, directly related to what a person has a question about. For example, if the person has a PHP question, I am The PHP Guy or, more generally, The Web Application Guy. In terms of web services, I am the The REST/RSS/Atom/SOAP-Hater Guy (I wear that hat proudly).

Anyways, here is a non-exhaustive list of the hats I wear (in other people's minds or of my own accord) during the course of a normal week:

What hats do you wear (voluntarily and involuntarily)?

Comments

  1. gravatar

    I am PHP5 Guy

  2. gravatar
    • The SAGES Girl
    • The WISER Girl
    • Germany Girl
    • The Girl Half the Class Thinks Knows How to Do the Homework
    • The Photoshop Girl
    • The CSS/HTML/PHP Girl

    If I thought about it anymore, I could probably come up with some others, but it's starting to scare me a bit, really...

  3. gravatar

    Willingly/proudly:


    • The Python Guy

    • The Web Application Guy

    • The Web Design Guy

    • The Graphics Guy


    Unwillingly/regretfully:

    • The C++ Guy

  4. gravatar

    Work 'hats', in no particular order:


    • The Mac guy

    • The SAN guy

    • The Solaris guy

    • The Linux (RedHat) guy

    • The NetWare guy

    • The (HA) cluster guy

    • The Server-ordering guy

    • The No-you-can't-have-any-more-rack-space-here guy


    Non-work:
    • The Other Guy who knows how to make all of the blinkenlights in the Strosacker projection booth blink properly
      • (the Main Guy is, of course, Charley...)

    Most valuable:

  5. gravatar

    I am unfortunately, simply This was developed after the car, so the computer geek must know Guy. But, more often I am simply an a**hole.

  6. gravatar

    I'm the "Wizard"/"Alumni@Case"/"Anything remotely having to do with Alumni stuff" girl.

    I guess I'm also the crazy runner girl.

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