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Trevor Pott is a SpiceHead who seems to know us better than we know ourselves. He came to SpiceWorld and wrote gushingly about "IT's Comic Con," for The Register. After praising us, he picked apart our application in a way that let us know he cared about us deeply and couldn't help himself from dreaming about our future potential.
When not writing about Spiceworks, Trevor is a full time sysadmin, and writes for Petri.co.il, SearchVMware.techtarget.com and scoffs at the idea of free time. I pinged him with my questions about his experiences in IT just after midnight on a Sunday night. He e-mailed back his witty, thoughtful, 2,310 word response just 260 minutes later, at 4:20 a.m. The man does not sleep.
When did you get into IT?
Only His Noodly Self knows for sure. I can't remember my first computer. I know that by the time I was two years old, I was asking how electricity got down the wire. I had disassembled a microwave to see how it worked around four, which is right about when I got that first, sacred, laminated sheet of phone numbers for the local bulletin board systems.
I remember having to place the phone on a 300-baud modem. I remember thinking my first 2400-baud internal modem was made out of actual magic. I remember Intellivision and programming on an early TRS-80, and writing BASIC scripts to make the PC speaker beep out the “Star Trek” theme.
By 8 years old I had built my first PC, and shortly thereafter I blew it up. I spent junior high and high school taking apart the school's computers and putting them back together. I worked as a bench tech on some odd jobs and was told by everyone, "You'll go into computer science when you graduate."
I went into computer science and I hated it. Loathed it with the burning passion of 10,000 suns. My professors were boring, I couldn't care less about calculus, and Java was actually crafted from raw, elemental evil. I bailed, took a complete 180 and went into Telecommunications Engineering Technology. That was equally a mistake; it was raw hardware. Circuits, resistors, NAND gates, building clocks on breadboards, and lots of stuff with oscilloscopes. And more calculus.
I really hate calculus.
From there I took another course: Network and Security Support Analyst. By this point, I'd been sysadminning it up so much that I ended up paying $15,000 for a 1 year course that taught me Start → Run → DCPROMO → Enter. I ended up teaching the rest of the stuff to various other students.
I walked out of school and into a full-time job as a sysadmin. I've slowly gotten more and more work over time until I had no choice but to start my own consultancy and hire help to cope.
So …when did I get into IT? Given the above, you tell me…
What do you do in your free time when you're not saving the world at work?
You're a funny man. "Free time" is a myth. "Free time" – otherwise known as time in which you aren't making money – is occupied with sleep, or looking after my pets. I am trying to get an IT consultancy with a sideline in content creation and digital marketing off the ground. I work full time as a sysadmin and write for The Register, Petri.co.il and SearchVMware.techtarget.com.
"Free time." *Snort*
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How did you get the gig writing for El Reg?
I trolled people. A lot. I trolled everyone on that site – authors and fellow commenters alike – so hard that they figured if I was going to type vast walls of text and get the hoi polloi all riled up then they should advertise against my verbose tripe and make some money off of it.
They had some "reader expert" thing in which they plucked a few readers from the muck and said, "We're going to ask you a few questions. Tell us what you think." Apparently it went over well because someone made the bizarre decision to ask me back to write more.
From there, well … how many tech journalists do you know who are actually sysadmins? Folks who can debate CPU architecture with you while spinning up 50 VMs and debugging a flaky VMware datastore? It's an underserved niche, and there is apparently some call for having a real nerd write things from time to time.
How do you stay current with the latest training and technology?
Simple truth: I don't. You show me someone in our industry who claims to be ahead of the curve on every new technology and I'll show you a bold-faced liar. It's impossible. Even knowing "all there is to know about IT" would make you a polymath greater than Leonardo DaVinci.
I learn what I can about the fundamental theory of new and emerging technologies. If I run into a stumbling block, I pick up the phone and call the company that developed that tech and ask them for an interview. If I can't figure it out at first blush, then my readers won't either. It's time for some research and an article.
I am asked to write in-depth features on some things by The Register. Other times, vendors hire my company to do analyses for them. Still other times, I chase vendors to get kit into my test lab so I can write about it.
Above all, I accept deep down that I know nothing about anything … but me and Google are unstoppable.
Who are your IT role models or mentors?
Mary Jo Foley is the very first to mind. Smart lady. Top class. One of the best IT journalists in the entire world; maybe the best. If I grow up to be half as good a tech writer as her, I will consider myself having succeeded at life.
Jose Barreto is a member of the File Server team at Microsoft. He is affable, friendly, clearly enjoys his job and commands notable respect from his fellow team members. The File Server team at Microsoft are among the smartest, most capable people in our industry and I think they are also amongst the most underappreciated. Jose toils in (relative) obscurity compared to some other big names, but is deserving of more accolades for technical competence and engagement with the public at large than most names in tech I can think of.
The other person that inspires me is you, the reader of the article. You, right there on the other side of that screen; I envy you. If you are reading this it is because you are eager, excited, interested in IT. You are probably passionate about computers and want to leave your mark on our industry. You are reading this for tips, tricks, and some insight into how to get ahead in the world.
Cling to that; for most of us, it fades with time. Years of hopeless users, conflicting and conflicted management and being asked to consistently do the impossible with zero resources have worn me down to a nub. I have lost the spark of wonder and found that experience and skill are a poor substitute for passion.
So I am inspired every day by regular SpiceHeads, posting in the forums and reminding us all why it is we got into this racket in the first place.
Thank you, Trevor! Tune in after the holidays for part 2 of this interview, where Trevor talks about his greatest achievements and failures, weighs in on zombies and answers the all important crunchy or smooth peanut butter question. If you can't wait until then, check out some of our past interviews to tide you over.