Post #1545496

In inheriting the wholly unmitigated dumspter fire left by my predecessor, I got to introduce myself to the company-proclaimed old-world AIX wizard today. A resident graybeard, from when the environment as it exists currently was first stood up. He had been described to be an asshole of the highest order. A preternatural douchebag who would just as soon insult you as fix your entire cacophony of issues with a single one-liner. Alignment true neutral, leaning chaotic. After exchanging messages with him, I discovered in fact the opposite. He was willing to tell me whatever I needed to know, often with either more supplementary information or with a source on where to find it. I told him upfront and early-on that I really only work effectively when I understand the mechanism, and he delivered exactly. He didn't have any patience for ignorance on the basis of stupidity, which prompted me to consider my questions three times before I asked them, but he welcomed our discussion. We spoke about why I was requiring instruction from him, as the communication in my department is so poor that he didn't know that this shit show was my inheritance. I communicated my worry about inheriting things from a guy who had 2.5+ jobs in the company when I had a job I was doing already, and he exrpessed empathy of all things, as well as total agreement with my assessment. He wasn't an asshole; he had boundaries! Further, he respected my own boundaries! All in all, we seemed to value the same things, all the way down to the way we aim for clarity in our communication, sometimes ad nauseam and at the expense of brevity. The one place where we differed was his proclivity for ellipses in his normal mode of composition. I think I can deal with that, though.