Welcome!

My name is Gary. I've been involved in IT and Technical Operations for a little over two decades, in big companies and small. From ISPs to Healthcare to Online Games, I've seen a lot of weird, fascinating and (all too frequently) totally fucked situations. Some of these were technology problems, some were people problems and some of them were just organizational problems too big to solve. Along the way I've come up with a few strategies and tactics for what I call 'Unfucking' problems.

Through this blog I hope to share my accumulated knowledge to help others get past some of the things in their organizations that are in real need of Unfucking. I also hope to hear from others on their experiences and strategies for maneuvering into success in the IT and Technical Operations world.

The posts, anecdotes and other bits and pieces will mostly be focused at IT and Technical Operations engineers and the people who manage them. I'll try to work in other perspectives and maybe some guest posts, but the bulk of what I've got to say is targeted at those in my industry.

Here's a little snippet I recently posted on my Facebook:

A few years back I had a person working for me who had just taken over as CS manager. I decided to put together this helpful presentation to give some insight into one of my core management philosophies - Don't just sit there - Unfuck it.

It sounds a little silly, but I have seen/heard an enormous amount of bitching about how a process/server/software/group is fucked up but very little in the way of personal responsibility when it comes to wading in to turn things around. I started challenging people to un-fuck those situations and have some some pretty amazing results.

Enjoy and please share.

Helpful Management Tip #1