Introduction: When Classes End, Trouble Begins Anyone old enough to remember Scorched Earth? The old DOS artillery game where two tiny combatants spent an unreasonable amount of time trying to calculate the exact angle needed to ruin somebody else’s afternoon? The one where terrain got destroyed, shots missed spectacularly, and friendships were tested over bad aim and questionable judgment? Yes.

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So… I Wandered Off for a Bit At some point, I drifted. Not in a dramatic, “I quit everything and moved to a mountain” kind of way. More like… I opened one academic door, then another, then suddenly I’m deep into GIS, writing papers, and thinking about spatial relationships like I’m plotting a crime documentary. It was good for me.

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Let’s get something straight right away. I’m your sysadmin. We are not friends. This is not hostility. It’s just clarity. In most jobs people expect warmth, camaraderie, the occasional lunch conversation about weekend plans. In systems administration, the relationship is a little different. My job is not to be socially available. My job is to make sure the systems keep

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The Honest Truth Nobody Puts on LinkedIn A job in IT is not sexy. It never has been. The public image of technology is full of glossy nonsense. Startup founders giving interviews. Developers dramatically typing code on giant screens. Silicon Valley billionaires talking about “changing the world.” But the reality of working in IT looks nothing like that. It looks

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Now, please hold while I patch your router, block that ransomware, and stop Gerry from downloading malware. Again. Oh, you think being a network and cybersecurity engineer is cool? Glamorous, even? You imagine dark rooms lit by cascading lines of code, high-fiving your team after foiling international hackers, and maybe a dramatic “We’re in!” moment every other Tuesday? Yeah, that’s

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