Tried deploying a new nginx server today, wrote the site config manually.

"Alright, done! Let's restart the service and look in the browser how it looks"

# systemctl restart nginx
> Process exited with error code.
"Fuuuuck..."
# nginx
> Unexpected } on line 13.

# vim /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/thatconfig.conf
"Wait wtf.. there's nothing wrong with the curly braces.. they're all opening and closing as they should..."
*takes another closer look*
Line 12, missed a fucking semicolon 😑
Append semicolon, :wq, # systemctl restart nginx
Works like a charm 🙄 all because of a stupid semicolon.

Until now I thought that the semicolon jokes were just lame.. but damn you semicolon, you are indeed the superior hide and seek player 😅

When the algorithm is that solid😂😂😂😂😂

Responsiveness on another level😂

Had a conference call and one of the guys said something along the lines of "I can handle the load (ticket load)" didn't even thought about it my mouth instinctively reacted with "that's what she said".

A couple of guys laughed but the other few just "wooooow"ed like if I had thrown a 9/11 joke.

This is not a rant perse, just a reminder that if I ever launch my own startup I shall look to hire "joke sensitive" people to make my scrum meetings as awkward as possible.

So I have a date tomorrow. First meeting in person. I’ve got a little time to kill before hand, and need to learn Dart anyway....so I thought it would be fun to code her up something interactive. Kinda like that game Mr and Mrs. Only in the terminal, and for nerds.

Features, ladies and gentleman?

The following piece of advice will be for those aspiring for an IT service desk position:

When companies are looking to hire service desk agents, they're primarily looking for socially skilled people with strong communicative skills, rather than primarily technically skilled people. When I first joined the IT world, I went on different interviews for that position and across all of them there was one truth: all the interviewers were eyeballs-focused on my social and communication skills and a mere thin layer of technical skills was required (depending on how technical the service desk). In fact, I immediately got aggressively dismissed twice for two of those when I filled in a Myers-Briggs personality test according to my Sheldon-type personality (selfish, condescending etc). Conversely, when I applied for a new position and I faked that test into answering everything focused positively on the social aspect, I was an immediate top candidate.

Here's a definition from the ITIL Foundation course, chapter Service Management: Because of how lateral the function of the service desk has become today (not only used to solve technical issues, but also company-wide issues), the most important and valued skills when hiring a service desk agent are fully focused on empathy and soft skills and none of those are technical skills. This is because the service desk has people that are the front window of your company and thus you can't make social mistakes as to protect your company's reputation. That risk has to be minimized and you need the ideal people. The people who in fact solve the technical problems are behind a back-office and they are contacted by the service desk agents.

In the beginning, when I did my first service desk job, I also thought: "Oh, I'm going to have to convince them I'm this technical wizard". In the end I got hired for being able to explain technology in human language and because in the interview I successfully communicated and explained ideas to both the team manager and the CEO, not because I knew what goes on inside a computer. This is a very important distinction.
My friends have also been in service desk positions and ironically they were the most successful when they were empathetic slimeballs (saying: "of course, anything for you" while not meaning it, constantly making jokes), rather than people with integrity (those got fired for telling the customer they were wrong while being unfriendly).

I hope this helps.