Perfectly summed up. I worked as an intern at a factory while at university studying computer science. All the process machines were computer controlled, along

Perfectly summed up. I worked as an intern at a factory while at university studying computer science. All the process machines were computer controlled, along with office computers for accounting and material control. Despite having a workforce of 200, there were only 2 IT guys there - 1 sysadmin, 1 developer, and I was slotted between them. I was given a year-long development project, but during lulls in the activity, I was able to help both guys with their work, and in doing so, found several long-suspended projects the sysadmin had wanted to implement. I was able to kick some of these into gear; for one of them, a virtualisation project, I wrote a design document in my own time, presented it with projected costs to the CEO and was given the okay to start it. We built the platform (ESXi) on time and under budget, and there were a lot of immediate benefits. I was able to retire half the servers in the server room. It all really boiled down to trust; I was given the keys to the kingdom at that job, with domain admin access to do tech support, and not only did I get to play with some cool technology, I was able to implement stuff that made people's lives easier - I built a Windows Deployment Server (another long mothballed idea) which brought our workstation build time from 6 hours (fresh install of XP plus post-install updates, not even slipstreamed, then install software manually) down to 15 minutes (deploying the pre-built image over PXE). I do believe I left the place in a better state than when I joined, but it was quite bittersweet - I came to realise I'd probably never be trusted with that kind of power over the company infrastructure again. My first real job, I was a tiny cog in a global machine, and I couldn't deal with that. I lasted 3 months before quitting. My next job was in development, I stuck that for 3 years as it was predictable and fairly calm. I didn't enjoy it as much, but I needed the stability at the time. I moved into DevOps for a year, but my boss was an incredible micromanager who didn't trust people beneath him to do their jobs. After a year of being ignored and getting little work done, I lost interest. I found another job, which I started last month. In contrast to my previous experience in long-established companies, I'm now working at a start-up as a sysadmin. And whilst the pace and the rapid hiring are really different to what I'm used to, I have some of that intern power again - my suggestions are taken on board, and I am trusted to do my job. I also get on very well with the people here, and they're coming to appreciate having someone to turn to for tech issues - previously, no single person was in charge of inventory or tech support, and now they can just ask me. I think the intern job was the best of both worlds - the calm, predictable pace of an established firm, but with the startup-ish get-it-done attitude to IT work that stopped bureaucracy getting in the way. But I think I can deal with the fast pace so long as I can stay in control of my responsibilities.