CIQ at SCaLE 23x: Trip Report

I co-wrote this recap with Michael Young and R. Leigh Hennig covering CIQ’s presence at SCaLE 23x in Pasadena, and I was there in person as a speaker.

The post covers the full picture: 300+ badge scans at the CIQ booth, conversations with folks from Microsoft, Meta, Fedora, Red Hat, AlmaLinux, RESF, and more, a sponsored hardening workshop, and Community Game Night where Michael and I got absolutely dismantled at Uno No Mercy. The Asterisk community connection was an interesting thread too, with real follow-up conversations about adding Rocky Linux as a supported distribution.

My contribution to the program was a talk called “From Bash to Burnout: Staying Sane in a 24/7 Tech World.” It was a personal one. Behind every uptime badge is a tired sysadmin, and I wanted to have an honest conversation about protecting your time and energy without losing your love for the work. It drew about 20 to 30 attendees and sparked some good discussion afterward.

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Burnout in tech is something I have thought about for a long time, and getting to talk about it in front of a room full of sysadmins and infrastructure people at SCaLE felt like exactly the right venue.