whoami: Welcome to DaveOpsIO

by David Charles

Firstly, I’d like to thank you for taking time to explore the DaveOpsIO website and read my humble blog post. This website is a place for me to document my transition from IT support and sysadmin work toward my goal of DevOps and Cloud Engineering.

Here you can expect to find my shared thoughts on DevOps-related technology, tutorials, documentation of tricky issues I’ve come across, and more!

whoami?

I am David Charles: avid tech enthusiast; sysadmin; aspiring developer; journeyman home chef; and tabletop gaming extraordinaire.

My Journey So Far

I’ve worked in technology for the past 14 years and followed a natural pipeline: climbing helpdesk tiers, supporting web development teams, solutions delivery, site management, scripting to automate IT tasks, and everything in between.

I’ve spent uncountable hours both replacing printer fusers and debugging apps or scripts I’ve written.

Early Tech Curiosity

I’ve always had a love for how things work. As a kid, I used to get into trouble for taking apart VCRs and telephones. My first taste of “coding” came from the freeware fighting game MUGEN.

I was infatuated with importing my own characters and setting custom stage music. The memory of Goku from Dragon Ball Z facing off against Spider-Man with Three 6 Mafia playing in the background will always stick with me.

Breaking into IT

My first break came in Nebraska while studying at Southeast Community College. I saw an interview opportunity at Dell Services — a surefire upgrade from counting inventory at Staples.

I poured my heart into that interview and soon found myself answering helpdesk calls for hospitals. It was here I truly cut my chops on troubleshooting and learned how to bridge the gap between technical knowledge and the end user.

From Helpdesk to Development

After a few years at Dell, I moved to Nebraska Book Company (NBC), starting again at the helpdesk — this time supporting an in-house inventory control system. This was where I first brushed against development.

I worked closely with the devs and eventually supported the WebDev helpdesk, helping college bookstores make changes to their sites and even putting those changes into place myself.

Later, I moved into NBC’s tech area, where we packaged and delivered IT solutions across the country. Here I got my first taste of true scripting. Surrounded by brilliant minds in that basement, I learned everything I could.

Coming Home to Wisconsin

Eventually, my time at NBC came to a close and I returned to Wisconsin. I joined Global Industrial, where I still work today.

This role let me truly come into my own — automating tasks, migrating fractured knowledge bases, and taking ownership of projects I believe in.

A leader here encouraged me to finish my education. I made it known I wanted to be a developer, so I enrolled at the local technical college. I graduated from MATC with a 3.97 GPA, joined several honors societies, and earned an Associate’s Degree in IT Web and Software Development.

I’ve since transferred to the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, where I’m continuing my journey in Computer Science.

About the whoami Command

In Linux, running whoami prints the name of the currently logged-in user.

```bash $ whoami –help Usage: whoami [OPTION]… Print the user name associated with the current effective user ID. Same as id -un.

  --help     display this help and exit
  --version  output version information and exit