One of the things I like the most about PowerShell, is that it means I can work more than 40 hours per week. Now, what I don’t mean is that I work on PowerShell outside of the 40 hour week — although, I definitely do, because I’m hooked — but rather that PowerShell works for me, when I’m not even working.

For example, every day from 3:00 to roughly 3:45 a.m., it’s working for me. It’s doing what I told it to do; it’s executing; it’s taking a job I never wanted to do manually and seeing that it gets completed. Me? What am I doing during that time? Well, unless something’s gone seriously wrong, and I’m not just talking about work, then I’m asleep. I’m working and I’m sleeping, at. the same. time.

Ever expand the properties of an Active Directory group at 3 a.m.? If you did that in the GUI, then you were awake. Ever click that Members tab that early in the morning? If so, I bet you had wished you were sleeping. Ever remove a user from an AD group just hours before the sun was back up? I do it every day at 3:00 a.m., but I don’t.

This is one of the reasons that PowerShell is so powerful. It makes you more efficient. It makes you twice the employee. If there’s PowerShell for it, I can do it faster; I can do it more efficiently than the next person that doesn’t use PowerShell.

If you work, or want to work, in the Information Technology arena — both with Windows and now without Windows (yes, it’s likely come to your operating system of choice) — then make PowerShell a part of your skill set. Read Learn Windows PowerShell in a Month of Lunches, Third Edition; watch the Microsoft Virtual Academy PowerShell 3.0 Jump Start, and yes, I’m aware PowerShell 5.1 for Windows is coming this month. That set of videos is still worth the time.

Be twice the employee, too. Complete tasks no one would want to do, while you’re sleeping. I’m going to do it again tonight.