Matt Ouellette is a certified information technology professional residing in Southwest Michigan. His technology findings and advice can be found on his PacketPilot blog. Mr. Ouellette spent 4 years as an I.T. Technician before stepping into a Network Engineer role at Bronson Health Group. Since completing his Associates Degree in Network Administration Matt has taken a head on approach to career enrichment through obtaining credentials such as CCNP, CCNA Voice, MCSA: Server 2008, and VCP5. This passion for continued learning allows him to deliver up to date quality technical solutions.
As we all know, being a worker in information technology is dedication to continued learning. Forever and always. No matter your field of focus. Whether it be workstation/os, networking, wireless, servers, storage, security, or maybe multiple of those and more…it is a never ending grind. This honestly applies to any job/industry but I’ll write this post kind of on an I.T. concept.
That grind crosses multiple arenas. For one, there is simply personal growth. We all have something we want to learn because it intrigues us. From what I see from I.T. colleagues is we always have something we just want to learn/play with because we are curious people. We have to keep our brains moving. It might be an older technology or concept but something that sparks our brain and we want to tackle it.
Additionally there is learning to keep up on what’s new. This is a key thing in the I.T. industry because everything is always changing. This is certainly a challenge that kind of crosses paths with the above of being curious about something new to us that intrigues us. On the same note it’s key in our industry to stay up on what’s neat and new and becoming prominent in the industry.
There is another thing that triggers learning. That is our day to day/day job. Having worked in retail, corporate, and consulting you never know what’s going to pop up. Maybe your business is buying a new I.T. product that you need to help integrate. Or maybe transition to a new technology like from a traditional WAN to an SD-WAN solution. As I once had to do add in a TAP-AGG solution to our main network. That required learning that product/solution.
So how do you balance all of these learning area’s at once. It’s challenging for sure because you want to learn what intrigues you, what’s new in the industry, and what’s required of your day to day job tasks. It’s key to keep things straight and separate in a way.
I’m going to continue this post with the assumption you play in all of those arenas. The first thing that is key is time. This can be a tough one. Hopefully if you need to learn something for your job your company will let you set aside time during your day to focus on that. This can also come into play with learning to keep up with industry new trends. That last one is quite dependent on how your employer views emerging technology and keeping it’s staff up to date.
When it comes to the idea of learning new things that intrigue you for personal growth that more likely requires you using your own personal time. My best advice for this is use “down” time to your advantage. That may be your drive to/from work (or other places), lunch time, waking up an hour earlier, sitting in a waiting room (Doctor, car service, etc) for some sit down learning time.
There are multiple ways to leverage all this time. Drives can be a great time for listening to what I’m going to quote/unquote as “podcasts”. This could be a literal podcast, listening to a video such as youtube, udemy, other training platforms (please don’t watch and drive but leverage listening). Lunch and waiting rooms are great for watching video’s. Most videos from companies/training platforms/video bloggers are short and you can get one or two in.
We all have a life outside of this industry. Some of us have significant others and kids to take care of that may have functions going on in the evening. Family to meet up with from time to time for different events. Friends and Family to meet up with for a beverage or dinner. Sports and hobbies are a thing for us all. Maybe even a show/sport you like to watch. For me a key is to walk my dog as A: it’s good for me to get some exercise, B: it’s good for her as she is a senior dog so it keeps her moving and her joints health, and C: it’s a great time to clear my mind and even get the occasion interaction with neighbors and their kids. Don’t give any of that up. For me, I try and spend 30 minutes before bed reading something, but don’t stay up too late and be tired the next day because that doesn’t help.
Now to keep balance between studying multiple things set a schedule. Maybe that extra hour in the morning is the “keep up with the industry” time. Then your driving time/waiting rooms/lunch time is for the “what I want to learn that intrigues me” time. Since it’s a “just for you/fun” learning effort those distracting times can be good as you don’t have to be AS focused. Hopefully if you need to learn something for work you get that time as part of your job to learn it. The key is to set certain time’s for certain learning tasks to keep them separate and not be jumping back and forth between focuses during a sprint.
With that, keep boards on apps such as Trello. Break down what you are learning into chunks and keep track of it. That may be chapters in a book, videos, topics on an exam blueprint, or sections of a vendors training outline. I like to use Onenote and keep notebooks broken down into sections for whatever I’m trying to learn. I know some people prefer to do hand written notes in notebooks as it helps them with retention writing it down. Do what works for you but try to keep track. Keep a schedule and mark things off as you complete them.
The TL;DR is that in this industry there is always something to learn from some reason or another and often we have to juggle learning multiple things at the same time. This is fine but you have to dedicate time to each and use that time to focus as opposed to bouncing back and forth between things you are learning. You can’t tie your shoes and rake leaves at the same time. You need to give them each their own committed time.
Since I passed AZ-900 (fundamentals) I decided it was worth it to look into AZ-700 (Networking) as a next step. Why not?!
I currently have access to Udemy so I decided to take a course from the same instructor that wrote/recorded the course for my AZ-900 exam. If I’m honest I wasn’t impressed as compared to the fundamentals course. I do have another recommended course from a previous co-worker that I plan on taking as talking with him he said it was worth the time and helped him pass AZ-700 but as we all know time is hard to come by sometimes.
I’ve been going through the MS Learn course for AZ-700 and it’s intriguing and scaring me a bit. MS Learn is a great tool with lots of courses/modules so surely check it out. https://learn.microsoft.com. The course has been decent but the way it’s written seems to me like the exam is going to be very marketing based. Lot’s of slides about SKU’s and I’ll tell you there are a lot. Azure seems to have a bunch of ways to do similar things and many different SKU’s within each way of doing it. I’m having a tough time organizing it all in my head which will needed to be answering the questions.
I’ve only been going down the MS Azure rabbit hole because for some reason it sparked my brain. I know others that have went down AWS and Google Cloud paths and there is no doubt they all do it differently based on blogs and posts I’ve read. One thing I’ve learned so far is that the basic concepts of our core networking hasn’t really changed. It’s just different products and connectivity options. Whether you are moving 100% to the cloud or doing a hybrid approach of on-prem/colocation data centers and sharing connectivity with your end users to the cloud is a dizzying challenge of making decisions on products that are often usage based making the financial side a key component.
So far from what I’ve seen (and I know I’m late to the party) the overall network concepts of IP addressing, Application services, Virtual Machines, Load Balancing, VPN’s, Hub/Spoke networks with gateways hasn’t really changed it is just a matter of learning the concepts, available technology, and configuration options available with whatever cloud platform you choose. It is certainly a whirlwind and decisions are based on budget and needs as per usual. Luckily the documentation and purchasing calculators seem to be fairly well done to make things easier.
The process really hasn’t changed. As a network guy you still need to work with your app/dev, server, workstation, database teams, etc to discover and map out the needs. Then you have to pick the right products(SKU’s) for your platform to meet the demands and put together a configuration plan to make it happen. Cloud networking is just a new product to study/learn and create something that works.
While I’m early in the process of learning (which never ends) it’s been good to at least get an understanding of the topics/options. I may or may not have to use them but it’s been kind of fun digging into something new to me yet again. Never stop learning!
Learning something new is always a task and challenge. Maybe you are studying for a certification. Or maybe just want to learn a new technology or concept. That most daunting task of learning is following through with it and complete it. It is easy to get side tracked and halted or maybe just complete stop and forget about it. One of the best things you can do to keep forward progress is to make a plan. Lay it out and organize it. It’s like a recipe. Make this first, then this second, then put it all together. I’ll go over some things I do for my plan.
The first thing I do is plan time. Set aside time for learning/studying/labing. We all have lives and things to do like laundry, dishes, mowing the lawn, etc. Many have kids with events and sports to go to. This can be a hard thing to do. For me I choose to wake up early to give myself an hour of study/lab time before breakfast (or maybe during breakfast). Maybe you choose the first hour after dinner or an hour after the kids go to bed. Being a NHL fan all the games are in the evenings so after making dinner and doing dishes it’s game time which is why I choose the wake up early method. Maybe you don’t watch much TV so evening may be better. But choose a time and map it out daily.
Leverage weekends! Unless you work on weekends or have migrations/cut overs etc there is more time in the day. In the summer it’s great to just sit on the back deck enjoying the sunshine and warmth and study/learn. For me I get great quiet time lounging around in the summer and since I’m in Michigan in the winter well, you just snow blow the driveway and then relax from the work so it’s good quiet time.
Another thing is “wait/bonus time”. Maybe you have a doctors appoint and are sitting in the waiting room. Or maybe getting an oil change/maintenance at a car shop or dealer. Some have kids at sporting practice. This is a great time to read blogs about your study subject or documentation. Short clips around the topic are great.
A lot of us eat lunch at our desks or at a company food court. Maybe you go out to a fast food restaurant or quick food restaurant to fill your hour lunch break. This is also a great time for blogs or technology documentation reading.
The next thing I do is pick my material. We all learn differently so this is an important decision. For me I usually pick a book, a video course, and a way to lab. You may use all of these or maybe you are just a reader. The important thing is to gather the material you need to study the topic. This is a pivotal point to laying out your plan.
From here I break things into chunks. If studying for a certification this is easy as it usually has a published blueprint for the exam. Even within that blueprint you can break it down even further. Maybe it’s a video course that has modules already broken down for you. Or if it’s a book it can be broken into chapters. You can further break these down into topics within a chapter or module. I like to take these chunks and make a Microsoft OneNote notebook with sections and pages for each topic I break down. I lay the sections and pages out based on my breakdown and leave them empty. As I study I take notes and fill in the pages. This acts like a check list as I proceed down the breakdown I made. If there are notes in it, I attempted/completed it. You might prefer a task board or excel sheet for this. Do whatever works for you.
You can do the same thing with just studying a technology/product. Most products have features that you are going to study. You can break your study plan up into the individual features. For example a firewall you might break it down into firewall rules, connectivity options, protocols, NAT options, and now-a-days some SD-WAN options. You can break your studying up into chunks.
Finally set a goal. This might be a successful deployment (I did this back in the day with a Gigamon deployment which was a device/company I never deployed before). Or if it’s a certification give your self a goal date to take the exam. Pass or not setting that goal date gives you a driving point to keep you motivated to make sure you stay on your study schedule. If you are like me and tend to get distracted another possible motivator is to actually pre-book the exam. This means you already dropped the cash and have to do your work. Or set a deployment date if you are just learning something for work and no exam. Motivate yourself!
For me it’s a chapter/module/chapter/feature a day if possible for whatever I’m studying. Whether certification or just learning a new technology. No, it’s not always possible but it’s a goal to push for.
The short story is set yourself up for success. We all have busy days and life’s and adding in studying something new is tough to fit in our daily schedule. Below is a short list of this post.
Schedule and set aside a time for study Pick your study materials Break down your focus (certification or technology) into chunks Create a checklist (OneNote sections and pages, excel spreadsheet, etc) to cross off Set a target (date for exam, date for deployment, etc)
I’m going to say we all (or at least most of us) start out working humble at odd jobs, restaurants, retail, etc. I’m no exception having done roofing, gas station attendant, press board manufacturer for peg boards, Jimmy Johns sandwich maker. Those jobs were all the same. Show up to work, say “Hi” to your co-workers, do your job and then say “Bye”.
After some time I ended up as just a regular employee at Staples. During that time I went to college for “network administration” was really just Windows Server courses and CompTIA A+/Network+ classes. Since I did the courses I took the exams because why not. Eventually that got me an upgrade to a Staples EasyTech role. This is where community started.
As Staples was shift work there was always a crossover window between shifts. This is where I found other I.T. workers supported each other. Even after transferring to a different city 5 hours away there was always a backing of each other and helping each other out.
Fast forward a year or two and I took a job at a healthcare company as a help desk employee and met a good friend of mine. We did the daily grind but knew we were going to be bought by a larger hospital system so we both started pushing to learn new things. We both got Windows 7 and Server 2008 certification pushing each other and sharing information.
Ultimately I went down the network engineering route and started focusing on Cisco as it was the vendor all the network equipment was. This is where I started to find community. I joined Twitter (now X) and started meeting all sorts of great friends in the industry.
Overall we were acquired and I got absorbed into a network team at a 3 county medical system. I shared an office with the lead collaboration engineer but was technically under the network team as a job. This is where the community starts for real. My manager, team lead, and all other employees were always happy to show me something or help me out. I ended up doing some voice work under the direction of my office mate just to help him out on all his tasks. Even working closely with the server, desktop, storage, and security teams. Everyone backed each other.
Move forward to when I moved to a VAR. It was dedicated teams for each specialty but we often had to work on projects together. It was always help and be helped. No one ever held back on helping another learn something as simple as terminology or concepts as it relates to the interaction between the teams. I won’t lie I even during an internet edge cut over played web based battleship as fun while waiting for smart hands to rack and stack gear.
Okay the past behind as from my experience most I.T. departments are helpful to each other and always back each other on their projects. Let us move onto platforms.
Us in I.T. are always learning something new. We could hold it to ourselves but that’s not the case in the I.T. community. We share. We want others to learn new things and progress. I think out willingness to help each other is a very unique thing to an industry.
Many people take all sorts of time out of their day to not only learn themselves, but to write blog posts to share there knowledge and experience with others. Some even create Youtube videos or live stream broadcasts to share and discuss topics. This is time out of their own days that they choose to share and help others. This even includes rock star authors that take their own time to share.
Go to an I.T. conference. It’s a whirlwind. So many people but so many people that will take their time to talk to you and give you information and advice. As an example (I know I know I’m Cisco focused) Cisco Live is a really fun event to meet people and have conversations. You don’t spend that week without walking away with something. I have a few friends that recently went to Defcon and it’s the same. End to end knowledge and sharing.
I know Twitter (X) is kind of under the hammer but the platform is still a great resource of awesome people that are always willing to help. I’ve even had questions during an overnight cut over that I reached out and someone replied. Always there are people willing to answer and help out. Don’t forget some people moved to mastodon but it’s similar.
Then we have communities on Webex and Discord. Naturally if you can get in Cisco Champions is a great group of people but most podcasts have a discord channel that can be a plethora of information. Again the community is always willing to help out with answers to questions or share content from what they’ve learned. I’ve even asked Windows laptop questions (Mac user I don’t get windows) in a fishing streamers Discord that has a “tech” channel and other Windows admins gave me directions to fix it.
The short answer is in I.T. we have a unique community where people are always willing to help out. Yeah, no matter where you post there will always be a couple people that post a negative comment or what not but overall the I.T. community is a very supportive and backing community. I truly hope it stays that way as I’ve made so many friends in the industry across a lot of domains and it seems to be a trend in our industry to help each other which is what makes all the late nights and messes we deal with just a bit more fun.
Back (way to long ago) when I got laid off one of the first things I did was buy a couple of books and then looked online. Udemy had a sale going on so I bought a couple of courses. One of them being a course for AZ-900. One of the books was for AZ-900. I did this to learn something new during down time.
My thought process was this. My last couple jobs had dedicated teams for security, route/switch, wireless, cloud, collaboration, etc. The short story is at some point it all overlaps. Being a network engineer I often had to work with the security, wireless, and cloud teams. I’d be in meetings and hearing cloud terms and concepts and collaborating how to combine everything. So I figured it wouldn’t hurt to learn the high level concepts of Azure as it’s one of the popular cloud platforms.
I let it slide as being laid off I ended up feeling defeated and didn’t really want to do much other than apply to anything and everything I could. Well last month I got back on my horse and decided to go down the drain and study for AZ-900. I figured it would at least be nice to know the terminology and concepts at a high level. So I started down the path.
The first thing I did was start the Udemy course. The course was – https://www.udemy.com/course/az900-azure/?couponCode=ACCAGE0923 by Scott Duffy. I’m most certainly a visual learner and struggle to just read books/documentation. It wasn’t the longest course ever but had well built demonstrations and labs to follow along with your free Azure account or built in labs. I think it did a good job at giving you a high level overview of AZ-900.
As an addition to the Udemy course I had purchased the AZ-900 exam reference book: https://www.informit.com/store/exam-ref-az-900-microsoft-azure-fundamentals-9780137955145
I read the topics I watched during the Udemy course as a backup/enforcer to the content I was seeing. Overall I think the book was a great help to my studies and covers the topics well. Again not being the best at reading I leveraged the book in evenings/at night as opposed to watching terrible cable television.
After I finished the course and reading I turned to Microsoft’s free training website. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/training/courses/az-900t00 It gave a great refresh overview of the topics on the exam. I’m quite impressed with the coverage of topics and content of a free training course offered by a provider. The practice tests were a decent exam of the topics and I think helped out immensely. I certainly recommend checking out Microsoft Learn for content you want to brush up on or just get a concept of.
On to the exam itself. I won’t talk about the Pearson virtual exam experience because that’s it’s own topic. I booked the exam through the Microsoft website and was lucky enough to book the exam the same day for an evening session. This was just after I finished the MS Learn training so everything was still fresh. Lucky me!
Overall I found the exam to be quite fair. I can’t talk details naturally but I feel it did a good job of covering the exam objectives without throwing in alternative topics that you didn’t study for. The questions were to the tee and concise and not written to pull the wool over your eyes.
Coming from an install career of route/switch networks I think AZ-900 is a great exam to study for to get your feet wet in the Azure cloud and obtain a high level understanding of it’s concepts and offerings. Naturally as it’s called Azure Fundamentals it doesn’t go deep into topics but is a great starting place. It was surely worth the time and effort to get that terminology and concepts down for someone that doesn’t play around in the cloud.
Overall I recommend anyone in the I.T. community study for and take this exam to get a bearing. Cloud is certainly relevant today and whether you are security, route/switch, or server dedicated it is a great intro to the environment.
Being unemployed I’ve found it very difficult to study or stay up to date on things so I wanted to share some of my tips and tricks to keeping up when you don’t have the funds to buy training course subscriptions and books or gear.
The first thing I can say is look at youtube. There are a lot of great content creators out there that produce a lot of great content that you can watch for free. While I understand it’s not the same as getting your feet wet playing with the technology it’s a great way to watch someone go through the ropes and walk you through the process. Some great examples are:
Most of these creators all have websites and great social media (twitter(x), twitch, instagram, etc) as well so I recommend you most certainly google them.
Speaking of things like twitter(x) certainly look at them for hashtags or @’s of the conference on things you are looking at. Especially when a conference is going on a lot of hashtags are used while people share insights and opinions or updates. #ciscolive #ciscochampion @ciscolive @defcon are great examples.
Now onto websites. There are a lot of great blogs/websites out there to glean content off of and learn things. A lot of industry people and companies blog and write content to help educate people either on a technology or their own product. Do some google searches and see what you find. Some great examples are:
Daniels Networking Blog – https://lostintransit.se/ Nick Russo’s Job Aids page – https://njrusmc.net/jobaid/jobaid.html PacketLife.net – https://packetlife.net/ (great set of cheat sheets) Wendell Odom’s Certskills website – https://www.certskills.com
A lot of times there are some great broadcasts that go on. For example during CiscoLive they often stream keynotes. There are also some great companies like Tech Field Day that put together a panel of delegates to watch presentations and demo’s from industry leaders in technology and ask the deep important questions about a product. Most certainly check them out.
Tech Field Day – https://techfieldday.com/ CiscoLive – https://www.ciscolive.com/
If you have a decent commute I also recommend looking into PodCasts. Many of the Youtubers and bloggers also do podcasts which are a great alternative to listen to while driving then the same songs you’ve been hearing on the radio for years. Do some digging and see what you can find.
A great example of podcasts is the PacketPushers podcasts. They also have a website that has a lot of great content – https://packetpushers.net/
You may not have much to spend on big subscriptions to training courses and books but can an eye out on companies like Pluralsight and Udemy. They often have sales going on where you can pick a course up for 10$ or similar that can help you at least learn at a high level the idea of the technology
Also keep an eye on the manufactures/product companies websites as well as partner/VARs. Often they have community pages and marketing videos/slideshows that can help you grasp a concept. While it may only be high level it can be good insight on where the market is heading. Many also do webinars you can join to see whats new and maybe a demo. Some good examples:
There are also some great discord channels that regularly hold study groups and just chatting sessions. These are great arenas to listen and learn, ask questions, get responses, and learn something new. Look out for those on all the social media profiles.
These are all just examples of things you can do. It is by no means an inclusive list and there are 100’s of people I’d love to shout out. No, it’s not the same as reading an official cert guide or getting your hands on gear/vms to lab things and get your hands dirty and your mind racing but it’s a step.
So I chose to tweet if I should write a post about how I got to where I am. I got a bit of feed back to do it so here it goes.
It all started growing up as a kid. My dad spent his entire career at the telco. He started out climbing poles and getting stung by yellow jacket nests hidden in transformers while he was roped in and spiked in so he had to climb down slowly while being attacked. After his hard work on the lines he ended up working in the CO’s as a senior guy. He used to take me fishing but if we were ever near one of the CO’s he would stop and fix something he knew needed fixing. The way he would entertain me when he was working on it was an empty block, a cable tool, and some leftover cable. I’d sit there and terminate cable for fun. There is a good chance I still remember the floor tile on the raised floor they hid a case of soda in to keep it cool.
In fact, I still remember two of my favorite toys were promotional aluminum toy GTE trucks that were coin banks. I still have one of his original GTE buttsets he gave me when I started my network career. He went to school for electrical engineering and is an active HAMM radio operator.
Anyways from there I went to elementary school, Junior High, and eventually High School. The first two were mostly filled with sports, broken bones, and stitches. (I’m really good at ER visits now days). The biggest thing about those early days was my early access to computers and the internet. Since dad worked at the telco we were early adopters in my town of computers and the good ol’ dial up internet. Who remembers callwave internet answering machine?
Come to High School and I found music. Technically the music started in 6th grade where we had to try out for instruments. I really wanted to play trumpet but I sucked at it and they handed me drum sticks so in Junior High I ended up in percussion. When I got to High School I got introduced through friends to a lot of punk rock, asked my band director to let me take the drum set home during summer, pissed my neighbors off, and taught myself how to play drum set. Thanks Mr. Bishop for letting me steal the High Schools jazz drum set to teach my self how to play rock music.
At this point I was a High School percussionist in the symphony band and the marching band. I decided to join a punk band which was overall an adventure. In the end I ended up traveling around a 3 state area playing concerts with the band, recording a CD in a lake side cottage, and started getting tattooed. Played in front of record executives at the Hard Rock Cafe in Cleveland Ohio. Of course I was also a skateboarder so spent a lot of time thrashing the town. All of which my parents were great fans of (Sarcasm).
During that time I did all the odd jobs to make money to travel around with the band and afford gear. I worked as a stock boy at a convenience store gas station the town over. I worked as a roofer under the table where the rule was “3 feet before you hit the ground if you fall off you are fired”. Liability you know since I wasn’t on pay roll. Worked as a logger for an old High School teacher during the summer. Worked 3rd shift one summer through a temporary services company at a business that made peg board (yes that stuff to hang your tools on in your garage) for a summer. Then a Jimmy Johns opened up in town. I worked a while making sandwiches and delivering sandwiches and got tired of it.
The band ultimately broke up. Guitarist moved to the Detroit area and my bassist moved to Texas. So I broke down and applied at Staples and my local community college. I ultimately got the job at Staples and got into college. I went into a program that was labeled as “Network Administration”. It was more or less a glorified program that should have been called “Help Desk Associate”. Classes started with basic computer work following the CompTIA A+ and Network+ blueprints. I picked it because I was around computers and networks growing up. It just felt natural. Ultimately I ended up working myself up to an Easy Tech at Staples after passing those two exams and gaining those certifications. I finally achieved my Associated Degree and got engaged to my fiance. That’s when I quit college and decided not to chase a 4 year degree. Instead I kept working and she graduated and wanted to go to a college 5 hours away from our home town.
We went to visit the college and ultimately decided to look for an apartment instead of living so far away from each other and her paying for a dorm. I eventually told my parents what I was going to do and they accepted my fate of quitting chasing a 4 year degree, getting engaged, and moving. I somehow got a transfer to a Staples 30 minutes away from what would ultimately be our first apartment.
That’s the year I started chasing further learning. I was working odd hours at Staples and my fiance was working hard at college. I somehow managed to pay for two people to live off a retail store income and her to go to college. Proud of myself for fighting through that. While she was studying, I was studying and ultimately got a few more certifications.
Fast forward I got tired of the 30 minute drive as it was getting costly paying for two people to live and only me working so I started applying to everything I could find in the area we lived. Then I got a call from two guys that were starting a call center for computers in their basement. I took the shot and accepted their “interview”. They asked to meet at a Starbucks so I said sure and we scheduled a time. What a risk that was. I met them there and they were in full blown suits (pants, dress shirts, ties, suit coats) and SANDALS……..
Either way they offered me a spot and after some thinking I decided to take it hesitantly but sometimes you have to take a chance. Luckily before I started a healthcare company in the area called me about a help desk position that actually offered benefits, a steady job in an office, and had facilities all over the county. So I turned the guys call center down and joined the healthcare company.
I worked help desk for a few years and they promoted the one network engineer to an I.T. Manager. Slowly he quit doing network tasks so I asked if they would send me to a CCENT training course. They eventually said yes and that turned into an awfully awkward situation. The course was in person and an hours drive away for 5 days in a row. As I didn’t really have much disposable income I needed to stay up in the city an hour away. My then wife somehow set up for me to stay on her friends couch up there who was an ex girlfriend of mine. That was super awkward but I pushed through.
After the training I bought the book (Still have it. Thanks Wendell!) and starting studying to take the exam. Eventually I passed CCENT and starting taking over network tasks. Then I started taking over Server, VMWare, and Cisco Voice tasks. So ultimately I got studying and certified in all of those because I didn’t know what my next move would be. There were more certs involved but no one wants to read what is already a long post and read about every exam I took and when I took it. (If interested you can see everything I achieved here.
After all the time I spent the healthcare company got bought by a 3 county hospital system will 2 hospitals and dozens of specialty clinics. They transferred my role to a “Network Engineer II” role where I shared an office with the level III voice technician. I ended up building clinics networks, rolling out an entire layer 2 refresh, migrated from P2P VPN’s to DMVPN, and built a backup data centers network. Shhhh….. There was a bit of voice in there with some UCCX scripting and an analog line to VG224 migration (42? VG224s) and a telehealth setup to call manager complete with video.
Eventually I got bored of all the VLAN changes and chasing down of MAC addresses and a friend of mine put my resume into a VAR. They ultimately called me and I did the awkward thing of doing a technical interview in my car during lunch. I got the job and started the fun.
At that VAR I built networks for the states board of water and light, built an entire new high schools network from the ground up (I’m talking them pouring the foundation and once the building was done I build the IDFs), refreshes for Universities and water sanitation plants, fixed the department of transportation multicast issue’s for their highway camera system, migrated a dental insurance companies DMVPN to Viptela SD-WAN and many more projects. Got sent to a Viptela training in Atlanta, did SD-WAN training through Silverpeaks partner program. Then ultimately got let go because of a lack of new projects coming in.
Back to the drawing board. I did some searching and fairly quickly got into another VAR who ultimately let me go fairly quickly for the same reason. Lack of new projects. I’ve been unemployed ever since (over a year and a half now) but luckily because all of my hard work I was able to save enough to survive that long. It was quite the adventure being laid off that long. The stress got to me and I ended up spending a week in a mental health facility for hallucinations and having two seizures.
While being laid off I didn’t stop. I used cash back from my credit card to buy some books and Udemy courses and have continued to study and read. I’ve been able to mostly keep up on things thanks to all my friends on twitter (somehow during all this adventure I grew to over 2k followers) and all my great friends in the Cisco Champions group (Member since 2017).
The TL;DR……don’t give up and keep on pushing. I kept pushing and went from odd jobs to getting to meet awesome people, do cool projects, and keep on trucking.
