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.
