My frustrations as a network engineer

[RFC Rudel]

The next day I was standing at his office door with his boss, The VP of his division, security and building maintenance to help him clean out his desk before lunch. I felt horrible for doing my job. It was my position to rat people out if they had porn, links to gambling sites, personal information… Some days I felt horrible because I helped someone lose their jobs.

I have to do the same, but I focus on the company IT administrators and support personal.

 

[joseph0042]

It is amazing the people that get hired by companies these days. I have dealt with numerous individuals who fit into the category of how the heck did you get hired in IT without knowing IT....

 

[smakme7757]

It is amazing the people that get hired by companies these days. I have dealt with numerous individuals who fit into the category of how the heck did you get hired in IT without knowing IT....

There are a few reasons. The first is outdated IT personnel. The world is crawling with people who got hired in the early 2000s and haven't managed to keep up with the development of IT technologies. They might have been stronger in other areas of IT when they got hired and have gone downhill from there or they just haven't put in the effort to update what they know. It's difficult to keep up with every area of IT.

The other is that the "IT" person was just someone in the office who was the best at it at the time. Very common in small business.

I suppose the third is people who got a degree, but never really understood how things worked and the just didn't love IT. Lets face it, not all student who finished a degree in IT are going to be super stars.

Then i guess it's also a perspective thing. You might be an ace in Linux administration and feel that the person you are talking to has no idea despite them being adequate for what ever it is that have to do in that specific workplace.

But that's nothing new. Every profession is the same. You get the good and the bad. It's just the way it is, we aren't born equal .

 

[RFC Rudel]

It is amazing the people that get hired by companies these days. I have dealt with numerous individuals who fit into the category of how the heck did you get hired in IT without knowing IT....

each company put a diferent problem, 1 like I mention before make the infrastructure and security unaware of the task that the developers do.

another take support personal that ask for less $ ( one l1 support don't kwon how to install an active X!!!)

working as external consulting/network admin I must fight the angry local admins, the companies crazy management.......lack of $ is lack of personal, you have to fight for the most common IT operational protocols.

 

[sdifox]

I am not the network guy but I see some infuriating decisions. Company A had gigabit deployed to each desktop and old nortel pbx. They decide up upgrade, so they refresh all edge switches to Cisco PoE+. And Nortel ip phones that has an ethernet pass though. They figured they were clever avoiding adding another 2000 drops.

Except the phones they bought were 100baseT.

 

[spidey07]

Sdifox - that happens more than you want to know

 

[sdifox]

Sdifox - that happens more than you want to know

oh, I have seen plenty of waste. Like skids of servers going back still shrink wrapped on original skids at the end of the lease

 

[RFC Rudel]

I suppose the third is people who got a degree, but never really understood how things worked and the just didn't love IT..

You need passion for this job, I cant think of going home and not keep working on some thing that find that day and was unable to fix/or figure out.

I think that the constant change and the need keep your skills up to date are the things I like about the job. (I always try all new microsoft release to find how to fix the new features or was inly a SP whit new name and price tag.)

and working using Microsoft software make you an adrenaline junky, ok the days of nt4 and Exchange 5.5 are over, but to maintain a no downtime for years (only scheduled) on complex networks (Clusters/Exchange/sql/etc) ore small ones whit no budget is a challenge that require much commitment on your part.

many times you have to protect the enterprise from the owners decisions. and not to mention make them understand why change hardware before is broke (life span of X hardware 5 years, I request change after 2.5 even if is working fine).

And the better you do your job, the system work whit no downtime and go and ask for a raise....If you don't do your work and they have problems yes no problem...

Today in argentina is hard get people with the passion of my generation (I have 39), and is normal chat between old coworkers, we don't see the same commitment, they stay in they comfort zone, they even don't want free training.

I have seen IT personal whit no skill, but I notice the ones that one to learn, and I take care they have all they need, even if require my own time, but that is very rare today.

 

[sdifox]

You need passion for this job, I cant think of going home and not keep working on some thing that find that day and was unable to fix/or figure out.

I think that the constant change and the need keep your skills up to date are the things I like about the job. (I always try all new microsoft release to find how to fix the new features or was inly a SP whit new name and price tag.)

and working using Microsoft software make you an adrenaline junky, ok the days of nt4 and Exchange 5.5 are over, but to maintain a no downtime for years (only scheduled) on complex networks (Clusters/Exchange/sql/etc) ore small ones whit no budget is a challenge that require much commitment on your part.

many times you have to protect the enterprise from the owners decisions. and not to mention make them understand why change hardware before is broke (life span of X hardware 5 years, I request change after 2.5 even if is working fine).

And the better you do your job, the system work whit no downtime and go and ask for a raise....If you don't do your work and they have problems yes no problem...

Today in argentina is hard get people with the passion of my generation (I have 39), and is normal chat between old coworkers, we don't see the same commitment, they stay in they comfort zone, they even don't want free training.

I have seen IT personal whit no skill, but I notice the ones that one to learn, and I take care they have all they need, even if require my own time, but that is very rare today.

Can you send me some Mantecol, Alfajol and Dulce de Leche? I miss tira de asado.

 

[RFC Rudel]

Can you send me some Mantecol, Alfajol and Dulce de Leche? I miss tira de asado.

alfajor y bife de chorizo

 

[sdifox]

alfajor y bife de chorizo

ny steak is easy to come by.

 

[EricFiskCGD]

You need passion for this job, I cant think of going home and not keep working on some thing that find that day and was unable to fix/or figure out.

Today in argentina is hard get people with the passion of my generation (I have 39), and is normal chat between old coworkers, we don't see the same commitment, they stay in they comfort zone, they even don't want free training.

I have seen IT personal whit no skill, but I notice the ones that one to learn, and I take care they have all they need, even if require my own time, but that is very rare today.

You're aces, RFC. I like what you have to write.

That’s a phenomenon that I see a lot here in my region of the country – North East United States. There are a lot of people who think they need to be pushed along up the ladder; not because they’re qualified but for “social promotion.” They think that because they’re of a specific age they need to be on a specific rung up the ladder or two. That’s just not the case, you need to earn your position.

Regardless of what field you’re in, you have to keep learning. If that means you’re constantly taking night or on-line courses, then do it. If that means buying your own equipment and software to experiment at home, so much the better! Losers run in place, winners keep moving forward.

The first step towards wisdom is to admit; “I don’t know, yet” with a follow-up “And I know where the answers are.” There’s nothing worse than making up an answer and getting caught in a fib. There are times I don’t know jack but I’m willing to admit it and seek out the answers.

Why are these things so hard for others to do?

 

[xSauronx]

Why are these things so hard for others to do?

i wonder the same thing sometimes. i will spare you all the stories, but i busted my ass to just get into a decent server admin gig at a good company. i find people pissing and moaning all the time about hating their working or wanting to do X or Y, but basically refusing to put in the time and effort to make it happen.

incredible.

 

[alkemyst]

Whatever you do in life, where ever you end up, doesn't matter pay grade, status, anything other that you must find that place your passion.

Once that happens no matter where you are, is where you want to be.

 

[RFC Rudel]

“I don’t know, yet”

and in IT the more you learn the more you realize how much you don't know.

 

[mayadariy]

thanks for sharing!

 

[Carson Dyle]

And the simple fact that IT is just about the absolute bottom of the tech barrel. Seems these days that every pimply faced game-obsessed kid who never went to school for so much as a pre-college Algebra class ends up in IT.

 

[imagoon]

And the simple fact that IT is just about the absolute bottom of the tech barrel. Seems these days that every pimply faced game-obsessed kid who never went to school for so much as a pre-college Algebra class ends up in IT.

That is your perception. "IT" is a huge field and that "pimply faced game-obsessed kid who never went to school" will generally never amount to more than basic helpdesk or one of those guys who thinks he is pimp because he plugged the company of 6 employee's LAN in the the "web" with a linksys router and things "I'm a network engineer!"

We can take him over to CBOE and see how he does...

 

[dave_the_nerd]

And the simple fact that IT is just about the absolute bottom of the tech barrel. Seems these days that every pimply faced game-obsessed kid who never went to school for so much as a pre-college Algebra class ends up in IT.

Geek Squad drones, sure.

At a certain level, the line between IT and software development becomes... really blurry.

 

[Zargon]

And the simple fact that IT is just about the absolute bottom of the tech barrel. Seems these days that every pimply faced game-obsessed kid who never went to school for so much as a pre-college Algebra class ends up in IT.

IT is the bottom of the IT barrel?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Deleting VMWare snapshots takes forever.

 

[imagoon]

Deleting VMWare snapshots takes forever.

Yup. Need to upgrade your storage .

Protip: for production real life machines, take a snapshot before deleting another (esp large and long lived) snapshot. The VM will be much more stable as the smaller snap eats the disk writes while the mass merge is happening.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I had an IT manager who used to blame the network for everything even local stuff like if his computer was slow. It was pretty hilarious. "there are gremlins on the network!"

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Yup. Need to upgrade your storage .

Protip: for production real life machines, take a snapshot before deleting another (esp large and long lived) snapshot. The VM will be much more stable as the smaller snap eats the disk writes while the mass merge is happening.

I have to get rid of them all so I can expand the disk.

VM is offline, but it's 500GB. And of course I can't turn it on or cancel a snapshot deletion in progress. *sigh*

#firstworldproblems

 

[Red Squirrel]

At work we had a rule for VM snapshots. Absolutely NO snapshots on database or file servers or anything that has high I/O. If you do make a snapshot on a server set a reminder in your calendar to delete it the next day. Snapshots are basically a delta file of changes and the longer you let it, the bigger it gets. When you delete the snapshot it basically has to go through each delta change and apply to the main disk. So the bigger the snapshot the longer it takes to restore.

Either way, just let it go and be patient and try not to do anything to the VM while it's happening. Though I have seen instances where it fails for whatever reason and you end up with a corrupted VM. Not fun.