DISCLAIMER: Should you be an employer and discover your employees here discussing what things are like where they work, don't crack down on your employees. FIX THE PROBLEMS. Don't make excuses: fix them. Really. That's your job, right? Fixing things? I mean, do you *really* want to crack down on people who care? If so, well, we're not fired. We resign our position, effective retroactively to before you read anything offensive here.
A friend of mine just got canned over a FB post, so I'm a little paranoid... then again, I'm also a network security engineer. Good luck finding my replacement. :problem?: OK, end of disclaimer...
*****
Problem of a small company: no money for anything. Make a $500 piece of gear do the work of a $5000 piece of gear and then put out all the fires that result from using the wrong gear for the job. :excited:
Problem of a medium company: the guys that run the place are trying to preserve the folksy, let's-trust-everyone-because-we're-all-a-family atmosphere of a small company, and that means loads of security holes, people working there that should be fired, and a $500 switch and $10000 of cascading unmanaged switches that really should be replaced by a decent $5000 switch. :wall:
Problem of a large company: every department has its own global standards that supersede everyone else's global standards and there is no one global standard to determine which global standards should apply. The result? Project documentation is in a constant churn because of different departments dictating what standards should apply to the documentation. :angry:
What problems have you noticed over the years?
Medium growing: let's act like a big company. Only we don't have experience with it concerning designs/procedures/training... So basically you're expected to keep to (non-existing) procedures while still having the we're-family-business-close-to-the-customer view. Meaning we'll do anything custom the customer asks (do not argue), next we'll blame you because it's not within our templates.
Or vice versa, from now one we have generic-strict-procedure so you can't do many things anymore, but we're not telling the customer we're not doing that anymore. He'll come complain to you directly when you're in the field. Good luck.
Granted a temporary situation if the company adapts but a very irritating one to be in.
Any company that's plateaued out: panic mode sets in, and panic means meetings. Lots of meetings. Lots of meetings leads to lots of mission statements, initiatives, slogans that incorporate the company logo, and then, when nothing else works, headcount reduction so that a drop in expenses can be presented as an increase in profitability. Sure, it is an increase in profitability, but it's a damn sorry way to get it, and the start of a march downward.
So, if you see an uptick in meetings and mission statements, get out before you're cut out.
I work for a global corp that manages a slew of different contracts. Each contract, while under the same company, is effectively it's own entity with a seperate management structure.
The program I'm with recruits net admins using the same canned questions they have been using for years and will hire someone as long as their resume says they have experience. Proof of baseline certification is required (CCNA, Sec+)
This obviously leads to problems, and all the way from tier 1 to 3 I have heard the same story of incompetence and people who are unable/unwilling to work. They are carried by those who possess the knowledge and abillity to perform.
It's obnoxious, especially when I have an outage and the wrong person answers the phone and tells me it's a tier 2 issue. One guy even gave me the number to my own helpdesk and told me to call tier 2 networks (me). I was dumbfounded.
The bright side of this is that you will shine if you are halfway intelligent and work hard.
Small Company: I am too small to care about compliance and software licenses, etc. Nobody is going to come after me because I am not big enough for them to bother.
Medium company: HOLY CRAP THE BUSINESS SOFTWARE ALLIANCE PEOPLE ARE COMING IN FOR AN AUDIT GET THOSE LICENSES MOVE MOVE MOVE MOVE MOVE!!!!!!!!!
Mine is on a different end. Medium business. Upgrading/replacement of software without training or sometimes even an fyi. About 2 years ago I came in to work to find we had upgraded to office 2010, therefore breaking all my reports and scripts in MS Access and Excel. Several months later, they moved a network drive, breaking all my data links again and shortcuts not working. Now we are moving to outlook. I'm excited to see how long it takes to get accustomed to it since we never use something straight out the box without a plethora of enhancements.
Small Company: Yes, we have our own IT guy. This is Bob and he is our accountant by day and our IT guy by night.
Medium Compnay: Yes, we have dedicated IT staff. One has lots of experience with Windows 95, another has lots of experience with Novell, and the rest are all high school grads with no idea what the hell they are doing.
Note: This is becoming a good rant/stress reliever thread lol.
Small: the owner pops around and offers to help because he's done some stuff with computers before.
Medium: the owner walks past your area and asks how everything's going and reminisces about how he used to do a little work on the network because he's done some stuff with computers before.
Large: the owners are a faceless mob of shareholders who employ several layers of managers, all of whom have done some stuff with computers before.
Medium sized service/consultancy, unwilling or afraid to provide proper training, so they don't lose their people. Irony: The people who want to learn do so anyway, and leave due to lack of growth opportunities.
^ It could be argued that they're happiest with people that don't want training, but who are content with the same job, over and over and over again, day in, day out.
Small company: You want training? BRB, gotta put out the ad we used to hire you a month ago, because you'll be gone within a month.
Large company: You want training? Sure, just sign here where it says you'll pay us for the training if you take off before we get our ROI from your training.
^ Medium company: training? Sure, but we don't have a budget for that. But if you want, we are more than willing to approve your vacation time and for you to pay the course out of pocket. Just let us know when :D
Oh you're out of vacation? What about next year?
Small company: Vacation? You want a vacation? Oh geez, I guess we need to start looking for a new guy. Network guys only take vacation when they have a job interview at a better place.
Medium company: Vacation? Sure, go ahead and go on vacation. Just make sure to check your email every day, in case there's an emergency. (Emergencies then happen on every day of vacation, so it becomes your pilot of a "remote option" that they've been considering for some time now...)
Large company: Vacation? Sure, no problem at all. Just make sure you trained your backfill before you go. He'll be hired in a few weeks, I'm sure, but until then, we need you to keep holding the fort.
EUROPEAN VACATION ALTERNATIVE: If you don't take vacation for all of July and August, we will have you deported to the USA, where scofflaws like you can work all year!
Small company: you have meetings with yourself or deal with a bunch of walk-ups.
Medium company: meetings are mostly with your managers or with vendors doing a presentation. Everyone in IT is within earshot, so if you have a problem and they can help, they'll walk up to help. Or to point and laugh, depending on the environment.
Large company: Meetings, meetings, everywhere. You have meetings where you plan on who should be invited to the next set of meetings. Meetings with people two levels above you take precedence over ALL other activities, even ones that are supposed to take 100% of your time because it's a critical failure, etc. If the guy two levels above wants to talk to you about your timecards, let the switches burn for half an hour and go to that meeting.
Don't get me started with meetings (too late). I work 10 hour days, and looking at my schedule for the other day I spent 6 hours in scheduled meetings. Then add in the hallway meetings between meetings I probably spent 8 hours in meetings in one day. Which sounds like I got two hours to do work, but those two hours were broken up in 30 minute windows between meetings. So by the time I get back to my desk, login, and remember what I was doing it is time to go to the next meeting. I am not the only engineer here with this problem, and we actually (no joke) have a meeting next week to find a solution to having too many meetings.
To keep on topic.
Small Company - If they decide to spend money you being the only IT guy pretty much get whatever you want within budget. You don't have to do months of analysis on what product is better.
Medium Company - Typically larger budget so you get bigger toys, but you have to share that budget with other groups in IT so you have to better justify why you need the toys.
Large Company - Of course a larger budget so even bigger toys, however, after doing six months of analysis on which option is best, and meeting after meeting with vendors, and management by the time the gear shows up you are so sick of the project you don't actually want to deploy the gear.
-Otanx
The meeting I'm in now was scheduled for half an hour... it's now gone over that time by an additional hour.
Small company: you want something really cool, but we're a little tight this month, so can you make do with the model one or two tiers below that one?
Medium company: you want something really cool, but is that the right size for us? Can you make do with the model a tier or two below that one?
Large company: you want something really cool, you put together the request for it, and another vendor goes straight to the C-level gang and you get their version of the product, at a huge discount!, but still leaving you wanting something really cool.
Quote from: Otanx on April 16, 2015, 10:00:38 AM
Don't get me started with meetings (too late). I work 10 hour days, and looking at my schedule for the other day I spent 6 hours in scheduled meetings. Then add in the hallway meetings between meetings I probably spent 8 hours in meetings in one day. Which sounds like I got two hours to do work, but those two hours were broken up in 30 minute windows between meetings. So by the time I get back to my desk, login, and remember what I was doing it is time to go to the next meeting. I am not the only engineer here with this problem, and we actually (no joke) have a meeting next week to find a solution to having too many meetings.
To keep on topic.
Small Company - If they decide to spend money you being the only IT guy pretty much get whatever you want within budget. You don't have to do months of analysis on what product is better.
Medium Company - Typically larger budget so you get bigger toys, but you have to share that budget with other groups in IT so you have to better justify why you need the toys.
Large Company - Of course a larger budget so even bigger toys, however, after doing six months of analysis on which option is best, and meeting after meeting with vendors, and management by the time the gear shows up you are so sick of the project you don't actually want to deploy the gear.
-Otanx
I work in a small/medium company. One thing we kicked around to keep us out of meetings was for our department to bill the department that wanted all of our time (sales). Food for thought.
Quote from: Mowery on April 16, 2015, 12:37:44 PM
I work in a small/medium company. One thing we kicked around to keep us out of meetings was for our department to bill the department that wanted all of our time (sales). Food for thought.
That is an excellent idea. :banana:
Lol. I love meetings about who we should invite for the real meeting.
Another favorite is someone overbooked, so we have a repeat meeting scheduled so we can get those who overbooked (or just didn't want to go) back up to speed.
However, my list would never be complete without the surprise meeting. For me as a developer, its "hey, here is a meeting notice 2 hours from now. Here are the requirements for a report we are requesting. Can you demo this when you come in 2 hours? Thanks and you're awesome." Sure thing, I just whipped up a batch of random reports while I was sitting here bored. And looky there, one just so happens to match your requirements perfectly!
Need to make a big change?
Small company: tell the owner and the managers. They're all for it, you work the weekend and it's done. Show up Monday early, though, just in case.
Medium company: meet with your manager. He meets with other managers. Change gets scheduled to be part of monthly maintenance. Work that weekend and show up early the next Monday, just in case.
Large company: meet with your manager. He meets with other managers. They, in turn, meet with yet more managers. Those managers have questions. You meet with those managers. They then have another meeting with your manager and his counterparts. They then have a meeting with you. You revise your change and then repeat the cycle of meetings with managers, etc.
Good news is that you don't have to show up early Monday morning, just in case. Bad news is that you need to be up early Monday morning for that 6AM call with the main office in Europe. (... or the 2AM call for the main office in Japan...)
Small company: You handle firewall change requests, from start to finish. If a change goes awry, you fix it at the moment of testing and simply report at the end, "it's all good."
Medium company: You do the change request, but someone else tests. He has a problem, so you fix it then and there and make a note in the change log about the adjustment.
Large company: You order a change request for the firewall, the request goes to the guys from another company that handles all the change requests, and then the work itself goes to the company responsible for maintaining the firewalls, which then schedules a date and time to make the changes. Some time after the changes are made, you receive word that the changes are in place and then you reach out to the customer and invite her to test the rules. Some time after that, the customer replies that the rules didn't work, could you please investigate. Of course, you can't, since you don't have any access to the third-party managed equipment, so you have to raise an incident with the change management company, which eventually forwards that on to the infrastructure management guys, who wonder why it is that they have a firewall ticket, so they mark it a misroute and somehow the ticket gets assigned to you, so you have to call the change management guys to get it to the correct queue, but all those guys are now on vacation because they're in Norway and it's the end of May, so when they get back they ask what, exactly was wrong, and then you can just kick yourself because you didn't get the exact error message from the customer, so you reach out, but she's on vacation because she's in Portugal and wants to take advantage of getting both the 10th and 13th off, and then a Director-level person starts sending you emails with exclamation points because this is now, all of a sudden, an emergency critical hot potato high profile issue but thank goodness the lady in Portugal checked her email because she sends you that exact error message and then the firewall guys say, OK, they see where they mistyped an IP address, so they'll schedule another outage a week from now to correct the error and meanwhile that Director wants you to escalate and he's CC'd the CIO so somehow it became your job to figure out how to escalate an issue in a third-party entity outside their normal trouble ticket escalation procedure, which normally takes a 1-2 week lead time to prepare the staff to receive an escalation, but by the time you've figured out the escalation process, the change window arrives and the error is corrected but before you think it's all over, a tech writer from the project that the lady from Portugal is working on hits you up on IM to ask when you'll have some time to capture the incident so it can be entered into project documentation.
But the pay is WAY better than working in the small or medium company, so you put up with it.
Working through this now
Dev/Test environments
Small company: You dev and test in production. It would be nice to have a test/dev system, but that would double your IT budget.
Medium company: Critical systems have a Dev/Test environment. Change control is handled by an email to the application manager/admin. Testing is up to the developer and business process owner. Non critical - see above.
Large company: you have separate test and dev environments, a team dedicated to change management and testing. Changes become such a big deal that changing something is highly discouraged.
Quote from: deanwebb on May 28, 2015, 09:07:50 AM
Small company: You handle firewall change requests, from start to finish. If a change goes awry, you fix it at the moment of testing and simply report at the end, "it's all good."
Medium company: You do the change request, but someone else tests. He has a problem, so you fix it then and there and make a note in the change log about the adjustment.
Large company: You order a change request for the firewall, the request goes to the guys from another company that handles all the change requests, and then the work itself goes to the company responsible for maintaining the firewalls, which then schedules a date and time to make the changes. Some time after the changes are made, you receive word that the changes are in place and then you reach out to the customer and invite her to test the rules. Some time after that, the customer replies that the rules didn't work, could you please investigate. Of course, you can't, since you don't have any access to the third-party managed equipment, so you have to raise an incident with the change management company, which eventually forwards that on to the infrastructure management guys, who wonder why it is that they have a firewall ticket, so they mark it a misroute and somehow the ticket gets assigned to you, so you have to call the change management guys to get it to the correct queue, but all those guys are now on vacation because they're in Norway and it's the end of May, so when they get back they ask what, exactly was wrong, and then you can just kick yourself because you didn't get the exact error message from the customer, so you reach out, but she's on vacation because she's in Portugal and wants to take advantage of getting both the 10th and 13th off, and then a Director-level person starts sending you emails with exclamation points because this is now, all of a sudden, an emergency critical hot potato high profile issue but thank goodness the lady in Portugal checked her email because she sends you that exact error message and then the firewall guys say, OK, they see where they mistyped an IP address, so they'll schedule another outage a week from now to correct the error and meanwhile that Director wants you to escalate and he's CC'd the CIO so somehow it became your job to figure out how to escalate an issue in a third-party entity outside their normal trouble ticket escalation procedure, which normally takes a 1-2 week lead time to prepare the staff to receive an escalation, but by the time you've figured out the escalation process, the change window arrives and the error is corrected but before you think it's all over, a tech writer from the project that the lady from Portugal is working on hits you up on IM to ask when you'll have some time to capture the incident so it can be entered into project documentation.
But the pay is WAY better than working in the small or medium company, so you put up with it.
Hahaha - awesome. :rofl:
You forgot to mention the post incident review and the five whys.
Quote from: wintermute000 on May 28, 2015, 11:27:28 PM
You forgot to mention the post incident review and the five whys.
I think that the incident management guys handle that with the firewall management firm, unless there's a web host involved, in which case we rope in marketing, because they manage the external DNS, along with other brand management pieces.
Sometimes when I read you guys posts I am so glad I work in a smaller consulting company. I don't think I could handle the loads of hoops you guys have to jump through just to get a new roll of toilet paper lol.
Small Company: You go on vacation only to have that vacation interrupted because you are the only guy employed by the company capable of solving certain problems.
Building on the above...
Medium company: your vacation is not interrupted, but you have a huge pile of work to do when you get back.
Large company: Your vacation is interrupted because you're the only guy employed to solve a specific kind of problem, and of course it breaks when you're out of the office. There is a req for your backfill in the works, but there hasn't been a suitable candidate as of yet.
Quote from: deanwebb on June 15, 2015, 12:20:33 PM
...There is a req for your backfill in the works, but there hasn't been a suitable candidate as of yet.
Or the position is in a hiring freeze for the last year!
Small company: they have no idea that they need a security solution, get hacked as a result.
Medium company: they know that they need a security solution, but they lowball the bid and get hacked where they're not protected as a result.
Big company: they know that they need a top-of-the-line security solution, they buy the best, but they get hacked during all the bureaucratic delays that keep the solution from being implemented and then utilized in a timely fashion, if at all.
or, nobody has the guts to properly analyse and design the access requirements/incredibly complex existing environment, so the top of the line solution goes in with more holes than swiss cheese.
I've seen an ASA5585-X cluster (10G interfaces the works) go in with permit any any for > 18 months.
Quote from: wintermute000 on June 23, 2015, 07:27:35 PM
or, nobody has the guts to properly analyse and design the access requirements/incredibly complex existing environment, so the top of the line solution goes in with more holes than swiss cheese.
I've seen an ASA5585-X cluster (10G interfaces the works) go in with permit any any for > 18 months.
Or, worse, it's such a boondoggle to make any changes that they sit in the box in the storage room for a year... while the company pays maintenance and support on them.
Quote from: deanwebb on June 23, 2015, 07:43:12 PM
Or, worse, it's such a boondoggle to make any changes that they sit in the box in the storage room for a year... while the company pays maintenance and support on them.
Sounds awfully familiar :whistle:
Quote from: routerdork on June 24, 2015, 08:42:34 AM
Quote from: deanwebb on June 23, 2015, 07:43:12 PM
Or, worse, it's such a boondoggle to make any changes that they sit in the box in the storage room for a year... while the company pays maintenance and support on them.
Sounds awfully familiar :whistle:
We've got a couple of CSS 11500's in the warehouse in unopened boxes. new old stock.
so we're cool when one of the production boxes dies
Oh noes! That upgrade did not go well! I need to do a power cycle on a device, and it's not responding to SSH or remote KVM tools!
Small company: Jog around the corner to the server closet, right by the bathroom and the kitchen, maneuver around or over the box fans providing circulation, get to the back of the racks, and flip the power yourself.
Medium company: Let the rest of your team know that you'll be in the data center, walk down the hall, let your manager know as you pass him by, swipe your cardkey to get DC access, let the backup operator know what's up, reboot the gear yourself.
Large company: Contact your manager and your manager's manager to inform them of the outage. Call the data center oncall phone to report the incident. Fill out a Remedy ticket to initiate the power cycling procedure. Call the data center oncall phone again and tell the guy on the other end what the incident number is. Open a TAC case with the vendor. Wait. Wait some more. Let your manager and your manager's manager know that you're waiting. Take a call from your vendor TAM and give him an update. Wait even more. Take a call from the data center guy: he can't find the box. Drive across town to the data center and have the DC guy meet you there, sign you in, take your picture, escort you to where the device is and let you do the power cycle.
Quote from: deanwebb on August 25, 2015, 12:31:14 PM
Large company: Contact your manager and your manager's manager to inform them of the outage. Call the data center oncall phone to report the incident. Fill out a Remedy ticket to initiate the power cycling procedure. Call the data center oncall phone again and tell the guy on the other end what the incident number is. Open a TAC case with the vendor. Wait. Wait some more. Let your manager and your manager's manager know that you're waiting. Take a call from your vendor TAM and give him an update. Wait even more. Take a call from the data center guy:
He has found the device and is ready to reboot. You give him the go and he reboots the wrong device :developers:
More large company fun: The call goes in at 11:55am.
No action by 1:15 pm. Call the DC guy... "We can get a guy there by 4pm..."
Explain what a "complete outage of service" means.
"OK, we can have someone there by 1:30. We have a big meeting that everyone's committed to, but I'll see who I can spare."
Send an email and CC my manager and my manager's manager...
All that red tape to flip a f*cking power switch.
:haha1:
Quote from: Nerm on August 25, 2015, 01:51:24 PM
All that red tape to flip a f*cking power switch.
:haha1:
Once I escalated the issue, the switch got flipped. Boxes came back up all nice and happy. :awesome:
Root cause analysis
Small company - Eh, it is working again.
Medium company - Google find a few posts where other people may have had the same problem, but there are enough differences in their reported configurations you are not sure. Can't find anything else, call that the reason. Let your boss know.
Large company - Get vendor involved. Lab up configuration, and try to duplicate issue. Read all bug reports you can find. Vendor can't duplicate problem, you can't duplicate problem. After two months root cause is declared unknown. Tickets are closed. A week later the problem shows up again.
Paranoid company of any size - We must have hackers. That is why it rebooted. Not just any hackers, we must be getting compromised by a nation state using APT. We need more security tools with malware sandboxing, and cloud based analytic systems to detect and prevent this in the future. You sit in the corner and play cyber security buzz word bingo. They get a $100K to buy a new tool, and you sneak in a new switch on the PR to replace the one that rebooted because the power supply is failing.
-Otanx
EMPLOYMENT After screwups
Micro: you fire yourself and your company goes out of business
Small: The guy doing the "computers" gets fired, and someone else in the group "assumes the responsibility"
Medium: The network manager keeps his job, the grunt doing all the heavy lifting gets fired
Large: The entire team gets fired and is replaced with outsourced contractors
LoL, I tried....
Quote from: ristau5741 on August 26, 2015, 11:32:50 AM
EMPLOYMENT After screwups
Micro: you fire yourself and your company goes out of business
Small: The guy doing the "computers" gets fired, and someone else in the group "assumes the responsibility"
Medium: The network manager keeps his job, the grunt doing all the heavy lifting gets fired
Large: The entire team gets fired and is replaced with outsourced contractors
LoL, I tried....
Wait, what, are you on the market now?
Quote from: ristau5741 on June 24, 2015, 11:20:39 AM
Quote from: routerdork on June 24, 2015, 08:42:34 AM
Quote from: deanwebb on June 23, 2015, 07:43:12 PM
Or, worse, it's such a boondoggle to make any changes that they sit in the box in the storage room for a year... while the company pays maintenance and support on them.
Sounds awfully familiar :whistle:
We've got a couple of CSS 11500's in the warehouse in unopened boxes. new old stock.
so we're cool when one of the production boxes dies
ristau. Quick FYI.. there is an issue with the CSSs if they go past a certain number of days of uptime. The box just stops working and needs to be rebooted entirely. The magic number is 828 days.
Quote from: deanwebb on August 26, 2015, 11:47:25 AM
Quote from: ristau5741 on August 26, 2015, 11:32:50 AM
EMPLOYMENT After screwups
Micro: you fire yourself and your company goes out of business
Small: The guy doing the "computers" gets fired, and someone else in the group "assumes the responsibility"
Medium: The network manager keeps his job, the grunt doing all the heavy lifting gets fired
Large: The entire team gets fired and is replaced with outsourced contractors
LoL, I tried....
Wait, what, are you on the market now?
I'm fine, just LOL at my meager attempt to be on topic.
Quote from: LynK on August 26, 2015, 02:05:26 PM
Quote from: ristau5741 on June 24, 2015, 11:20:39 AM
Quote from: routerdork on June 24, 2015, 08:42:34 AM
Quote from: deanwebb on June 23, 2015, 07:43:12 PM
Or, worse, it's such a boondoggle to make any changes that they sit in the box in the storage room for a year... while the company pays maintenance and support on them.
Sounds awfully familiar :whistle:
We've got a couple of CSS 11500's in the warehouse in unopened boxes. new old stock.
so we're cool when one of the production boxes dies
ristau. Quick FYI.. there is an issue with the CSSs if they go past a certain number of days of uptime. The box just stops working and needs to be rebooted entirely. The magic number is 828 days.
thanks for the heads up, we got it off the network a few weeks ago.
Quote from: ristau5741 on August 26, 2015, 02:38:22 PM
Quote from: deanwebb on August 26, 2015, 11:47:25 AM
Quote from: ristau5741 on August 26, 2015, 11:32:50 AM
EMPLOYMENT After screwups
Micro: you fire yourself and your company goes out of business
Small: The guy doing the "computers" gets fired, and someone else in the group "assumes the responsibility"
Medium: The network manager keeps his job, the grunt doing all the heavy lifting gets fired
Large: The entire team gets fired and is replaced with outsourced contractors
LoL, I tried....
Wait, what, are you on the market now?
I'm fine, just LOL at my meager attempt to be on topic.
Whew. You did fine with your post, by the way.
Here's another
Need computer accessories???
Micro: you go out and buy it yourself
Small: you scavenge what you need from around the office, if you can't find it you're SoL or go out and buy it yourself
Medium: you go out and buy it yourself and submit for reimbursement
Large: you submit the request with 3 quotes from 3 different vendors to your manager for approval, who in turn submits to procurement, if approved, the order is placed, you get your order in 60-90 days.
BTW I came up with this because I scavenged a keyboard off a spare parts cart, my keys have letters now.. :joy:
Career progression...
Small company: You curse and holler about how you have to do EVERYTHING. You wish you could focus on just one area.
Medium company: You focus on just one area, but you curse and holler about how you have to do EVERYTHING in that area. You wish you could focus on just one product. You have fond memories of all the fun you had working in the small company.
Large company: You focus on just one product, but you curse and holler about how you have to do EVERYTHING with that product. You wish your career wasn't locked to that product. You have fond memories of all the great times at those small and medium companies.
Consultancy: You focus on ALL the products, but you curse and holler about having to maintain over 70 certifications for your job. You wish your career didn't require you to be an expert in everything. You have fond memories of how much you enjoyed working at the small, medium, and large companies.
SE for a Major Vendor: You focus on a range of products, but you curse and holler about all the trade shows that you have to attend. You wish your career wasn't tied to a quarterly sales report. You wish for the days you worked as a consultant, along with those hazy, crazy days in the small, medium, and large companies.
Non-IT Role: You wonder why in the hell you left your career in IT.
Quote from: deanwebb on August 27, 2015, 09:50:24 AM
Career progression...
Small company: You curse and holler about how you have to do EVERYTHING. You wish you could focus on just one area.
Medium company: You focus on just one area, but you curse and holler about how you have to do EVERYTHING in that area. You wish you could focus on just one product. You have fond memories of all the fun you had working in the small company.
Large company: You focus on just one product, but you curse and holler about how you have to do EVERYTHING with that product. You wish your career wasn't locked to that product. You have fond memories of all the great times at those small and medium companies.
Consultancy: You focus on ALL the products, but you curse and holler about having to maintain over 70 certifications for your job. You wish your career didn't require you to be an expert in everything. You have fond memories of how much you enjoyed working at the small, medium, and large companies.
SE for a Major Vendor: You focus on a range of products, but you curse and holler about all the trade shows that you have to attend. You wish your career wasn't tied to a quarterly sales report. You wish for the days you worked as a consultant, along with those hazy, crazy days in the small, medium, and large companies.
Non-IT Role: You wonder why in the hell you left your career in IT.
Haha... a lot of truth in there... though you could mix some elements of being a consultant and SE.. you could walk into one environment doing OpenStack one day, HPC the next, Big Data the next, simple L2 deploy the next, L3 w/VXLAN the next, network monitoring w/TapAgg the next... and you're always supposed to be expert on all occasions. ;)
Quote from: ristau5741 on August 27, 2015, 08:18:56 AM
my keys have letters now.. :joy:
Lol... just this phrase is epic.... :rofl:
Quote from: deanwebb on August 27, 2015, 09:50:24 AM
Consultancy: You focus on ALL the products, but you curse and holler about having to maintain over 70 certifications for your job. You wish your career didn't require you to be an expert in everything. You have fond memories of how much you enjoyed working at the small, medium, and large companies.
Nailed the first part, would never go back to the second part LOL (except for maybe a telco or cloud provider etc.). Unless the network IS the business (i.e. you are a profit centre, not a cost centre), you're always going to be fighting a rearguard action. I wouldn't swap my current role for anything else I've ever done previously, despite the cert treadmill/pretend to be master of everything requirements.
You'd be surprised at how easy it is to pull off the latter if you have enough general XP, your customers generally know so little that compared to them you might as well be master of everything. I'm not going to incriminate myself but OMG some of the stuff I've seen on the customer side boggles the mind, even the ones with the money to buy Nexus and ASRs (in fact the ones with money can be worse than the ones that are just cheap and cheerful)
Quote from: wintermute000 on August 27, 2015, 11:56:22 PM
Quote from: deanwebb on August 27, 2015, 09:50:24 AM
Consultancy: You focus on ALL the products, but you curse and holler about having to maintain over 70 certifications for your job. You wish your career didn't require you to be an expert in everything. You have fond memories of how much you enjoyed working at the small, medium, and large companies.
Nailed the first part, would never go back to the second part LOL (except for maybe a telco or cloud provider etc.). Unless the network IS the business (i.e. you are a profit centre, not a cost centre), you're always going to be fighting a rearguard action. I wouldn't swap my current role for anything else I've ever done previously, despite the cert treadmill/pretend to be master of everything requirements.
You'd be surprised at how easy it is to pull off the latter if you have enough general XP, your customers generally know so little that compared to them you might as well be master of everything. I'm not going to incriminate myself but OMG some of the stuff I've seen on the customer side boggles the mind, even the ones with the money to buy Nexus and ASRs (in fact the ones with money can be worse than the ones that are just cheap and cheerful)
Have to agree as someone that has spent almost my entire career in consultancy.
Wiring of new network infrastructure.
Small company: Sr. Engineer designing the network is the same guy crawling in rafters and climbing ladders to run cable.
Medium company: Sr. Engineer designing network tells Jr. tech/engineer where he wants the cable ran.
Large company: (someone else will have to fill this in as I have no experience working for a large company)
Consultancy: Sr. Engineer designing network tells in-house techs where he wants the cable ran. The Sr. Engineer then has to come back and redo half of it because the in-house techs didn't listen, terminated poorly, and didn't test anything.
Quote from: Nerm on September 04, 2015, 08:03:18 AM
Wiring of new network infrastructure.
Small company: Sr. Engineer designing the network is the same guy crawling in rafters and climbing ladders to run cable.
Medium company: Sr. Engineer designing network tells Jr. tech/engineer where he wants the cable ran.
Large company: (someone else will have to fill this in as I have no experience working for a large company)
Consultancy: Sr. Engineer designing network tells in-house techs where he wants the cable ran. The Sr. Engineer then has to come back and redo half of it because the in-house techs didn't listen, terminated poorly, and didn't test anything.
Add to medium company: Sr. Engineer checks work of Jr. Engineer, makes a few corrections, they go out to lunch after a job well done.
Large company: Architect does the design, Sr. Engineer prepares to implement design when facilities rejects it, Architect re-does design, Sr. Engineer points out how, while that is compliant with facilities' request, it's going to cause problems with the existing infrastructure, Architect pulls rank and gets his manager to apply pressure, Sr. Engineer pulls rank and gets HIS manager to apply pressure, the IT Director over networking has to call a workshop so everyone can hash things out, after a week they come to an agreement... which facilities again rejects, so there has to be another workshop which results in a plan that nobody likes but everyone can agree to.
Sr. Engineer and Jr. Engineer draw up all the Visios to show the low-level designs and distribute them to the outsourced techs that do the installations. Hilarity ensues when the techs show up, but all the gear is still over in the purchasing warehouse, so the techs have to be rescheduled for a week later. In the meantime, there's a new guy over facilities who wonders why the heck didn't we use the Sr. Engineer's first design, as it's better than anything the Architect came up with or the horrible plan that came out of the last workshop. Techs are postponed as another workshop is called in which the Architect tries to derail everything, the Sr. Engineer nearly quits, and the new facilities guy nearly loses his job. (Last In, First Out, remember!) The new, new plan looks a lot like the compromise plan, but with some stuff in it from the Sr. Engineer's suggestions, even if it's not a full implementation of said suggestions.
New equipment is ordered and the techs re-scheduled and the installation begins. In the course of installation, the techs report that it's impossible to do things according to the new plan, so the installation is put on hold while the Sr. Engineer and the Jr. Engineers head down to the site to look things over. After a Jr. Engineer notices that the techs are holding the diagrams upside-down, the installation is able to continue through to completion.
However, after it's all done, a Jr. Engineer notices a mistake and then raises a ticket through the Sr. Engineer to contact the facilities people to send out a team to make the corrections. Said team can't see what's wrong, so the Sr. Engineer and the Jr. Engineer drive out to the site, find the cables in the wrong ports, and fix them under the watchful auspices of the data center facilities team.
The engineers leave work early that day, with absolutely no feelings of guilt, whatsoever.
Wow Dean that sounds like a very specific "hits home" kind of story. :lol:
Quote from: Nerm on September 04, 2015, 09:22:08 AM
Wow Dean that sounds like a very specific "hits home" kind of story. :lol:
:whistle:
It combines elements of other large company experiences that I or an associate of mine may have experienced. Any resemblance, etc., is purely coincidental.
COORDINATION OF MAJOR PROJECTS:
Small - only coordination needed is when you tell the users which weekends the network or certain servers will be down.
Medium - you all work in the same office, so when you mention how your project will require SNMP RW access to the switches, the guy in charge of doing the VTY ACL project, who happened to overhear you as you made that mention because he works in the cube next to you, makes a note to add your devices to the ACL.
Large - you coordinate projects if/when one project implementation breaks another project's implementation. Otherwise, the right hand never knows what the left hand is doing.
Dealing with in-house IT as a consultant. (Yes this is more of a rant of recent events lol)
Small Company: If they even have any in-house IT they typically don't have enough knowledge to pass the A+ exam. I am normally there to fix their mistakes and they rarely have the budget to have things done right.
Medium Company: They never have enough in-house IT personnel to meet their needs. Always needing/wanting more technology solutions than they can/want to afford.
Large Company: Normally when the boss brings in a consultant the in-house IT feel insulted and have no interest in collaborating with you on the project at hand. (This of course can happen at any company size but I tend to run into it more in the "larger" category)
Quote from: Nerm on November 11, 2015, 03:30:14 PM
Dealing with in-house IT as a consultant. (Yes this is more of a rant of recent events lol)
Small Company: If they even have any in-house IT they typically don't have enough knowledge to pass the A+ exam. I am normally there to fix their mistakes and they rarely have the budget to have things done right.
Medium Company: They never have enough in-house IT personnel to meet their needs. Always needing/wanting more technology solutions than they can/want to afford.
Large Company: Normally when the boss brings in a consultant the in-house IT feel insulted and have no interest in collaborating with you on the project at hand. (This of course can happen at any company size but I tend to run into it more in the "larger" category)
Really large company: Numerous consultants are brought in, from different vendors, and turf wars result as project managers argue over what is and isn't in their statements of work.
Working Remotely...
Small company: Hey, we need you here, buddy. 24/7. We only let you go home to sleep some of the time because the law requires us to do so.
Medium company: You can work an extra hour every day in exchange for every other Friday off, how about that? But we need you here, pal.
Large company: Work remotely? That's a security risk we can't afford to take. Besides, how would we be able to verify that you're wearing a tie if you're at home?
Multinationally huge company: Work from wherever, we really have no way to tell. As long as stuff gets done, we don't care if you're working from inside a Bangkok crack house.
Quote from: deanwebb on January 29, 2016, 02:45:09 PMfrom inside a Bangkok crack house.
My ideal job. I'll send you my resume asap :banana:
Quote from: routerdork on January 29, 2016, 02:48:47 PM
Quote from: deanwebb on January 29, 2016, 02:45:09 PMfrom inside a Bangkok crack house.
My ideal job. I'll send you my resume asap :banana:
:haha3:
Man, I love these forum
s. 8)
Moving equipment between locations.
Small Company: Pick up equipment, place in car, drive to other location.
Medium Company: Fill out a form that says what equipment is moving, to, and where from. Pick up equipment, place in car, drive to other location. Maybe even ship to other location if necessary (which requires another form).
Large Company: Fill out a form requesting to move equipment. Make multiple copies. Send one copy to your boss and one copy to security. Wait a month for approval from your boss, your bosses boss, and from security. Courier/shipping service picks up equipment and delivers to other location.
The training budget...
Small company: found some cool videos on YouTube!
Medium company: we'll reimburse you for the test, if you passed it. In the meantime, found some cool videos on YouTube!
Large company: pays for one course per year, provided it doesn't impact support of production... invariably, the network melts down, halfway into day one and you have to withdraw from the course. But, hey, found some cool videos on YouTube!
Quote from: Nerm on June 15, 2015, 08:15:32 AM
Small Company: You go on vacation only to have that vacation interrupted because you are the only guy employed by the company capable of solving certain problems.
Me...
Small Business: we need a monitoring system but they are all expensive, learn some kind of program language and write the program for free, but dont forget to anwser the phone, troubleshoot the problem, fix the problem and remember the ticket and close it when is done. Also remember to keep the devices firmwares up to date and run a ftp server which is a laptop because we can afford a nice real server. Also i sent you an email with 4 new customers that i need to verify if they have Line of sight and please fill the New Service Order and submit it. When you finish all that clean the bathroom and check my pc i cant print some documents. And there you go take your 10 bucks per hour...
Sent from my SM-G928P using Tapatalk
Quote from: Rllavona13 on August 26, 2016, 09:21:35 PM
Small Business: we need a monitoring system but they are all expensive, learn some kind of program language and write the program for free, but dont forget to anwser the phone, troubleshoot the problem, fix the problem and remember the ticket and close it when is done. Also remember to keep the devices firmwares up to date and run a ftp server which is a laptop because we can afford a nice real server. Also i sent you an email with 4 new customers that i need to verify if they have Line of sight and please fill the New Service Order and submit it. When you finish all that clean the bathroom and check my pc i cant print some documents. And there you go take your 10 bucks per hour...
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Medium company: Here, download Orion. I hear that does monitoring for free... What, there's a license after 30 days? Well, get the cheapest one, no netflow...
Large company: Yes, we have a monitoring system. No, you can't access it until you've finished all the in-house training for it, read through the work instruction PDF files, submitted a request for access that has been signed by your manager and his next manager, been approved by the Monitoring Tools Manager, have received your credentials for the account that you will use to log on into the monitoring system (it has to be different from your normal account because we're monitoring who is logging into the monitoring system), and then, finally, one of our Monitoring Department staff has added your account to the group that has access to the monitoring system. He does that on the third Friday of each financial quarter, except Q3, when we have our systemwide change freeze.
Quote from: deanwebb on August 26, 2016, 09:38:46 PM
Quote from: Rllavona13 on August 26, 2016, 09:21:35 PM
Small Business: we need a monitoring system but they are all expensive, learn some kind of program language and write the program for free, but dont forget to anwser the phone, troubleshoot the problem, fix the problem and remember the ticket and close it when is done. Also remember to keep the devices firmwares up to date and run a ftp server which is a laptop because we can afford a nice real server. Also i sent you an email with 4 new customers that i need to verify if they have Line of sight and please fill the New Service Order and submit it. When you finish all that clean the bathroom and check my pc i cant print some documents. And there you go take your 10 bucks per hour...
Sent from my SM-G928P using Tapatalk
Medium company: Here, download Orion. I hear that does monitoring for free... What, there's a license after 30 days? Well, get the cheapest one, no netflow...
Large company: Yes, we have a monitoring system. No, you can't access it until you've finished all the in-house training for it, read through the work instruction PDF files, submitted a request for access that has been signed by your manager and his next manager, been approved by the Monitoring Tools Manager, have received your credentials for the account that you will use to log on into the monitoring system (it has to be different from your normal account because we're monitoring who is logging into the monitoring system), and then, finally, one of our Monitoring Department staff has added your account to the group that has access to the monitoring system. He does that on the third Friday of each financial quarter, except Q3, when we have our systemwide change freeze.
I hope that doesn't happens to me in my new job haha
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If your new job is with a VAR or a vendor, it won't.
If your new job is at a small, medium, or large company, it will. :problem?:
Quote from: Rllavona13 on August 26, 2016, 09:13:25 PM
Quote from: Nerm on June 15, 2015, 08:15:32 AM
Small Company: You go on vacation only to have that vacation interrupted because you are the only guy employed by the company capable of solving certain problems.
Me...
What is worse is when said problem is "how to change the domain admin password" and the person calling you is the "head" tech with over 20 years experience in IT. No joke, happened to me.
Quote from: Nerm on August 29, 2016, 08:20:46 AM
Quote from: Rllavona13 on August 26, 2016, 09:13:25 PM
Quote from: Nerm on June 15, 2015, 08:15:32 AM
Small Company: You go on vacation only to have that vacation interrupted because you are the only guy employed by the company capable of solving certain problems.
Me...
What is worse is when said problem is "how to change the domain admin password" and the person calling you is the "head" tech with over 20 years experience in IT. No joke, happened to me.
NO GOOD...
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
High Availability...
Small: Gee, that would be nice, but we can only afford one of something... it's a small-business model, anyway, which means we couldn't do HA if we wanted to... and if we could afford another of it.
Medium: We'll have HA on the main stuff at the main location. No need for redundancy at the spokes, we'll absorb that risk... until the day comes when the spoke router fails, nobody can generate a PO fast enough... but, hey, there's this router here at the main site that's not doing anything until the other one fails, why not use it? ... that gets shipped to the spoke, all is well, and nobody remembers to order another router to replace the cannibalized HA router.
Large: HA everywhere it's needed, documented, qualified, untouchable. There are regulations, you know. Not going to be like those silly medium-size companies and cannibalize our gear! We're HUGE, we make MONEY, so we can BUY the good stuff. Except... the HA gets installed, the outsourcer subcontracts monitoring to a group that decides they only need to monitor the VIP for the HA pairs, everything looks nice and green, even though some of the HA pairs have a failed primary or secondary that's been like that for YEEEEEEAAARS... and then, one day when it is out-of-sale, out-of-support, and really-at-the-end-of-its-life, the valiant, unfailed member of a pair starts to have issues... "Well, we can fail it over to the secondary and then we- WHAT THE HELL, THE SECONDARY'S BEEN DOWN FOR HOW LONG?"
Logs show that it failed within the first six months after being installed. Could have been RMA'd, but too late now... and we're at the wrong time in the budget cycle, so how about we break an HA pair somewhere and we'll buy replacement gear towards the end of the next quarter, when we might have some money to spend...
Certifications:
Small company: you're the only guy, so you feel like you have to get certified on everything.
Medium company: you're not the only guy, but you have to be ready to backfill everyone else, so you feel like you have to get certified on everything.
Large company: There are so many products that you work with, you realize what everything is... and when you realize that, you feel like a manager, you know so little...
Documentation
Small company, there is no documentation
Midsize company, you write your own documentation
Large company, you write your own documentation to get the task off your plate
Mega company, you have load of tech writers to do all your documentation for you.
Quote from: ristau5741 on October 21, 2016, 10:50:26 AM
Documentation
Small company, there is no documentation
Midsize company, you write your own documentation
Large company, you write your own documentation to get the task off your plate
Mega company, you have load of tech writers to do all your documentation for you.
Also mega company... with all that documentation, however, comes reading it all so you can do compliance audits. And documentation reviews periodically. And updates whenever you do a change. And execution of the qualification documents again, with each change.
Small: The network guy *is* the firewall guy. Hope he knows how to run the thing.
Medium: There is a trained, talented firewall guy that works there for 6 months before he's snapping up a better gig somewhere else. Then the new guy has to do the firewall.
Large: Firewall guy? Do you mean the segmentation firewall guy, the DMZ firewall guy, the cloud services firewall guy, the datacenter firewall guy, the firewall management guy, or the SOC? Yes, I'm in network security, but I'm the NAC guy, I don't work with the firewalls...
Reviving the thread...
We need our network monitoring system set up to do email.
Small: Can it work with a gmail account? That's all we got.
Medium: We've got hosted Exchange. It needs to supply a username and password to get in. It can't? Oh, man... well, can it use gmail?
Large: We've got local hosting of Exchange, we're good there. Did you fill out the IT-29B form for email access and have your manager and his manager approve it? They're out of town for three weeks? Well, how about using gmail in the interim?