Working in IT 3.0: xp_cmdshell

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Bonzo: Mar 11, 2004; Just like Mama used to make it!

I recently tried to get a co-worker from my old gig to join the company I'm at now. We did the full three rounds of interviews and made an offer. Buddy went to his boss about it and they threw a promotion and raise at him so he's staying. His job duties won't change. They should have given him a bump in title and salary years ago but always had an excuse.

I told him to hit me up next year when they refuse to give him a raise and say, "well we just gave you a big promotion last year!".

# ? Oct 10, 2021 02:00

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# ? May 28, 2024 10:23

22 Eargesplitten: Oct 10, 2010

Lol you guys get raises where you live? The first raise I ever got in my entire career was at this job, an entire 3% (no accompanying CoL adjustment) two months ago. Same story everywhere else I've worked in the Front Range of CO, if you do get a raise you're lucky if it's over 2%. Luckily since COVID hit the COL didn't rise over 3% this year.

The company absolutely could have processed the promotion faster, the HR department here is terrible. Someone on my team transferred out a month ago and they got like half a dozen candidates but didn't bother sending them to my manager until she went to the department and said "Hey did anyone apply?" It has taken literal months to have positions approved in the past, this HR department apparently exists to send out quarterly anonymous surveys and weekly company updates and that's about it. I texted my manager about it yesterday and she sent me a text this morning saying that the interviews they had on Wednesday got them two candidates they're going to give offers to this coming week. And to be clear, I don't trust the company farther than I can throw them. I do trust my manager.

To make sure I'm not miscommunicating here, when I say "promotion" I don't mean a new title and pay bump in the same department, I mean a job doing completely different stuff in a different department. Maybe transfer would be a better term? Up to this point I've been keeping an eye open for internal positions to apply to at this job but it has only been openings for senior roles the entire time I have worked here, barring stuff like DBA that I just don't have the skillset for. If they do try to give me a way too low offer or say "we'll give you the raise soon" or any kind of kicking the can down the road I'll take the other lovely position that I don't want and keep looking.

# ? Oct 10, 2021 05:09

Shartweek: Feb 15, 2003; D O E S N O T E X I S T

22 Eargesplitten posted:

Lol you guys get raises where you live? The first raise I ever got in my entire career was at this job, an entire 3% (no accompanying CoL adjustment) two months ago. Same story everywhere else I've worked in the Front Range of CO, if you do get a raise you're lucky if it's over 2%. Luckily since COVID hit the COL didn't rise over 3% this year.

The company absolutely could have processed the promotion faster, the HR department here is terrible. Someone on my team transferred out a month ago and they got like half a dozen candidates but didn't bother sending them to my manager until she went to the department and said "Hey did anyone apply?" It has taken literal months to have positions approved in the past, this HR department apparently exists to send out quarterly anonymous surveys and weekly company updates and that's about it. I texted my manager about it yesterday and she sent me a text this morning saying that the interviews they had on Wednesday got them two candidates they're going to give offers to this coming week. And to be clear, I don't trust the company farther than I can throw them. I do trust my manager.

To make sure I'm not miscommunicating here, when I say "promotion" I don't mean a new title and pay bump in the same department, I mean a job doing completely different stuff in a different department. Maybe transfer would be a better term? Up to this point I've been keeping an eye open for internal positions to apply to at this job but it has only been openings for senior roles the entire time I have worked here, barring stuff like DBA that I just don't have the skillset for. If they do try to give me a way too low offer or say "we'll give you the raise soon" or any kind of kicking the can down the road I'll take the other lovely position that I don't want and keep looking.

Please, don't take this the wrong way, and I mean it with the utmost respect, but you're supposed to dig up, stupid. Your skills are worth more than you're saying here.

loving take that offer, do the work you don't like for a bit, use it as leverage for a few months then move onto something even better.

# ? Oct 10, 2021 06:10

Proteus Jones: Feb 28, 2013

Coolnezzz posted:

Please, don't take this the wrong way, and I mean it with the utmost respect, but you're supposed to dig up, stupid. Your skills are worth more than you're saying here.

loving take that offer, do the work you don't like for a bit, use it as leverage for a few months then move onto something even better.

I can't really recommend that without more context. I mean, a place where I worked all positions fell into specific pay bands defining the minimum and maximum. If you move to a new position you're moved into the band. The only exception is they won't move you down but raises will evaporate usually (but they won't stop with the merit bonuses). If that's the case, then it would likely be a large jump moving off of Helpdesk to just about anything ops/engineering related.

Plus, getting cloud experience for the resume trumps another six months of "Helpdesk" in my opinion.

My only recommendation is see what the offer is on Monday re: promotion. And then weigh that against you needs. Your financial needs and your needs to charting your career in terms of experience.

# ? Oct 10, 2021 07:10

Internet Explorer: Jun 1, 2005

22 Eargesplitten posted:

Lol you guys get raises where you live? The first raise I ever got in my entire career was at this job, an entire 3% (no accompanying CoL adjustment) two months ago. Same story everywhere else I've worked in the Front Range of CO, if you do get a raise you're lucky if it's over 2%. Luckily since COVID hit the COL didn't rise over 3% this year.

It's not the location. The Front Range is just as hot as anywhere else. I live in the Front Range and my compensation has doubled in the past 7 years. Previous to that, not in the Front Range, my compensation doubled over those past 7 years.

I think it's fine to gamble in the way you're trying to do. I think the takeaway is 1) don't undervalue yourself and 2) don't let yourself get strung along.

You're doing good with looking, and if the potential new place isn't enough to get you to move, keep looking, even as you work through your internal transfer.

# ? Oct 10, 2021 07:37

Dick Trauma: Nov 30, 2007; God damn it, you've got to be kind.

If you have an opportunity to leave a bad place you should take it.

# ? Oct 10, 2021 12:30

Wibla: Feb 16, 2011

Dick Trauma posted:

If you have an opportunity to leave a bad place you should take it.

# ? Oct 10, 2021 12:37

devmd01: Mar 7, 2006; Elektronik
Supersonik

Dick Trauma posted:

If you have an opportunity to leave a bad place you should take it.

Not emptyquoting, life is too short to be under the stress of a lovely job/boss.

# ? Oct 10, 2021 12:50

BaseballPCHiker: Jan 16, 2006

Internet Explorer posted:

I think it's fine to gamble in the way you're trying to do. I think the takeaway is 1) don't undervalue yourself and 2) don't let yourself get strung along.

You're doing good with looking, and if the potential new place isn't enough to get you to move, keep looking, even as you work through your internal transfer.

I think this is the best and most succinct point. We dont know that company like you do, or the other jobs, so use your best judgement. But dont sell yourself short or get strung along.

For example. I posted about a remote Security Engineer job I got an offer for that wouldve been a $10K paycut. I turned it down on Friday, both because I thought I could make the same and still work remote, and because it was for an MSSP which universally suck. I know my skillset and value in the market so Im choosing to keep looking.

I hope things work out for you on Monday.

# ? Oct 10, 2021 14:04

George H.W. Cunt: Oct 6, 2010

I think regardless of which position you take I�m glad you�re moving up in the world. You�ve been posting here for a bit and I remember that you were perpetually floundering in stressful, low pay jobs barely surviving. I believe you�re staring at a watershed moment in your career where things will start to look better moving forward. Do what�s best for yourself and your career and always make sure you have a nest egg saved up.

# ? Oct 10, 2021 14:26

Shartweek: Feb 15, 2003; D O E S N O T E X I S T

George H.W. oval office posted:

I think regardless of which position you take I�m glad you�re moving up in the world. You�ve been posting here for a bit and I remember that you were perpetually floundering in stressful, low pay jobs barely surviving. I believe you�re staring at a watershed moment in your career where things will start to look better moving forward. Do what�s best for yourself and your career and always make sure you have a nest egg saved up.

Agreed here and my apologies to 22 Eargesplitten for my previous post. I don't know all the details of your situation and ultimately you should do what you think is best for you! Based on my own experience, I have passed up several new opportunities over the years and stayed with my current company because they have made good on promises of raises and promotions and I enjoy the work, so it's definitely a possibility. Good luck with things tomorrow!

# ? Oct 10, 2021 17:13

luminalflux: May 27, 2005

Coolnezzz posted:

Agreed here and my apologies to 22 Eargesplitten for my previous post. I don't know all the details of your situation and ultimately you should do what you think is best for you! Based on my own experience, I have passed up several new opportunities over the years and stayed with my current company because they have made good on promises of raises and promotions and I enjoy the work, so it's definitely a possibility. Good luck with things tomorrow!

It's definitely a spectrum. I stuck at one place for 7 years because they made good on raises, treated me well and I got to basically go off and do whatever I wanted. I went from SWE to team lead to devops/SRE in that time, and they also sent me a bunch of places (including 6 months in mexico city) despite working with fairly boring tech. I would not have stayed as long had the compensation not been pretty good - my teammates were great and management fine. In fact, it was only when an EVE goon referred me to Twitch that I left that place.

AMZN gave me one comp adjustment upward during the 2 years i was there, but also made it clear that the only way to get any meaningful cash raise (due to their compensation structure) was to get promoted. Apparently I was brought on at L6, and going L6 -> L7 is very hard and not something I really wanted to contend with. Likewise, I noped out of the next place after 9 months when it became evident that getting promoted, was hard, was going to take a while and there weren't any projects I considered fun that didn't involve a hellish commute in the bay area. The refresher grant was also peanuts and cash comp was so-so.

Current place I've been at 3 years and they've promoted from senior to staff, as well as given cash compensation adjustments upward above inflation each year. They've also given refresher stock option grants.

I would definitely leave some place that didn't give me any cash comp increase that was over inflation every year.

# ? Oct 10, 2021 19:12

angry armadillo: Jul 26, 2010

I don't know the full context of 22 Eargesplitten's situation but the point I am interested in is the move from $OldBoss to $NewBoss with the internal offer or are you keeping the same boss?

The advice from here so far has mainly been leave that bad company - I would be looking at the boss situation - if it's the same guy keeping you where you are, that seems like a red flag but if you've got 2 bosses fighting over you then that is a whole other context I guess. The company on the whole should be encouraging your progression though and I'd want to be sure that is happening.

# ? Oct 11, 2021 12:52

CommanderApaul: Aug 30, 2003; It's amazing their hands can support such awesome.

I've been working with our Azure Global Admin on getting Azure PHS ready to go. We've got a solid 200+ user pilot group going across the Engineering and Tier1/2 community, and we're going to be phasing it in across the user community as our Mobile Devices team migrates devices from MaaS360 to Intune for MDM. Non-Intune devices fail the "registered device" CAP and Mail/Teams stop working unless they turn on the mobile VPN to pass the "trusted network" CAP. Good times.

Other hard stop we've run into is there is a pretty large contingent of workstations that either aren't Hybrid joined at all or are in a Pending state. Those will also fail the "registered device" CAP when offsite and not on the VPN. I was working with our SCCM SME on my workstation failing a piloted servicing update, and we got talking about Powershell stuff since I do all the identity management automation, and he's been tasked with getting an SCCM configuration item/baseline setup to identify and try to remediate as many of them as we can find. I also wrote the documentation for our Tier1/Tier2 teams on diagnosing and repairing a busted Hybrid join (symptom: TPM error in Teams when off the VPN), so I managed to take that and knock up the below. For most of them, the Workplace Join task is disabled, so they just need that task enabled. The annoying part was figuring out a way to parse the output of dsregcmd /status into something queryable. Reddit helped with that.

Detection:

code:

try{
$Dsregcmd = New-Object PSObject ; Dsregcmd /status | Where {$_ -match ' : '}|ForEach {$Item = $_.Trim() -split '\s:\s'; $Dsregcmd|Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name $($Item[0] -replace '[:\s]','') -Value $Item[1] -EA SilentlyContinue}
if ($dsregcmd.azureadjoined -eq "NO"){return $FALSE}
else ($dsregcmd.azureadjoined -eq "YES"){return $TRUE}
}
catch{}

Remediation:

code:

$jointaskenabled = get-scheduledtask -taskname Automatic-Device-Join | Select-object -ExpandProperty State
if ($jointaskenabled -eq "Disabled"){get-scheduledtask -taskname Automatic-Device-Join | Enable-ScheduledTask}
start-sleep -s 30
dsregcmd /leave
start-sleep -s 30
dsregcmd /join

We had everyone in our internal test group manually disable the task and run dsregcmd /leave, then published the baseline to the group. Caught every one of them.

# ? Oct 11, 2021 16:10

22 Eargesplitten: Oct 10, 2010

angry armadillo posted:

I don't know the full context of 22 Eargesplitten's situation but the point I am interested in is the move from $OldBoss to $NewBoss with the internal offer or are you keeping the same boss?

The advice from here so far has mainly been leave that bad company - I would be looking at the boss situation - if it's the same guy keeping you where you are, that seems like a red flag but if you've got 2 bosses fighting over you then that is a whole other context I guess. The company on the whole should be encouraging your progression though and I'd want to be sure that is happening.

It's from an old boss to a new boss. There's not really anywhere up to go under my current boss sadly, because I like my current boss.

It's a ridiculous lowball offer but it's better than the other offer. I sent my research to the new boss who gave me the offer, we'll see what he says. Either way I guess I'm taking it, changing my resume to read "Cloud Engineer," and then continuing to apply.

E: "But if you underpay me I'm going to leave anyway!" said the employee.
"lol," said the company, "lmao."

22 Eargesplitten fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Oct 11, 2021

# ? Oct 11, 2021 19:04

Wibla: Feb 16, 2011

We moved offices this fall, I printed out a new door card for my office today, my title is now "Automation Therapist". The PM sitting in the office next to me got "Superhero" because he's handling one of our problem customers, and doing it quite well, all things considered.

My boss has finally woken up to the fact that I'm quitting and is now worrying about knowledge transfers and such :v:

# ? Oct 11, 2021 19:48

angry armadillo: Jul 26, 2010

22 Eargesplitten posted:

It's from an old boss to a new boss. There's not really anywhere up to go under my current boss sadly, because I like my current boss.

It's a ridiculous lowball offer but it's better than the other offer. I sent my research to the new boss who gave me the offer, we'll see what he says. Either way I guess I'm taking it, changing my resume to read "Cloud Engineer," and then continuing to apply.

E: "But if you underpay me I'm going to leave anyway!" said the employee.
"lol," said the company, "lmao."

Hopefully new boss will say to HR you are aware of the market rate so we really ought to look at paying it.

Good luck to you

# ? Oct 11, 2021 23:42

scott zoloft: Dec 7, 2015; yeah same

Maybe they'll promote tou to scorpion king

# ? Oct 12, 2021 00:29

Sickening: Jul 16, 2007; Black summer was the best summer.

Crazy Ciso came back today for the entire day. This is the first time in nearly two weeks that she has put in more than a hour. She has been �too busy� to talk to me and won�t attend our meetings. She finally reached out to me to tell me that she isn�t pleased with my performance. I asked her which project specifically , she mentioned the policy document to document every security group. I asked her when it was due, she said �it�s been due since July!�. Which day on July? Oh, the one the full week before I onboarded? I asked her if she felt that was unfair, both the scope of the task and the due date and she typed in all caps �NO�.

She says she is going to hire a contractor to do the work. Cool. So far as I know I will be getting a paycheck. The �these are where the dead bodies are located� e-mail has been crafted and is in my drafts. Feeling closer to sending it.

You are up to date! ( we passed the audit, she failed to mention it. Had to find out by the CTO.

# ? Oct 12, 2021 00:54

CLAM DOWN: Feb 13, 2007

Sickening posted:

Crazy Ciso came back today for the entire day. This is the first time in nearly two weeks that she has put in more than a hour. She has been �too busy� to talk to me and won�t attend our meetings. She finally reached out to me to tell me that she isn�t pleased with my performance. I asked her which project specifically , she mentioned the policy document to document every security group. I asked her when it was due, she said �it�s been due since July!�. Which day on July? Oh, the one the full week before I onboarded? I asked her if she felt that was unfair, both the scope of the task and the due date and she typed in all caps �NO�.

She says she is going to hire a contractor to do the work. Cool. So far as I know I will be getting a paycheck. The �these are where the dead bodies are located� e-mail has been crafted and is in my drafts. Feeling closer to sending it.

You are up to date! ( we passed the audit, she failed to mention it. Had to find out by the CTO.

Lol

# ? Oct 12, 2021 01:00

Inner Light: Jan 2, 2020

Would you mind elaborating more on the dead bodies email? By elaborate I mean saying if it's a a narrative type of thing, does it have a few chat logs, etc.

# ? Oct 12, 2021 01:30

Sickening: Jul 16, 2007; Black summer was the best summer.

Inner Light posted:

Would you mind elaborating more on the dead bodies email? By elaborate I mean saying if it's a a narrative type of thing, does it have a few chat logs, etc.

Some audio recordings, teams logs, and my personal opinion of my situation at the company. None of it means anything if the ceo likes her, but if she is already on thin ice with the board it might have some weight if they were looking for an excuse.

# ? Oct 12, 2021 01:36

jaegerx: Sep 10, 2012; Maybe this post will get me on your ignore list!

Sickening posted:

Some audio recordings, teams logs, and my personal opinion of my situation at the company. None of it means anything if the ceo likes her, but if she is already on thin ice with the board it might have some weight if they were looking for an excuse.

You�re gonna get yourself promoted.

# ? Oct 12, 2021 01:46

Comstar: Apr 20, 2007; Are you happy now?

I have a potential job offer from working at an MSP. 100-200 clients, under 10 people on the service desk. From skimming the thread working at an MSP has...issues, but in general, is it a recommended pathway to further my IT service desk career, or should I keep looking?

# ? Oct 12, 2021 02:35

jaegerx: Sep 10, 2012; Maybe this post will get me on your ignore list!

Comstar posted:

I have a potential job offer from working at an MSP. 100-200 clients, under 10 people on the service desk. From skimming the thread working at an MSP has...issues, but in general, is it a recommended pathway to further my IT service desk career, or should I keep looking?

Elaborate. What do you do now? Will you be able to do cooler things there? What are their reviews on Glassdoor?

E: is it a raise? Take the money always. Is there a fat old guy with a long grey beard there? Follow him around

jaegerx fucked around with this message at 02:49 on Oct 12, 2021

# ? Oct 12, 2021 02:37

22 Eargesplitten: Oct 10, 2010

angry armadillo posted:

Hopefully new boss will say to HR you are aware of the market rate so we really ought to look at paying it.

Good luck to you

Well they sent the JD and they're doing the old "entry level means we want experience but don't want to pay for it" thing. Even with that it should still be in the 80s to 90s. The SVP of HR says that 76k was actually over what their research said the position was worth, and I still can't tell if she actually thinks her research is valid or if she's just a really good liar. Or if I'm bad at reading people (it's definitely at least that one). The manager also said that he didn't think I would qualify for any of the jobs that I sent him. I was considering just putting in my notice today and taking the other offer because of how insulted I felt but I've calmed down enough that I'm still planning on taking it, continuing to apply for other jobs, hoping that the one that got delayed until next month because of management changes pans out, putting the bare minimum effort in at this job, and ditching as soon as I find something better.

# ? Oct 12, 2021 03:09

Comstar: Apr 20, 2007; Are you happy now?

jaegerx posted:

Elaborate. What do you do now? Will you be able to do cooler things there? What are their reviews on Glassdoor?

E: is it a raise? Take the money always. Is there a fat old guy with a long grey beard there? Follow him around

I was doing level 2 tech support at a single largeish corp internal support. This is a MSP for small-med businesses so a lot more...varied. Learning and the willingness to learn is very important, which sounds nice.

Glassdoor has very little info...but it's rated 100%.

It is not a raise, slightly lower than what I was on, but I'm unemployed now. And it sounds like *I* would be the long grey beard there.

Thank you for asking, it's making me think about it in new ways.

# ? Oct 12, 2021 03:43

Sickening: Jul 16, 2007; Black summer was the best summer.

I have submitted for another week of pto for the same week I was recently rejected. If it�s declined I am sending my ceo the email.

# ? Oct 12, 2021 04:18

jaegerx: Sep 10, 2012; Maybe this post will get me on your ignore list!

Comstar posted:

I was doing level 2 tech support at a single largeish corp internal support. This is a MSP for small-med businesses so a lot more...varied. Learning and the willingness to learn is very important, which sounds nice.

Glassdoor has very little info...but it's rated 100%.

It is not a raise, slightly lower than what I was on, but I'm unemployed now. And it sounds like *I* would be the long grey beard there.

Thank you for asking, it's making me think about it in new ways.

Well if you�re unemployed take it. Money > no money. Just don�t get sucked into those billable hours poo poo or how many tickets you have to close or how quickly. Msps are run by the cheapest assholes in the world. They�ll make you share laptops and poo poo.

My experience may vary from the other people in this thread.

# ? Oct 12, 2021 04:24

Happiness Commando: Feb 1, 2002; $$ joy at gunpoint $$

Here is my saved document of questions to ask when interviewing with an MSP, in no particular order:

What is the day to day like - what's the breakdown between proactive and reactive work?
Will I be in a call group / queue? How does dispatch work?
Is the workplace a call center/office? My home? Onsite at the client all the time / some of the time? (the answers to these affect compensation - do they reimburse mileage, tolls, cell phone, data plan, etc)
Is there a formal or informal time banking / flex time arrangement (If I spend 20 hours over two days working on a particularly gnarly problem, am I still expected to roll in at 7 AM the following day and end up with a 45+ hour week?)
How many billable / non-billable hours am I expected to do each week (i.e. are they assuming more than 40 hours?)
Is salary contingent on billable hours?
Is there ever any expectation of working a ticket while on PTO?
What's the promotion / raise landscape look like? (Do you do cost of living raises? How do I jump tiers or switch to project work?)
How frequently will I have check-ins / 1:1s / performance reviews with my manager?
Do you offer paid / reimbursements for certs or training? Are they good trainings or bullshit vendor certifications that only matter for your company to get discounts on reselling products?
Do you have a clear view of what success looks like in the first 1/3/6/12 months? Are there SMART goals?
Do you have one standard service offering or are there different levels of service with different SLAs?
If different levels, what % of clients are at which level?
Have you ever fired a client? Why or why not?
Do you have clients that argue with your recommendations? What % of recommendations (which types of services?) / what % of clients?
If a client refuses a recommended service, am I then on the hook to support whatever bullshit non-solution they have in its place?
Why would a customer choose your MSP over any others?
What was one / the most interesting request or project you've had recently?
What processes/strategies do you use for internal improvement (i.e. the MSP, not the client companies)
Do you track client RHEM (reactive hours per endpoint per month)? If yes, what is it? Is it trending downward?
What's the oldest server you have in production? Is it still covered by manufacturer support?
How do you set milestones for projects and what if they slip?
Do you have core business hours I would be required to be available for?
Are there certain maintenance tasks I am expected to do after hours?
Is there an on call rotation?
Is there a pay differential for the on call rotation?
What is the SLA for after-hours requests?
Do you have standardized tech stacks that you try to steer clients towards, or am I going to be supporting one piece of every equipment ever manufactured by every different manufacturer in the world?

This whole list basically targets quality of work-life and work/life balance from a bunch of different angles.

Happiness Commando fucked around with this message at 04:38 on Oct 12, 2021

# ? Oct 12, 2021 04:33

Shartweek: Feb 15, 2003; D O E S N O T E X I S T

Comstar posted:

I have a potential job offer from working at an MSP. 100-200 clients, under 10 people on the service desk. From skimming the thread working at an MSP has...issues, but in general, is it a recommended pathway to further my IT service desk career, or should I keep looking?

100-200 clients seems excessive for only 10 people on the desk at an MSP, I'd be more concerned with server/workstation/user counts, because that says you may be taking frequent escalation tickets to me unless everything is dialed in with their VSA, ticketing system, and they have decent tiers of helpdesk. Are these 100-200 clients all on a monthly contract for patching/support or do they have varying levels of support requirements? On top of standard admin stuff, supporting one-off apps for each individual client can really be a chore and take up a large amount of engineering labor to attend to, not to mention having the knowledge to do so or having someone available to walk you through the first time you try it / can just figure it out on your own. But if everything is automated and you're coming in at a high level position it should be worthwhile in my opinion!

Comstar posted:

I was doing level 2 tech support at a single largeish corp internal support. This is a MSP for small-med businesses so a lot more...varied. Learning and the willingness to learn is very important, which sounds nice.

Glassdoor has very little info...but it's rated 100%.

It is not a raise, slightly lower than what I was on, but I'm unemployed now. And it sounds like *I* would be the long grey beard there.

Thank you for asking, it's making me think about it in new ways.

I've learned an incredible amount at my MSP because of the variety of tasks we perform every day. Being shoved into modern tech because a CIO at one of our larger clients says "I saw this click bait poo poo on Forbes/The Sun and now I want it" can be a learning experience in figuring out when and how to tell the clients / their account managers to gently caress off and when to tell them they're absolutely right (it's mostly the latter).

Also if you are any good at your job be prepared to field questions from the entirety of the helpdesk and be comfortable with working with them on easy (to you) tasks, at any time during the week. This takes up about 1/3 of my day to day.

Some MSPs pay really well and have great management and sales staff and account managers and project managers but I understand the vast majority of MSPs don't. I have been lucky to have one that meets most of those ideals but I took the job initially because I knew it would get me in front of a lot of technology I would otherwise not be able to see in a normal IT position, even if it paid a bit less or was a bit more stressful.

jaegerx posted:

Well if you�re unemployed take it. Money > no money. Just don�t get sucked into those billable hours poo poo or how many tickets you have to close or how quickly. Msps are run by the cheapest assholes in the world. They�ll make you share laptops and poo poo.

My experience may vary from the other people in this thread.

At the same time I agree here, if it's a poo poo MSP it will be a bad time, but it could be a good experience for Comstar to use to move upwards in any case. I would say that all MSPs are owned by cheap assholes, but sometimes they are run by good people.

# ? Oct 12, 2021 04:36

regulargonzalez: Aug 18, 2006; UNGH LET ME LICK THOSE BOOTS DADDY HULU YES YES GIVE ME ALL THE CORPORATE CUMMIES ADBLOCK USERS DESERVE THE DEATH PENALTY, DON'T THEY DADDY?
WHEN THE RICH GET RICHER I GET HORNIER

Performance review today. 4 sections, got two meets and two exceeds, which is good because I feel like I have the easiest job in the world and I would have only given myself "meets expectations" across the board. 4% bump and starting the process of a small promotion and 15% raise.

E: also, insurance premiums won't go up next year and vacation time will go up for everyone. I should get about 13 more days, for a total of 25 days per year (along with 13 paid federal holidays). After a decade in retail, that's almost unreal to me.

regulargonzalez fucked around with this message at 05:56 on Oct 12, 2021

# ? Oct 12, 2021 05:53

wargames: Mar 16, 2008; official yospos cat censor

Comstar posted:

I'm unemployed now.

take it, pay the bills, and throw out more resumes.

jaegerx posted:

Well if you�re unemployed take it. Money > no money. Just don�t get sucked into those billable hours poo poo or how many tickets you have to close or how quickly. Msps are run by the cheapest assholes in the world. They�ll make you share laptops and poo poo.

This sounds like my current job at internal help desk. took them over a year to issue me a computer.

# ? Oct 12, 2021 08:04

johnm: Apr 3, 2013; always follow orders,
little bees

I've been miserable for a while at my current job, government non-IT related work, and I recently decided to turn my hobby into a career and I took a basic certification course with Google and just applied for a job with them at a place near me. Maybe looking to go into the SRE path or software/cloud engineering in the future.

Been using unix-like systems for years (mostly netbsd/openbsd and debian/ubuntu) and I love the command line experience. To me it's much more familiar and powerful than a GUI. When presented with a desktop I usually launch a terminal and go fullscreen to launch tmux and get my shell game going strong. (tmux > screen)

I don't really want to do desktop support or general help desk work, but I wasn't exaggerating the miserable experience at my current job and I'll happily leave there for that type of work if necessary.

So, I'm looking for a little direction and guidance. Any support or ideas would be helpful. I want to get A+ and maybe Network+ certs done too. I enjoy learning.

Thanks in advance.

# ? Oct 12, 2021 14:50

LochNessMonster: Feb 3, 2005; I need about three fitty

johnm posted:

I've been miserable for a while at my current job, government non-IT related work, and I recently decided to turn my hobby into a career and I took a basic certification course with Google and just applied for a job with them at a place near me. Maybe looking to go into the SRE path or software/cloud engineering in the future.

Been using unix-like systems for years (mostly netbsd/openbsd and debian/ubuntu) and I love the command line experience. To me it's much more familiar and powerful than a GUI. When presented with a desktop I usually launch a terminal and go fullscreen to launch tmux and get my shell game going strong. (tmux > screen)

I don't really want to do desktop support or general help desk work, but I wasn't exaggerating the miserable experience at my current job and I'll happily leave there for that type of work if necessary.

So, I'm looking for a little direction and guidance. Any support or ideas would be helpful. I want to get A+ and maybe Network+ certs done too. I enjoy learning.

Thanks in advance.

Checkout the IT cert thread as well. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3521165&perpage=40&noseen=1&pagenumber=295

If you like working with the cli then I�d go for RHCSA. It�s a hands on exam that proves you can actually do the work instead of just memorizing trivia and cli commands/flags.

Besides that, Cloud experience is a money printer right now. Get started on the entry level AWS or Azure certs and continue from there.

# ? Oct 12, 2021 15:51

cage-free egghead: Mar 8, 2004

So did a little WFH today and the laptop they got me was some HP 755 that howls even with just Teams, Outlook, and Chrome open. Like to the point that the keyboard is hot lol. I cleaned out the fan when I installed extra memory but how do people put up with this on a daily basis. I'd almost just rather use my desktop instead.

Does anyone else do that? I'd rather not enroll my device in any MDM solution or monitoring but wasn't sure how that all could work. Maybe I could just set up and RDP to a work PC.

# ? Oct 12, 2021 16:11

Hughmoris: Apr 21, 2007; Let's go to the abyss!

Hughmoris posted:

Thanks for the info. I had my first interview with them this week, went well, seemed like a good team. The company would sponsor me for a security clearance if hired, so that's a plus.

I'll be faced with an interesting dilemma if they make an offer.

Whelp. Offer came in. Substantial pay raise over what I currently make, plus sponsoring my security clearance

Cons: I have to pack up and move, again. This will be my third out-of-state move in 2 years (laid off at start of pandemic). And no more WFH.

Decisions decisions.

# ? Oct 12, 2021 16:11

The Iron Rose: May 12, 2012; Cat Army

Hughmoris posted:

Whelp. Offer came in. Substantial pay raise over what I currently make, plus sponsoring my security clearance

Cons: I have to pack up and move, again. This will be my third out-of-state move in 2 years (laid off at start of pandemic). And no more WFH.

Decisions decisions.

also you have to be able to qualify for a clearance

hope you don't like pot!

on the flip side, cyberwarfare is an existential risk and we need more people approaching it as the national security problem it is. go forth and defend thine institutions!

# ? Oct 12, 2021 16:24

regulargonzalez: Aug 18, 2006; UNGH LET ME LICK THOSE BOOTS DADDY HULU YES YES GIVE ME ALL THE CORPORATE CUMMIES ADBLOCK USERS DESERVE THE DEATH PENALTY, DON'T THEY DADDY?
WHEN THE RICH GET RICHER I GET HORNIER

cage-free egghead posted:

So did a little WFH today and the laptop they got me was some HP 755 that howls even with just Teams, Outlook, and Chrome open. Like to the point that the keyboard is hot lol. I cleaned out the fan when I installed extra memory but how do people put up with this on a daily basis. I'd almost just rather use my desktop instead.

Does anyone else do that? I'd rather not enroll my device in any MDM solution or monitoring but wasn't sure how that all could work. Maybe I could just set up and RDP to a work PC.

Teams will do that. If you have local admin, you can run the Windows 10 decrapifier script (don't have a link handy, but Google it and it'll turn up) and it might help a bit. Be aware that it disables your camera so you'll have to manually turn it back on

Otherwise, just install whatever VPN software on your home computer and I'd imagine you're fine to rdp to your desktop.

Alternatively, just rdp from the laptop and run teams etc on the remote machine. The laptop will only have to run VPN and RDP, shouldn't put too much stress on it especially if you have 16 gb of ram

regulargonzalez fucked around with this message at 16:27 on Oct 12, 2021

# ? Oct 12, 2021 16:24

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# ? May 28, 2024 10:23

xzzy: Mar 5, 2009

The Iron Rose posted:

on the flip side, cyberwarfare is an existential risk and we need more people approaching it as the national security problem it is. go forth and defend thine institutions!

I have NAT, that�s a firewall so everything is fine.

# ? Oct 12, 2021 16:28

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > Working in IT 3.0: xp_cmdshell

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