|
Inspector_666 posted:I've been responding to the "What was your previous compensation?" or "Well what are you looking for?" questions with stuff from that article and it's like talking to a wall. I really want to just take a "radical honesty" approach to job interviewing and just respond with "I'm not going to answer that, because it will only serve to poison the well for both of us: I'll either price myself out of the position or you'll underpay me and I'll leave in 6 months anyway." I was speaking with a recruiter last week and after a couple minutes of playing that game I finally told her that each time she asked me to name a figure I was mentally adding $10k to the amount I thought the position was worth. She asked me quietly what the total was up to and started laughing when I told her $280k (she had been really pushy about the salary amount and just wouldn't take "no comment" for an answer). She thanked me for my time and told me she would make a note in their system to call me when there's something that interests me, and to not push on the dollar amount.
|
#
¿
Jul 29, 2014 00:22
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 12:59 |
|
|
whaam posted:Do most of you guys have a plan to move into management or project management as you get closer to 40? You don't see many systems engineers, administrators, etc in the 40-55 age range. Is that just due to our industry being so new, or is the usual path into management the only way to avoid being aged out of the industry? I can't speak for others, but as I am 42 and finally getting into the actual meat of my career (I just got transferred from the server farm team where I was a server technician, to the Exchange team as a Network Administrator II) I don't think I'm quite ready to give up getting my hands dirty. This might be a different story if I'd been in IT since my early 20's and had 20+ years experience, but I think I'll be holding off moving to management until I'm at least 50 (unless a whopper of an opportunity comes along). For me, management is where you go when learning new technical content is too drat much of a bother, since experience and maturity are far more valuable at that level. Let the yung'uns with their 'neural plasticity' hit the books, complete the project, and make me look like a god to the C-levels. I like to think that I would make a drat good manager at some point in my career - just not in the next couple years. I've still got some miles left on me before I put it in park.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 31, 2014 15:40
|
|
|
Dark Helmut posted:I don't want to bore you all with recruiter talk, but I do think it's important for you all to tell the difference between good recruiters and the mercenaries out there. I might be in the minority, but seeing as how most of my jobs for the last 5 years or so have been contract positions, I honestly think I would prefer some recruiter talk. We all know IT, but for some of us our experience with recruiters is either non-existent or drat little, and we view them with about as much enthusiasm as encountering pond scum in the pool. I want to know how to find a good recruiter, what questions to ask, which questions are okay to answer, and pretty much anything else I would need to know in order to get the most out of dealing with a recruiter. Primarily, I want to know when I'm dealing with some bullshit artist who's feeding me a line and when I'm dealing with a real professional who knows their poo poo.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 4, 2014 20:03
|
|
|
skipdogg posted:I swear these threads make me wonder if I work for some mythical perfect company or some poo poo. I'm celebrating my 10 year anniversary here soon. Started working in one of our call centers while finishing community college and have been promoted multiple times since then. In my current position of Sr. Systems Administrator I'm making a very nice base wage in line with the local market while enjoying such things 22 paid days off, 8 sick days, 90/10 PPO with 500 dollar deductible, paid training, cell phone, hot spot and annual performance bonus (that actually pays out). We're even well funded as a department and get nice equipment. I really don't have anything bad to say about the company at all and have no desire to leave. You are living the loving dream of employment then and should be offering up prayers of thanks to the IT gods. I thought I had a pretty good gig as well, even though it was a contract position. I mean, once you get that mythical DoD security clearance then you are golden, but for whatever reason it was business as usual and gently caress the peons for a few measly bucks. It was a good thing that I managed to transfer to the primary contractor and get picked up for the Messaging team, otherwise I'd be out on the street right now. And as proof that I had good timing I was sadly shaking my head last week and today because of what my former team is being forced into. It used to be that we did a lot of things in vCenter to justify our existence, and we were fine with that since it was good OTJ experience. When the cuts came they basically took all of that away and used it as justification for why they were going to pay us less than the going rate for call center reps in the private sector. Last week the server farm guys were patching servers, despite this being bullet one of the "why we are going to pay you less" excuse train, and today they were building new VMs in vCenter, which was actually bullet point two of the excuses. So basically less than three months after they completely upset the apple cart things are back exactly the way they were, only they are paying about $150k less in wages for the same work. Thank god I got out of there when I did - it no longer affects me, but it pisses me off on behalf of the guys now on the team.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 5, 2014 21:46
|
|
|
MC Fruit Stripe posted:I'm re-reading my original post and I'm realizing that yeah, me post lovely. I didn't make clear that the problem was that I didn't think it was possible - my post comes across as though I'm asking for suggestions on which corners to hold as I carry this thing to Fedex on foot. Rent a U-haul van and get some moving pads. Wrap the servers with the pads and shrink-wrap the whole mess. Get a cart and two bodies and load each server on the cart, take it to the van and unload it, then rinse and repeat. If your workplace balks at paying a couple hundred bucks for the cost then those servers ain't getting moved.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 11, 2014 13:03
|
|
|
the spyder posted:Not to drag out the car talk, but I'm curious as to what others drive. I sold my BMW and I can't keep driving my Rx-7 40 miles a day. Plus I can't fit a server in it, well except maybe an old R210. I regularly transfer 1U-4U devices between offices and I really hate driving our company van. I'm thinking either a small crossover SUV (Mazda Cx-5) or wagon (BMW/Audi) is my best bet. 2005 Ford F-150 4.2L V6 with a little over 69k miles. First month I had it I drove down to Oxford, Mississippi to visit my uncle - just in time for Hurricane Katrina to hit. I was 300 miles from the coast and we still got hammered. Truck emerged without a scratch, but I've more than made up for it over the next few years. Get requests from friends and family to borrow it all the time. I'm thinking of upgrading in a couple years, but I'm in no rush, especially after dropping $3500 for a new transmission 4-5 months ago.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 11, 2014 22:16
|
|
|
Had two Microsoft employees come in and train 5 of us who were relatively new to Exchange earlier this week. We had two days of training, plus we had a lab that was built for us to play in. Pretty cool experience and I actually picked up quite a bit from the class. Anyways we were chatting during a break and one of the trainers mentioned that there were a huge number of Microsoft employees who actually had teaching degrees after someone had asked what kind of education requirements MS had for employees. There was even one person, he told us, who had quit his practice as a neurosurgeon to work for Microsoft. I'm still trying to wrap my head around that.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 15, 2014 22:16
|
|
|
I've decided I'm going to go the nepotism route for my next gig - gently caress education and certifications. I went to my family get-together yesterday and was talking with a cousin who just happens to be a GS and runs her own IT shop on another part of the base. They're looking for some folks who know Exchange, a little bit of Linux, some VMware, and Server 2008 R2, so when she found out where I was at she demanded some information on what I was doing and then smiled like the Cheshire Cat. She's going to ask around and start some balls rolling and will be getting back with me to let me know the results. The positions she mentioned were like GS11 Step 1 or GS12 positions, plus they only work M-F. It would be quite the accomplishment to go from a contractor to GS - I never thought I would have a possible opportunity like this come along. Ever.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 18, 2014 20:42
|
|
|
Thank loving Christ! I finally got my Remedy account fixed so I can work on tickets. It's only been a month of calling ESD a couple times a week and having them bumble around in my permissions, tell me I'm good to go and to wait an hour, then determine that poo poo still doesn't work. I finally asked my team lead to jump in on this and, since he knows where a lot of bodies are buried, ESD finally handed it off to the Remedy team. They took 5 minutes to fix everything and stayed in an IM chat with me until I saw what I needed to see. The ESD folks are brain dead even for government helldesk, and it got to the point where the 2nd shift Exchange folks were making memes and posting them all over their cubicles. My favorite was a South Park image with the caption "ESD helps you with your email account. And...it's gone." Apparently they generated a critical ticket after trying to help a Major General with his email account and accidentally deleted it. The commanding officer finally put his foot down and said no new meme posters, but he intentionally neglected to mention anything about existing ones (probably because we made him look so drat good the last few months - our detachment has closed the majority of Messaging tickets for the entire 24th AF and it's been noticed by the command staff. Of course, that probably won't stop them from killing our detachment off at the end of the contract in the middle of August next year).
|
|
#
¿
Aug 21, 2014 02:38
|
|
|
Is it sad that the first raise I'd seen in over 6 years was a mere 1%, and that a month later it and another $15k were eliminated from my annual pay? 5% is like a loving dream, and the only way I've managed any pay increase is by jumping jobs.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 22, 2014 20:46
|
|
|
NevergirlsOFFICIAL posted:Does anyone have recommendations of online training for end-users on network security? Like something that teaches them general best practices: what do suspicious emails look like, don't use bittorrent to download and old version garageband for work, that kind of thing. It doesn't matter - you could have them do the same training every day for six months, and after all that they'd still open a loving phishing email or click on the .exe attachment from UPS about a delivery they didn't know they were getting.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 2, 2014 23:48
|
|
|
That sounds like a step backwards, and the only reason I would ever advise someone to do something like that is if your health or sanity were on the line. 5k sounds like you'd be making more, but going from hourly to salary will likely leave you making equal to or less than what you currently make. Pass unless it is clearly a huge stepping stone (it isn't). Boredom is okay - it gives you more time to study and work on certs, so use your time wisely.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 3, 2014 00:44
|
|
|
Four words come to mind - Goon. In. A. Well (okay, three words and a vowel). For God's sake someone take away his loving shovel.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 3, 2014 17:30
|
|
|
fluppet posted:Do you not mean Years back I was attending a seminar for substitute teachers and one of the presenters was talking about "Worst Day" stories from subs, one of which involved her son. He was apparently tormenting the sub by turning the classroom TV off in the middle of a program during class. He finally got caught and his mom had to beg to not have him suspended. The school confiscated his watch, and his dad lit his rear end up. Mom thought it was fair. I've always wanted to find one of those watches ever since.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 9, 2014 22:31
|
|
|
And make sure you say nothing to anyone at work (including your boss) until that offer letter comes in. In fact, act like nothing has happened at all, because until that offer letter is received and signed by both parties nothing has.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 12, 2014 12:14
|
|
|
Fiendish Dr. Wu posted:Ya'll are starting to sound like socialists I was arguing about the theoretical benefits of socialism and communism with my dad when I was fifteen and he was so incensed about it he was threatening to throw me out of the house and find out how well it worked in practice (this was 27 years ago, and he was a Vietnam veteran, so just the word Communism was enough to send him over the edge). I wasn't smart enough to tell him the police and Children's Services would go all socialism on his rear end if he did it. I miss arguing with my dad.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 27, 2014 12:36
|
|
|
FISHMANPET posted:In general I agree that keeping people in the loop is good. But I can do that by sending an email, and take 1-2 minutes of my day. My managers think I should take 10-15 minutes to go upstairs, interrupt whatever the user is doing, and talk to her in person. Here's the lazy person in me response - if my manager is expecting me to waste upwards of a quarter of an hour just to tell a user "Hey, we're working on your poo poo. We'll let you know when it's done", then by God, I am going to do exactly what they want. If they then want to come to me and bitch about not being so productive I can point them back at their stated expectations and ask them exactly how I should reconcile their mutually-contradictory expectations. It's their job to decide how they want things, and if they want you to get some face-time with the user then they can't expect you to be 100% productive.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 2, 2014 19:45
|
|
|
Fiendish Dr. Wu posted:human... Soylent Green is people!
|
|
#
¿
Oct 17, 2014 23:53
|
|
|
Just got word the other day that we're changing our weekend shifts around. Apparently neither our unit nor the unit at Scott AFB is able to retain people, let alone find anyone to replace those that have left. So rather than both units having a day shift that works 8am-8pm on Saturday and Sunday and a night shift that covers 8pm-8am, we're going to have one detachment cover one shift and the other detachment cover the other shift. Being the nice guys they are my bosses volunteered us to cover the 8pm-8am shift starting December 6 and lasting for six months. This will be my 3rd shift change in 5 months. I have also decided that this will be my last shift change here if I can help it. My coworker and I currently hold down the 8am-8pm shift, and we've both reached the conclusion that there's going to be 2 more open spots as soon as we can find another position. It sucks, because aside from the long hours and lack of a weekend the job is quite easy - we babysit the exchange servers, investigate some problems, perform some change requests, and basically make sure the building doesn't burn down. Hell, the biggest downside to the whole situation was not being able to watch college football live, but thanks to someone opening some ports in the firewall that has become a non-issue. I hate changing jobs.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 10, 2014 22:06
|
|
|
H.R. Paperstacks posted:Well there's your problem right there! Scott AFB is awesome..........because I don't have to work there, just communicate with those that do  [/quote] Leadership was talking about their visit there a while back. Apparently the detachment office has a hole the size of a dryer in the side of the building that was fixed with some plywood being nailed up half-assed to (mostly) cover it. Equipment needs to be fumigated weekly to get rid of all the bugs, and not a day doesn't go by when someone doesn't try to kill the ever-present mice wandering the floor. Water drips from the ceiling, and the carpeting is so stained that mold has set in and the smell is atrocious. Thanks, but I'll take lovely hours over that any day.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 10, 2014 23:17
|
|
|
Fiendish Dr. Wu posted:So what's everybody's work load on pre-t-day? I took the day off so I could spend it doing some job searching. Leadership decided to announce a couple weeks ago that weekend shift will be combined into a single shift covering 8pm-8am starting a week from Saturday. Normally not worth looking for a new job, but leadership also decided that we would then switch shifts every 3 months with our counterparts at another base. It's going to gently caress me up sleep-wise since it takes a couple months for my body to adjust, and just when it does I'll be switching back - permanent jet-lag. I'll be on my 5th or 6th shift change (which was directed by leadership, and not voluntary) in 8 months, and frankly it's no longer something I'm willing to put up with. Time to get the hell out.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 26, 2014 15:00
|
|
|
Those math questions are loving ridiculous. Reynolds & Reynolds is notorious for pulling that kind of poo poo, and every time I receive an email from them asking me to apply I immediately send it to the trash. Those types of questions work both ways, assholes - it made me certain that I never wanted to work at that place. I spent 30 minutes of a total 90 on that loving test covering material I hadn't seen or used in 15 years, and it was for a desktop support position. I saw absolutely nothing that the tests covered that were even remotely akin to the work I could reasonably expect to perform. I guess it made so much more sense to let some loving test determine whether I should get the opportunity to talk to someone rather than leave the decision on hiring me to someone actually interviewing me and getting a take on my technical skills. When I hit minute 30 and saw how much more material was left I stood up, put on my dress jacket and threw the test on the desk in front of the proctor and told him to have someone call me when they got serious about hiring an experienced IT professional. I still loving hate R&R, and that was 6 years ago.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 4, 2014 03:59
|
|
|
Richard Noggin posted:For all of you budding server admins: when you're provisioning storage, for the love of Christ please don't carve out a 2TB volume when all you need is 30GB. If you need more space down the road, it's really easy to extend volumes in Windows (and probably Linux, but that's not my area) but quite the pain in the rear end to shrink them to a more manageable size after the fact. Last week our vCenter server's C:\ drive needed to be extended (it's virtualized), so they went ahead and did it, but something went wrong and caused it to crash and bring down our entire virtual infrastructure. For most places that would be horrifying and a Resume Generating Event for the person who did it, but we managed to bring ALL email for the USAF down and, according to quite a few flag officers, seriously endanger national security. It took a few hours to get everything back up and running, and they were still cleaning things up over the weekend. Since I was off until Saturday evening I didn't even hear about it until someone started talking about how much of a bitch it was, and how the phones just blew up. Not sure if we have an opening on our Virtualization team now - I should probably start asking around. Of course, last night into this morning things were also a pain - someone at INOSC East decided to gently caress around with the routers and prevented people across the AF who were off-base from being able to access email through OWA or connect via VPN. We kept telling ESD over and over that it was a Boundary issue and that email was working just fine, but they still kept giving users our phone number to call, and tickets that ESD created and sent to us were forwarded to Boundary, who didn't even look at them before bouncing them back. INOSC East Crew Commanders were totally unimpressed with our argument that if people who were on-base were able to get their email, and people who were off-base couldn't, then just maybe the problem was with the interface (i.e. routers), which they just so conveniently happened to control and, also conveniently, happened to have made changes to. I'm curious to see what happened after I left this morning. As a side note, rumor has it that our contract is going to get extended for a year because the organizational changes made didn't quite produce the results the USAF had been expecting, and our detachment is mostly the reason why things haven't completely degenerated into mass chaos. They still want to kill us off, but the officers also want their promotions, so they're thinking about giving us a stay of execution (they've been trying to get rid of the detachment since 2006, but each time the hammer is about to fall someone gets a dose of common sense).
|
|
#
¿
Jan 14, 2015 03:08
|
|
|
Sickening posted:I don't understand how a vcenter server could bring down the entire infrastructure. Are you sure it was the vcenter server? It was definitely vCenter, and apparently HA was partly the culprit - that was what had everyone scratching their heads. When vCenter went down it took with it all the DAG's, all the databases, all the datastores, and all the configuration files. They had to restore everything from backup and reseed the databases to get email flowing again. I think they have a ticket in with VMware to try and figure out what the hell they did that could have caused such a problem.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 14, 2015 04:24
|
|
|
I'm just telling you what the 1st shift team lead told us about the previous day. Everything was down for over 4 hours while they scrambled to put poo poo right, and he just wanted to let us know the day after in case there were any aftershocks. If I were a betting man I would wager that our new Virtualization guy did something that started a chain of events that brought the entire infrastructure to its knees, but because he's the only person who has complete access and control over it could say whatever the hell he wanted and no one would be able to gainsay him without a detailed examination by someone with equal access and superior skill. Since there isn't anyone at our location who does, the point is moot.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 14, 2015 15:51
|
|
|
Misogynist posted:I missed this earlier, but I'm putting an actual $20 up that someone misconfigured isolation response on the HA cluster and the isolation response was what took down vCenter in the first place. I actually have administrative access to vCenter, whereas everyone else in the Messaging team is restricted to VMUser. Apparently it was just too hard to give me VMUser access, so the project lead overseeing Virtualization just went ahead and gave it to me. I commented that I wouldn't do anything bad in vCenter like delete a VM from disk, and he just gave me a pained expression. It's actually been pretty useful having that access because there's been a few times when a DAG cluster would suddenly go down and no one would have the first clue on 3rd Shift what was happening. I usually sit over by myself since I'm weekend 3rd shift (you know - the lowest of the low) and that's when one of them remembered that for a time I actually monitored and maintained the virtual infrastructure's physical components and could at least log in to vCenter. drat, I really need to get my VCP5 now. Maybe there's going to be a job opening soon.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 15, 2015 00:54
|
|
|
Just got an email from a company for a job in Columbus, OH - I live in Dayton, OH. It would be an hour-long drive, but the position looks interesting enough. But more importantly it requires a Secret security clearance to start, at which point they will upgrade it to a TS. 15 days PTO, reimbursed training and education, 401(k) (but no mention of a company match), etc. Said it might involve shift work, but hell - I already work 3rd shift so nothing new there. Definitely could be an improvement if the contract is dependable. They wanted a salary before I spoke with the on-site PM, but I replied back with "it would actually be easier if you were able to provide me your salary range. I wouldn't want to list a number that would make you think I wasn't taking this opportunity seriously, or that priced me completely out of competition for the position." Hopefully they'll respond back favorably. If not, gently caress it - not like I need a job right this moment.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 15, 2015 23:50
|
|
|
jaegerx posted:They're going to get you security clearance or you already have it? If they're getting it for you and TS then call the recruiter back and offer to watch his kids. Suck his dick. Mow his lawn whatever. I currently have a Secret, so it would be an upgrade to the TS. Wouldn't be too worried about the investigation, but it's not an issue - the company got back with me and told me the pay range was $35-37k. I started laughing and told them thanks but no thanks.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 16, 2015 01:45
|
|
|
I prefer to operate in the belief that corporations, comprised of people from all walks of life, are essentially there just to demonstrate exactly how much other people can get away with by screwing over those lower on the totem pole. Lawful evil is what I believe that type of alignment in D&D is called. Invariably, when the company acts exactly as I expect there is no surprise. However, if (and it's a big if) the company behaves in a tolerant and benevolent manner I can then be pleasantly surprised. Since I work for a government defense contractor I have rarely had the opportunity to be surprised. Take for example the New Year's feast that the three contracting companies decided to provide - it was a nice gesture, but then they immediately turned around and said second and third and weekend shifts can heat up the leftovers and clean up after first shift, despite the food being delivered 5 hours before second shift would even show up. The suggestion that they hold off on ordering 2/3rd of the meal and let us pick it up after each shift reported in was firmly shot down because it might confuse people. Consequently second shift only barely partook of the largesse, and third shift didn't touch the food at all, and weekend shift didn't even attempt to eat anything, and as such didn't even bother to clean up the food that had been left out for 2 days until we came in. Unsurprisingly, weekend shift got our asses handed to us because we didn't bother to check that the food had been left out and the smells were rather vile in a darkened and closed room when 1st shift rolled in on Monday. The term "not team players" was thrown around quite a bit, and various disparaging remarks made against us. I believe it was also mentioned that there would be no further events like this in the future because "some people acted like children" and basically "spit on the generosity of the contracting companies." Weekend and third shift have responded by bringing in our own hot plates, pans, and frozen ingredients. I've had chili, spaghetti with meat sauce and garlic bread, takeout from BW3's, BLT's, Biscuits and Gravy, Bacon, Egg and Cheese sandwiches, and takeout pizza from a small local joint that makes some of the best pizzas in Dayton. I must say, the lack of support from leadership has definitely provided a number of team-bonding opportunities over food for those not on the blessed 1st shift. It's going to suck having to move back to 1st shift on the weekend and 2 days during the week, because it's turned into a loving miserable place to be during the week.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 24, 2015 15:27
|
|
|
Tab8715 posted:This is an oddball, has anyone gone through a 8pm to 8am shift? Three days on, three days off, two days on, two days off. I currently work 8pm Sat to 8am Sun and 8pm Sun to 8am Mon, then I work Midnight on Mon to 8am on Tues and Midnight Tues to 8am Wed. It loving wrecks you. I had the option of doing 3-12's and then 3-12's and an 8 and I turned that poo poo down immediately. 2-12's are bad enough, but if I had to work a 3rd 12 in a row I'd be a loving dead man. It's nice to have Wednesday evening through Friday evening/Saturday morning, but it's not enough to compensate for the shift. Unless they are paying you something like a 50% shift differential/weeknight hardship bonus stay the hell away from it.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 28, 2015 05:26
|
|
|
Inspector_666 posted:Aren't you still on the overnight shift? Yeah. Hence why I say that unless they offer you a shift differential stay the hell away from it. I went from $32k to $60k, and that's the only reason I stick with it. About the only benefit is that I have several hours of uninterrupted study time, so it works for me. I feel sorry for the poor bastards they pull off our server farm team to turn into Exchange Admins - they don't pay them poo poo compared to me. Either I got lucky during negotiations or those guys are so desperate they'll take the first offer.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 28, 2015 14:29
|
|
|
meanieface posted:Related -- had my annual review today and my areas for improvement included "work/life balance" and "managing customer expectations". So it's on paper that I need to tell everyone else to calm down and work less OT. I sat down yesterday with my "supervisor" (he was actually my shift lead for weekend days for about a month before being tapped to work during the week on CCRI preparation - that was six months ago) and we went over my draft review before it was submitted to the PM. I was pleasantly surprised by his generous ratings and got something like 3.7 out of 5 (highest anyone would ever get is 4) - meets and exceeds on all facets. I told my supervisor that if I was doing a self-appraisal I would have been a 3 or lower simply because I'm far more critical of myself (plus I feel totally inadequate in my knowledge of Exchange). For my goals I listed I was finally going to get my VCP5 and start on my MCSA. Not sure if I want to go down the 2008 track or 2012 - people at work say to do the 2008 track, but everything I've read online says if you haven't started on anything to go for 2012. So conflicted.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 9, 2015 14:11
|
|
|
There was a ticket in our queue yesterday about an org box not receiving emails from a distro group that was created for AF personnel at remote sites not connected to the Air Force network. These personnel would send emails using .com addresses to a .mil address, but none of the reports would go through. My shift lead and I spent a couple minutes looking at the problem and found out that the org box was set to reject all messages from non-authenticated addresses. We thought it might be an easy fix, but at the same time the whole network was set to prevent spam, and turning the reject feature off in Exchange would completely defeat that. Then we really started looking at the org box - it was nested and buried so deep that it would have taken a week going through dozens of other org boxes and several thousand accounts just to get the emails from being rejected. Or the remote site folks could log into OWA on their government-issued laptops using the built-in CAC readers to authenticate for the network. Or use those same laptops and log into VPN and open Outlook. Not sure why people persist in trying to get around security features or demand we turn them off, then bitch when they get flooded with spam. I turned the ticket over to my shift lead and told him he could deal with the customer as I was not getting in the middle of that mess.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 16, 2015 20:57
|
|
|
Well, word just came down that in August our contract is coming to an end and our responsibilities moving to Peterson AFB and Langley AFB. During this entire time the leadership has been stating that it was an unrealistic expectation that the AF could easily be rid of us because of how the email infrastructure is set up for the AF. Guess the military disagrees. It will, however, be interesting to see how the military manages to cobble up a complete Exchange staff and bring them up to speed in the month or two they'll have between us shutting down and the new locations coming online. I kept telling my shift lead and co-workers that the military operates in mysterious ways, and to not think that if they have our program in their sights for the chopping block, that niggling little things like keeping the Exchange environment online and emails flowing would keep them from bringing down the ax. I kept saying that if we made it past August that I would be pleasantly surprised. Well, no surprise now. Updated the resume and started applying for jobs down in Florida. Hopefully I can finally realize my goal of leaving Ohio for the warm southeast.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 18, 2015 12:25
|
|
|
mattfl posted:Whereabouts in Florida? If the Orlando area I can recommend some places, hell I'd recommend the place I work at right away. Bosses that actually care about a work/life balance, normal 40 hour work weeks, no after hour/weekend/days off calls unless you're on call, good benefits/vacation days and excellent pay. Actually, Orlando is one of the places I was looking at - I actually applied for a Systems Admin position at SpaceX in Cape Canaveral, and Lockheed Martin in Orlando. There are several positions available in Pensacola, Eglin AFB, and MacDill AFB that I'm considering applying for, but I'm not sure about how things are on the Gulf side of Florida, but if it gets me a job down south I don't think I'll complain too much, especially if it's near the ocean. I used to be an avid scuba diver and fisherman, and it would be nice to be able to pick those hobbies up again where the water and weather are warmer year round.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 18, 2015 22:16
|
|
|
skooma512 posted:I always volunteer for night shifts. Generally desktop isn't expected to do poo poo all night and I can just veg out. They are always light duty and I have no problem staying awake (the opposite in fact, I can't sleep outside of a bed no matter what, I've tried). When I'm on night shift desktop is always just being used as a reserve army, so basically I'm just a warm body. I'm back on days for the next 2 1/2 months, although since our contract is ending in August and people will be bailing fast enough that I might be able to get assigned to the day shift during the week days. My body couldn't handle the weekend night shift - 12 loving hours from 8pm Saturday until 8am Sunday and 8pm Sunday until 8am Monday and I had to get sleeping pills from my doctor. And no O/T. Weekends are still rough, but at least it's not 3rd shift. God, I hope someone responds to my job applications...
|
|
#
¿
Mar 24, 2015 12:29
|
|
|
22 Eargesplitten posted:Could I just install any version of Linux, or does it need to be a specific one? Wikipedia makes it sound like you have to buy a license for Red Hat Enterprise. I've been meaning to get some Linux experience for almost a decade now, so I might as well get to it. VMware's ESXi is available for free to use if you are installing it on one machine with, I believe, no more than 2 CPUs and/or 32GB of RAM. It will not be as fully functional as the paid license version (no High Availability, no Fault Tolerance, no Distributed Resource Scheduler, etc) but you aren't running a data center so it hardly matters. Once you have ESXi running throw in a couple Linux VMs - I personally use Slackware, but a lot of people consider that to be a bit much and would recommend CentOS if you want the consumer version of Red Hat experience.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 6, 2015 12:37
|
|
|
the spyder posted:Anyone in Kentucky looking for a job or know any good recruiters? I need to fill up to three positions in the LEX area over the next few months. Help desk, Sysadmin, Sr Systems/Network Admin roles. I was not aware my first task at the new job was major house cleaning... I was going to say shoot me an email, but I'm 135 miles from there and it would be a 2-1/2 hour drive. In other news, every loving person on the Messaging team has received multiple emails and calls from a headhunting company trying to fill an Exchange Engineer position in Columbus. Considering they were only offering around $25/hr I think I've figured out why they're having problems with people laughing at them or just hanging up.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 8, 2015 21:51
|
|
|
GOOCHY posted:I don't know if you remember it but we exchanged PMs a few years ago regarding my wife and I wanting to move back to the Maryland/NoVA area. I've been pretty much working to make this happen ever since. Christ, please tell me how to even get a response from those folks - I've been firing out 3-5 resumes and applications a day for like 2 weeks now, and even with a security clearance I don't hear a thing from them. I did, however, find a posting for a position in Key West. I made a personalized cover letter begging them to let me talk to them about the position because I'm such an avid scuba diver and love fishing and the Florida Keys are my dream spot to live and work. I hope it's enough of an incentive that they'll at least hear me out. gently caress relocation assistance - I'll just hook a goddamn trailer to my truck and drive down with everything I own (and still have room in the trailer). I'd live out of a tent for as long as it took for me to find a place.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 10, 2015 22:39
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 12:59 |
|
|
SIR FAT JONY IVES posted:I interviewed and accepted a job at a company that promised full tuition reimbursement along with a list of certs I told them i wanted to get. The office was right next to a college campus, so it was going to be super convenient. After settling in and showing that I was valuable, I mentioned it in my mid-year review. The director was like "lol nope, sorry, we changed our mind, how does getting your BS in computer science help us?" I was furious. They told the same thing to my manager, he was invited to some crazy Harvard business development course, and when he interviewed for the job he told them he was applying for that class, and they agreed to pay for it and give him the necessary time off for it (it was like 2 days a week for a semester). When he actually got accepted to the program he brought it up to them and they told him the same thing, they weren't going to pay for it or give him the time off. Jesus, it's poo poo like that that drives people postal. I think we should add a big rear end disclaimer to the title "If poo poo isn't in writing then it isn't going to happen!". It used to be that when a company representative promised something verbally then the company upheld its' end of the deal. I find it infuriating that any company thinks it can pull that poo poo and not have it come back and bite them on the rear end.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 13, 2015 19:38
|
|