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Since *company merger* is looking worse and worse now that I've got a taste of how they currently handle IT (it's terrible) and there's no way I'm staying here any longer then I have too, it's time to brush up the old resume. Where do I start? Is the goon-ran resume service worth it? I've started to audit/rebuilt my online presence (so they find what I want them to find, like my IT blog.) But I've got two weak points: resumes and interviews. I can get a decent resume out there and handle phone interviews no sweat, but at the in person tech interviews, I always choke. Any help or resource recommendations (articles, books, ect) are appreciated.
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Aug 6, 2014 23:20
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NippleFloss posted:You're in Portland, correct? What kind of work are you doing? I know you gave me your email address in one of these threads and I got caught up in some stuff and didn't get around to e-mailing you, but if you give me an idea of what kind of work you're looking for I can ask around and see if anyone I know is hiring. Correct. Send me an email and I'll take you out to lunch if your free some time soon. marc.heynderickx @ gmail.com
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Aug 7, 2014 19:20
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MC Fruit Stripe posted:I have to unrack 4 DL580s by myself and ship them to another datacenter. I can lift that much weight but I can't even begin to imagine how I am doing this. Does anyone have suggestions? I can probably de-rack them onto the pallet jack or whatever they call those hydraulic jobs in the datacenter, but even that is tenuous. After that, I have to get them from the datacenter to FedEx, in the back of a Civic. I can't even fathom lifting a DL580 into a Civic without ruining every corner of the server and every bit of paint. Anyone have suggestions? Don't try this. The damage to yourself, your property, and not to mention the equipment is not worth it. Are you relying on FedEx to package them? If so, good luck. We have had two dead monitors and a dozen servers get damaged because one of our field guys was to lazy to repack everything into the Pelican cases we shipped him and dropped everything @ FedEx.
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Aug 11, 2014 07:50
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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.
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Aug 11, 2014 19:18
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NippleFloss posted:CTS-V wagon is the logical and practical choice. It's on my list. I would love one if I could get a decent deal- they're outta my price range for now.
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Aug 11, 2014 19:29
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psydude posted:I would own the poo poo out of a Model S if they were a bit cheaper. You and me both. I'm really hoping the Model 3 stays around the predicted price point. It would be perfect for my 40 mile commute. I would subsidize my desire for a wagon with a newer truck, which would honestly suit most my needs just fine (space, 4x4, towing). It's the handful of times a year need the towing capacity of a F250/350 diesel that has stopped me from buying a F150 Ecoboost. I'm too drat indecisive, at least for my own vehicles. /carchat
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Aug 11, 2014 21:04
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SSH IT ZOMBIE posted:Ahh...so we're going through a merger. We're technically something like 40% bigger, but, some decision was made where IT falls under the leadership of the organization being absorbed. We lost our CIO. Today we got word, our director is being moved to a different role. My direct manager has in the past mentioned not wanting to work under anyone else and has some weird stuff posted on his Facebook about new beginnings. High five merger buddy. I'm in a similar boat. A large investment firm bought four medium companies with plans of combining them. The new reorg structure was released a few weeks back and all the IT staff are flipping poo poo. Each company had their own IT Manager + support staff. All the IT staff are now under a single person who is so far over his head it's not even funny. It's getting to the point where I bet we are going to start seeing people leave. The best part is, I'm watching this happen as the IT Manager of a fifth company- who is being bought for it's software/IT/contracts. I have no idea what their plan is for me- I can see it working a few ways, the only one I like is letting me come in and clean house.
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Aug 21, 2014 22:21
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Has anyone worked for a place where their tier one tech was in charge of purchasing phones/ipads/laptops/desktops?
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Oct 20, 2014 20:43
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along the way posted:Yes, where I work currently. We have like 100 employees. How well does it work out? Are they purchasing off a list of pre approved systems/phones? Does the department manager sign off? I'm just a bit shocked by this one firm that wants to give 100% control to a brand new employee.
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Oct 20, 2014 21:09
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along the way posted:It works out okay. No list really. We just work directly with our vendors and service providers and try to stick to the same models to keep support as simple as possible. We select the equipment based on business requirements, discuss it with our manager, and have him approve the purchase. Yea, it's a complete mess. All 100% custom built "gamer" desktops ranging from 3 months - 5 years old. No WDS, WSUS, software management. Ugg. At least it's not my problem. I'm just not seeing this as a good idea.
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Oct 20, 2014 21:25
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Roargasm posted:It's hard to get purchasing right these days with Dell being so disorganized. We're 90% mobile I can't find a standout OEM besides Apple. I do all of the purchasing here except for the copier leasing and the hundreds of staff laptops that we just handed out at once last year. Management bought those, the discontinued Vostros. I've had great luck with ~100+ Lenovo T/W series laptops through CDW.
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Oct 20, 2014 21:40
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along the way posted:I was gonna say, hopefully they made FNG a domain admin while they were at it. Hahahaha, what domain? 200+ devices...
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Oct 20, 2014 23:41
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If you had to re-staff IT for a 480+ FTE company, what would it look like?
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Nov 21, 2014 20:27
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Let me clarify: 1) This is starting fresh. IE: no one 2) IT is a strategic partner/service provider to the business, offering both internal and external services. 3) Huge push for better systems, new DC, cloudstack environment with a in house/EC2 connected cluster. 4) 15 offices, two HQ. 10) 10Mil budget. I was thinking: Desktop Systems Manager = oversee helpdesk, two tier 2 techs (one at each HQ) and a dedicated desktop admin. DC/Infrastructure Manager = oversees Windows/Linux/Network/Security admins. This is just for fun, I swear. Great replies thus far though, thank you!
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Nov 21, 2014 22:57
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Does anyone have a plan/proposal format for long term IT projects that they have used and would recommend? I'm trying to clean up a bit and getting a working plan together for the next two years would help make my boss happy, haha.
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Jan 5, 2015 20:38
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I'm 90% sure I just gave a walk through of our DC to yet another potential buyer. Good thing I've got an exit planned and ready. *edit* 99.99999% sure thanks to coworker.
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Jan 16, 2015 01:32
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Tab8715 posted:I've been told the first level security clearance isn't much more than a credit check. I wish. The paperwork alone took 3 hours and overall it took three months to process. Even then I was only granted a temporary clearance until a deeper review could be conducted. That was 9 months ago and I haven't heard a thing.
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Jan 16, 2015 01:35
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So I'm debating temporarily becoming a contractor again. I guess it's best described as a contract-to-hire position. A local firm is picking up ex-coworkers as contractors until their hiring resumes in Q2. They are offering less hours with a 30% pay bump with a promise to hire full time in Q2. (The downside is there's nothing in writing about the hiring part and there can't be due to some issues I can't discuss.) My current job has become insufferable and while stable, it's not looking good and I want out. (We're also in process of being acquired, again.) Our CEO has gone crazy and is taking the business down with him. I'm debating between holding out for the stock options/bonus and then jumping (March), or start contracting Feb 1st. It's a tough choice and honestly, if my math's right I'll make more in the three month interim due to the pay bump then my stock is worth. My ex-coworkers are happy and are trying to get me to leave my current position and join them. One of them has known the CIO for years and trusts him. The company is going through it's own pains though- consolidating offices and growing the local staff base. There's a huge IT audit going on and I think I will try and hold out until that mess is over. They're also the only other local firm who is interested in the HPC work I have spent my last three years specializing in. So let's say I do something crazy, outside of the following what am I forgetting? Federal Taxes State Taxes Medical/Dental Parking Roth IRA It still comes in at $3k more a month take home then I make now. (No 401K though, not sure I can contribute?) Hurm....
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Jan 28, 2015 05:46
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Misogynist posted:The informal contract-to-hire situation is likely to get your employer flagged by the IRS, unless their intention is to retroactively classify you as W-2 and back-pay the taxes they owe. Without that piece of paper, if the IRS sees someone earn income in the same calendar year for the same company as both a contractor and an employee of the company, it is immediately going to put them on the audit shortlist. Since the rules change a few years ago, the IRS has become very, very aggressive about employees being misclassified as contractors. When that happens, you're likely to be pulled into that, and may be audited yourself. I had not thought of that. It raises a interesting question for the employer and I would prefer to not be audited. Thanks! I just checked, it's a 36% raise- not that it matters a bunch. I'm planning on meeting my accountant buddy for lunch to run the numbers, but the rough numbers give me more in pocket "take home" with the only downside being a lapse in 401K. At the current company, our fringe benefits have shrank every year. Bonuses and raises were not given out this year despite us being profitable (First time in… 7 years?). Our health insurance is a mess and even our rep does not understand why the company has us setup on the current plan. At best I get $1500 of free parking. I'm willing to pay the $1000/m vs $400 I pay now for heath insurance, mainly because I can get a much better plan. And yes I have done this before. It's not terrible, but it's not something I'm looking forward to. The reasoning here is: my current job is so terrible, I'm willing to do all these things just to get away from it. It's basically ground hogs day at our office. No one knows why they are there, what they did yesterday, or how to learn from their mistakes. I'm amazed we have not been turned in for government contract funding misallocation/abuse. A program manager was telling me yesterday the CEO came up with this gem: "Hey guys, you know what sounds like a great idea? Let's find a way to bill our internal, commercial product offerings development into a government contract billable cost center. Think you can find somewhere we can slip a few engineers under existing long term support contracts?" I calculated the numbers today and we have had a 65% turn over the last two years and this month alone we lost three people and I just found out about another person leaving Thursday. the spyder fucked around with this message at 06:26 on Jan 28, 2015 |
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Jan 28, 2015 06:20
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evol262 posted:You won't be 1099, right? I will find out from one of the current contractors what they are. I have a LLC I can easily feed it though, since I have to file for it anyways. I do have savings and very little expenses if something happened. The job market is great. There's actually 3-4 places hiring Infrastructure Managers right now that if I wanted to go back down that route, it would not be difficult to land a similar paying job. I'm not worried about the stock, as I'm 99% sure it's non existent- It's phantom stock and seeing as I have a email saying "Opps, I'm holding everyones stock until lawyers fix this clause in here", it's basically the stock in Futurama that they give to Zoidberg for toilet paper.
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Jan 28, 2015 06:29
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evol262 posted:Misogynist already covered the salient points. Mostly audit risks, terrible insurance, quarterly taxes, needing an accountant to make sure you don't gently caress up your taxes for entitlements, and the possibility that it won't actually be a pay increase if you're 1099. Turns out it's a 40% increase. Appeal other then money? Room to grow, awesome budget, complete DC build out. Full time employee after ~ 3 months. Ironically enough I got a phone call this morning offering me a Senior Infrastructure Engineer role at another local company. I'm going to pursue it and see where it goes. I've got a friend there now and he loves it. If not, I'll re-evaluate the contract-to-hire position. I also got a bonus today, but no one else did? I'm hoping the other managers have not gotten around to it today, otherwise people are going to be mad.
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Jan 28, 2015 23:45
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I'm freeeeee! Turned in my resignation and start at the new job Monday. Pay bump, get to build two data centers, and lead the infrastructure team. I can't wait! Is it still YOTJ?
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Mar 7, 2015 04:28
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Methanar posted:I just signed my first NDA. I've never felt more important. Making triple what I used to is nice too. Congrats! We were playing CS after hours before I left. I'm definitely going to fire up a VM on the IT management host at the new place. Beer + Pizza every Thursday night till 8pm sounds like a great team building exercise 
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Mar 12, 2015 02:16
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New job starts in one week and the vacation in between has been amazing. I've been catching up on projects around the house and reading/preparing for the new job. I'm not sure how to ask this, but I've been given the opportunity to start from the ground up building a new IT department for a ~500 person company. Helpdesk is covered by another team memeber, but suggestions are welcome. I have two major issues I have to resolve. 1) IT is known as being terrible. It's on everyone's mind and I want to change this. Standardizing our helpdesk and rebuilding the networks will help, but only so much. 2) It's a fresh start. I can go with anything hardware wise. There's some EMC/Cisco/HP gear at the second HQ, otherwise it's a clean slate. Any suggestions are welcome. I want to make this place not only a great place to work IT wise, but a place where everything just works and IT is on top of things. What makes your job great? What makes you want to work on tough projects? Basically, how can I ensure I'm a good boss/leader. I've read the complaints, issues, nightmarish stories people have told on here and I want to avoid that as much as possible.
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Mar 23, 2015 03:08
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These are amazing and everyone should carry one in their kit/bag. http://www.amazon.com/Apricorn-Notebook-Upgrade-Connection-ASW-USB3-25/dp/B005C983NA
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Mar 26, 2015 17:51
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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...
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Apr 8, 2015 05:23
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Chickenwalker posted:Anybody used Ubiquiti's AC access points? I've read that they aren't that great compared to their earlier models, but we're switching from Airport Extremes and I don't want to take a step back from the speeds AC offers (and beam forming if these actually do it). After their last controller update, ours were solid. 2 AP's, around 40 devices.
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Apr 28, 2015 06:56
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Chickenwalker posted:I'm scared shitless to buy more after some of the things I've heard. We have Airport Extremes at the moment which, even though they're lovely consumer APs I think we're getting the full advertised range and throughput. I really need something that can broadcast multiple SSIDs associated with different vlans, is sleek, has management software, and doesn't cost more than $500 a pop. All of our users have Mac Airs with AC radios so it seems a shame not to capitalize on that or backtrack to N (which I had horrible experiences with back in the early days). Funnily enough, I replaced our Airport Extremes with AC's due to how crappy the AE's were. Buy one, try it out. Return if not satisfied.
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Apr 29, 2015 00:22
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Vulture Culture posted:I've never bought full systems from Supermicro, always just used their chassis/boards via vendors like Thinkmate. They worked well enough aside from all the usual fuckups on stuff like RMAs. I've used two VAR's, buying over a 1000 Dual Twin or Single GPU systems, warranties were always handled next day and support was decent. We never had a box that was not warrantied, even for stupid user mistakes like snapped off USB ports. We had our production staff validate each box before imaging. It worked well. However, Dell will match as close as they can- with a better warranty and BIOS- IMO. It's not worth $300-500 over the life of the server to cheap out on SM gear for critical systems. HPC, sure- great use case for them. Disposable, cheap commodity hardware. Large amount of archival storage? Same. And this is coming from someone who just built out ~2PB of SM based ZFS storage.
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May 1, 2015 17:40
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Odd situation: When I left my former employer, my boss had no issues with letting me take my ~3 year old Mac Book Air with me. We both agreed it was of no value to the company (age/no other Mac users). Two months pass. I get an email asking for it back. I responded politely, reminding him of our verbal agreement and that I would be happy to write them a check for the sellyourmac.com estimated value if this was a financial issue for them. Like most things done at that company, the was no witness @ the exit interview or anything in writing. If they push it further, I'll just switch to my other laptop and return it, but what a PITA.
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May 2, 2015 00:43
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My new job has turned into: Oh poo poo what were these guys thinking- how are we going to support all this legacy crap. To: Oh poo poo, we need to rebuild both HQ's core networks/VM environments, setup two colo's worth of gear, and be ready to build out a HW environment for a new web-based product delivery management system in a few months. Welp. Either time to start drinking or hiring. Guess what's going to happen first.
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May 7, 2015 18:50
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I had the worst conversation with our new interim IT Director yesterday. He's an outside consultant and is only staying on long enough to point us in the right direction. I sat down with him to go over some basic planning and ended up walking away confused and rather pissed. Every time I would bring something up, like how our devs are using Docker/Linux, or that I'm looking at Juniper gear, he would go off on a tangent about TCO and if it wasn't on a Gartner report we shouldn't be running it. All his examples were based off companies 20, 50, 100 times our size with matching budgets. Don't get me wrong, he made some good points, but I'm just not used to having to defend everything I say. Thankfully he has a partner that I'm working directly with that knows him very well and backs my ideas. It seems the best way to deal with him is to push everything through his partner and only answer questions on a need to know basis. On a side note, our helpdesk guy is being driven insane by his micromanaging as they try to fix tier 1-3 support. Let's just hope I can stay off this guys radar. I can't think of the last time I had a meeting just backfire in my face like this before. It left me wondering if this was the right fit for me, but thankfully like I said, he's short term. It's still better then the last place 10 fold. His rant on why linux did not belong in our environment, jebus. 
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May 13, 2015 01:40
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Tab8715 posted:Do tell... I stopped listening after he told me Microsoft was far superior because you couldn't get into the kernel and start screwing with things, making all linux inherently unsecure. It still makes my head hurt.
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May 13, 2015 17:30
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I'm looking at hardware from all three of the vendors in the last few posts. Dell R730's HP G9's Cisco UCS And Nexus/ Juniper QFX switchgear. If I had all the money I was promised, I would go full UCS/Nexus/EMC. But it looks like Dell/Juniper/Nimble are winning out price wise. I have no reason to believe that this gear won't run solid for 5 years and cost 20-30% less due to the volume. Hopefully it will be on a 4 year life cycle (minus networking). Anyone have a VAR recommendation? I need to start calling vendors Tuesday to get actual quotes.
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May 22, 2015 23:00
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What's that hiding back there?  Oh. That's right. All we had for a management host was this custom built desktop.  And it's running Windows 10 tech preview.
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May 23, 2015 01:16
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go3 posted:i trust the custom built desktop more than the supermicro stuff o_O
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May 23, 2015 01:40
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Has anyone heard of Pivot and ITOaaS? My coworker is trying to pitch it to upper management.
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May 28, 2015 18:02
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Inspector_666 posted:ITOaaS just seems like a new, buzzwordier way to describe an MSP? That was my thought. It's not what we need at all right now, considering we just are looking at basic monitoring offerings.
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May 28, 2015 22:18
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22 Eargesplitten posted:If Portland makes Denver look good, I'm definitely never moving there. Portland is 4pm to 6:30pm. It's terrible. It took me 25 minutes to cross a bridge today- at 9:30am! Literally, two blocks on either side.
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Aug 19, 2015 00:43
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The job I took last spring has not quite panned out how I thought it would. (Insert rant about false promises/inept or nonexistant leadership/ people jumping ship left and right, etc etc.) I'm not quite ready to jump ship, but I am starting to re evaluate my career path and start refreshing my skills in preparation. After this job, I definitly feel like I could benefit from professional training. I have experience in many areas, but lack a deep knowledge of any specific area. I've also realized how important working for a solid, well structured company is, combined with the benefits of having a good boss. It's deifnitly something I plan to watch out for in my job hunt. One up side to all of this is I'm sitting in a hot market for tech jobs (Portland) and I've started to reach out to my network. I have a rather mixed background and I'm looking for input on the best way to move forwards. Work history is: 5 years part-time User/Helpdesk/Desktop support, 8 years SMB consultant/5 of those as a Contract Sys/Net Admin, 3 years IT Manager, 1 year- current Infrastructure Engineer. The downside is I never finished my degree and I have no certs. I am definitely interested in continuing in infrastructure, focusing on Networking/Storage/VM and HPC/HPS if possible. While my previous title was IT Manager, the majority of my job was focused on those areas. In total, I have 8 years experience with several different forms of VM/Storage/Network and 4 years of designing/ building HPC and HPS. I see it this way, I have two options: 1) Cert up- VMware/CCNA/ect. 2) Online school like WGU (most degrees include certs). My main issue is that I'm terrible at the testing methods used for most of these exams/certs. I don't learn quite the same way most people do, which makes things rather difficult. On the plus side, I pick things up very quickly and utilize the resources provided to best get tasks done. The second biggest issue is time. My free time outside of work is, well, nonexistent. I am currently in a situation where I could do some training at work, but I would have to make some major changes to my personal schedule. I do want to make a change, so I will have to figure that out. Eventually I would like to make the jump to management, but I'm no where near ready. With all this in mind, what would you do?
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Feb 23, 2016 20:46
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