More career advice for Elok

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

I posted this in DanQ's latest spam thread first, but here's your irony: http://www.danhatesspam.com/

[Aeson]

DanQ has permission to post his updates, and it's one of the few Civ related things that happens on this site regularly. So it's definitely not spam even if profuse.

Such jokes are of course welcome here in the OT, but keep them out of the on-topic areas please.

[Buster Crabbe's Uncle]

My job is to kill spam, and. Dan. causes. me. PAIN.

[pchang]

Do you have a computer with 16GB of RAM or so that you can install some hypervisor (KVM, VMWare Workstation, ESXi, etc.)? If so, then download a virtual switch/router and play around to keep in practice. If you want to learn something new and more valuable, I would suggest downloading one of these https://downloads.f5.com/esd/eula.sv...e=&B1=I+Accept and playing around. You will have to sign up for an account. Contact me for a 45 day trial license. You could buy your own lab license for $95. There is 1st level training available on university.f5.com. That will require signing up for an account as well.

[Elok]

Are those options superior to Packet Tracer? Because I've got that already, use it as a sandbox from time to time, and I've never had any real complaints with it. There are a few things it can't do--e.g., I've never found a way to set up a Frame Relay "cloud," it can only do back-to-back--but for the most part it works pretty well for simulating a network. My main weakness, IMO, is wading through the show command output. I can set almost everything up just dandy, but analyzing an existing network gives me trouble. Could those help with that? I ask because honestly, I'm pretty poor.

[pchang]

They won't really help you visualize existing networks. The F5 stuff is a load balancer (Gartner calls it an Application Delivery Controller) and it has a network view that visualizes whatever you have configured on the F5 device. F5 stuff takes the Cisco stuff and elevates it up the network stack to L7. I think it would be the next logical step in your career path.

Check your PMs.

[al hail bobo]

They won't really help you visualize existing networks. The F5 stuff is a load balancer (Gartner calls it an Application Delivery Controller) and it has a network view that visualizes whatever you have configured on the F5 device. F5 stuff takes the Cisco stuff and elevates it up the network stack to L7. I think it would be the next logical step in your career path.

Check your PMs.

Just speaking from personal experience, but none of the jobs I've worked at had need for a cisco certified anything. It tells the company that you know what goes on behind a router and how to configure it, but most of the stuff we have setup for clients have all had a web gui.

For proxy to localhost - Tor is a perfect example. You have a program on your computer that transmits web requests to the tor network so you point your browser at localhost to go over the tor proxy

As for jobs, I happen to be in Baltimore.

vpsg(dot)net - used to work here, horrible company but great for experience and then dip (office in DC and salisbury)
dresnergroup(dot)com - current employer, no idea if they are hiring
dataprise(dot)com - they have a post on craigslist every other week for helpdesk people

baltimore.craigslist(dot)org/tch/4449552987.html
baltimore.craigslist(dot)org/tch/4434400629.html

In addition, try geeksquad or staples version of it for work experience.
There are also online work from home type helpdesk jobs where you remote into peoples computers. This would provide you "help desk experience"
helpdesk(dot)com/jobs.html

Also get familiar with ticketing and remote admin software, some have free trials, being able to say you know that system is a huge bonus.

off the top of my head:
Ticketing: connectwise, autotask, remedy
Remote admin: labtech, bomgar, n-able, kaseya, teamviewer

Also look into a job at your local ISP (prob comcast or verizon?) basic non technical read-from-a-script helpdesk "did you restart your modem" jobs will get you in the door, then when you show you know what you are doing, move to something hands on.

[Elok]

baltimore.craigslist(dot)org/tch/4449552987.html

Does it matter that I have very few of their minimum qualifications? I can certainly try out Geek Squad, etc.; there are stores like that near here. Or Comcast, etc. Thanks a lot, guys!

[pchang]

It probably does matter, but my philosophy is to let them weed me out rather than do it for them by not applying.

[al hail bobo]

It probably does matter, but my philosophy is to let them weed me out rather than do it for them by not applying.

^^ cant hurt to apply. your resume is the place you embellish, the interview is the place to come clean. The game is to GET the interview without hurting your chances at the job. Once you get the interview, you have a lot more wiggle room and can impress them with other things like your ability to learn quick etc.

There is also the approach of "if they ask you if you can do it, say yes" then google it while you are doing it. I don't agree with this but I have seen it work if you are good, and even if you arent, you just got paid, got experience, and learned something for your next job.

[regexcellent]

Do you have a computer with 16GB of RAM or so that you can install some hypervisor (KVM, VMWare Workstation, ESXi, etc.)? If so, then download a virtual switch/router and play around to keep in practice. If you want to learn something new and more valuable, I would suggest downloading one of these https://downloads.f5.com/esd/eula.sv...e=&B1=I+Accept and playing around. You will have to sign up for an account. Contact me for a 45 day trial license. You could buy your own lab license for $95. There is 1st level training available on university.f5.com. That will require signing up for an account as well.

I honestly prefer Xen to all of these.

[pchang]

You should probably read up on OpenStack and python scripting. Those things will probably make CCENTs obsolete.

[Elok]

Please do not mistake me for an actual tech person. It took me the better part of a year and a half to get the damn CCENT--now, part of that is because a whole lot of things went wrong, but still, I'm not the kind of guy who can just up and teach himself that sort of thing in a hurry. On-the-job training, I can do just fine. But I'm still a transplanted English major. Alas.

[Elok]

I know that, if I'm pursuing a tech job, I need to be able to keep learning constantly. I don't know what I'm going to do about that. I just know that, when I was first exploring my options in late 2012, I tried to teach myself the basics of Java--except I couldn't find a single tutorial, online or in print, that spoke comprehensible English. I couldn't even get past the part they all began with: "Java is an object-oriented language, which means that it employs translocational multilayered structure dynamics to allocate mixed-ratio conceptual aggregates in a fixed hemispatial axis."

Okay, not quite that bad, just bad enough that I'd have to effectively sit down and painstakingly translate every sentence from jargon into English, then read my translation to learn it. I had to do just that for a couple of chapters of the textbook from my first Cisco class; it took forever and I still didn't really understand it. Dunno what I'm going to do. I'm basically making this up as I go along. I'm looking for helpdesk work, and I've applied a couple of places you guys have mentioned. Beyond that . . . :shrug:

[Lorizael]

Object-oriented languages are just languages that use classes, which basically just means you're segregating your code into modular chunks that can be arranged and re-arranged for various tasks.

(Yeah, I know, that doesn't really help.)