[AusNOG] Young Techs - Was SMH: "No room at the internet"

[Curtis Bayne]

I don't believe age has anything to do with the quality of a tech or his/her work, but there's a huge difference between a CCNA-toting self-taught network engineer and an engineer with significant experience: best practice.

Problem management, documentation writing, change control, ITIL, asset management, workflow, approval/authorization process - these are all things which your Google-Fu will struggle to assist with (and isn't usually taught at Tafe/uni/school either) that are IMPERITIVE to maintaining a consistent, manageable network.

Possibly the biggest problems with us young'uns is our penchant for baseless arrogance - I am one of the worst perpetrators in this regard.

Regards,
Curtis

-----Original Message-----
From: ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net on behalf of Daniel Hooper
Sent: Wed 5/19/2010 11:45 AM
To: ausnog at ausnog.net
Subject: [AusNOG] Young Techs - Was SMH: "No room at the internet"
 
*         Some people excel with being thrown in the deep end, others don't.

*         I throw my junior techs in the deep end sometimes to see whether they sink or swim, it sorts the men out from the mice

*         Others need to be challenged regularly to keep them interested

*         I & employers need / want techs who can handle being under the pump

*         A customers mail server being down was one of the most stressful occasions in your life ? such a long way to go grasshopper.

From: ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net [mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net] On Behalf Of Daniel Hood
Sent: Wednesday, 19 May 2010 8:54 AM
To: Karl Kloppenborg
Cc: ausnog at ausnog.net
Subject: Re: [AusNOG] SMH: "No room at the internet"

Not trying to start one of those great mailing list wars but, I am also only 19 and working as a network engineer as well.

I just don't like the fact that theres some people of our age, who jump on google and download the latest copy of the pass4sures of CCNA, go and get their CCNA and then some how land a job programming routers for ISPA or CompanyB without every having touched a router prompt before. I've seen it happen far too often. I guess you could also blame the management or HR departments of the companies for hiring but hey... not the point of this discussion.

I think the learning stage is important and having the opportunities to be able to work your way up the chain is all well and good. I just think it shouldn' tbe done by being "thrown in the deep end" and having to fix production equipment you have no idea with whats going on, but knowing it back to front by the end. For the main reason that should all of the external companies have to suffer because you've been "thrown in the deep end" have no idea what your doing.

I learn't this way and I can remember one specific situation where I had never touched an exchange mail server and got sent out to a job where one was not relaying mail at all. Thus the mail server is down and I had people in other companies suffering because they could not send emails to this company because of my incompetency and lack of knowledge of what a smart host was. Would never put someone through it again, that was one of the most stressful occassions of my life.

Thats just my 2 cents.

Daniel

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