How to avoid ending up like this in tech?

>>105668774 (OP)
It's not that bad. I mean, it pays the bills.

>>105668774 (OP)
Learn to code and stay ahead of the level of slop that AI is capable of producing.

>>105668838
grim

>>105668841
so, no future in IT unless you can engineer software? it's over

>>105668845
>no future in IT unless you can engineer software?
Engineer software, or communicate effectively. Those will pretty much be the only things. Most of IT is already automated to hell and an artificial agent coordinating the automations isn't unfeasible.

>>105668774 (OP)
I escaped the help desk through internal transfer to a cloud ops role. I took some CS classes as well, but never finished. Ultimately worked into the SWE career through raw effort.

>>105668845
Fuck bitches left and right and Don't be a fat loser. Why is this so hard for you no sex having fat loser self to understand?

>>105668883
I'm not fat and I just had a girl half my age over for the night deepthroating and slobbering all over my slightly above average sized peenor. I'm not sure why you're projecting that on me anon, come over and fuck her too, she'd probably be down

>>105668871
i am hoping to escape helpdesk hell through this same way but idk if i'm gonna make it, some days just seem pointless

>>105668871
>I escaped the help desk through internal transfer to a cloud ops role.
What did you do? I've been working helpdesk at a b2b ISP for over 2 years now and really feel like I need to skill up to survive the AI boom.
Would a CCNA/CCNP track be worthwhile? Most NOC guys don't have one here so I feel like it would be the best thing I can do for safety in the shortest amount of time.
I'd say a CCNA in 6 months is reasonable even with my current level of brainrot and anhedonia.

>>105668902
>idk if i'm gonna make it
Just git good son

>some days just seem pointless
Yeah definitely felt pointless at many uh points, for me too. When I got the first engineering title, they gave me no bump in salary whatsoever. I was still making the exact same amount of money as I was as a level 1 help desk person, except now I had the responsibility of an infrastructure engineer to deal with.

But hey, that got me off the phones which freed up like 6 hours of my working day to think about code.

>>105668928
>What did you do?
I learned how to linux very deeply and then applied to an open position in cloud infrastructure at my company. Vaguely knowing what an inode was and walking through a basic HTTP request instantly put me in the top 5 of the candidates.

>Would a CCNA/CCNP track be worthwhile?
I don't have a single certificate. I assume if you are staying in the sysadmin track these things would be impactful.

>>105668871
>or communicate effectively.
wait are you supposed to literally become networking equipment? is that why every MSP demands i have a commercial driver's license, i'm gonna be driving the packets from site to site one day?

>>105669002
>wait are you supposed to literally become networking equipment?
Kek no, you will be providing the "empathetic touch" that AI cannot on the phones, or you will be providing the "leadership" engineers need when tackling a project.

Very funny stuff.

>>105668994
>I learned how to linux very deeply
Can you elaborate on this a bit?

>>105669018
are you not aware that every industry has a managerial class and are just getting mad about it now?

>>105668994
>I learned how to linux very deeply
You what

>>105669038
>Can you elaborate on this a bit?
My company sold devices to MSP's. If there are so many MSP adjacent lads in the thread, you may have used one of our devices.

Fundamentally this device was nothing more than a LAMP stack with a custom web interface and some proprietary code to solve a business problem.

Most of our tasks in tech support skated close to raw system administration skills. User management, process management, permissions, and then proprietary code. However, most of these tasks were also 95% automated, and if you ran into anything that the auto fixers couldn't fix, that would get escalated to level two or level three tech support.

Most of my peers were content letting things lie at that hand off. I never was. I always tried to dig deeper and understand what the real problem was. If the level two's could figure it out, clearly it wasn't impossible to do.

Then when the cloud infrastructure position opened up, I had apparently done this enough times and at enough depth that I actually surpassed the level 3 candidates and got the cloud infrastructure position.

>>105668928
>Cisco
Is this shit even still relevant? We (2000 employees) don't have a single Cisco appliance here.

>>105668883
>Fuck bitches left and right and Don't be a fat loser. Why is this so hard for you no sex having fat loser self to understand?
>>105668902
>I'm not fat and I just had a girl half my age over for the night deepthroating and slobbering all over my slightly above average sized peenor.

>>105668994
>Vaguely knowing what an inode was and walking through a basic HTTP request instantly put me in the top 5 of the candidates.
Grim. How stupid were the other candidates if that's top 5?

>>105669113
It is good enough to prove I have the general knowledge.
Better than nothing. (Again, L1 has barely any certs or degrees at all, L2 has a mix of CCNAs and very few with degrees.)
We still have TONS of cisco stuff because we do a lot of B2B and most of them expect or demand it even if it's super expensive.
For most in-country customers we are moving to huawei, but aside from some different CLI commands and a reverse order of the log display I felt like it was fairly similar.
Also after a CCNA I could reasonably get a huawei cert as well with enough knowledge transfer.

I'm just wondering if this has any value in more western EU countries as I really really want to escape mine.

>>105669113
Cisco still has an absolutely huge market share, especially in gubberment

2000 employees is also not a lot btw

>>105668994
>Vaguely knowing what an inode was and walking through a basic HTTP request instantly put me in the top 5 of the candidates.
What? Were you competing against jeets or something? I mean I'd not even invite someone to an interview without that knowledge.

>>105669172
>Were you competing against jeets or something?
I was competing mostly against other people in tech support looking to escape, but also some external candidates as well. Would have been all US at the time.

>>105669172
>I mean I'd not even invite someone to an interview without that knowledge
And obviously, everyone SAYS they know things on resumes, but that doesn't mean they actually know that at all.

>>105669160
So that's just means learning an enterprise CLI or what? I mean I have done VLANs and Routing/Firewalling/VPN (Linux and Opnsense) and stuff. Some Citrix and Horizon.
>>105669164
Our entire networking infrastructure is based on Infoblox, we are distributed over a district with 20 facilities connected to the HQ. Might not be a lot but the networking is a little more advanced than a hotel. Next step up probably would be country-wide or even continental networking, however the amount of employees is not really the issue. You can have 2000 employees distributed over a whole continent.

>>105669215
Yeah but a few questions like "OS reports disk full but there are still a few GB left, what could be the issue", and "explain what happens on the network when a browser connects to a website" or something like that should sort the pretenders out pretty quickly.

>>105668774 (OP)
>How do you avoid the only stable career path in tech?
Great question.

>>105669222
>we have 2000 guys working from home off of cloudslop microcervixes, why dont we use rack after rack of cisco gear??? checkmate atheist

maybe you should look at data centers, actual first-line ISPs, places with on-prem servers, etc. again, cisco gear is in wide use. even if their sales of new equipment are falling, there's tons of legacy shit all over the fucking place

how useful cisco certs are specifically is something to be argued about until the cows retire but cisco themselves as a hardware company have a lot of life left yet

>>105669267
>2000 guys working from home off of cloudslop microcervixes
Have you tried reading my post before answering? Especially the parts where it said "facilities" and "HQ"?

>>105669297
youre right anon, cisco is dead, two more weeks trust the plan

>>105669347
Who hurt you?

>>105669366
(You)

>>105668774 (OP)
Webdev code monkey here. I went in-house Service Desk (no 1st level Hotline) deliberately due to burnout in my development job.

It's an easy job, sure it pays less (but still enough) but I get to talk to actual people and even occasionally get a smile and a "thank you" when I managed to fix their shit. And I can finish on time with 8h a day instead of 10h and more (unpaid of course), because I was hanging around in meetings more than doing actual coding.

So, would I take the lesser job and gain better work-life-quality and avoid falling into a stress-induced depression? Yes, please.

>>105669398

>>105669267
>20 sites
>static overlay
>scripting out of infoblox
uhh have you heard of sd-wan? helpdesk lifer is a mindset, not purely a job title.

>>105669222
>>105669267
>20 sites
>static overlay
>scripting out of infoblox
uhh have you heard of sd-wan? helpdesk lifer is a mindset, not purely a job title.

>>105669452
>uhh have you heard of sd-wan?
Yes.

>>105669405
What does your work entail as a service desk guy, and how much of a pay cut was it? I have a CS degree and am considering all options

>>105669588
Incident response on-site, request fulfillment, fixing any related issues from software to hardware (single point of contact), rollout, communication between infrastructure service providers and user in case of incidents and failures, occasional simple on-site hardware repair like replacement of components, network cable patching, PBX administration.

I get like 10k less than before.

>>105669588
>I have a CS degree and am considering all options
PS: The stuff that I do now doesn't need a CS degree. So if you want to get your degree to use, don't look for Help Desk or Service Desk, probably not even administration. Nothing there requires a degree in computer science.

easy as shit to climb up the ladder in a company from helpdesk if you actually know something about computers since you already know the company systems (ERP, CMDB, IPAM and what have you) and there's no need to train another new brand new employee where to find the passwords for some stupid ass rdp/ssh keys to a random management server inside the customer network

>>105669783
The issue is that being seen as the "competent" guy on the helpdesk team with a revolving door of 7 or so mouth breathers that often need hand holding is that they wont let you move.
At most you can get a senior position as an internal promotion meaning more responsibility like teaching and scheduling, but not much benefit.
It's going to be funny to see what they do once I found my exit. There are a TON of things only I and one more guy know of now because of the attrition in our team.
Everyone else (aside from one other guy) is basically sub-6month here.
Leadership shows no interest in changing anything and the complaints from both customers and management are increasing.
It's funny how the average time to get someone up to speed is 4 months, but the average time for them to dip is around 6-8 while also taking a month or more to replace them in the first place.

I could quite literally do the job of the guy one level above us without extra training. Doesn't matter as I was denied each time for the above reasons.
We used to have 2 more seniors here and they left as well for the same reasons.

stupid thread

AI will replace you all

>>105669902
why don't you use AI to spam this bait instead of doing it manually?

>>105669902
AI and remote pajeets will replace the codemonkey that made this thread. IT jobs that require occasional physical intervention are still safe.

>>105668774 (OP)
>SAARS LOOK AT MY FUNNI PROOMPT XDDDDD
Kill yourself

>>105670519
you will never leave the helpdesk, fat retard.

>>105670519
honestly im shocked this had to be PROOOOMPTed, there's already an entire genre of meme of "halloween costumes that are just normal jobs, with sad captions/features on the packaging" that would create the same joke and can be made with generators online easily; and there's that one blogger who made lots of fake product packaging (actually real! he revealed he gets them made at a print shop and owns a vacuum moulder to make the bubble packaging, usually using normal bootlegs as props) of bizarre toys with chinese bootleg like cursed descriptions who probably has made a similar toy.

>>105668774 (OP)
This isn't accurate. The people on helpdesk for life have actively at every chance possible refused to accept more responsibility or promotions.

>>105672094
This, they're just lazy

>>105672161
Not lazy. Just fed with dev bullshit.

>>105668774 (OP)
Dont buy ubiquiti. It's that simple really

>>105668774 (OP)
Work at an ISP. Even if you're just tech support, you only have to deal with customers for at most an hour and anything beyond the ISP modem isn't your responsibility

>>105672317
I work for isps and it sucks. Namely because of old people who have brainrot from TV.

It's not hard to get off helpdesk but a large majority simply do not want to either out or laziness, politics, or obstinance. I'm reticent to call it laziness due to the amount of unyielding resolve some of these people have had to remain in the same place for decades even.

>>105672367
I don't understand it. I dread work every single day. The same conversation 7,000 times now and it's barely been over a year. I've gotten 3 more certs since starting and have to escape into a technician role soon

>>105671577
Lmao looks just as obnoxious as real life laffs fans

>>105672317
>anything beyond the ISP modem isn't your responsibility
I wish bro... unless they are hyper aggressive retards because then the boss will tell you to ~ help them ~ best effort ~ fuck that bullshit.
>>105672360
>Namely because of old people who have brainrot from TV.
I hate the retarded sysadmins and other wannabe network retards the most. They are the absolute worst because they fuck something up and then have you on the phone when you have clearly told them it's their internal network that is causing the issue.
These morons huffing their own farts are the worst. Not to mention if it's some smartass with the title of "IT director" at some cowshit shoveling factory.

>>105672367
Lowest level help desk here and 1-2 levels above don't have that much of a pay difference, but the grunts get infinite home office and extremely flexible schedules while higher level techs have it much stricter and mostly in office days.
So some people with families simply don't want to or can't move up due to this.

>>105669060
I genuinely don't understand how you interpreted my reply as "mad"

>>105669136
>How stupid were the other candidates if that's top 5?
Most candidates to most positions have absolutely no idea what they are doing

>>105673675
every time i get an interview i worry that this is me (it is but i will keep trying regardless, fake it till you make it, etc)

I got laid off from my helpdesk job and managed to get an actual engineering job.
Now I work with all kinds of fancy networking equipment every day but I still use Ubiquiti at home.

>>105673783
there's a reason the usual joke about IT support monkeys is that they have all kinds of verboten ancient lore knowledge but at home run a Windows ME box and own a lithograph

>>105673760
>every time i get an interview i worry that this is me
It is all of us at one point or another brother, just keep pressing forward and learning from the mistakes you make along the way. This is the only way to become someone who does know what they are doing.

>>105672933
>I hate the retarded sysadmins and other wannabe network retards the most. They are the absolute worst because they fuck something up and then have you on the phone when you have clearly told them it's their internal network that is causing the issue.
I get to just escalate this. I have to walk the braindead through which cable is a power cable and which is an hdmi though. Also which remote control is for the tv. I have had one go to another room and bring back an lg remote to operate their vizio while putting the phone down. TV literally makes you retarded and only retarded boomers still have cable tv. Half the time they changed the input and managed to buy a walmart special roku tv so you can't just press input.

>>105673848
Idk man, it works well enough and it does more than the shitty Netgear gateways or the $300 ASUS gamer shit. I have 10G to my Proxmox host and I can put everything that is public-facing in a DMZ. I can also set up a VPN to my parents' house so I don't have to pay for remote login or do crazy shit to be able to login to their computers remotely.

>>105673995
Ubiquiti is fine for prosumer shit

>>105673995
the joke isn't that the IT people are incompetent or lazy, it is that they know what Just Werks and that the 99 layers of corpo cancerware wouldn't be there if they had their way

>>105673944
That is fucking grim.
Now I get why TV (signal) resellers who buy wholesale from us are so assmad whenever there is an outage.
Boomers must be banging at their gates...
Insanity.

>>105673995
>just as good
hahahaha like the picture

>>105674010
Ubiquiti was fine a few years ago if you wanted cheap APs without support
Now they are as expensive as the competition and their their gear is overpriced crap aimed at retards

>>105674018
Most of the telcos we contract with have moved to iptv android boxes and their "cable" is just an app running on an android box. So if the tv is out you have to direct a boomer to a router at which point they say "but da tv is da prolem"

Sidenote: plume is fucking garbage

>>105674045
Just buy used. Lots of boomers buy ubiquiti and try to static their printers and windows xp computer then give up.

>>105674045
Where can you get an 8-port SFP+ 10G managed L3 switch for under $300?

>>105674099
https://www.ebay.com/itm/296884438502
right here little idiot. not even the best deal.

>>105674060
The failure rate of their old APs is pretty high, guess why I know this. I wouldn't bother when you can get a grandstream ap with the latest wifi standard
>>105674099
Which of their switches is that?

>>105674060
>Just buy used.
Are you fucking poor or something?

>>105668902
>I'm not fat and I just had a girl half my age over for the night deepthroating and slobbering all over my slightly above average sized peenor
>l-l-l-look at me I got laid once reeeee
yeah like the 100 billions humans that came before you, you're not special my dood

>>105668902
>I'm not fat and I just had a girl
how much did she cost

>>105674099
Certainly not from ubiquishit.

>>105674131
>EOL hardware
>no warranty or support
>loud as shit
>uses the worst Cisco router OS that is still in support
And on top of that you lose out on the single pane of glass.
Honestly anon, you could have at least posted a Nexus 3k or something. It still would have been out of support and loud as fuck but at least it wouldn't be running IOS-XE.
>>105674137
>>105674342
For some reason I assumed it was L3, but otherwise what I posted was accurate.
https://store.ui.com/us/en/category/all-switching/products/usw-aggregation
You can get a L3 with 28 ports of SFP+ 10G and 4 SFP28 25G for under $1k though.

>>105674375
>https://store.ui.com/us/en/category/all-switching/products/usw-aggregation
Basically the same as the Mikrotik CRS309-1G-8S+IN

>>105674045
>Now they are as expensive as the competition and their their gear is overpriced crap aimed at retards
this is literally only because of the faggot tech basedtuber trend. ubiquiti didn't start the wave. It's debatable whether they're bad for feeding into it. Ubiquiti was the top prosumer choice for a long time, but it's only just recently within the last ~5-7 years did it become the meme option. Blame LTT and all the other fags.

>>105674375
holy fuck you have no idea what you're talking about. nexus 3k was created for low latency HPC primarily (ASICs manufactured for low latency transfers) and it is at least one order of magnitude louder. all nexus devices are louder than catalyst switches as a general rule of thumb. a c93180yc-ex would be a better purchase in every single way anyway. why would it matter that the 3850 is EOX? it still has more features than the USW by also several orders of magnitude. are you doing vulnerability management on your core infrastructure in your homelab? i really fucking doubt that. perimeter is always the primary concern. you are beyond retarded. i specialize in nexus in high performance computing specifically (DC track). the real benefit of running a nexus is with vPC and dual active control planes (without split brain behavior), unless you're in a transit environment in which case NX-OS has slightly improved routing and MPLS features. catalyst would be better regarding TCAM sizing, optics compatibility (by and large), and price speaking from an enterprise perspective. any nexus would use more power and be louder from a home use perspective. you need to stop posting you're embarrassing yourself.

>>105674487
Ubiquiti literally sponsored them, and retards are obviously their target audience. No one but a retard would pay like 20 bucks for a wifi ap cover or a fucking M.2 adapter without any electronics

I work at an ISP and the retards who try to use random GPON SFPs or PPPoE with their ubiquishit routers are the worst pseuds, we get a good laugh at their incompetence

>>105674602
>No one but a retard would pay like 20 bucks for a wifi ap cover or a fucking M.2 adapter without any electronics
nigger, what do you think enterprises are paying? that they're getting a better deal? that's actually cheap all things considered.

>the retards who try to use random GPON SFPs or PPPoE with their ubiquishit routers are the worst pseuds, we get a good laugh at their incompetence
I can't disagree. anyone using a ubiquiti router is actually braindead. not because it's easy, but because it's shit. I hate homelab LARPing faggots as much as the next guy. Everything I own is just on a cheap $40 wire rack shelf. I don't get off work and want to come home to tinker with more shit.

>I work at an ISP
ah that makes more sense. carry on you magnificent bastard. just keep my internet running, ok?

>>105674522
Bro, this is a home lab, not a datacenter. The switch I posted is fanless, so the Catalyst is literally infinitely louder by comparison. We're not looking for something with a bunch of TCAM that can handle huge route tables, we're just looking for something with a halfway decent number of multi-gigabit ports that is managed and can handle VLANs and basic routing. And being able to get an RMA if your shit dies is kinda cool.
About 15 minutes ago I was logged into an NCS router troubleshooting segment-routing and IS-IS, and before that I was fixing someone else's fuckup on a route-map on a Nexus 9k. I also (unfortunately) have to deal with some ASR 1k and Catalyst devices (mostly C8500, but I have worked with C9300 and C9500 in the past) and IOS-XE is junk. Syntax is inconsistent between different models even with the same version, the config is overly verbose, and good luck if you ever have to troubleshoot a layer 2 issue. Even NCS is easier to troubleshoot L2 than IOS-XE.

>>105674658
>what do you think enterprises are paying?
I don't see such pointless shit on e.g. Ruckus website, they sell actually useful accessories.

>>105674696
>t. retard
just because it is not on their website does not mean it's not something they sell. The website is more of an advertisement and you either coordinate with a vendor or get a sales rep assigned.

I work in an enterprise and often have the joys of processing equipment and quotes. it's not uncommon to see prices like $20 for a single fucking foam mic cover.

>>105674720
https://www.ruckusnetworks.com/globalassets/digizuite/62143-ruckus-accessory-guide.pdf
I just looked at this. They don't seem to sell a lot of pointless crap

>>105674665
>we're just looking for something with a halfway decent number of multi-gigabit ports that is managed and can handle VLANs and basic routing
c9300-24ux

NCS has considerably more layer 2 functionality than a catalyst so i highly doubt that troubleshooting a layer 2 issue on it is less difficult, but i dont fuck with NCS cause i dont do ISP core shit. but i do know that NCS devices have significantly more layer 2 constructs compared to a catalyst so i find your statement highly suspicious on its face. im also genuinely confused because of your conflation of NX-OS and IOS-XR (or confused writings trying to convey the differences in IOS-XE by platform?), lack of knowledge about the scope of TCAM (it's used for more than route tables and for stuff that is directly relevant to ISP work like NAT QoS and ACLs which you should know), and general (astounding) confusion at the noise level of catalyst 1ru devices compared to nexus (which you should know if you work ISP transit). mostly any idiot would know the last one. i also find it interesting and pathetic to work on a sunday. junior admin maybe? congrats on your route map.

Just build your own router at home and use Opnsense or OpenWRT

>>105674922
If you've never been called on a day off, it just means your job doesn't matter.
I wasn't conflating IOS-XR and NX-OS. I was saying I deal with a lot of different operating systems (including some Cisco non-routing OSes like FXOS and ASA and some non-Cisco stuff like SRX, MX, and Waveservers) and while IOS-XE is better than some of those, I don't like working with it because its syntax is not consistent and troubleshooting on it is more difficult than other platforms.
Yes, I'm well aware of how WRED works and all of that shit, but again, we're talking about a home lab here. A lot of home labs would work just fine on a shitty Netgear switch that you have to manage from a Java applet, we're just looking for more bandwidth than that and a little bit more capability.

>>105675055
lol i work for the DoD. HPC stuff is from working for DoE. i think it matters ;)
ASA? holy shit dude...

also wtf are you talking about WRED? that's not TCAM consuming QoS, that's a packet buffer management drop methodology. it just happens to be configured where QoS is. are you generating this shit?

>>105669123
>nobody has sex that's a myth
zoomers are the most grim generation ever to occur

>>105675213
>I work for the government :)
OK, then your job definitely doesn't matter.
I fucking hate AI shit, I'm not generating anything.
WRED was on my mind because I was troubleshooting WRED drops without high interface utilization a while ago.

And yes, I deal with lots of random garbage, some of which should have been put out to pasture a long ass time ago, and some of which should never have been on the market to begin with. We still have Netscreen firewalls and Cisco MDS 9513 SAN switches in production, and until somewhat recently we still had a few Nokia Checkpoint firewalls kicking around.

>>105668902

>>105675423
nokia checkpoint? holy shit son that's worse than the ASA you mentioned. weren't you just shitting on EOL stuff? nokia sold checkpoint in (i had to look it up)... 2009. if you still have a nokia branded firewall idk what to tell you. sounds like your ISP is poor as fuck. bumfuck nowhere? india?

you're pretending to know more than you do and it's painfully obvious. arjun you banchod bastard bitch my dog needs operation.

>>105675508
It's not an ISP and I'm probably whiter than you are.
If it was up to me I'd fly to our datacenters myself, pull all this shit out of the racks, and have it shipped to Antarctica. Unfortunately that would upset some people who refuse to move their shit.