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I need a reality check here and a place to vent. I've been in IT for four years now. I work at an MSP under the title of "Technical Services Manager", meaning I manage six other technicians, do scheduling, inventory, interviewing/hiring decisions, head up projects, and have monthly client meetings. I feel cert shamed anytime I check in on the internet in that Reddit and everyone else says that certs don't matter, only experience, but for the purpose of this exercise I'm close to having my MCSA in 2012 and Office 365, have almost every basic CompTIA cert under the sun, and have my SSCP. Currently working on my CSA+, CEH, finishing my MCSA certifications, and teaching myself Python. I'm responsible for rebuilding several basic business environments, usually at a tune of around 3 servers on a VMWare box, Sonicwall, Datto, Ubiquiti etc. My largest client has around 20 servers and some cooler technologies but that's not the norm. I feel like I do a lot of break-fix and not enough process improvement, which seems to be the modus operandi of most MSPs--it's shameful to think of how much time would be saved if I had time or the energy or the blessing of clients to automate their environments/deployments a bit more. I came up from being a help desk intern to taking my boss's position within 3 1/2 years and I just feel like a caveman when discussing IT with everyone else on the Internet, but people in my group look to me for technical expertise and leadership. I'm possibly imposter syndroming hard, but I'm at the point where I know how terrifyingly ignorant I am. I guess in this rambling word vomit, I have a few things I need clarity/advice on: ~I make $42k a year around 30 minutes north of Philadelphia. Am I being taken for a ride? ~After my MCSA for 2012 and 365, I'm planning on studying for my CCNA. I usually study three hours per night and I have a homelab with a few switches and VM servers. Am I wasting my time waiting to apply for System Administrator jobs before I finish? ~How do I actually escape MSP hell? Is an internal position the dream for actually picking up harder skills rather than being consigned to break-fix? Sorry, it's been a bumpy hell ride and studying every night for hours on end to shore up all of my perceived weaknesses for no real benefit other than a sick home network and becoming frighteningly aware of what I'm missing out on has taken a toll.
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Jan 7, 2018 15:10
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| # ¿ Apr 23, 2024 20:49 |
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I'm sort of in the generalists mindset right now since I'm used to touching all aspects of a business, so I figured a CCNA wouldn't hurt in understanding and managing my networks better. It's not chasing the cert so I can slap it on my resume, but more for my own technical development and knowing I have a good grasp on the fundamentals. I think staying in this MSP is just going to stagnate my skills. This will be the first time I'm switching jobs in the field--would it be smart to look for a recruiter, or just start applying to positions that would challenge me? Maybe both? Thanks for the input, this whole process is a little terrifying.
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Jan 7, 2018 16:59
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I'm currently looking for resume assistance as well. My resume is years out of date and has so many unnecessary positions on it now that even just having someone to bounce my experiences off would help, and I never quite bothered to elaborate too much in my LinkedIn profile to borrow descriptions from there. I'll be looking for Goons first so if I find any technically inclined (or if any are reading this thread, heyo) I'll post my experience.
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Jan 8, 2018 19:36
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Trash Trick posted:Hi all. I have a friend who is working helpdesk for $15/HR as half of a 2man IT operation at a medium sized company. He does not have a degree (for personal reasons- he is a hard worker), but worked for a campus IT dept for several years, and landed this job about a month ago. He is absolutely miserable- feels like helpdesk is an inescapable pit of doom and is desperately seeking some path out. Does anyone have any advice? I feel like I've read some similar tales here, and that people have found avenues to better jobs. Does he have any certs? Does he have a home lab? After a few years in help desk, he needs to find a way to move up. Building his own environment at home is at least one way to practice, and certs never hurt, especially if he's dilligent in doing all of the exercises he finds in his books rather than brain dumping. If he's doing at least these two things, he then needs to spruce up his resume with projects and technologies he's touched and just get it out there. He needs to apply for things that he's not totally qualified for, but not too far out of scope. Help desk does not necessarily lead to a systems administrator position either--its one thing to reset passwords, troubleshoot basic problems, or set up machines all day. It's another to manage server infrastructure. If any opportunities at work jump at him to do something more advanced than what he normally does, he should take it. Help desk is hell to get stuck in, but if you're still there after a few years and haven't moved up to junior sysadmin or some other position, something is wrong, either in not cultivating their talents by self study or volunteering for projects or not taking chances in resume submission.
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Jan 15, 2018 21:27
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My current company that I'm trying to get away from in the next few months is an MSP and the orders on high are to give everyone local admin, firewall disabled. I didn't know how bad this was when I was a little baby Tier 1 tech a few years ago but this is part of why I die a little inside every day now.
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Jan 15, 2018 21:45
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Darchangel posted:gently caress it. Sit back and watch the chaos. Implement that the only fix for anything is re-imaging the machine. That's not far from the truth. I have absolutely no time to do anything because this is one of those MSPs where management wants to do everything on a shoestring, but at least I've got all the configs and images to wipe and reload client machines whenever. I feel bad because I've inherited this mess now that I'm a manager but at 2k endpoints in 50+ separate clients, severely underpaid and looking for a new job soon, I'm not poking the hornets nest. Just thinking about the client meetings that would be involved in just setting up applocker and local firewall exceptions at each site makes me shiver. I'd give up my management role just for an internal junior systems administrator position somewhere.
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Jan 16, 2018 01:09
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Jeoh posted:Dear CLAM DOWN you will make loads of money and also get lots of benefits, paid time off, and kapsalon. If you're looking to make the jump you can PM me, we pay for relocation and half my team are from the foreign. Jeoh, it's me, Commisar Gaunt from Cybernations. Get me a job in Netherlands, ty.
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Jan 18, 2018 01:51
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Maybe 3 more months before I start sending out my resume (moving soon) and I'm burning out from work hard. I want to go home and study and gently caress around w/ my home lab, but my life is constant tickets and I can't get anything done because everyone only requests my help. I wanted to finish my last MCSA tests for server 2012r2 and 365 before I moved but I mostly realize nothing matters. Maybe the next few months will go by faster if I drink heavily.
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Jan 19, 2018 02:55
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GnarlyCharlie4u posted:I honestly don't even know what titles mean anymore. Just chiming in to say letting users gets Surfaces has been hell with their high failure rates and DPI issues, especially since most of the users are old managers who have bad eye sight and don't know how to use computers effectively. 25% failure rate before year 2.
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Jan 19, 2018 18:59
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Got my W-2, I pulled in $48k this year by doing 43-45 hour weeks as my baseline, then a bunch of additional overtime. Lmfao MSPs are awful and I absolutely deserve this for sticking around so long.
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Jan 20, 2018 16:24
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adorai posted:In what capacity? If that's helpdesk, good for you. If that is admin work I'm a manager and I'm in the process of finding a new job. I realize I'm being taken advantage of. This was my first real job out of school other than a year in Americorps. I ended up breaking up with a long term gf very traumatically, so for a while I was sort of a work zombie, just studying and going to the gym trying to keep my mind off of things. Fast forward a few years, here I am, in a much better place mentally and physically and whoops all of a sudden I'm responsible for multiple other technicians, endless projects, yet still answering Tier 1 calls in between client meetings. I feel like that old saying where to boil a frog you don't toss him in the boiling water, but you just slowly increase the heat.
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Jan 20, 2018 16:54
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My immediate boss cares about me and has secured pay for all of my certs and training videos etc. and gives me unprompted days off when he sees that I'm stressed. He's definitely worried that I'm going to leave and constantly assures me that it's going to get better; he even secured me a raise to $55k in Feb. It's really just the big boss and the bean counter accountant (who is his sister in law) who both are so out of touch with reality that it's absurd. Gah, I really did myself a disservice. I definitely feel like my technical skills are stunted in weird ways now thanks to MSP life, but at least shored up with obsessive self study and my home lab. At least I'm coming out of this experience with excellent soft skills from having to bullshit with clients!
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Jan 20, 2018 17:42
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This is all gives me hope for looking for a new position, thanks everyone. I'm actually looking forward to the near future and changing things up.
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Jan 20, 2018 18:41
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Hungry Computer posted:RE: phone support, this is a ticket just came in: I get tickets like this and inevitably after the four years this would be the very first time the user has actually told anyone
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Jan 23, 2018 23:33
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Just spent a few hours spinning up a postfix server just so I can send out emails w/ 🍆 in the address, time well spent
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Jan 24, 2018 05:34
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LochNessMonster posted:This kind of happenes to me earlier today. MSP
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Jan 26, 2018 19:13
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Whenever I run into a problem that Powershell can quickly solve, I just type it all into a txt file, give the document a good name, and file it in my powershell folder. I have a nice collection of organized scripts and tutorials I've written myself, all organized between the different modules used. I work at an MSP, so I live in several versions of Exchange and Office 365--having all of your scripts handy makes Office 365 management so much easier, especially if you ever want to mass update multiple tenants at once. I no longer use the GUI for a lot of requests because now I just have a nice little library of scripts and prepared template csv files I can use. It saves a LOT of time in the long run, and you can do things right rather than just giving Susie Q full access to her boss's entire inbox.
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Jan 27, 2018 01:26
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jaegerx posted:You should use git for this. You're right, I'll look into this tomorrow and upload everything.
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Jan 27, 2018 04:44
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Spent the weekend setting up my new email, web, gitlab server I hosed my postfix setup horribly somehow ugh
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Jan 29, 2018 18:20
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Proteus Jones posted:Why postfix? What do you suggest for my mta instead? I started with Send mail but Postfix seemed like a better alternative. I'll be installing Roundcube for my webmail, briefly considered Horde.
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Jan 29, 2018 18:36
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I have a permanent eye twitch. I thought I was developing a brain tumor, but it mysteriously disappeared after I took a week vacation, and then just as mysteriously reappeared after I came back  Two tests scheduled in three weeks: my CSA+ and the first half of my Office 365 MCSA. The CSA+ has been fun and enlightening to study for. The Office 365 test is Office 365.
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Jan 30, 2018 23:43
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Vulture Culture posted:If this isn't snark, and you do have that eye twitch, consider dialing back your caffeine intake It's not snark I'm just probably way too stressed and I hate my job. Proactive steps are being taken in finding a new one so no worries. I'm probably also pushing myself too hard in studying in my off time. I only drink one small cup of coffee a day, so I don't think that's it. My girlfriend, who has a first row seat to what's going on in my life and is also a doctor, says it's probably just stress. Gah. Daily reminder that MSPs are draining and mostly bad to stay long term at. Learned a lot under pressure though!
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Jan 31, 2018 00:19
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Firing someone today. Third complaint from one of my longest customers, I had to immediately take him off of the account. poo poo.
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Jan 31, 2018 16:57
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Collateral Damage posted:Legitimate complaints, or "person didn't jump high enough when we told him"? He was supposed to act as the IT point of contact for general users to insulate their internal IT department, but he kept redirecting users to call the IT department directly rather than actually troubleshooting or doing anything productive at all. He was told repeatedly to stop and take responsibility for all communications like he was supposed to but me telling him 3x or so never sank in. They asked him to get taken off of the account and since we've been partners with them for longer than I've even been at the company, there was absolutely no way I could say no. I also agree with them on his performance, so I won't be releasing him into my general Tier 1 queue. Since that was the client he was hired specifically for, I'm ripping off the band aid. Also, in between that post and this one, one more employee quit because he's getting another, higher paying job. I don't blame him since that's exactly what I'll be doing in a few months and then my suffering will come to an end at this MSP hell world.
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Jan 31, 2018 18:11
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MC Fruit Stripe posted:I really am just asking, but were his duties made clear to him before he took the job? Yup. I understand what he was thinking, but his duties we're in writing and reiterated in a few face to face meetings both with me and the client. His main job was to be the intermediary between the users and the technical staff. He WAS their help desk essentially, so him telling the users to call them directly was literally a situation where Tier 1 was telling users to call the site network administrator directly for things he was hired to handle. I always go to bat for my help desk but it had to be done. If I could have assigned him to the general help desk pool I would have, but he was underperforming in general and already had other clients complaining about him.
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Jan 31, 2018 22:58
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I'm knee deep in hiring people now and nobody asks any questions, it's weird. A lot of applicants must only assume I'm interviewing them, but people need to come in with the mindset that they are also interviewing me and my company.
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Feb 5, 2018 00:26
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Vulture Culture posted:For better or worse, your applicants are all people who really, desperately want this job. Maybe it's because the opportunity seems so good, or maybe you aren't attracting the kind of people who can afford to be selective. It's definitely that people are desperate and want to get into the field, at least for my intern to hire position, but I'm interviewing for Tier 2/3 people as well who could (hopefully) afford to be more selective. I've already had multiple no show no calls too. I chalk it up to nerves mostly, and I always prompt them for any follow up they may have. For the intern to hire position I'm looking way less for experience and more for people skills--we desperately need more technicians with soft skills, since that's possibly the hardest skill to teach.
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Feb 5, 2018 04:10
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Friday my boss said I had to give him one more year so he could get the house in order. With one important employee leaving and me firing another, the company is a little lean and I'll have to hire maybe around four more people and train them all. I planned on being here for only five more months, which is obviously way less than my boss had hoped. Enough time to finish the last certifications I want and brush up my resume that I haven't dusted off in four years. Hell, my boss keeps on telling me his fantasies about how we're going to keep growing the company and how I'll never have to answer the phones and only work on the major projects/client relations/management, and how I could get up to six figures in a few years. I make $42.5k right now, and am only just about to get a raise to $55k. Do I just keep on trucking and do my best to fill the gaps with new hires and then drop my two weeks on him? Should I give him more warning than that since my management spot might be difficult to fill? I do feel a little bad when he starts talking about the future...
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Feb 5, 2018 04:30
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Yeah, I'm not staying in MSP hell. Things are just unlikely to get better and my professional growth and skills are being strangled at this point. I'll just give him the standard two weeks and they'll just have to deal with it.
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Feb 5, 2018 11:03
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Bunch of interviews today for new help desk employees. Not really surprised at all the CCNAs that can't explain what a VLAN or subnet is.
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Feb 5, 2018 22:20
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I have a bunch of CompTIA, Microsoft certs and an SSCP because my employer pays for them and it's fun learning new things. I'll definitely crack open my study guides before looking for a new job since I'm envisioning my interviewer just cherry picking questions out of any one of them and me just drooling all over myself.
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Feb 5, 2018 23:08
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Love these resumes that put "Assembly" next to "Advanced Microsoft Office operation" in their skills section.
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Feb 7, 2018 22:31
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Set up a typical machine with the firewall turned on. Install all of your programs as an administrator as usual and allow them to configure the firewall. Go into the advanced firewall settings and allow traffic as necessary. Unless you want to harden things even more, I recommend allowing all outgoing traffic. Use it a bit like a typical user to see what else you may need to allow. Export these rules from the local machine when done and you can actually import it into group policy. Roll out to some pilot users and tweak as needed. Enable logging, remove user ability to change rules if required, remove local firewall rules from applying in deference to the GPO. That should get you started!
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Feb 8, 2018 16:08
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Galaxy brain: Enable firewall so the notification is green. Allow all incoming and outgoing connections.
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Feb 8, 2018 16:14
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I know a lot of people look down on CompTIA certs, but I'm taking my CySA+ on Monday. Having a lot of fun being a no lifer and studying for certs a few hours a day and messing around in my home lab and web server. Just this year alone I'll have gotten my Server+, Net+, Sec+, SSCP, and an MS cert 70-410. Tomorrow CySA+ and in another week the 70-346 Office 365 Identities and requirements. Hoping to finish the Office 365 MCSA soon, and then the 2012 cert right before I start applying for a new job. Definitely a stressful year, but a lot of this was sort of review since I'm in year 4 of being in IT and I have at least an associates in the field. I'd love to round myself out with a CCNA and then just solely focus on security certs and learning Python + advanced powershell from here on out, but I'm also interested in learning Puppet/Chef/Kubernites and becoming a real wizard. There's just so much I want to do!
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Feb 10, 2018 20:16
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The one redeeming factor about this place is them paying for certifications and giving me a paid day off every test day. I've purchased all of my own material and my work load is such that I never have down time during work to study and typically I come home and feel like dying instead of studying. If they won't give me a decent salary and let me hire enough engineers/help desk so that everyone in the company doesn't feel like killing themselves most days of the week, they're at least giving me the tools to leave.
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Feb 11, 2018 00:37
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Passed my Cyber Security Analyst exam. Harder than Security+, and a lot more useful. Up next week is my Office 365 Identities and Federation exam, and then for the next two months I study for my CCNA and the last test for my Office 365 MCSA. Having way too much fun taking these tests.
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Feb 12, 2018 16:15
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We have one priority business owner that's such a special snowflake that any time he asks for someone to work on his issue, five minutes later he jumps back on the machine and just wrestles with the mouse while someone is working on it until they give up. Reserves 30 minutes of troubleshooting on his device, scheduled well in advance with multiple calls beforehand, then just says gently caress it. Usually I have to send one of my best employees on site because he doesn't want anyone else. Pretty close to dropping them with this being one of the many many reasons.
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Feb 12, 2018 17:30
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I fantasize about getting a CTO position somewhere since all the CTOs I meet are morons, but then I'm grounded again when I remind myself that the only CTOs I'm exposed to every day decided that outsourcing all IT to an MSP was a good idea to begin with.
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Feb 14, 2018 02:34
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| # ¿ Apr 23, 2024 20:49 |
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Except my cat lays on my keyboard and then attacks my hands when I try to type or move her. She doesn't realize what it takes to keep her whisker deep in the magic food dish apparently.
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Feb 15, 2018 13:53
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