Not Sure What I Want to Do Careerwise

karl88

Currently I do electronics repair in a retail environment. I don’t think this is what I want to do. It’s a lot of work. It feels like a one-man show so to speak. I do the repairs. I’m the manager. I do the phone calls, deal with customers, and just about everything. Co-workers are sub-par. Sometimes this line of work can be stressful. Unfortunately, I don’t have the power to terminate/hire employees although I can influence that. I’m making about 40-45k per year, and I don’t see myself making significantly more at this job, because this company, a corporation, is not doing very well. On the other hand, I’m doing very well performance-wise. Extremely few people could do what I do. I’m gaining a lot of knowledge and experience. I can see this job making my resume stand out very well, so I plan on staying another year, but that’s assuming nothing goes belly up. I want to make sure I have that two years of IT experience. I’m salaried, so there’s no overtime. I work a whole lot more than 40 hours per week probably at least 60 hours. I’m in the US. I want to be making 85k or at minimum 65k. Due to time consuming job, I have not been studying for certs lately. When I have free time, I seem to waste it. At work, I’m super productive though. There never seems to be any free time at work either. There’s constant work, or I do a lot of research regarding repairs to be a better tech. Sure this makes me a better tech, but is it really going to help a few years down the road if I get into networking, security, or whatever?

I would definitely like to get my CCNA. I’m not sure if networking is what I want to do though. Maybe I would like it. Security seems more appealing to me than networking. I get bored easily and always want to do something different. Red Hat sysadmin seems interesting to me, too. Should I bother with MCSA? At work, I do repair Apple products. I think it would be fun to study for the ACMT even though I don’t think it would help much career-wise down the road. That one doesn’t expire. I’m not very familiar with Mac OS, but I like plunging into new things. My CompTIA certs expire in about two years. When that approaches, I’ll take the CASP to renew previous certs.

BlackBeret

Where I'm working now, they're starting to make sure everyone has a baseline cert in everything. Since working in security we touch a bit of everything. If you're interested in Linux I'd highly recommend RHCSA as the next certification. A lot of companies (that I've dealt with) want to see some type of OS based certification. MCSA is another option and on my to-do list for work, along with CCENT. There are a lot of career options out there and until you know what you want to do, there's nothing anyone can suggest really. You have a decent base with the CompTIA certs already, expand the base a bit with the above and maybe you'll be able to decide?

Betrayal

Consider yourself lucky that you're making 40-45k a year, many people would love to be in your shoes. Your work schedule is rigorous and you don't have much time to study for more certifications but remember that your situation will never change unless you're willing to make the sacrifices.

NetworkNewb

You to:

1. find something you like and stick with it! You seem all over the place
2. Study at home. I've never been lucky enough (or known anyone personally) who was able to get a lot of studying done at work. Getting ahead and learning more takes sacrifice. As much as that sucks since you already work 60 hours a week, it is what you need to do. When I'm studying for a certification I usually cut my sleep by an hour each night to make more time in the day to study. Yes it sucks, I have a baby at home and don't get a ton of sleep to begin with but gotta do whatever it takes.

karl88

BlackBeret wrote: »

You have a decent base with the CompTIA certs already, expand the base a bit with the above and maybe you'll be able to decide?

That's what I'm thinking I may have to do.

Betrayal wrote: »

Consider yourself lucky that you're making 40-45k a year, many people would love to be in your shoes. Your work schedule is rigorous and you don't have much time to study for more certifications but remember that your situation will never change unless you're willing to make the sacrifices.

The employer is making money off of me which is fine. Before this job, I made nothing but minimum wage with manual labor or other dead-end jobs. Over time, I ended up absolutely despising those jobs with the passion. That forced me to do something about it. No matter how hard I worked or how well my performance, I never got anywhere at those places. In order to exceed at those places, you have to be a brown noser or be liked by a higher authority. At current job, I deal with a lot of people, so that gives me tons of social interaction that I haven't had before. Through that, I've discovered I can easily manipulate people which in turn increases my numbers. I think very few people would want to be in my shoes.

NetworkNewb wrote: »

You to:

1. find something you like and stick with it! You seem all over the place

I noticed that. Not sure if that's good, bad, or both.

2. Study at home. I've never been lucky enough (or known anyone personally) who was able to get a lot of studying done at work. Getting ahead and learning more takes sacrifice. As much as that sucks since you already work 60 hours a week, it is what you need to do. When I'm studying for a certification I usually cut my sleep by an hour each night to make more time in the day to study. Yes it sucks, I have a baby at home and don't get a ton of sleep to begin with but gotta do whatever it takes.

I tend to do bad studying at home. For one, I dropped out of college. For cert studying, I did vast majority of it away from home. Only when I got in the good habit was I able to study some at home, but it still wasn't as productive.

I'm already not sleeping enough. First reason is bad habits. Second reason is I feel like I need more leisure time, so I compensate it for losing sleep.