Tough it out to 2 years?

N7Valiant

Seems like it's generally accepted that 2 years is the sweet spot where ATS doesn't throw up a red flag on your resume.

But I'm kind of wondering whether or not it's worth it to try to tough it out.

There's a fella in charge where I work, not a direct supervisor, but I'd say he's one peg below the CEO if that puts things into perspective. Recently a few of his big mistakes have come to light. Potential fraud involving misuse of a non-profit benefit for discounted hardware, setting backups which failed since day one and never checking it for months while ignoring all automated alerts of its failure, leaving a DC on an inactivated version of Windows server for 5 months, giving a couple of users all admin rights (domain, schema, enterprise) to ensure they have full access to all shares.

CEO either doesn't know or doesn't care. Guy is still in charge and will be for the foreseeable future. Also he will completely ream you when you inevitably have to expose his mess in order to clean it up.

I haven't even made a year yet, was hoping to stick around for at least 2 years so I don't have a stain on my resume. That all being said, I don't know if it's riskier to stick around. Some of this stuff could sink a business.

devilbones

Make sure to document everything. You might need to protect yourself now that you are complicit in his activities.

Danielm7

Sounds like a tiny place if a guy 1 step below the CEO is handing out user rights and checking backups. I wouldn't bother with 2 years in a situation that messy.

scaredoftests

riskier to stay. Start sending out resumes...

UnixGuy

As long as you're protected, can you ignore this guy and just do your thing? maybe work on some certs?

NetworkNewb

Danielm7 wrote: »

Sounds like a tiny place if a guy 1 step below the CEO is handing out user rights and checking backups. I wouldn't bother with 2 years in a situation that messy.

Agree with this.


But, kinda sounds like a situation where you could learn about potential issues and learn what needs to be done to fix them. Wouldn't call him out on anything, as you say that doesn't go well, but sounds like an opportunity to do some extra work and could look good on a resume...

"setting backups which failed since day one and never checking it for months while ignoring all automated alerts of its failure"

Figure out what is going wrong, what needs to be done, and take over the alerts? Heck, if they weren't working and person in charge of it doesn't care I would probably try and fix them myself without even questioning anyone. Sounds like a good opportunity to show you have initiative and take control of problems.

Probably wouldn't take the approach of trying to fix things on my own with every issue, but I'm definitely in the boat where "It's better to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission"

"Also he will completely ream you when you inevitably have to expose his mess in order to clean it up"

Just fix things and don't tell him than... Find things he doesn't care about or look at and work on those things. Document those things on your resume and look like a rock star. Creating scripts to do things is my go to in this area. People usually seem pretty impressed by them and will sound good in interviews explaining what you did.

Jon_Cisco

The rest of your resume is probably going to be important here. Have you left every job you have had after 1 year or would this be the first one?

If this happens to be your first job your probably in a great position to learn. You could take advantage of the incompetence to show your capable of learning. Once your realize your boss is not doing his job it is much easier to ignore his criticism of yours.

Good Luck. I don't think you should stay just for your resume but there are other things to consider.

MeanDrunkR2D2

If it gets that unbearable there is not a reason to fear having that one experience that is shorter than you'd like. Now, if you have several IT jobs and they all end within a year or less then you may have issues. One here or there isn't a big issue.

N7Valiant

UnixGuy wrote: »

As long as you're protected, can you ignore this guy and just do your thing? maybe work on some certs?

That was my preference to be "hands off", but things inevitably end up at my doorstep, and I generally have to loop the client in on something in order to get some changes made. Otherwise I have to concoct a story about why I want to swing by to stick an external drive in their server and how it's totally not because someone botched the backups.

My concern really is that some of these mistakes can cause massive damages to a client (say if some hacker got a hold of those domain/enterprise/schema admin creds), which would cause them to sue us into oblivion, and rightly so.

The MCSA Windows Server is something I'm eyeballing but I'm not sure if that's something I can take lightly. CCNA is an unknown animal to me, I seem to have more of a preference for systems, particularly Windows systems and Powershell.

MeanDrunkR2D2

The MCSA is a good cert to get and should not be taken lightly. Microsoft certs can be easy to pass if you study, lab, and practice like crazy. Then you need to have a keen eye to see what trick questions they have. I always made sure that I would eliminate answers and then re-read the question to make sure I'm reading it correctly. Sometimes they want the "Most Correct" answer out of all the options instead of the right answer. That can throw a person off if they do not expect that. If you aren't going deep into networking I probably wouldn't get the CCNA, but you should at least understand the basics of networking as it will be beneficial.

What they are asking you to do is something that would make me nope out of there and make my new job finding a new one. Of course, keep working until you start a new job. I'd leave even before 2 years. Last thing you need is for them to be sued, and then they lose business and then you start seeing paychecks get late, and then it's a fight to get paid for the work you did.

UnixGuy

N7Valiant wrote: »

That was my preference to be "hands off", but things inevitably end up at my doorstep, and I generally have to loop the client in on something in order to get some changes made. Otherwise I have to concoct a story about why I want to swing by to stick an external drive in their server and how it's totally not because someone botched the backups.

My concern really is that some of these mistakes can cause massive damages to a client (say if some hacker got a hold of those domain/enterprise/schema admin creds), which would cause them to sue us into oblivion, and rightly so.

The MCSA Windows Server is something I'm eyeballing but I'm not sure if that's something I can take lightly. CCNA is an unknown animal to me, I seem to have more of a preference for systems, particularly Windows systems and Powershell.

I understand your concerns, and it is a tricky situation. Now I don't know your company nor your clients so take my views with a grain of salt, but if the clients got screwed over, I'd imagine the CEO and the guy who is second in charge will be in trouble - especially if you have evidence. Now that's not to say they wouldn't use you as a scapegoat. OR perhaps things will just run smoothly and neither the client nor the CEO really care anyway (I see this a lot). I would be pragmatic about it and do the right thing as much as possible, without stressing too much


Now with self-study, if you like systems then Microsoft certs are awesome, combine that with Powershell and you're gold! Automate everything at your work place, parse the logs and implement security monitoring for unauthorized access, for example.

Can you learn and practice Microsoft Azure as well? That's really in demand.

N7Valiant

Azure has been pushed in the workplace, but the sad reality here is that there's too much workload and not enough time. That is being exacerbated by poor management decisions on top of poor management decisions.

Onboarding more clients when we're already dropping the ball on several things, and now we're shoving security down the throats of all the techs as the "cool thing" to sell to our clients. For my own sanity I've had to dial down my hours from 60 to 40 a week.


I see Azure as something that might be a gain, but much further down the road. Infrastructure is bad here in terms of internet, so on-prem is still proving to be king here because of that. Clients have been burned bad even when "the cloud" is a datacenter a few blocks down.

Right now I'm trying to learn Powershell and MDT for automation and quicker OS deployments, we still do our installations full manual. Would be hard for me to juggle MCSA/Azure at this point.

SaltyHashes

The 2 year stain from job hopping died last decade. That's an old stigma.

Look, do you really want to work in a shop where operating procedures are not up to code?

I walked out on a job where my personal ethics clashed with the way they were doing business.

Never looked back. My advice, toss your resume around. Talk to your friends and network.

NetworkNewb

SaltyHashes wrote: »

The 2 year stain from job hopping died last decade. That's an old stigma.

Literally got turned down a couple months ago from a security position because the HR rep who initially called me hated it. Was confused on why they even called since I had legitimate reasons for my 2 year stints. Either moved up in position or moved to the other side of the state. (was three different jobs where I was at 2 years at each) During the phone call that was pretty much all they asked about and wouldn't move pass the topic.

Can't imagine all places are like that, but the last one I talked to definitely did.