It's On! 7-17-2008

MCPWannabe

Okay,

I take the beast on 7-17-2008. Suprisingly, my Network+ certification seems to have really helped me understand many of the priniciples for this one. But I will wait until the test to make my final evaulation.

In the meantime, this one means a lot to me. I interviewed at a REAL networking job that told me if I pass this test, they will definitely hire me. It would be the first time that I could leave the Call Center/Support environment and make some decent money.

Wish me luck. The other day I got written up for looking at the event viewer for a client. I was told that it is "advanced" troubleshooting, and I went to far.

I need to get out of the call center thing fast. It's killing me.

I'll keep everyone updated.

M@rv1n

Wish me luck. The other day I got written up for looking at the event viewer for a client. I was told that it is "advanced" troubleshooting, and I went to far.


Thats the funniest thing i read all day. Good luck with the exam.

bertieb

Good luck . Just out of interest, how long have you been studying for the 291 exam?

Daniel333

Something similar happened to me. I used pathping, I was accused of installing a 3rd party program... sigh.

Best of luck on 70-291, I am few months behind you!

FFSDNM

I too take the 70-291 exam on the 17th... Not confident at all.

dynamik

FFSDNM wrote:

I too take the 70-291 exam on the 17th... Not confident at all.

Then reschedule until you're confident. There's no sense in throwing away time and money on a fail.

Good luck to the OP. That sounds like a great deal; I hope that works out for you!

FFSDNM

dynamik wrote:

Then reschedule until you're confident. There's no sense in throwing away time and money on a fail.

I'm never confident for these things, I wasn't for the 70-290 and I passed with 785. Company is paying so what the hell.

snadam

congrats, you have definitely come a long way!

EDIT: man, I dont know what I was thinking when I wrote this. I meant to say GOOD LUCK ON THE 17th!

NetAdmin2436

Good luck to you both.

Yeah, that's not a good sign if your going to battle the beast and you not confident.

bleScreened

MCPWannabe wrote:

Okay,

I take the beast on 7-17-2008. Suprisingly, my Network+ certification seems to have really helped me understand many of the priniciples for this one. But I will wait until the test to make my final evaulation.

In the meantime, this one means a lot to me. I interviewed at a REAL networking job that told me if I pass this test, they will definitely hire me. It would be the first time that I could leave the Call Center/Support environment and make some decent money.

Wish me luck. The other day I got written up for looking at the event viewer for a client. I was told that it is "advanced" troubleshooting, and I went to far.

I need to get out of the call center thing fast. It's killing me.

I'll keep everyone updated.

wow, what a bunch of Nazis. I hope you get outta that place man.

undomiel

ccaltacc wrote:

MCPWannabe wrote:

Okay,

I take the beast on 7-17-2008. Suprisingly, my Network+ certification seems to have really helped me understand many of the priniciples for this one. But I will wait until the test to make my final evaulation.

In the meantime, this one means a lot to me. I interviewed at a REAL networking job that told me if I pass this test, they will definitely hire me. It would be the first time that I could leave the Call Center/Support environment and make some decent money.

Wish me luck. The other day I got written up for looking at the event viewer for a client. I was told that it is "advanced" troubleshooting, and I went to far.

I need to get out of the call center thing fast. It's killing me.

I'll keep everyone updated.

wow, what a bunch of Nazis. I hope you get outta that place man.

All too common in call centers from what I've seen.

bleScreened

undomiel wrote:

All too common in call centers from what I've seen.

I guess I was lucky. The call center I worked at didn't like us doing this either, but they didn't write us up for it. They just told us not to do it. Most of the supervisors there knew that we all aspired to get out of there and into real IT jobs. They cut us a lot of slack. As long as our stats weren't bad, there were few problems.

undomiel

The last call center I worked at was kind of like that. Depended upon whose team you would land on. They would mostly just look the other way and would tell you as much, as long as you kept their stats looking good. Because they'd rather you take the time to fix the problem and not have to ship another part than get a really good time and ship the wrong part on a guess.

It was probably as good as call centers get. I'm still glad I'm out of there. Though the last team lead I had was pretty cool.

bleScreened

undomiel wrote:

The last call center I worked at was kind of like that. Depended upon whose team you would land on. They would mostly just look the other way and would tell you as much, as long as you kept their stats looking good. Because they'd rather you take the time to fix the problem and not have to ship another part than get a really good time and ship the wrong part on a guess.

It was probably as good as call centers get. I'm still glad I'm out of there. Though the last team lead I had was pretty cool.

Ahh call centers. The devil's armpit. I could talk all day about how fun they can be. Once I had this lady that was convinced her cable modem was bad because the lights on the NIC connection in the back of the modem weren't lit like they normally were. She reamed me out for a few minutes cause I didn't send her a new modem right away. I finally talked her into troubleshooting and found out her PC was turned off. "Wait, your PCs off? Turn it on. Now check behind the modem and see if those lights are on. Yes? It's cause you're PC was off". "WHAT?!?!?! NO!!! I have seen them on before while my PC is off!!!" "Perhpas your PC was in standby or the BIOS had PXE enabled before." "WHAT?!?!? STOP BEING A SMARTASS!!. WHAT'S YOUR NAME?? IM CANCELING MY SERVICE BECAUSE OF YOU!!" Sure enough a week later my sup came to me and said some woman came in to her local office screaming termination because of me. Nothing happened though cause the call was recorded and they heard how she was basically yelling at me as soon as I picked up the phone.

I hate people.

undomiel

Well on the bright side there is always this lady.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/17/AR2007101702359.html?hpid=artslot

bleScreened

undomiel wrote:

Well on the bright side there is always this lady.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/17/AR2007101702359.html?hpid=artslot

Haha, yeah I read this one last year. I used to support people in her area, lol.

Comcast is horrible about keeping appointments. Half the time the tech is just too busy to get there. But they are sneaky. Their friends are in dispatch, and dispatch may help em out, if you get my drift. A tech is *supposed* to call twice before arrival. If the customer doesn't answer twice then dispatch calls one more time. If still nothing, the call gets canceled. Then of course no one notifies the customer and at 9PM they call me wondering where the tech is. Of course the tech isn't going out there this late and since no one told the customer, I have to be the one telling them their internet install has to be done another day. Once I calm them down I look into the scheduling and low and behold, there's nothing till a week later. And this is cyclical. Sometimes this happens to customers on multiple occasions. Once a customer has been through it they fight back with "I have literally sat next to the phone the entire day watching movies and no one has called me. The tech is lying." And they most likely are........

ARRRRGHHHHHH, thank god I'm gone. I'm getting angry all over again, lol!

OK im done. I have sufficiently derailed this thread.

MCPWannabe

I don't believe it! The test center was down. I went to go take the test, and Prometric was down! They told me to reschedule tomorrow. I am so ticked off!

I don't know if they know this or not, but it is not easy for everyone to take off work to go take a test. Luckily for me, I scheduled my first vacation of the year for Today and Tomorrow, but I really wanted to use tomorrow as a vacation.

It just surprises me that Microsoft could use such an unreliable testing center.

By the way, I just read all the call center comments, and thanks guys. I can see that a lot of people know my pain, and I can also see that a lot of people ascended from the depths of call center/I.T. Hell.

I'm rescheduled for tomorrow at 1:30PM at another center. Hopefully, the test center will be up this time.

Essendon

Bummer.

Hope it goes well for you tomorrow. I am sure Prometric pay MS large amounts of cash to use them as the testing centre.

Good luck!

MCPWannabe

Yes,

I passed: 873! The exam was like everyone said -- lots of DNS, DHCP, some WSUS, with a little IPSEC mixed in towards the end. There was one easy MX sim.

I'm just relieved to have it finished. Up next week: 70-620.. and as for the call centers, they can kiss my butt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

P.S. It took me 19 days to prepare. I studied like a mad man -- covered the CBT NUGGETS VIDEOS, Transcender, and the MSPRESS BOOK. It nearly killed me but I want out of my job so bad.. I just couldn't let anything stop me from leaving the craphole.

NetAdmin2436

Congrats!

unclejohnny

Congrats, I understand all too well about wanting to get out of a 'crappy' job. Good luck getting out of there.

cbigbrick

Congrats on the pass!!

Now let's talk about call centers. Try being the only IT Monkey for 120 scientists aaaannnnndddddd they call your name constantly over the paging system!!!!!!! OMG.....how I wanted to change my name. Treat me like a slave sometimes and tell me how to do my job and want me to fix their home computers!!!!