i'm sick of IT....

Turgon

vincentnyc10 wrote: »

a little background about me...9 years of experience doing tech support and network administration. been unemployed for almost a year. had a temporary gig for about 5 months this year before the contract ended. at first, i was using all the free time to study up for mcsa exam. but then i lost passion for it. looking for IT job out there right now is depressing...the pay is low and they expect to have all these certification. so i lost the passion for it. i'm tired of the corporate world and tired of the rat race.

luckily, i save some $$$ from all the years i worked in IT and about to start my own business. the business has nothing to do with IT. but i think i will be making a decent salary from it. i've lost all the passion for IT. my passion now is just to make money and be my own boss and become financially independent by the age 50.

well thanks for listening to my rant and wish me luck...i will report back within a year if i make it or not.

The problem for support professionals is they are swimming against the tide. For my part I recognised this back in 2001 and took steps to address it. Support is seen as a cost and many a project manager or technical director or vendors for that matter expend a lot of energy on reducing that cost. Support pros are very dependent on the CIO to bat for investment in people in organisations. Today fewer CIO's are technical and many that are find it easier to go with the flow than swim against it. Historically companies borrowed heavily to set up services to sell and generally more emphasis was on technology investment than on the people responsible for keep it going and providing a quality service. This is one of the reasons why so many jobs are asking for so much. Many companies may be successful to a point, but they are now at the edge of what their inhouse support and knowledge can offer. This is often down to inadequate investment in support professionals and their development. There just are not enough hours in the day to keep up with everything. Neither are there enough people prepared to try to do that to go around. Even so, the momentum is to break support up and find cheaper ways of doing it. While there are always exceptions the long term prognosis for out and out support professionals is poor. Let me temper that observation by saying that I come from support myself and value it. I believe support provides insights you just dont get anywhere else. The key is to pay your dues efficiently there and move on. Getting awareness of technology is important, but in terms of longevity you dont want that relocation of the datacentre to take your job with it. Experience in managing people, teams, leading projects and design experience will help keep you going in the opposite direction to where support is going. Critically being able to match technologies to business drivers and handling technology solutions and presenting technology in digestable ways to the suits while being able to appreciate and deliver the technical detail either directly or through effective delegation to specialists is key.

GAngel

tdean wrote: »

i have my ccna, sec+, net+, A+, MCSE, working on mcitp. i have 8 years experience. i worked with vmware, exchange03/07, wireless, voip... my last boss was a total moron and is making 130K for a company with 25 desktop users.

Around the 5-7 year mark as a sys/net admin you should be able to apply for senior sys/net admin positions. In most markets thats a very decent salary not 6 figures but nothing to look down on. Maybe go after certs in one of the areas you have experience so you become a bit more of a specialist that's where the money is.

tdean

GAngel wrote: »

Around the 5-7 year mark as a sys/net admin you should be able to apply for senior sys/net admin positions. In most markets thats a very decent salary not 6 figures but nothing to look down on. Maybe go after certs in one of the areas you have experience so you become a bit more of a specialist that's where the money is.

yeah, im not exactly what the difference between what i've done, and what "senior" net admins do is... i've planned and executed a few migrations, kept businesses up and running, ran the email, vmware, firewalls, saved $$ for them, planned, designed a wireless wing for a school.... etc.

my plan is to get the 3 ccna concentrations after i finish the mcitp and go from there.. the sec/voice/wireless.

veritas_libertas

tdean wrote: »

yeah, im not exactly what the difference between what i've done, and what "senior" net admins do is... i've planned and executed a few migrations, kept businesses up and running, ran the email, vmware, firewalls, saved $$ for them, planned, designed a wireless wing for a school.... etc.

my plan is to get the 3 ccna concentrations after i finish the mcitp and go from there.. the sec/voice/wireless.

Sounds to me like you have done plenty of Senior Admin work. You might want to do the ITIL cert as well as the others you have mentioned to align with senior management.

tdean

veritas_libertas wrote: »

Sounds to me like you have done plenty of Senior Admin work. You might want to do the ITIL cert as well as the others you have mentioned to align with senior management.

actually, i studied for the fundementals test and im going to take that soon. for some reason i really lack confidence. other IT guys always tell me i'm good, but it doesnt sink in... im taking a "troubleshooting server 2008 networks" class next week... after that im back out there aggressively looking.

a friend of mine got a net admin job at a MAJOR military college after he was "forced" by the courts to get a job b/c he's a dead beat dad.... i guess if he can clear the security clearance test, i can... i havent been busted for anything in 15 years... and that was just a disturbing the peace warrant from college.

Turgon

tdean wrote: »

yeah, im not exactly what the difference between what i've done, and what "senior" net admins do is... i've planned and executed a few migrations, kept businesses up and running, ran the email, vmware, firewalls, saved $$ for them, planned, designed a wireless wing for a school.... etc.

my plan is to get the 3 ccna concentrations after i finish the mcitp and go from there.. the sec/voice/wireless.

Personally I think your experience is pretty good. It's much harder for people joining now to get that kind of exposure what with the lockdown of roles and equipment being outsourced. I would look at getting the migration stuff across in your CV and in discussions with agents. A lot of companies today are looking to save money which usually involved moving things around, often offshore. Migration skills are valued. A lot of experienced Network Architects and Project Managers tend to land grab this stuff and leave support out of the process except to install things.

ipconfig.all

Hey !!! what ever you do not give up.