anyone ever have a vendor specific focus problem?

Hi Guys/Gals,

You all ever run into the problem were your job is your job but your passion is also what you do for your job?

This is the problem I have and any advise would be apprecaited, it's probably just a simple "you need to focus moron".... lol!

Me being the dumb ass and fruit loop I am, I read the Darril Gibson's book twice back in November and then I started reading the 70-640 book and yup now I'm re-reading the Sec + book (scheduled the exam for the 4th of April) . CCENT is probably next. ... my problem is I love this stuff so I can't focus, lol!

Now by vendor specific issues this is what I mean: - this is my setup at my recently purchased house.

I got dual TZ 210 Sonicwalls (pretty much self-taught myself Sonicwall, someday I'll get the cert) at home (101mbit static), Cisco routers (I love CLi, I get lost for hours making my routers like enterprise-grade secure and I also have a complete CCNA/CCNP/CCIE lab), HP Procurve 2910al-48G-PoE+ (I use this as a MDF and to connect two Cisco Autonomous AP's in the house) , and dual ebay-bought 1st generation R610's (8 2008 R2 servers, 4 of them are on there own vlans to mimic two different networks) with 32 GB's each hosting a ESXi 5.1 cluster for testing all in a Dell 48U rack. my biggest issue is I have so many vendors at home it's so hard to focus!

But I'll get through them soon. I just have so much fun.

Does anyone else have this issue?

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Comments

N2IT

Oh yeah this happens to me all the time. Don't worry about it and just have fun.

stryder144

Um, not to the same extent! Wow, what a kit! I can say that I am jealous, though my "better half" won't let me purchase that much stuff for the house. Overall, though, I think I get more distracted if I buy too many resources for a specific exam I'm studying for. That can really slow me down.

Cheers.

Deathmage

I think my biggest problem is I'm a jack-of-all-trade IT Manager at work. so everyday I have constant exposure and tinkering with the following:

- 2008 R2
- AD FS
- AD CS
- AD out the butt hole
- DNS/DHCP fluckes
- Event viewer logs that go against Microsoft best practice that make you scratch you head (I always seem to get the doozey issues)
- Cisco Routers
- HP Procurves
- Sonicwalls
- Barracuda's
- SAN w/ AppAssure
- WAN issues
- Telecommunications and vendor management
- all with a 350k yearly budget

this list can go on and on....

I'm not even certfieid if half of it but I've figured it all out the past 2 1/2 years at my 1st job. the learning curve was pretty steep for 8 months and then Hurricane Sandy hit and leveled our entire location in northern NJ - thankful our data center in in northern NY or that would have been horrible! That was a real head-ache; but I somehow managed to rebuilding a brand new 520,000 sq ft building with new cat5e runs (building had mainly cat 3 imagine that slowness on a 100mbit network!!!) and a redesigned server room with proper cooling and keyless entry. All with a brand-new HP Procurve network with about 5+ vlans for broadcast management and departmental security... this was all well before I got Network + back in July and fully understood vlans and how they worked. I mean I took CCNA in college in 2005 so it was not complete new just vague knowledge... it was like riding a bike and never riding one in 15 years the knowledge was there just fuzzy so I winged a ton of it.

so now I'm almost 3 years into it come august and I've pretty much had a grasp on everything. My job is now bring on a managed IT company since I've been pushing to VMware 5.1 and well I'm not that focused on 5.5 so were bring thme on-board to help me.

Honestly I've worked 70+ hour weeks for the past 2 years and it's hard, really hard managing every aspect of a company for 1500+ users while maintaining daily operational stuff for users on-top of network/server/management tasks all for one person. it's pretty neat though out NY location is a /23 and I know every IP address by heart (not sure if that good or bad, lol) ... and then to top it all off I come home and I do it all on my home network for certification pursuits....oo and the job is a 24/6 operation for a corrugation company.

Now I know your all thinking why are you alone, well I was hired as a junior admin but 2 months into my stay the senior admin/IT Director left the company for another job once he felt I knew everything just enough (a**hole) and it all fell on my shoulders and I think now looking back on it it was good since I learn so much it was nuts but now it's just crazy how much I know... I think I'm doing the load of what a 10 man vendor specific IT team should be doing.

I think I'm a little crazy, or perhaps this is a good thing!!!

paul78

It's a good thing! Having an interest in a broad range of technologies as an IT manager will only enhance your future career prospects. We have often had threads about a specialist versus being a JOAT. I have always been in the camp that career longevity is better served as a JOAT. Also - for anyone that wishes to be in management, having a broad technology background is more appealing. Advancement in IT management usually means that it's more important to understand the particular business industry whether its financial services, healthcare, retail, etc.

Although, that doesn't mean that if you are a geek at heart, you shouldn't have fun with your toys

Deathmage

paul78 wrote: »

It's a good thing! Having an interest in a broad range of technologies as an IT manager will only enhance your future career prospects. We have often had threads about a specialist versus being a JOAT. I have always been in the camp that career longevity is better served as a JOAT. Also - for anyone that wishes to be in management, having a broad technology background is more appealing. Advancement in IT management usually means that it's more important to understand the particular business industry whether its financial services, healthcare, retail, etc.

Although, that doesn't mean that if you are a geek at heart, you shouldn't have fun with your toys

ahhh that's very enlightening to read this reaction to the thread. I'm still very young (28 yrs) and new to IT in the business world so any advise is greatly appreciated. Me being the sole IT person I don't really have many people to reflect upon and/or grow except upon myself and what certifications to achieve. Hence why I joined this forum to see what is hot and what is not...

everyone needs guidance at some point. Unless your my boss whom think his ego is awesome and nothing else matters and is the biggest dick and bully on the face of the planet that someday I just want to put a knife through his tires kind of *******....