The Covid Hustle

balance · November 2020

How is everyone dealing with burnout and or stress of losing their position?

How has this affected your certification prep?

- I adopted the mindset that if I don't have X, Y, Z certification(s) then I might not get the interview for a new position if I ever was released from employment.

Anyone headed towards burnout? How did you slow down a bit without feeling guilty?

JDMurray · November 2020

I am capable of doing my job (the remote management of SOC analysts) 100% from home, but I do miss the interaction and energy of office life. Without steady human contact, for some people there is a slow decent into the loss of enthusiasm for one's job. There is also the likelihood of being distracted by the opportunity to work a second (or third) job easily from home, even if it's something occasional like system admin or day-trading.

balance · November 2020

I agree with your comments on the 2nd or 3rd job. I miss going to work and interacting with students / co workers outside of a virtual environment.

E Double U · November 2020

I am able to perform my job 100% from home so no issue for me. It was tough in the beginning because we have two sons in primary school so it was tough for us (my wife also works) to entertain and educate them while also fulfilling work obligations. But the quality family time was really nice. Now our boys are back in school full-time so work is business as usual. We both miss being in the office with colleagues, but all else is fine.

No burnout or fear of losing my job yet. On the certification end I knocked out both AZ-500 and ITIL 4 Foundation during the pandemic. Also planning on taking AZ-303/304 training soon and eyeing TOGAF in 2021. I have a lot of company budget to spend so taking full advantage.

chrisone · November 2020

In 2020 covid or not I found myself with a full plate of studies and certifications. I had a slow year in 2019 and knew I was going to put in a lot of work in 2020.
Pass or fail I took 11 exam attempts. I could honestly say I feel like I studied "close" to almost every day and "close" to almost every weekend in 2020. I wont be doing this again, I don't feel burned out just yet but I do feel tired.
In 2021 I will be dedicating most of the year to Azure and AWS. However I will be taking back my weekends and evenings, going to start dedicating my time to building a real estate portfolio (getting real estate license/buying properties) and taking care of my health (working out).
2020 I also got a new job so I am not really stressed at all for the current conditions as the market for security seems to be doing very well under "poor" conditions. Things are only going to get better.

List of certs/courses I studied/completed and studying for. Some exams I failed and took more than once, which is why the count is around 11.

VHL Advanced+ Certification
CQURE 30 Day Windows Security Crash Course
BlackHills InfoSec: Breaching the Cloud
OSCP

eLearnSecurity: IHRPv1, WAPTv3, THPv2, PTXv2 (Dec)
Azure: AZ-500 (retake in 2021)

I feel good for 2021. Going to get some very important industry recognized certifications and do it at a much slower pace and enjoy my life a lot more.

UnixGuy · November 2020

I can't complain. I managed to land a higher paying job that's fully remote and I passed ISACA CRISC. I wasn't planning on doing certs but work asked me to do it and they sponsored it so why not.

E Double U · November 2020

UnixGuy said:

I wasn't planning on doing certs but work asked me to do it and they sponsored it so why not.

Same here. I had no plans of doing Azure or ITIL certifications, but if my employer requires it and pays then so be it.

The Covid Hustle

Comments