this is the art of network engineering podcast in this podcast we'll explore keys technologies and talented people we aim to bring new information to expand your skill sets and toolbox and share the stories of fellow network engineers welcome back to the art of network engineering auction lots of fine items already claimed and now we're ready for the big one last up we have a lovely set of vintage administrative distances let's start the bidding one i have a one from the static route in the back that's kind of skimpy but hey we have to start somewhere can i get a five now fine i'll find out by now five from the lovely eigrp summary route can anyone do better than five now i have a 20 from the external bgp up front all right folks let's kick this up a notch lightning round if you will i've got a 90 from eigrp internal with its fancy unequal cost load balancing 110 from ospf followed by a 115 from isis of course rip just has to enter a bid at 120 eigrp external coming in with 170 and oh there's an internal bgp with a bid of 200. wait what's this it's the trusty connected route with a bit of xero that will actually win it all because after all it's lower is better and this is a completely backwards auction that makes zero sense whatsoever because of this let's get on with the show welcome to the auto network engineering all right thank you tim another wonderful intro i am aj murray and i am not at my desk what's going on here dan what are you doing at my house i don't know i felt like invading your privacy i don't know so dan took a road trip up to vermont and we're hanging out for a few days and we get to record an episode not not really together i'm i'm in a basement office and he's got the luxury of sitting in my office in my spot i guess i'll let it fly since he's my house guest so yeah you welcome you see all my uh juniper certs here and then you can also find me on twitter at no blinkyblinky yeah dan's hanging here for a few days we're gonna have a good time we're gonna work on some content for the podcast and youtube channel uh we're gonna hang out with joe so if you've been a long time listener of the podcast you might remember joe from episode seven i believe it was uh he has graciously welcomed dan and i to come tour his data center so uh that's gonna be an awful lot of fun a little field trip tomorrow morning gonna have a good time lots of fun stuff planned while dan's in town andy how are you doing i'm good i wanted to know what it was like did dan come like knock at your door like how how did you guys meet like okay officially like let me take this i pulled up at aj's house right and i uh got out of my out of my car and i was uh so i wear glasses uh everybody's aware of that uh so i was cleaning my glasses off because they were kind of dirty from the day before and um aj comes out and he's like dan you know and i was like what's up so i don't know it's awkward but it's good yeah yeah walk down the driveway greeted dan uh yeah he says i'm taller in person yeah yeah he definitely is taller in person just so if anybody's wondering but we gave we gave hugs you know we didn't that's hands we gave hugs that's what i was hoping in my mind when we all meet i envision us all just running toward each other in slow motion and then just embracing in a big brother yes that's going to happen so to answer your question more directly aj uh i'm good my birthday's on saturday got some people coming over um my wife made these amazing meatballs tonight stuffed with mozzarella cheese they were amazing and in tech related news my ccna expired today i don't know and i kind of don't care that's my update why don't you care andy uh because it's no longer prerequisite for the ccmp yeah yeah yeah i i care because it was so hard to get for me yeah sure this is a big milestone yeah i mean it started everything right and i failed it a bunch of times and it was really hard and all that so i letting it go is kind of weird but um i could just go take the encore and you know get going back on my mp journey so yep so yeah because it's not a prereq anymore i'm like eh whatever and i got to work on some juniper stuff anyway but i'm good man yeah i was going to say you're in a pretty mixed environment these days anyway yeah heavy heavy juniper right now so i'm going to jump into that shortly jncia and then service provider yeah cool cool thanks all right tim how are you fantastic aj my uh my heart is full tonight getting to see dan and aj hanging out we got a we got a fantastic guest who's a good friend of mine this is this is a good night andy doesn't have to work tonight hey that's that's like a first in a while i think we nailed the day fellas collectively yeah yeah it's a miracle it's a good day i mean i feel like i should ask dan how he's doing because i normally do that but dan and i have been drinking all afternoon so i think i know how dan's feeling i'm doing there you go now and the honeymoon phase is already over oh my gosh aj how are you i'm doing good man i i gotta tell you like today has been amazing um and it's honestly because it's finally getting to meet dan and i'd feel the same way whoever it was rolling up but i i've been talking to dan for like the last two years uh we've been doing this podcast for like you know almost a year uh and i mean we've at least been working on it for over a year you know we released a little less than a year ago so to finally meet somebody in the flesh and hang out with him like we've just had a great time like you know like you know dan i think dan put in text earlier like aj it's just as cool in person as he is in virtual yeah how awkward that be if uh if we weren't cool you know dan's just fun to hang out with in person if not obviously more fun to hang out with the person that he is uh well i appreciate that aj but we we've just been like literally all day long we've just been chatting about like you know you know talking shop basically it's it's been awesome just as the same as we hang out on here basically it's been like an eight hour podcast really yeah yeah why weren't we recording i know right all right so you need to live stream this whole weekend yeah i think we do somebody needs to strap a gopro to dan's head i don't know all right well we do have a guest tonight but we got some other stuff to work through so hang tight guests will get right to you let's get to the winds andy all right kicking us off tonight a deal con passed their ai 900 that is the azure fundamentals exam congratulations a deal congrats very nice very nice good job robin canelo passed this show classes in two days right like we hardly ever see him and winning it's crazy he's he's the new tailor he's getting on my nerve just kidding nice just kidding no no taylor gets on everybody's no come on now just because house martial he doesn't you know that's all work does not get on my nerves i i look at taylor as a magical beast so he is he is very very majestic magical beast sorry chris deadman chris deadman relay uh so he works for a contract company he got brought back in there's some more work spinning up and he was also kind of offered an opportunity to be a supervisor and train people so kind of a promotion in his world so congratulations that's awesome wow congrats yeah yeah yeah yeah that's good uh meta bell aka cody as it says in their screen name accepted a java job offer for a network tech at an msp so congratulations cody nice nice good job good job get in there uh baltash geary i probably really screwed that up and i'm very sorry i'm gonna i'm gonna go with you screwed that one up yeah yeah yeah but but they passed their nse one and two i believe that's a fortinet nsc one and two so congratulations nice uh and and guys we hit a hundred thousand downloads yesterday thank you all yeah awesome that is definitely 100 win there a hundred thousand downloads in 355 days so we we did 100k in less than a year wow absolutely amazing thank you thank you thank you truth be told when this started i didn't think we'd ever hit a hundred thousand dollars definitely not ever like so yeah let alone inside of a year yeah seriously though thank you to the fans who have downloaded all those episodes and listened to them we've gotten awesome feedback in like our discord and like on twitter and stuff like that and uh we get dm's regularly uh hitting us up about like questions and and like um comments on our podcast as well like so uh the when we did the sd win episode i got several dms about like the question i asked on uh on that episode was something to a lot to the effect of like uh certain isps having their own sd-wan solution do they allow using like mom and pop sd or um mom and pop isp connections basically broadband connections and i got several responses on that so like i love that like if you guys were super reachable right so if you guys have a question comment an answer whatever like hit us up on twitter we're we're all looking at our dms so uh i i love that that you know the the fanbase reaches out to us regularly so yeah yeah absolutely absolutely yeah um lots of exciting stuff going on um we have a 100k giveaway um it will probably end by the time this episode airs but um the lucky winner is going to get an a1 pint glass an a1 t-shirt of their size uh we're gonna get an a1 sticker pack in there yeah all right and uh we're also going to throw in a book of their choosing so if there's any books that's right we're also throwing in a goat too but any books study materials that's going to help them on their journey we're going to let them pick a book and throw that in there as well and then of course andy had the winning goat so nice little prize pack all a1 flavored hot buttery udders i told my wife the name of that goat because she got me this goat and started this whole thing like months ago i told her the name and she's like please tell me you have an all-male audience because that's not an appropriate name yeah yeah i think true you got a mix audience sorry sorry ladies apologies for the name yeah the internet picked it we can't help it yeah it wouldn't us we didn't choose it well the last time we let the internet vote so um with the 100k we launched our patreon we've gotten a lot of our fans recommend that we start a patreon as a way to support the content that we create in the podcast and we graciously appreciate that so there are three different levels to our patreon you can be an official supporter and that's at three dollars a month and that will just let you you know generally support the podcast we have operating expenses that we need to kind of meet you know we host the website we do some editing uh you know now we're doing the video thing so uh and we're using this new service called riverside that locally records our audio and our video and that lets us kind of produce a higher quality show than what we've been able to do in the past and you know there's some other things that we're looking to do to improve the quality of the content that comes out and of course we always want to continue to do the giveaways and stuff that you know give back to the community we want to help other network engineers uh take the next step in their their career be it a certification or whatever the case may be so um there's the three dollar level general support kind of thing and uh you know we're going to give every patreon member a shout out so uh we'll get to that here in just a minute the next step up from that is five dollars a month big old five dollars a month and that is our all access pass and what that will let you do in addition to the you know general support here uh we'll live stream uh you know basically any event that we're doing so you know tonight we're recording we're live streaming we have our patreon members the current patreon members in the chat we can chat with them they can chat with our guests and we'll just kind of interact as we record the show in real time we record every thursday 8 30 p.m eastern time so if that works for you you could be you know joining the chat watching the live stream with us yeah hey i just want to interject real quick uh so i'm definitely watching that chat so like if anybody needs or has a question that nothing to the conversation we'll definitely make sure that we like answer that question absolutely yeah and who doesn't want to watch dan stroke his beard live nice nice um then so there's the official supporter the all access pass and then there is the vip so you get all the benefits of the first two tiers and for ten dollars a month you also get early access to all of our content so anytime we release something we're going to release it to the vips first you'll get you know the first chance to take a look at it critique it give us some feedback uh and you know we can you know maybe make some changes at your recommendations because we trust you we trust our fans you're the one that wants to see this um so early access to everything we're working on some new merch designs so you'll get early access to all the new merch as well so uh you know we'll let you take a look at it is it good do you like it you know maybe we can give some away to you and then you know certainly opportunities to purchase that merch before anybody else and along with that merch purchase is a permanent merch discount of 15 percent just for our uh patreon vip members and again that's a ten dollar a month uh opportunity there and of course all those funds as i said go towards contributing to the operating costs the podcast and we're going to give back to the community as well we're not looking to make a living off of this i mean maybe someday but i'm looking to make a living of this but we're gonna do that with sponsor dollars maybe you know all right all right i mean to be clear i'm ready yeah uh so so yeah definitely consider please consider being a patron if not there's plenty of other ways you can contribute to the show you know simply downloading helps our numbers that's that's a great way to help the show go to our youtube channel like the content subscribe to us hit the bell notification all of those metrics really help us out if you're so inclined comment wherever you're downloading the podcast like rate subscribe all of that stuff goes a long long way to help out our metrics with you know the googles and the twitters and the youtubes and all that stuff really helps us out so that stuff contributes an awful lot to what we're doing here let's shout out to our current patreon members our very first six patreon members they joined within the first five hours of us launching this thing so these are some super fans here so we got chris miles uh chris denney robin canela earl o'connor adil khan and louis garcia jr you might know him better as netsequezy crazy thank you thank you so much guys to our so much guys seriously really truly appreciate it and with that let's get on with the show without further ado i'm super super excited for our guest this evening uh he's been a longtime supporter of the podcast he's he has to have been around since episode one i know he joined the discord very early everybody's been watching this journey on twitter he's making some moves uh i am super excited to welcome uh manny pimentel to the show manny thank you so much for joining us tonight how you doing i'm good how are you doing great doing great i'm super excited to have dan here we're going to go have some fun after we get off the show tonight it's what we're going to have weekend it's it's thursday night we we got the whole weekend ahead of us baby you going to go cow tip no uh andy they don't have cows up here it's all uh just you know well no that's that's a lie there's definitely cows they have black bears up here you know i wouldn't try to tip those yeah no i'm not gonna tip a black bear that's for sure but we digress manny welcome to the show i'm super excited to have you um i think the best place to start is what do you what do you do now what are you doing today well it's an honor to be on the show very excited to be here um so what i do i'm a network technician um my nature of work i'm a contractor for the state of florida ah all right all right so yeah like a 1099 contractor or i can be uh i specifically request that i'm i'm a w-2 you know okay bypasses 1099 stuff sure sure um yeah so do you want for anybody listening so do you work in a specific department for the state do you do a specific facet of state duties or is it across the board uh to be more specif to be more to be more specific i support um the totaling agency that there's several out here i support um one of the one of the big players which also has a leg you know with one of the departments of the state okay now let me let me ask real quick because on my uh little journey up here to see aj i passed about 20 toll stations uh and it says toll uh by mail do you guys have that or do you guys still do like the booths uh we have both okay all right the the the agency that um i'm more closely associated with it's mainly transponders and uh cash i know recently they've been migrating away from that where it's all electronics holding okay um they you know they usually advertise like hey we have the better discounted rates because there's several there's several agencies um local out here that will compete for the business um there's more perks going on going on along the lines with them that they recently grin greenlit without dropping any names but you know they're a big player where they enabled uh tolling in multiple states which with the same transponder but there are other agencies that do still do the toll by plate to answer your question okay so now i'm curious because i like where i'm from we don't deal with toll roads okay so i'm curious are they going to are they just going to send me something in the mail that like bills me like i they they have these like fancy camera setups basically so as you drive underneath it i'm i'm assuming it takes a picture of your license plate and they're just gonna look you up and send you a bill in the mail or something like that uh i just i'm curious because i just ran through all that no damn no dan i was the same way something about penalties i'm not really sure wait did did you did you drive through any gates like were there any gates down and you just sent it maybe years back we drove through colorado and yeah we we just drove through all these these uh toll roads and i'm like aren't we supposed to stop or something i can't believe we're getting through this and then like two weeks later we get this bill in the mail like oh okay i get it now yeah there it is i'm just curious what that's gonna cost me because like i swear i drove through like 20 of those things i'm just curious what that's going to cost me should have just bought yeah so on that part i'm not necessarily a pro in that part i know the somewhat of the logistics of how that works so you're right they do have cameras they're they're they're pretty quick and they're pretty clean like i've personally seen um i've personally seen like the audits where you know someone runs it or let's say uh transponders doesn't register correctly you know they legit have one on the windshield and it just didn't register the take a picture of the plate and the pictures are pretty clear regardless what speed you're going through so depending on the agency that took those pictures more likely you know they're going to look up your tag looking to see where you live and they're going to mail you okay well i'll just expect something in the mail then so manny what kind of gear do you support in what are the locations like are you supporting office buildings are you actually supporting those those buildings on the toll roads what's that like uh so it's it's a mixture um there are currently other divisions that i work alongside with like um some uh one division deals with purely the towing equipment you know the division strictly deals like with the fiber and the um cameras along um the highways and turnpikes um so my footprint you know i do um the network that i manage is basically our campuses and some remote offices and and um tech shops we have um different tech shops um like we have one for example like in tampa where there's just text there that you know it's kind of like their remote hub or headquarters so they need to go out fix something out of plaza um they have all their tools there they have um these durable laptops and you know to get all their stuff and and they'll go and is it a is it a big team that's supporting this with you or you you kind of by yourself how's that look yeah my team is particularly small the team that directly deals with the totally equipment there they're much bigger uh my team so on the network side i'm one of two there's my senior myself yeah that's not very big and yeah yeah it's not very big um on the server side there's two of us um you know there's my boy jay and um my other co-worker michael um and the way how we're kind of structured we're like you know per site so my senior and i as well as my other senior jay we don't we're in the orlando campus and then michael and some of our other team members they're not popping on campus those are our two biggest campuses and then we have other we have one other newer site that came up that may come come up in the news at some point and and then from there those are premature headquarters and then we we do have a footprint in boca but with our team since it's so niche and small um you know for example michael really supports the the south but for some reason if let's say i need to go down there or my senior is going on there or jenny is going on there for any reason or we have a big project you know we'll put in a request with the state and we'll commute over there to get whatever job done okay now is your team are they all contractors yes okay so you guys are like a group of contractors working on this together right okay right yeah and there are a lot of the other districts you know the the of my district it's like more contractor heavy versus state employee and other districts they're more state employee than contractor ours like i forgot what what it is that makes it up that way but it's very contractor heavy and i believe that has to do with the construction um a lot of the construction companies you know they're pulled in by the state you know with contracts um so in the i.t side a lot of us are a contractor and our upper management they're all state employees pretty much okay now you're a jersey guy how did you end up in orlando yeah right so yeah jersey born and raised i come from elizabeth new jersey it's south of newark um long story short um in high school i want a different change of pace and you know i.t wasn't really my career path back then i you know i was um truth be told i was taking more business and music production and you know as some of you may know new york and new jersey that has a faster pace of life up there and you know not getting two specifics on my life i was like you know what i kind of want to just relax and stay out of trouble and so you know more of my family is kind of sort of migrating from new jersey new york to down here so i end up moving down here and and that was in 2006 and i've been here ever since so you wanted a slower pace and yet yesterday you went outside and found a chicken in your garage i am convinced and that that that tweet and twitter has been blowing up everyone and their mother has been tweeting and retweeting it i'm convinced that one of my neighbors is housing chickens and other animals like we had this one hoa rep here that every week she was here taking photos and sending letters and emails and stuff like that and she left and it's been radio silent it's been peaceful um because i'm proud to say this neighborhood is very clean and you know we all do ourselves we don't have any troublemakers the only troublemaker we had was um one of my neighbors turned our house into airbnb and that turned into a party house over the summer where it got shut down by cops repeatedly to the point where h.o.a and cops got involved but no yeah so it got yeah so it got really quiet since that one rep left and i haven't seen or heard from him ever since and now the sudden you know i was doing deadlifts and all of a sudden i see a chicken just pump coming my bench i'm like how are you doing here i guarantee you that hoa rep saw your tweet and they'll be back yeah that chicken was probably thinking the same thing though chicken's thinking what's this guy doing in my house yeah like you know he was he was like you know just walking around looking for food i'm like dude what what are you doing here what is this yeah so like so you saw it on my bench it would not leave my bench and i had to lure away with some water and i finally and i made like a little puddle in my driveway i was like here come on come on come on and then you know started drinking the water then it bounced then it went to my neighbor's yard okay now it's their problem right right nice so where did the interest in i.t come from did that start you know before you left jersey before you got to florida how did you get into i.t so i've been the family geek for as long as i can remember my interest in tech kind of started with the nintendo and sega genesis i yeah i had the nintendo um due to my dad and actually oh the nes okay a little great box and i even had like that that one robot that requires so many batteries and you know and it's it's like a player two i forgot the name of it but i've had that nintendo where you had to like blow the air out of the yes i mean that that was several of them right there's a scientific one on the shelf there behind them i mean yeah you got one right there but yeah yeah and quick funny story with that as a kid i used to get pissed off trying to play a nintendo game because you know blowing to the car i could never get it to work so you know my i asked my grandmother you know we call we call her my mom like mama like can you get this to work so she would like she'd do like nothing she's like done meanwhile i'm struggling i'm like come on i want to play mario what the hell um so i started with that my grandfather gifted me uh a sega genesis that's when i first you know played sonic and ever since then i was just kind of drawn to tech and when i got my first computer it was um i think it was originally my dad's and he had it dual booted of ms-dos for a lot of like retro games and i believe it was the windows 95 and i remember one saturday i saw like back i was back when microsoft was still sending like those big instruction manuals for windows and i just breezed through it because i remember seeing this fragmenter i was like oh what is that does that grapple up the computer or something and i started like reading through it and ever since then i just been you know stuck with i.t like i've you know i've fallen in love with it over the years ever since then so so what was the break-in point for you how did you take it from like this interest to a career um kind of like a common theme is you know i started like uh repairing computers for family members i started tinkering with the idea of like okay i wanna you know i want to build my own computer um when i was in high school i had like one of those sony bio desktops and it was like you know one of my great aunts gifted it to me and you know it had like 512 megs on it and it could go up to two gigs i'm like okay i never took a stick of ram before let me figure out how to do that um and then from there uh i i learned about oh yeah you could build your own computer and and servers are these you know really bulky like um powerful machines and i want to get i want you know i want to get into that and and that's where it went from an interest to going to college now there's a funny story about college so back to my i want i wanted to deal with music production and business my parents would be like okay what do you want to study and i was like i would like to do you know business i want to start my own business and i also want to do music production my mom shut that down quirky's like no no not doing that you're not doing that smart i'm like why not like no there's too many of them out there you're good at it stick with stick with what you know stick with what you're good at guys i'll help you if you go to college with that after that when you make your own money doing an i.t then you do what you want i was i was so pissed but you know what i'm grateful for her that she did that because that's where i eventually fell in love with network engineering sweet so what was that first it job how did you break in so it was so originally i my first job was at a target out here i was a grocer i quickly moved up to a sampling specialist so if you ever go into like a super target or target and have like those sampling ladies with the food um i think they still do that in beaches in costco i was their boss and yeah and then you know i was a young guy and much as much to everyone similar story you know i um i didn't get a computer programming uh uh concentration day was actually an i.t one and you know once i saw a program i was like nope pineapples nope give me that one and after that point i'm like you know i need i need to get a job in this so i spoke to my boss and i was like look i'm a young guy don't have a family um and i want to get another job and that's why it's hiring i want i want to you know i want to get my foot in the door one way or another i don't know how to get into and i don't know how to get into it because you know you know that time you know they were i mean much like now they want all these you know uh qualities and qualifications and stuff so i was like look is there a conflict of interest if i get a second job and like no no it's fine you know we both sell computers but that's all they do and we do with home goods and food and all this stuff you're fine just if you get hired just give me a schedule we'll work it out that went up smoke they had like a little turf war over me and yeah everybody wants a piece of manny yeah and can you blame them and i'll never forget my interview at best buy so i applied to be a computer sales rep and in that interview the interviewer stopped is like wait a minute we don't have to talk anymore like why what happened like i think you'd be great for this role but i'll be selfish in keeping you you'll be better at gee squad let me like stay right here let me go talk to that boss and that's where i immediately got an interview at esquad and i went to like three interviews and i got hired i got hired as a seasonal so that's when i told my boss at target and that boss sometimes like hey we can wear whatever schedule you want but sundays um i mainly need you like all day and at target i had a schedule i was working mornings all week and so that's when i flipped it and that's when my target manager is like no no it's what i say not what they say and i had to leave and much like in the biker community i i was marked as out bad you know i i got out on bad terms but then i grew within squad and i was there short story with that i got promoted a couple times my last role was i was a key squad covert fulfillment agent the short summary of that i was a work from home agent and i was i was one of these white ages where i would remote into your computer fix what you put in the ticket and i would expand on that um and it i at some point when i get my blog up and running there is kind of like a little love letter the key squad that i want to dedicate in a blog because that's where i got a lot of my foundational a plus knowledge nice and that's where my journey kind of started right before i fell in love with network i want to i want to talk about that manny because we talked to a lot of people in the industry that start and like an enterprise help desk desktop support role so you did that but more on the what i'll call residential or the consumer space yeah is that much different than enterprise support or what was that like for you that if if i could put in a few words that's like working at the bleeding edge 24 7. um the beauty of it however in my opinion for any hiring manager is the fact that me or any squad agent like we're exposed to change immediately like for example when windows 8 came out we had to go through all these trainings and we had to um no no knows how on clean installing it upgrading it um same thing with windows 10 um like any new software much like an enterprise where there's a life cycle and there's a progressive plan to get to new versions no everything was bleeding edge with our with our clients bleeding edge and and so yeah it was like a rapid pace so when i finally got to the enterprise side after i think i think i've been in gizmo for like six years um it was a breath of fresh air like okay i can handle this you know i was dealing with bleeding edge with a broad spectrum of ages in groups that's a really good point and something i didn't think about right away because yeah enterprises will bring in new technology but consumers go and get it right away they want the new stuff right away businesses will typically you know hang back a little bit when they get budget when they uh things have kind of gotten burned in a little bit and they feel more comfortable with it but at consumers they're going out and getting the new stuff right away so yeah you're getting exposed to that right away right that's the craziest thing you ever saw on a customer's computer oh my god there's so many there's a tie um there's a tie of three two are funny one isn't so i once found a sneak inside of a computer uh the more disgusting side i saw um roaches and a client's computer yeah and when that happens you know like you know we we need evidence or whatever and we have to bag it and the mess the messed up part of it is like you know once that happens your warranty is it's gone because you know it's it's infested like no one's gonna touch that um even if you know we don't visibly see it and let's say you know we we gotta send it elsewhere um for repair whether it's like a tv or a laptop computer whatever and they they crack open that case and they see you know roaches breeding or live or dead like yeah that's infested we can't touch that um the sad serious part is you know i've i've been exposed to more my peer but actually when as it happened where let's just say there was like where we're allowed to if something is out in the open that's suspect that we need to report the authorities like then yeah we can report it because at geese well we're not allowed to look at any of your files we can get terminate like that for having our phone on us or for looking at your stuff um but if we see something that you know for example let's say it's on the desktop and in this case it was their wallpaper we can report to our management and then to the authorities so i there was a case of that and yeah cops raided his house that's a shame it's wild yeah yeah hey i mean it's it's good to hear both sides of that right like it's good to hear that they're so strong on protecting your privacy right like you're everybody's entire life is digital these days and you're turning over your laptop computer whatever it is to get serviced by somebody so it's it's good to know that like they take that so seriously but at the same time like if it's criminal and it's out in the open you know you're not stooping for it you found it if somebody's you know silly enough to put something criminal on their desktop uh where anybody can see it as soon as you power on the device then shame on them i guess but it's it's good to know there's like there's that uh open window of opportunity like they're doing something wrong this isn't cool got a report with the authorities yeah and much like in any organization there's good apples there's bad apples there's been reports of bad apples of you know guess what agents um not doing their job um accordingly where you know best buy guess what you know they get sued but you know in the the precinct that is what we call our departments the the precinct that i worked at and a lot of the precincts that i've also visited in central florida not none of them have ever gone like that um all the management has been pretty much spot on where yeah they uphold their values and that's the biggest thing that kept me at key squad for as long as it did for the different roles i've been in because you know i i you know i i started as a consultation agent which is basically the agent that's in the front and i worked on my way to the back where i was repairing computers to working at home like they're very big on culture and you know from starting from the founder to like to today they're very big on that and they're also big on you know rules and regulations while also having fun so how long were you there for uh questions thank you yeah it was about between all the positions i think it's about six years okay all right what did you like better did you like being at the at the stores going through uh actual people's gear did you like the remote side better i like the stores a bit more just because of that social interaction like working remote we had the interaction where you know we had skype for business and we have different chats with different districts and you know we were talking there all day every day it didn't have to be like work related we'll just talk to kind of keep each other you know saying um my um keyswap manager would have uh weekly meetings with us and who have one-on-one meetings with us or check in um however i did like i did love the convenience of work from home that was my first ever exposure to work from home um that was my first ever exposure to meraki because um at the time like you know that will ship you um earlier these white ages they would get like a laptop then they started sending like a very mini uh hp or dell unit with two monitors and then they'll also send you a meraki secure gateway and i was like oh cisco hold on wait a minute what's this um i will say the one thing that turned me off my work from home was not the job but the fact that it was very metric based like you know i had to get so many repairs done in a small amount of time and me i'm more of a q a guy and so on my team whether i was in person or especially remote i was the big player of like getting good um surveys like nine and ten times i would have a perfect score within a month or you know i would have just one grumpy person but like that was my biggest thing but with that you know i i i say to this day even in the number engineering field i love what i do i love my craft and with that you know i remember you guys you know saying it if you know you work on something you put your name on it you know you want it to be like you know like gold like yeah i certified this is this is beautiful so it's the same thing with that so with that i would take a little more time so when i started kind of cracking down when i got more strict on the metrics that's where my sanity started to kind of plummet that's where like okay i need a i need a different environment to get into how'd you get into geek squad is that a hard gig like because you said you mentioned college too right like did that play into it all getting the job uh it def it definitely played as far as the interview like okay um this um interviewer he's in college rit um they do expect you to know something like like they don't expect you to like be off you know off of rip to have an a plus but they expect you to like either be working towards it or have some a plus knowledge so there is a little bit of a gate that you kind of have to get over because you know the beauty about them there's always trainings and what you don't know they'll help to help you learn um especially like the eight plus level stuff and that's one thing i pride myself on g squad where i didn't really study for my plus like i learned all my stuff there i glanced over a book and one day i was like you know what i'm gonna i'm gonna attempt it and i book both exams on the same day and i pass it on one try did you have your a plus before gig squad or you got it there i got it there okay because this is i think it's a first where somebody's first deck job was like in a retail you know geek squad it's the first time i've heard i love people's origin stories right like how they got in because it's hard to get in and that's that's a new way right it's the first time i've heard this like oh yeah geek squad are they still around can you still get like support from yeah yep yeah they still go to the house they're still remote um yeah they're still in in stores so yeah they're definitely around that's awesome new way to get into tech it's good to share so this was all still in jersey right oh no this is in florida okay so did you go straight from geek squad to the contractor you're with now yes okay and that in itself was a journey because i kind of learned for some employers it was kind of a bad thing that um for their perception i i worked in the bleeding edge for so long because because of the fact that you know enterprises are structured software hardware they're kind of scaled back and working the bleeding edge you know you kind of have that perception like okay he's you know manny's kind of working no man's land he you know as long as as long as you know he can get it to work there's no structure but that's not really the case um so yeah getting back to your question i went from that that's when i kind of i hit my low point where i felt stuck i was okay um and if i may i'll also give another piece with it because it also goes with good management so one point my former manager um his name was ryan heller he had a meeting with all of us he said hey so you know i want to have a deeper meaning um conversation with you guys what do you guys want where do you guys see yourself next five years 10 years when it came to me i was like i want to be a number engineer and he's like okay i all right now i'm gonna have meetings with you and one of you to figure out your career path so at that point he's like okay well unfortunately there's not really much of that here but i can help guide you in the right direction so you can unfortunately i have you know i'll have to lose you at some point which is a loss to me and e squad but it's for you and that's what's more important and that's where it's gonna maintain right there yeah i agree that's awesome and that's where you know um i was already working on my ccna um much like several others and like you andy um i got my first exposure to cisco network academy in college i'll never forget my instructor she was a ccies and also certified cisco instructor um and the way how she just taught subnetting and and bslm and everything it was it was beautiful it was like listening to classical music and she's just writing everything on the board and all of our tables had um a stack of routers and switches and and i you know just to shine some light on the home lab stuff like she emphasized that like okay yeah this is well maybe not current grade this is what you can expect in the field when you get your first gig riders which is the cabling the the fiber etc um and and yeah from there i i'm getting back to the story i hit my i had my moot point where it was hard to kind of land a gig in enterprise because i was kind of labeled as the the renegade because i was working the bleeding edge until finally one of my good friends uh joelle he managed to get at the current organization i'm at as a contractor and he put in a good word for me and i managed to join the team as workstation support so where where in the timeline were you studying for your ccna were you at best uh were you at geek squad uh yes okay so you're at geek squad you're doing that you're studying for the ccna through cisco networking academy why was that part of your it program like why would you just start studying for the ccna did somebody tell you about it uh good question so at that point when i was at e-squad with my with my current i.t uh degree program a light bulb in my head i was like okay i'm almost always i'm almost done with this degree when i make e-squad i kind of feel like this degree is useless and now i want to get into network engineering and i spoke my guidance counselor she was like hey so this is what we could do you could do programming i'm like nope don't want to go anywhere near that um oh man and interesting but i don't want to touch it um server administration cool and the thing i liked about her is that she went into def like okay this is what you expect in the real world then she had never engineering was like tell me about that yeah you know you'll be kind of the plumber of enterprise um you know networks you know you know you'll set up routers and switches the cabling fiber optics is a big thing now we have classes for that too we get some exposure um you know you run anything with the network i was like sold i want that and that's where basically the mario of networking yeah basically nice i love it and and so that's where i got um i did a couple of uh prereqs well a lot of my prereqs carried over like i um i had like a net plus a prereq that carried over and then i had like three course no yeah three courses of csun cisco network academy courses and in the syllabus i remember like it was yesterday they were like yeah uh you can pass this either you know you get like a passing grade on the final or you go out and get your ccna um and alternatively if you pass all three courses we give you like a like um a certificate so you can go get your ccna after that first class with that amazing instructor i was like okay i kind of want to stop school study this by myself and that's exactly what i did the hell of a guidance counselor yeah and i gotta i gotta meet this instructor too i've never heard anybody equate learning subnetting to classical music right is that uh would that be like the flight of the bumblebee or uh because that's what i would think of that's gonna be stuck in my head guys yeah that that woman was amazing you know like like she'll go into all like ccna level like protocol like she went into rip and and eigrp satic rouse so something part was where there was a guy at best by the time that coincidentally he was in my class and he was like bro do you understand anything she's saying i'm like yeah but it's really hard like that's my that's when i got my first frustration with some netting but like the way how she explained it it made sense but it was just so much information where i felt like my head wasn't gonna explode yeah but yeah like i'll never forget that instructor she was amazing so when you got your ccna you started interviewing right yeah you're a geek squad and you you mentioned it a couple times and like so you said you were having a hard time and you think it was because you were on the bleeding edge so can you elaborate on that like what do you mean by that like you were working on like you're working on home pcs and stuff right like is that what geek squad does kind of work on consumer electronics right um so i bring that up because on on i had a few interviews and the hiring manager was like hey you know you have great technical knowledge um you have good experience your experience is quite solid however we don't know how your experience at basically this bleeding edge where you know you know you install whatever um how that's going to equate to enterprise level because at enterprise you're not allowed to just install anything especially something that's like you know just came out like the next day and i told my game i understand that i have structure but you know you got to understand in my in my uh workflow this is this is what i this is what i got to deal with you know a client says hey i want to solve a new version of quickbooks guess what i'm doing yeah right um do they have a change management at geek squad right yeah it's just surprising to me because if i was interviewing you at the time like you have all this technical knowledge you're going after a degree you have or you're working on your ccna like it's not that far of a jump to have you come you know work on routers and switches so it's it's i agree just surprising to hear that from you know did you have a bunch of interviews like were you having a hard time in a couple different places yeah do you think it was your lack of experience on a production network and they were just trying to be like hey man you know you're too much of a rebel you know instead of telling you like you don't have the experience because well right because what i hear a lot and for me too it was like you've never worked in a production network you know ccna is great but you haven't done this job and now you're asking me you know if you could do this job here like and i don't hear that from you so maybe you didn't run into that maybe people didn't throw your lack of experience in your face like they did to me you know right yeah it was pretty much that where like okay yeah you have a ton of i.t experience but you don't have any experience in an enterprise environment right like you know and at that time yeah and at the time i wasn't trying to get a network role i was trying to get a workstation role so i can build up to a network role is that like help desk like workstations that would yeah okay yeah desktop support or something like that right yeah right right and and finally when you know i interviewed and um you know um the guy who interviewed me it was my former manager and my former supervisor and him and i were good friends his name is jared he's one of those technical interviewers where he'll basically make you try to make you cry like he like this guy will he's brutal i think i had that interview if i was in there i'd just melt i'd be like so are they just trying to like stop the chump really hard crazy stuff like is that what you mean by make you cry just making it yeah um yeah like he'll grill you on the tentacle but his his main expertise i would say is like you know he he loves to weed out the bsers yeah like you know he yeah he's one of those where like hey it's okay if you don't know something tell me but don't lie about it because if you lie about something that i know about i'm gonna see how far you dig that hole yeah yeah yeah and then i'm gonna bury you in it it's the uh give them enough rope to hang themselves basically right right yeah yeah right yeah and you know i'll never forget that panel interview um it was my first time having a panel interview and and it was good and honestly you know i get my hats off to this channel because my soft skills that i've obtained at gee squad that played a big part in hiring me and my tennoco experience helped and they saw they definitely saw my lack of enterprise level expertise like you know change management ticket systems like take a system against what was custom we didn't have anything you know like a unicenter share well etc it was all custom um and you know imaging i never did imaging at that point i did cloning um so they definitely saw okay there's a stark contrast but he's teachable let's take him yeah so give us and the listener some advice manny how did you handle those first interviews when you were trying to break into the enterprise space how did you prepare for them um i definitely brushed up on the eight plus um stuff just in case you know they brutalized me with that uh soft soft skills definitely play a big part don't bs anything i interview if you simply don't know about it whether this is a networking interview or help desk workstation support servers don't bs anything not into times you're gonna be in a room with someone who's a pro in that and you know not gonna be a good look be honest um and you know brush up do your research do your research on the company that's that that's the best advice i can say and i do have another share of advice as far as getting into your first networking gig if you'd like me to share that as well definitely yeah so so so i studied i finished studying for my ccna while i was on the workstation role at my current organization i did that on the side and i give kudos to um jared as well because he was another one that would coach me okay what are you trying to do and and maybe we can kind of frame this as advice to the listeners as well as like master your craft before you move on to something else and that was my big thing so i didn't like while studying my ccna i was also making sure like i i got really good at my role before i can kind of show management interest like okay i'm ready i'm ready to grow i'm ready for something else so getting leading on to the next part well um before i got my ccna i went to my former boss his name is aaron and i asked him like hey can i can i talk with you and he's like sure so we had lunch together and he like all right talk to me manny what's up i want to be in your team what do you want me to do what do i got to do so you can see me and so you can interview me when you have a spot that opens up so he's like okay what are you doing i was like i'm studying for my ccna i i sit for my 71 at the time it was i think a few weeks out uh i'm taking the two exam path and then from there you know down the road i want to go for my ccmp that's what i'm doing uh you know i have a have a home lab and you know that's what i'm doing he's like good he gave me like an an informal interview at that point and he was okay good i like where your head is at now like you said i don't have anything going you know um open but the fact that you show interest and and you and you already working towards that i like and i appreciate that now when you get your ccna then come talk to me got my cc name i waited like a month or two and then afterwards i started kind of dropping hands and not i started kind of dropping hints around the job and then i went to him and i was like hey i got my ccna what's up so he's like okay no nothing is open but i got you at that point um earlier in this call i mentioned like i work with other divisions in the state of florida we all support the same stuff we're in different departments different divisions another division took notice of that and was like i want him let's sit down and that interview it almost it almost felt like a gang initiation because i gotta stay away from exploring man i don't think i would you gotta stay away from north jersey you're all right so so um the reason why i say that so and this is another piece of advice you know i wore a suit i came to work wearing a suit and and um they've reserved the conference room they're like all right meet us at this conference room at this time so always came early so i sent my message like hey i'm here so his number two head network guy was he pulled me inside that okay let's go that's walking over there there's like a line of network engineers on the way to the conference room and i'm like what the hell is this and and and so he takes me to the front he goes all right guys this is manny like oh yeah yeah you know yeah we know manny like we hear so many good things about him everywhere like okay cool so he's sitting down with him okay we we have we have uh good things about this and then um the guy who's over the number two guy came up and was like hey thank you for waiting he i feel like he purposely made me wait he was running late but i felt like he purposely made me wait to make me sweat yeah and long story short it was similar to the informal interview but you know he asked me some technical questions and he had um asked me what i'm doing and um he asked me like what do i have and i was like alright got my ccna he's okay what are you trying to do after you see cna or you stopping there's like no i want my ccnp i'm not stopping you know why not and he's like okay are you only familiar with cisco i'm like yeah okay well we work with x platform i was like okay i'll look on ebay to see if i can find that switch and learn it and and at the end of it he was he was like okay i'm impressed and i'm also impressed because you started setting your cc name around the same time as one of my other guys and he still doesn't have it and you show me that you're hungry um and and and that you're learning like you may not have the full knowledge of someone experienced but you've got your ccna you have a good foundation and that was it and what was told to me after that was like he went to his boss he goes listen i want manny like give me the green light i i want him on my team i don't care what you got to do and at that point my former infrastructure manager came up just the nick of time was like we have a position you want to apply and that's how it ended up in my role so it was actually the position that your internal uh manager was talking about yeah okay he became a hot commodity real quick yeah yeah i do want to highlight something that you did the way you carried yourself when you went initially to ask for help and i really respect this because when you get to a point where you feel like um you can mentor people and help people out you want to help people out but you only have so much time right so you want to make sure that you're helping the people that are that really want to be helped that are really going to try to help themselves and when you went to ask for advice you had already done some homework you had already kind of looked up and seen what you need to do so that when you went and asked and you got questions back saying well what are you already doing you had an answer for him right away and i'm sure that stuck with that manager at that time and it just shows that you're you're willing to help yourself and that makes people want to invest back into you so i really respect that and i would give that advice to anybody listening that yes it's fine to ask for help and yes you should always ask for help but be willing to put in the time yourself as well absolutely yeah what's the what's the saying the squeaky wheel gets the grease yeah absolutely so um what's the future look like what are you currently working on uh what do you think's in the future for you what's your plan my evil plan um yes um as you guys know well you know on social media you know i'm working on my ccnp encores me kicking my butt but i definitely i definitely intend on passing that pretty soon after that i'm tormenting and rc and and salad but i think i may doing solid because um i really want to learn the the the why before configuring the how um i feel like that will help my network engineering journey um so csmp is a big goal and my current boss tom like you know he praises me all the time and you know pushes me like you know he tells me all the time like manny like i love the fact that you're always learning and if you don't know something like you learn about it pretty quick he loves the fact that i have a rack in here um and after that um i know cisco's not the only fishing fish in the sea i do want to learn some juniper they've been you know kind of blown up in the social space and especially in the service provider environment i know they have a good foothold there um i currently deal with a lot of um aruba equipment okay and i do want to learn ice and clearpass which is aruba's appliance see see how they kind of stack against each other um that's pretty much my goal um and you know i want to make myself more of an asset you know to my leader tom to my team i want to grow as a network engineer earning that title i know titles are you know just titles anyone can just slap on never engineer title and job duties can be you know nothing or they could be everything but earning that title and having the work behind the title is my goal um that's like that that that that having that title and working towards it that you know that that keeps me hungry day in day out and i love the new cisco curriculum how structured yeah yeah it's definitely structured pretty well and um yeah that's that's that's pretty much my goal i don't know if i'll go for ccie anytime soon i think maybe if i do go that route i don't know what i will do um i think if i seriously tackle it maybe by my 40s right now i'm 32 for contrast i do want i do want to master the professional level before i go into that big massive pool that is ccie let alone all the stress behind it um the ccie is nothing to rush yeah yeah exactly but i think in my 40s especially with my goal of having more and more experience in this field i think i would love to possibly tackle that monster nice nice well manny i feel like we can talk to you uh oh yeah go ahead dan i was just gonna point out andy i did not ask him how old he was he volunteered you only ask girls how old they are dan yeah hang on let me check and see if you put it in the chat and manny just read it nice nice man manny i feel like we could talk all night long but unfortunately we do have to wrap it up any last-minute thoughts uh you want to share either with us or the audience uh last-minute tidbits um stay hungry stay motivated um if you need a mentor look for one andy i know you mentioned all the time about mentors um do you have a mentor uh i did uh yeah i had a few my my senior was one of them and honestly even without having a formal mentor it seems like in your story you've had people show up in your life that really made a difference absolutely you know whether it was your mom saying no that's do not do that do this that was a really smart move the guidance counselor you know a couple good managers in your life so you maybe we have mentors along the way and they're just not official you know mentors absolutely yeah yeah having whether it's official mentor or someone to guide you on the path whether it's a friend you know your wife your husband um um you know management your peers i'm constantly pushing um my peers on the workstation support role like hey you know once you master your role if you're interested in anything learn it grow you know don't get comfortable um uh what's gonna call it um yeah and that's another thing don't get comfortable always grow um network in order to get into the network you know kind of circling back to um when i spoke to my former boss um that alone pays dividends as far as networking within your own org especially if they encourage growth definitely always look into that and in the culture in your organization you know i'm blessed to have the manager i have now and my my previous manager as well as you know my friend who is my former supervisor um yeah having a mentor just someone to push you like hey just keep going even if you fail um that that seriously just pays dividends to your career and your development um yeah and just never stop yeah i love the move that you made you know you went you sought out the networking manager and you're just like i want to be on your team you know you made your intentions very clear and and that speaks volumes man like as a manager if that doesn't grab you you know you when when you have a position open you got to find somebody to put in the slot but if somebody's going to come knock on my door and be like i want to be on your team hey if that doesn't put you at the front of the line i don't know what will yeah and especially the way you did it right like you were like hey what do i got to do to fill this position you know you didn't just say like hey i just want this job you were like let me know what i got to do so that i can fit you know your dot your job description basically so right and we've heard that time and time again you have to ask for what you want yeah right and people who do find it you know right and it kind of accountability for that is everything because you know it's one thing that you're saying gonna do something but another one you're actually doing follow up like yeah okay yeah i said i wasn't doing my ccna bam here it is yeah um another piece sorry if i ramble but another piece that i'll add um always try to get a good rapport in your job um if my if my co-workers here you know hear this podcast which i'm sure they will um i have an infamous name that is the golden boy i have a glowing um rapport with not just my peers but upper management okay um are you a kiss ass manny i was waiting for it if you get along with upper management i hate to tell you you're a kid yeah i would say i'm in a good culture because i yeah because you know i'm not afraid to say i've i've argued with former managers before where you know it would get like pretty like heated sure um it might work i'm happy and blessed that i haven't gotten to that point with any management but yeah like i say you know definitely try to have try to maintain a good rapport because when your name has a good reputation tied to it your name gets spoken about in rooms that you're not sitting in and your name and your name travels and when it comes to like you know growth and positions other managers were like okay well what is this guy doing what is this girl doing like you know maybe we should develop them for that role you know that that alone pays dividends without even you realizing it plus nobody wants to see jersey manny come out yeah i have a horrible temper you know like like the movie shrek i i'm like an ogre i have layers manny i i just want to i want to thank you for being a real community champion you're you're the community hype man uh when somebody has something that they're doing well they post a win you're one of the first people that's always there to congratulate him you have a fantastic positive attitude it's it's already taken you far it's going to take you further thank you for being such a big member of the community and and just being a cool guy so thank you and thank you for spending the time with us this evening oh absolutely it's been a pleasure and an honor and thank you for the kind words sam i appreciate it you know it's the support that i give out it's something that i wish i had when i was going through my journey yeah you know i've had friends that studied the network stuff and they dropped out you know i i've always been like the lone wolf with the network stuff everyone else wants to you know jump in the music jump into business maybe jump into programming and i'm the lone wolf like okay well i want to mess with routers and switches what about me you know and so i try to give out that support that i would have wanted coming up that's so cool you know yeah when i met my senior like you know i was like oh my god there's another engineer here yes show me the way um so yeah like thank you for the kind words and it's something that i love to reciprocate with you know my friends now the community that you guys um you know have created i love it and even you know with my peers at work you know like a couple of my peers are interested in networking you know i try to show them inside and try to guide them i here study this etc and you know again it's something i would have loved to have that would have paid serious dividends and it's something i will just keep going and forth i love developing growing people and pushing them forward all right where can people find you if they want to connect with you all right so i'm on instagram and twitter as manybytes88 yeah i originally had many bites without the 88 but someone made a page and left it blank so like okay that feels like self-tapping all right that's exactly yeah many bites yeah many bites yeah many bites 88 on instagram and twitter um i have a linkedin you know i'll give to you for that to the show notes we can connect there um i'm pretty active on both instagram and twitter um so yeah you know shoot me a message we'll connect now did you mention a uh a possible blog coming up yeah um so the blog i will keep it with my same name i have a couple blog entries um drafted up uh i haven't completed the layoutlet yet but once it's all you know up and running i would love to get that up maybe even do some youtube videos um yeah yeah yeah it's something that i don't know if i can kind of stay consistent with it but if i can put something out there both intrigue someone or even inspire them or help them get into a role um and of course you know i want to kind of throw other stuff that's not tech related in there you know stuff with my motorcycle my car uh my garage gym video games you know my ps5 right here um but yeah it's something that can help the community or inspire someone and and and here's my thing real quick that i love about this channel community is like there's so much content on the ccna level but i feel like there's a minimal pool of someone like me who's in the middle of like professional of the professional tier that i'm in the center i got my ccna i want to grow from that point and that ex like experience level before the expert and if i can push out maybe a little bit of content to help and inspire those people then by all means absolutely i love it i absolutely love it manny thank you so much for joining us tonight it's been an absolute pleasure getting to know you a little bit better and uh we are honored to get to share your story on our podcast thank you very much i want to throw a quick shout out to andy happy birthday man thank you you're going to have your birthday this weekend that was for you dad that was for you i was putting it out there for you buddy thanks aj appreciate it man yeah absolutely all right guys thank you so much for joining us again and we'll see you back next week see ya hey everyone this is aj if you like what you heard today then make sure you subscribe to our podcast and your favorite podcatcher smash that bell icon to get notified of all of our future episodes also follow us on twitter and instagram we are at art of net edge that's art of n-e-t-e-n-g you can also find us on the web at art of network engineering dot com where we post all of our show notes you can read blog articles from the co-hosts and guests and also a lot more news and info from the networking world thanks for listening you