This is the Art of Network Engineering podcast. this podcast to look for keys, technologies and talented people. We aim to bring you information to expand your skill sets and toolbox and share the stories of fellow network engineers. Welcome to the Art of Network Engineering podcast. My name is Aaron Weiler, also known as Aaron Engineered. And with me, I have Andy Laptef. Hey, I have AJ. How's it going? And Daniel. Howdy. And we are kind of just going around the horn here and putting voices to names and kind of give you a little bit of a backstory of how we got into what we do now. and maybe sort of let you in on, you know, who we are as people and, you know, what got us to where we are, most of which the stories end up being a little non-conventional. Oddly enough, we have some similarities between some of our stories that are almost like woven together, same but different. We're also all in different geographical parts of the United States of America, with the exception of two people that are in the beautiful New England, the motherland. just after this Fourth of July here, so celebrating our country's freedom. And myself, Aaron, I'm down here in San Diego. AJ is up in Vermont. Dan is in Tennessee. So he's anchoring us down there in the middle of the country. And then we have Andy in Pennsylvania. So different perspectives, you know, same room, different view, I guess is a good way to put that. You know, we all have... obviously similar interests and Maybe not so obvious similar stories, which you'll hear shortly but the whole point of this really is like I said just to kind of break it down and you know have a conversation about you know why we got into this how that happened and You know where we kind of see that being beneficial to everybody else. So Dan How you doing, buddy? I'm doing good yourself. I'm well. Thank you so much for asking And I'm much better now that you asked me. Yeah. So, tell us where you're at, dude. Alright, so I'm in the greater Nashville area in Tennessee. So, the area that you're in is greater than Nashville? It is greater than Nashville. The traffic is, at least. The traffic. Yeah, Nashville's kind of blowing up, right? Yeah, big time. Yeah, that sucks. I mean, that's good for you, though, I guess, if you'd ever want to venture into the job market again. But yeah, plenty of jobs around here. Plenty of jobs, which is interesting. Maybe this is just me and you guys can probably weigh in this too. I don't really ever think of Nashville, Tennessee as I wouldn't use the word tech hub, but like even a place that I would see like, like even my job, for instance, like I that would not be one of the places I would think like. I would be very marketable. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's kind of funny because I think over the last 10 years, it really has blown up into a tech hub, if you want to call it that. Because there's a lot of headquarters here now. And Nissan headquarters, Schneider Electric headquarters. I think Mitsubishi is moving here. We're getting a big Amazon. So there's a lot of stuff coming here. Yeah, see that's I know people in general are going there but it's good to know that you're probably going to be a little bit more marketable in some of those other because the thing is like when an Amazon or somebody like that comes to town, they're not going to bring you know network engineers for the most part with them, right? You're going to look for local talent. Job market is different, right? It would make no sense to bring someone in from like Seattle to Tennessee because they're going to be paying them way too much, right? So to find someone like yourself that... you know, you can get for market rate, we'll call it. So that'd be an ideal situation for you. But, so where do you work now? I work at a insurance company. Doing what? I am a network administrator, I think is technically my title. And what the hell is that? Who knows, man. Nah, I do, I wear a lot of different hats in my current job. I can... I can be called to add printer ports on the access switches, or I'm also working on AWS VPN tunnels. It's just everything in between. Data center, ACI, firewalls, F5 load balancers, just a little bit of everything. Interesting. So here's just a blunt question. When you got hired, was that part of the job description? They told you were going to do everything. I don't even think I had a job description, to be honest with you. It was. Interesting. And when I started, it was a system and network administration. So I started doing server 2003. Then we migrated to 2008. I was doing updates, that kind of stuff, applications. But then my focus was always network. And then as our group grew. we split off and had network administrators and system administrators. And I went straight to the network team, so focused on networking after that. Gotcha. So it was kind of a dual role to begin with. At least the title sounds like it was. Whether or not they knew what the hell that actually meant, seems like that's what it was. Yeah, for sure. You've been there for how long now? Because you're one of the very rare people, I feel like, especially, I'll call you a little bit younger. maybe not as old is the best way to put that but you've been at that job your whole life right basically? Yeah, eight years. Eight years and you're under 30. I hit 30 this year. You hit 30 this year so that you don't have to go anywhere is the moral of the story right? Yeah. No I've definitely advanced my career in those eight years. I went from pretty much not knowing much of anything other than like V-Lans and stuff like that to... you know, now we're doing ACI and that's a pretty complicated system. So I would agree with that. So when you say then that all you knew were VLANs, I mean, that's a bit of an exaggeration obviously, but how did you get this job then without any sort of knowledge? So I went to school. I got my associate's degree at ITT Tech. Rest in peace. Yep. And then it was a matter of knowing someone who was high up in the company. I went to school with her son. Actually, does he work there too? No, no, he doesn't work there. But you guys went to school together. We went to school together. Yeah. So you outperformed the family member. I don't know about that, but don't be shy. Do you come on? He didn't go into it though. So, yeah. So. Okay, that's fair. I don't think it was a competition, right? All right, well, you beat somebody out, I assume. We'll give you that. Yeah, I guess somebody. There was a position open and I filled it, so. Yeah, you did. Look at you. You're still filling it. Yeah. Nah. But yeah, it was a matter of knowing the right person and I sent her an email and a voicemail and basically was like, hey, you know, I'm just trying to get into IT. pretty much any position that they had open and I was open for that. Although my degree, I also mentioned that my degree was towards networking so she put me in that group pretty well. Were you finished with your degree or no? Yeah, I had already finished it. Okay. So, I wasn't even looking until after I got my degree. Got it. So, okay. So, you just randomly, the timing was perfect. You were about to graduate or you just graduated and... you came across a lady that was very nice and she was willing to help you. Yeah, it was probably about six months or so after I got my degree. All right. So that's not that bad, right? I mean, it can probably feel like an eternity, but you know, in the grand scheme of things, at least it was like your first job and you weren't transitioning between two. Right. Yeah. So I mean, I was working at a grocery store. OK. Doing what? This is important to the story. Okay. I actually worked at Kroger. Doing what? And I was a drug and GM general merchandise. What? A drug GM, which is drug and general merchandise. A drug dealer. You were dealing drugs. Yeah, vitamins. Supplements. A non-FDA approved drugs, scheduled five substances. Yeah, exactly. Goodness gracious. And they that my boss there knew that I was you know I got an IT degree so they worked with me pretty well on my schedule and everything. Like what do you mean like as far as like leaving to interview and things like that? Yeah yeah they knew they knew that I was I put four years into that job too so. All right well from drug kingpin to IT guy for eight straight years that's a heck of a transition. Yeah. So then did you do anything else besides get the ITT? I'm not trying to make it sound like, you know, I mean, ITT was just a flash. That was super easy. Anybody can do that. But did you get like a A plus or a CCNA or anything like that? No, no, just my associate's degree. OK, so to this day, do you have anything else other than that? Yeah, I have a C-cent, but that's about it. So then why did you get the C-cent after you already got a job? and you had the degree. It was just one of those things where I told myself in college that I wanted to get a certification. And I don't know. It's always been hanging over my head. And see, now I'm studying for the CCMP encore, which some people are like, why are you skipping CCNA? But I feel like after eight years, I should probably be able to take a CCMP at this point. Got some industry knowledge, right? Yeah. Maybe makes a little more sense. Right and don't ask me why I'm you know taking the CCMP because I don't really have a good answer because my job they uh it's kind of weird they don't really care about certifications so yeah it's more about just getting it for myself I guess. That's a good enough reason because you know I do we all do we hear varying things you know like oh either my work is paying for it or if I take it and pass it, I'll get a raise or I can't get to the next position without having it, right? Even though I'm internal, things like that. So you have no financial motive whatsoever, just it's all intrinsic. Yeah, exactly. I don't have a financial motive on it. So that's kind of why I haven't really pursued certifications up to this point. Right, because you're not leaving. Yeah, I don't plan on leaving anytime soon. So you're like a unicorn man, like anybody in tech. I mean, back me up on this here. Everybody loves to leave and go get more money. Right. Yes. We start to find our. But there's something to be said about, you know, that family. I mean, got Uncle Jim at the water cooler. You know, you get invited all the family functions, you know, pretty soon you're going to be in the CEO's will. Hey, at this company, the CFO started. He started there back when he was a teenager mowing the yard. So, wow, he's the CFO. So and you never even had to mow the yard. So I never had to even mow the yard. Dude, that's got inside. Sky's the limit for you, I guess. Right. Brad. Awesome. So I think. That's a good foundation because, you know, you are. I say unicorn, but like. It is rare, right? It's not that a, it's not that typical to hear of somebody that stays at someplace for eight years, especially that early in your career, because. You know, I don't want to say that like, for sure you could go somewhere else and make more money, but you know, often like, let's say, let's say that's true no, no matter what, let's say 100%. You could leave and go find money somewhere else. And that's like irrefutable, right? All the data backs it up and says, Hey, if you leave within two years, no matter what. If you have experience and another job on your resume, they're gonna give you more money. But. there's more to it than that, which is, first of all, this person did you a favor, you feel like a sense of kind of ownership there, it's a smaller place, you do a lot, and you feel valued, so, an extra $10,000 often can't solve that problem. Is that kinda how you feel? Yeah, and I look at it like grass is always greener on the other side. Just cause I get 10 grand more, does that mean I'm gonna be happier? Does that mean? you know, am I going to like the people that I work with, you know, that kind of thing. The team that I- We get like a deep philosophical discussion about what is happiness, right? Yeah, right. And is 10 grand more in my pocket going to make that big of a difference? Yeah. Yep. And so for like one thing, the team I currently work with, I've been working with most of them the entire time that I've been there. Like I work on a team where I've got 38 years. people in here and then I also have like you know 13 to this year. I think the other guy he's almost 20 years in and but we get it we get along super well. Yeah that's good man. That's like I was saying like a brotherhood right like a family type and I was joking about the CEO putting you in his will obviously but I mean that's just kind of like an exaggeration of what it actually feels like which is you guys are I mean you know each other you probably know each other's families right. I'm sure that. Right, yeah. So there's no price tag to that, right? Right. Some of us don't have offices, right? Like, pretty much all of us right now but yeah, you know, I would like to have something like that, maybe not to that extent but I think I'm somewhere, maybe not in the middle but 30% of that I would like, you know? At least one or two people that I knew for a long time. It just kind of seems like- flying in and out but yeah man, no that's a good story to start with so we appreciate you sharing. The exact opposite story however is probably, I'm gonna say Andy here because he started going to college and then quit immediately because he hated it. so that we can kind of put a geographical pin. So we geolocate your IP address. I'm about an hour outside of Philadelphia. Which direction? Northeast. Northeast, are you in Scranton? I'm close to Trenton, New Jersey. So no, not Scranton. Dang. Did you work for Dunder Mifflin? Hi. No, not yet. You guys remember the IT guy? They had like one IT guy. He was on like two seasons sporadically, right? He was a tall guy with the glasses. He was just really dorky looking. I mean, we're just being typecast out there, right? So I wanted to circle back to what you were talking to Dan about for a second. How often do you think people leave an IT job? And I'm only saying that because I was at the place before I am now. I was there for eight years. I've been at this place now for five years, and I'm pretty happy where I am. And it sounds like Dan's happy where he is too. So I know a lot of people jump around and ask for more money and all that stuff. But I don't know. I'm kind of with Dan. I don't really think I'm going anywhere anytime soon. It's not a great negotiating posture with my employer. But go ahead, AJ. I've jumped around a lot. And as we'll get to in my story, there's been various reasons. If I had found a place that had that home I probably would have hung out for a lot longer, but it's, it's either been motivated by, you know, maybe money at times, you know, just feeling like talking to my peers who had basically the same position, there was more money out there to be had. It definitely a feeling of like, I'm not challenged enough. I'm bored. And I want to do more. So yeah, I mean, I bounced around quite a bit in my career, but I wouldn't say that any move I made wasn't without purpose. Right. And it's not all about money, I guess it's like, Definitely not. I was making. And for me to do these things, but like I'm bored. You know, I'm not being challenged. And I got to get out of here, you know? You don't want to be the smartest guy in the room, right? Yeah, and I will say like, at points in my career, I've gotten to that where like I felt like I got too comfortable, right? I'm not challenging myself enough. But as our company has grown, it's kind of funny. Like when I started getting into those lulls, our company decides to move further with something. And then it's like, OK, now I get to learn this. And it's new to me. So, and that's kind of where I'm at right now is I've got, you know, a new set of Palo firewalls that I'm learning. I've got ACI that I'm learning. We do have an industry, right, that is very, you know, think on your feet, right? I mean, yes, businesses move at different paces, of course, but inevitably something will change, right? Like, you, Dan, in particular have some like 30 to 40-year-old equipment sitting in your You have a mainframe, right? And, but you're also deploying ACI and stuff, right? So like, it's hard to say that like, okay, just because you stay somewhere for eight years, you're not gonna learn anything and nothing's gonna be new to you because it's gonna keep challenging you because you're gonna get left behind, right? Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point to bring up. But so Andy though, you said that you would stay there now indefinitely because, You kind of like, I'll put this paraphrase, you found your home now, right? So it took a while to get there, but you had to quit college first. Yes. I don't know if I necessarily quit college. I took a sabbatical. Okay. Sabbatical means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Define sabbatical. I took like a year off. All right. That's fair. Alright, well start us there. Well actually start us where you quit. What was the breaking point? Well, I always, I like technical things, you know, as long as I can remember and tinkering and taking things apart, trying to figure out how they worked. Um, you know, I was, I wasn't boy genius at eight years old who, you know, you'd see those kids with those engineering kits and they're making their own motherboards. I mean, that wasn't me, but I was curious and I like to take things apart. So in college, I thought, well, you know, and computer science seemed like the way to go for me. Like, oh, I love computers, love working with them. Let's, let's do that. That's a good, you know, that's a good career. And, uh, you know, calculus C plus plus, Nope. Wasn't for me. Um, kind of ran with my tail between my legs out of that major. So coding was your Achilles heel. Yeah. Which is, you just couldn't get it. Now I just bounced it off my brain. I'm like, I don't know what the hell's going on here. So let's, let's hold onto that thought though. I'll let you continue, but let's, let's grasp that thought for a second. Cause you know, it's 2020 and I'm gonna like a boomerang. I think it's going to come flying back around here in a minute, but Um, go ahead sir. Sorry before I so really being i'm being forced to learn python right now. Yeah, okay Cats on the back. Yeah a little spoiler. All right, so you quit because of the coding right? It just didn't make sense I went to college because everybody went to college I mean, I didn't know you know what I wanted to do and what to do after high school a 17 year old kid Doesn't know what the hell he's doing and what did you know that the everybody went to college I went to college and I was the first person in my family on both sides to go to college. So I was kind of carrying that torch, like, yeah, I'm gonna do it. And it was all student loans, didn't have any money saved, blah, blah. And I don't know, it just, the first year wasn't all that successful and I really wasn't into it. And so I took a year off and worked construction with my dad for a year. And first day on the job, I smashed my thumb with a serrated framing hammer. And I was like, oh man. Off to a beat, sir. Yeah, first day in a trade and I'm like, I got to go back to college, man. You're like, man, you know what? I actually really like coding. Yeah, you know, I'm like, I can figure it out. So, you know, I wound up back in school, not for tech, but I just, I wanted to get a bachelor's. I wanted to be the, you know, I wanted to get a degree. And, you know, a couple of fits and starts in my career, some sales, some marketing. Well, what'd you get your degree in finally then? It was a bachelor's in like communications. I'm even embarrassed to tell you, like I was studying advertising. Who cares? It's not embarrassing. You know, it's embarrassing for me because I skip every ad that I can. Like, you know, a guy who spent a lot of money in college studying how to work in advertising and I can't stand ads. Well, you know how they make the sausage so you don't eat it anymore. Exactly. You know? But I was working my way through college. I was waiting tables and I didn't do any internships as a result. So when I graduated, there was no jobs. buddies I went to school with got out of school and got jobs because they had done, you know, three, four or five internships over the years. But for me, I'm like, well, I'm working my way through school. I don't have any experience. And the one place was like, well, we'll pay you like seven bucks an hour to file. Like, dude, I got like 40 grand in student loans and rent and car and shorts, like eight bucks an hour isn't going to cut it. So, you know, I, I wound up in some other, you know, my college career wasn't all that glorious or successful, but, um, I, I found my way back into tech. Um, I got a job at an ISP as a cable guy. Yep. And, um, you know, I loved it. I loved what we were learning. I love the technology. I love the challenge. Um, I really got into troubleshooting over time. I, I loved, you know, I love being the sixth, seventh, eighth tech they would send to a place. This guy's like, my internet's still not working and I don't know what's going on. And I know you're not going to fix it. Cause everybody did come. You know, I, I love that. I'm like, I'm going to find it. Yeah. And I usually did, I had like a two and a half percent repeat rate, which is like unheard of. I was good at my job. But over time, your body gets beat up. It's a physical job. I topped out at rate. I topped out kind of like what AJ said. I wasn't challenged at one point. I don't want to say I knew everything, but it just wasn't challenging anymore. You're just kind of going through the motions, right? Every single day. And I'm beating on my body and I'm going through the motions and I'm like, all right, there's another modem. Here's another cable box. I don't know, I wanted more, you know what I mean? And it's fine, I knew guys that were there 20, 30 years and that was cool and they had a life, you know. With that job. That's a good point to bring up because I don't want, my fear is that when I speak about any job that I had, and you guys probably feel the same way, it's like just because I felt as if I outgrew it doesn't mean that it's like less of a. And it's not like, oh, that's where I started or that's right. Cause you know, you hear this garbage about help desk. It's great segue into what AJ is probably going to talk about anyway. But you know, you hear all these like bad things about it. It was like, Oh, how long are you going to work at the help desk? You know what? So what, so what if you like it, stay there. Michael worked help desk for 20 years. Loved it. Yeah. Like, like what if you're just really good at that? Like, you know, don't shame somebody because they want to go and do that. You know, because there's people out there that like being cable. I was one of them. I was also a cable guy. We did the exact same thing, right? I loved it as well. I had the exact, literally the exact thought that you did. I'm going through the motions, it's too easy. Super low repeat rate just like you. By the way, repeat is like anytime, you know, someone has to come behind you and fix something. So for those of you who are listening, have no idea what the heck we're talking about there. But so yeah, having a really low repeat rate means that you... you know, 99% of the time in your case, or 98% of the time are fixing it. And that's because it got easy to you, right? Not because like you worked any harder. Just got easier. Yeah. And it doesn't mean that those guys aren't as, those guys aren't as like, they're still good. Like, like, like you said, and this is kind of like obviously striking a chord with me right now, but I just want everyone to know that it's perfectly okay to stay a cable guy for your entire life, system tech, line tech, head end tech. know, help this person, whatever you want. There's nothing wrong with that. As long as you're happy. Absolutely. And great. Sorry. Yeah. No, no. As long as you're happy. And I guess my happiness was decreasing the longer I stayed there. I really didn't see a career path. You know what I mean? You top out at rate, you top out at responsibility, you're not challenged anymore and they're like, well, you can go into management, take a pay cut, give up your overtime, maybe in five years you'll start. But I mean, that's the career path, you know what I mean? Yeah, right. Traditional career path, right? Climb the quote unquote corporate ladder. So you're a cable guy. You're like, I'm topped out. I'm making as much money as I can. What a problem to have, huh? I'm making as much money as they can possibly pay me. Although that sounds cool, it's really not a whole lot anyway. Just try to be normal basically. What you might feel is normal, right? So now we're in a circumstance where we're thinking, okay, maybe that 10 grand look over at that other place is something that would make me happy, right? So where did you go from there? Yeah. Well, my body, not only I wasn't challenged, but my body was also getting beat up so- Physically. Yeah. You're carrying heavy equipment, you're climbing holes. It's very physical. You're digging ditches. So- A buddy of mine was going to school for CCNA. He was going to Cisco Networking Academy. He was the second person in like six months to mention it. Because I was probably having this conversation with them, I'm having with you. And I'm kind of bored of the job. I want more, I'm ambitious. Where can I go with this? I have transferable skills. I just don't know where to take them. Like, dude, you ought to look into the CCNA. We're putting devices on a network and there's somebody somewhere managing this network. And they're called a network engineer and they get paid more than us. They sit at a computer, they don't climb ladders. I'm in. Where do I sign? Yeah, all right. So, I sat in on a class. He asked the instructor if I could come and the instructor is a CCMP, really nice guy. I sat in and I loved it. I was fascinated. It was really difficult, but I'm like, I think I can do this if I apply myself. You know, at the same time, I fell in love with a girl who's now my wife, so she had a good career. I wanted one. I want to be able to provide for a future family. So there was a couple things feeding into it, but I signed up for Cisco's Networking Academy. I spent eight months there, a bunch of money. We started a study group at the time, which was fantastic because I was having a hard time. All right, quick plug. Quick plug. Study group. Shout out to your first one there because obviously you got a CCNA from it. I don't want to spoil that, but we have one now that I believe everybody in here, and myself included at least twice, now have been in for the CCNP. If you want to get in that, just link up with one of us on one of the social media outlets. Anyway, sorry, continue. It's all about the journey. That's where you'll find them. But yeah, we're getting to the good part. So I failed the CCNA a bunch of times, but I had a lot of support from my study group. They hung in there with me. I was the last person to pass in our study group. And they all kept signing on. They didn't have to. They passed. They were done with it. But they hung in there and they helped me. And it was fantastic. And I was applying, I was looking for jobs with CCNA in the description and the requirements. And there was an internal posting for the NOC at the ISP, their national NOC. And I applied and they blew me off. Well, they're looking for somebody with WAN experience, you're not what they're looking for. And I knew this is where I needed to go. It was in the same company. I felt like I could bring my physical layer skills to a break-fix scenario. And You know, it's how do you get that first job, you know, without the experience? And I thought, well, because it's in the same company, maybe I can leverage that. You know what I mean? Maybe that's a foot in the door. It's good. It's good. That's why it was my thought process. And they blew me off. And I followed up with the recruiter every two weeks for months until I finally got myself in front of the hiring manager. And, you know, it was terrifying. The technical interview was really tough. I didn't know a lot of the technology. You know, an ISP network's pretty No, we don't use that. Yeah, I know. It's crazy. They offered me the job and they told me, like, we've never hired a cable guy here. We hire computer science majors. Now, wait a minute, and this is at the ISP? Correct. The one I currently work at. Yes, sir. So they offered me the job, but they gave me the caveat that you're going to have to prove yourself. You're going to have to earn this. We're going to give you a shot. You're hungry. You're passionate. but we also know you're not our typical candidate. So they liked me and they saw that I was- Well that goes to show you that you don't, guys, gals, animals, whoever's listening, you do not need to read the job description as if it's the 10 Commandments to get into heaven, right? These are, it's like when you go to the car lot and you see the manufacturer suggested retail price, right? You can get the car for lower than that. You don't have to pay that full price. The CCNA was all I had for that job posting. So you had it at this point, right? They gave you a chance. They saw you were hungry. I had it. Yeah, you had it. They saw you're hungry. They were like, look, you're not good enough on paper. However, you did an awesome interview because I could tell you care. You're passionate. So remember that. That's a good tip. AJ will probably echo that as well. Absolutely. You get the job at the knock. You're not at the knock now. How'd you go, why'd you go, two questions, two part question. Why'd you leave the knock and are you still working at the same company? So why I left the knock was over time, I started to get better and better at the job. Okay, same story, right? Started to rise up through the levels. I was less and less challenged. I'm like, oh yeah, there's an alarm in spectrum. I can create a ticket, I can dispatch a tech, uh-huh. Then you found yourself in the same position, right? I knew more. After a couple of years, you learned it. Yep. So a recruiter reached out to me on LinkedIn, said, you're a perfect fit, blah, started talking. I liked the guy. We talked for an hour and a half. And it was the same kind of thing. He got me in front of the hiring manager and I bombed the technical interview. So I thought they gave me 10 things to do in GNS and I couldn't do most of them. It was supposed to be a half hour interview. I think I was there for close to two hours. Do you remember any of the things they had you do just real quickly? Yeah, it was a whole network topology. There were two hosts, two routers going up to a cloud, a BGP ISP, and they basically wanted me to build the entire network from scratch, get the hosts online, talk to them in Switch, do some VLANs, get routing up to the cloud, redistribute. It was way over my head. Yeah. I was sitting at a knock. That sounds intense. I mean, that- Let's be honest here, that's not CCNA level stuff. No, but it's what they gave me and I almost ran out of the room more than once. I'm like, I can't do this. I don't belong here. I'm an imposter. I got to, I literally stopped myself from running out of the room and saying, bye, I got to go, this isn't for me. I'm, you know, but I hung in there and I'm sitting at lunch an hour later with my now wife and I'm like, I blew it. You know, I really needed this. And the recruiter called me while we're there and she's like, They loved you, you got the offer, when can you start? Wow. Nice. Holy hell, yeah. And at the time, I'm getting married, we're buying a house, we wanna have a kid. And I doubled my income leaving the NOC going to... Woo! Almost doubled. And it wasn't like I'm leaving for money, but again, I'm ambitious, I wanna be able to provide for my family, I wanna be challenged, and that's exactly what this job was. It was for a Fortune 500 company and- It's the job you're at now. Yeah, in the financial services industry and when you're not leaving. No, not anytime soon because I'm very challenged there. And I'm I joke that I'm the dumbest guy in a lot of the rooms I'm in these meetings because I'm just, it seems like every call I'm on now, I'm surrounded by architects and my head spinning and I'm like, Oh my God. And it's, yeah, I guess it's exhausting, but it's, it's where I want to be. It drives you, you know, it makes you, it does. I don't think you're in danger of, you know, what happened before happening, right? That's the biggest takeaway, I think from there. So that's good. Right. So you're a WAN guy. It's a great job. Yeah, I'm building networks. I started out on the client side, then we got moved over to data center three years ago. I managed the global WAN for the data centers. I love it. We're getting into, I have to learn automation now. Back to the coding. And Dan, I don't really need a CCMP. In my mind, I'm just doing it for a learning plan, for a learning path. I want to keep learning and I don't know what to study. So this track tells me how to. And you know, also if I ever wind up in the job market, I'm going to need it. I don't see myself leaving anytime soon, but hey, it's, you know, it's a crazy world. You don't know what's coming down the pike. So yeah. No, that's good, man. No. That's kind of how I got to where I'm at. And I'm really excited to talk to you guys because I don't know about you, but anybody else I talk to that isn't a network engineer has no idea what I do. No idea. My wife still doesn't know what I do when she works for a software company. Well, that shouldn't be too much help because I still don't know really what I do. So that's Much help there. Yeah, no, that's it. That's cool I mean, I have obviously have a similar not so obviously since you don't know but Andy does know that I have a similar story to his and I'll share that too. But Right now I want to kind of get to AJ because You know, he was in Vermont. He does not contrary to popular belief just sit around and eat chunky monkey all day Which is a Ben and Jerry's ice cream guys if you don't know that and is it chunky monkey? Yeah, chunky monkey. Chunky monkey Okay, Vermont first of all, where's Vermont? In New England north of Boston south of Montreal So right next to good old New York. You're in the top right corner for those of you playing along at home. Yep. All right You're not in a major metropolitan area Definitely not. Okay, so there are more trees than people At what point there was more cows than people. Like and I'm talking like recently within the last decade that finally changed. That's a that's a really rad stat. It's pointless. But it's like if you ever travel, I live in California, if you ever traveled out here and said something like that, you would blow everybody's minds. I mean, we have a lot of cows out here, too, surprisingly. Wisconsin, you guys ain't really nothing. Quit trying to pretend like you like the cheese capital. You're not. That's just funny, though. I love those those. You got anything else, right? And that we need to know about? A lot of random manufacturing actually. It's really weird, like the sleeper places that are up here. There's like, you know that company, Nokia and Hacapalita, like one of their world headquarters happens to be like a town over from me. Whoa. Yeah. That's so weird. Get all the fancy snow tires from them. Okay, so tires. Ben and Jerry's, Bernie Sanders. It's basically all everyone has. Probably some pretty good maple syrup if I had to guess. Oh, yes. Yeah. Rad. I point out the non-metropolitan area thing because I think it's important and Dan is kind of subject to this as well because he's in the greater Nashville area, the greater part of Nashville, which is not Nashville. Don't get too confused. Yeah, it's about an hour south of it. Yeah, so you're an hour south of it. Andy is in the greater Pennsylvania area. But you know, over there, I mean, Andy's probably closer to like five major cities than most people on this planet. He's probably like an hour and a half from most of our major East Coast cities. But you, you're kind of out there man. So the job market's much different, which is why I'm harping on it. And yet you seem to have had somewhere upwards of 12 jobs in the past 15 years. Is that accurate? 12 might be a little much, but I've had quite a few jobs for sure. Okay, 11. I don't know, I have to go back and count. I've changed jobs too many times at this point. Okay, see that. Why bring it up? So you have changed a lot. Dan has not. And we kind of heard somewhere in the middle there, Andy, who kind of started to change a little bit, found his own path. Now he's not going anywhere. If you're also, if you were Andy's employer, please ear muffs. He's not going anywhere. Um, you on the other hand, I want, I want to scare your employer to death because you are. like a, I don't even know what to call that, like a ping pong ball dude. You're all over the place. You just bounce them back and forth but you sort of had a non-traditional start too, right? Does it involve college? Give us the breakdown there. Yeah, totally. So, I would say that IT was not my original path. I went to high school and my high school had this tech center attached to it and one of the programs there was aviation technology which I was in and I loved it. It was great. I thought I was going to be a helicopter mechanic, aircraft mechanic, doing something fancy like that. I graduated and then September 11th happened and the first thing the airline industry did was lay off a bunch of aircraft mechanics because you can have like 10 unlicensed guys working under one licensed guy and I just knew that if I stuck with that path and pursued my airframe and power plant license A&P. I was going to be fighting kind of an uphill battle, right? Like I'm going to be competing with guys that have been in this industry for a long time, already had your license, and it's just going to be really hard for me to get a job. So I took a little bit of a break, found my way into IT. I started college, you know, going for my associates, and it was just like a general Ed degree. And I took a C++ programming class, and I was like, this is a lot of fun. I don't know if I have the patience to sit here and program all day. But this whole IT thing is really for me. And one of the last classes I took before I left community college was networking. And I was like, okay, this is my jam. Okay. This is a lot of fun. I can see this being a very viable thing to do for the foreseeable future. But, you know, as you mentioned, the job market here in Vermont is a little weird, right? So there's a lot of companies that need IT, but they're not so big that they need a networking guide. Specialist, yeah. Right, right. There's no siloed teams of people that just do networking or just do this or just do that. It's just like Dan, right? Because he does the same thing. His title even had a dual role behind it, right? Which is typical. Yeah. So it was like a jack of all trades, master of nothing kind of thing for many, many years. And yeah, I bounced around. My first IT job I got in because I was hungry. I was still going to college full time. I was going for my bachelor's to get a bachelor's in... networking and information security. And I was working full-time, but it wasn't in IT. And I was like, I gotta get some experience. I gotta break in. And so I got some help from a career department person there. She helped me kind of dress up my resume to fit the position that I was applying to. And she really coached me on how do I go through this interview process? Because applying for a real big boy job, a real IT job was nothing compared to some of the jobs that I had applied to in the past. So. Yeah, she really helped me out. It was great. I got the job. Um, and I think that I got it because, you know, I showed them I was hungry, you know, like, like what Andy was saying, he was being really persistent and getting back to the recruiter and be like, Hey, what's the status? Like I want this job, you know, I want this opportunity kind of thing. I want to break in. And so I, you know, I didn't pester the, the IT manager that I was interviewing with, but it was definitely a look. I know I don't have the experience. I know I haven't worked anywhere, but I have a home lab. I'm studying to do this. I volunteer and do IT stuff on the side. And here is where the little bit of experience I have can tie into what you're looking for. And here's how I can help you. So you didn't, at this point, you just, I just want to clarify and level set for everybody. You did not have the degree. Correct. You did not have any certifications. Correct. You had a home lab. I did. It was a laptop. You had a home lab that was just a laptop. It was just a laptop. No, no virtualization yet, baby. No virtualization. So you were running what server? Windows Server 2003? Yeah, Windows Server, like 2003 on a compact Rosario. My goodness. And, you know, this is the thing. I need this. I need, you know, even certifications or degrees, whatever. If I'm going to do. home lab, what should I get, virtual or hard equipment, right? Clearly all you need is a compact prosaario. Virtual is not an option. I mean I'm sure virtualization was around back then but it was not an option for the home labber. Not accessible. Absolutely not. No, not accessible for sure. So you basically put your home lab as like a pre-rec. even though they didn't even ask for that, right? But that showed, just like Andy brought up, it showed that you are passionate. They made him configure a bunch of stuff in GNS3 that was probably beyond nerve wracking. And then you're like, disapproving, and he thinks he's failing. And just like you, you read the prerequisites and all the what they wanted, quote unquote wanted, you didn't have any of that. And you were like, hey, I got this Home Lab. started pestering the guys, they were like, oh, he's interested. He cares about this kind of stuff. Like, look, I'm going to hire, if I'm a car mechanic, like shop, I'm going to hire the car mechanic dude for my shop that does this stuff for fun. Like, you know, he goes to races and you know, he's into, he's building a, you know, an old hot rod in his garage. Oh, why wouldn't you do that? It doesn't make any sense. And I don't care that he's been to mechanic school or not. He's probably learned more. Like Dan, like Dan, Dan doesn't have any certificate. He has a CSENT, right? And I don't want to downplay that, but there's guys out there with CCNPs, right? That could probably do exactly what he does. But you go to market yourself and sometimes that helps, right? So, so you got the first job. Was single yester, no question. Was this a help desk job? Yes. How long did you last? I was there for 14 months. Okay. And. I did not leave on my own accord. I was laid off. Okay. Why? It was just a tough time, man. I was a construction company. It was during the really bad economic downturn. 2008, yeah, market crash? Yep, 2008, 2009. And yeah, it was just, it was time to cut some heads at the company to start saving some dollars. And I survived a couple of rounds of layoffs. And then finally it just came up, right? Like, okay, IT's gotta make some cuts. Everybody else is making cuts. Yeah. I was the last one on, so I was the first one out. And the day that I got laid off, my boss called me into his office and you could tell there was a thickness in the room. This was about to be a bad conversation. But in the same sentence, he's just like, look, I gotta let you off. It's not something I really wanna do. I've never had to do this before. It's really tough for me. I've done some research. I've talked to some people I know and I found you another job. And you literally just have to call the guy and tell him you're interested and he'll hire you. I've told him all about you and it was just like, talk about a roller coaster of emotions. So yeah, so yeah. I joke about this all the time, but you're the only guy to get fired and hired by the same guy in the same breath. Is that a fair assessment? Absolutely, it is. So you already have this news to break to your wife and you're like, hey, guess what? I got good news and I got bad news. Which do you want first? Well, they're kind of the same. To make things worse, I got fired, but I also got hired. So you get this other job, right? That this dude so gracefully hooked you up with because you did such a good job there. You continued to show that you were hungry, which is great. Are you at that job still? No. Okay. So was that job a help desk job? No. I went through many more jobs since then. All right. Was that job a help desk job? It was not. It was my first kind of foray into network engineering. Okay. And this is at where? So it's just a small company that it was literally just me and the owner and he was doing his own consulting and he did a number of different things focused around networking. We would provide consulting services to other businesses. We'd go in and help with our network stuff. He did CCNA classes, CCNP classes. He would get hired around the country. And so a lot of the times I would be, you know, here taking care of our customers or going on site and doing stuff. And then he would be who knows where, right? Like he literally, I think he like met his wife at a hotel in Spain, cause that's where he was teaching sometimes. And so he was, he was getting sent all over the place to do Cisco classes. What a byproduct of getting a CCNA, huh? Meaning your Spanish wife. So I worked for him for six, eight months. It was a fun job. I loved working with the customers, getting my hands on stuff. One of his big focuses was Cisco UC. And so I was really getting my hands dirty, learning call manager and all that stuff. But I was still in college. I hadn't graduated yet and I was headed into my senior year and I just could not see doing all of the traveling that I was doing. still attend classes and work on senior project. So you're still not finished with school? Nope. And you still have no certification? Nope. And you're on your second job? Yep. Alright, that's rad. How many jobs between then and now were there? Oh man, I'm not ready for that one. Let's see. So I wasn't joking when I said 11. Yeah, I don't know. So basically what I'm getting at is you kind of had the same, I hate calling it the same because it's very different, but similar to what Andy described which is you got hungry, there's something about it that just wasn't cutting it for you. Either you were outgrowing it or it was undergrowing you or whatever. and you decided to move on to greener pastures. Or as Dan said, the grass is greener on the other side. It's not always true, but in your case, you almost ran out of grass to eat. So by default, didn't matter what color it was, you had to get over there because you had to eat. So you're at a company now, and what do you do there? So I work for a VAR or value added reseller. We work with all sorts of businesses and we help bring in new IT solutions. So they want, it could be literally anything, right? Like they want to set up a couple of routers for a new point to point. We'll go in and do that. They want to deploy Cisco ACI. We'll go in and do that. So we do a number of different things. And so my role there as a network deployment engineer, I primarily serve the Northeast. So, you know, as far down as Pennsylvania, all the way up to, to Maine is like kind of my primary domain, but I go where the work is. Yeah. So you guys basically have like a sales team, right? That goes out and says, Hey, here's what your business is. Here's what you could benefit from. Here's what we can do. Here's how we can accomplish that. And then you, you were the one that goes in, does all the dirty work, right? Yeah. I don't do a whole lot of pre-sales. I'll sometimes jump in and it's usually just kind of like a show of force thing. Right? Like, see, we've got guys that do this. They, they know what they're doing and, you know, Ask them anything, right? They can definitely come in and install this. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Gotcha. So, that's cool because, you know, you get to see where Andy and Dan see one network all day every day, same one. You get to see a bunch. Totally. Right? And you get to mess with all, I say mess with them, I don't want to scare any of your customers, but you know, you get to play with it. Yeah. And it's different every time. I definitely have intimate knowledge of a lot of different business networks that I, you know, of various customers. And it's really cool because they're all doing the same thing, right? They're all moving data, but they're all doing it in very different ways. Yeah. And there's just so many different things that can affect that too. So you do have your, what now? You have a CCNA? I have my CCNA. I have a couple of VMware certifications, nothing major. I'm currently working on CCNP Encore. You got one. I did? You did. I forgot a certification. My friend, you have a CCDA. Oh yeah, of course. I'm staring at it. It's right in front of me. It's right in front of you. Yeah. I got my CCDA. Even you overlook it. Like, what does that tell you? I know, right? I try to tell, I put it in my email signature and everything, man. I'm proud of that sucker. Yeah. Well, I think, I think it's a big deal for you because the job you do is very. design oriented, not like you're the one designing things necessarily, but I think what design teaches you is, you know, this is called the art of network engineering, most of which is a science because things are there. Like the other two gentlemen that we spoke to, Andy and Dan, they have a very static network, right? Things do change, but not like they do for someone like you and I, right? Where we're just constantly looking at new things and there's an art to that, right? Like, There's an art to figuring out every time something new. Like, OK, what am I going to do with this? Or how am I going to do that? I'm not saying that doesn't happen elsewhere, but you know what I mean. I didn't want you to gloss over that because A, I know you have it. And B, I think it's important. Because C, I have it. Guess what? I'm self. So there. I want to be AJ when I grow up. Yeah, same. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know man. I'm trying to get them VMware certs man. That guy is super helpful. By the way, if you guys ever need anything with VMware, please holler at this guy here because he's got more knowledge on VMware and you know, I'm basically just an idiot when it comes to VMware. So I ask him the most basic of questions and he's very capable in answering them. So to me, that equals a genius. Also his blog is super awesome because... It's got all the steps and processes you might need to get in there. You can check that out. It, uh, it's just no blinky blinky.com. Uh, yeah. Blog We'll put links in the description. Yeah. And he's holding up the no blinky sticker. I have one on my laptop next to me too. So we're out here repping the set. So to speak. So yeah, if you ever need any VMware stuff, so very diverse set of stuff that you have under your belt, but yeah, I. Just wanted to make sure that you mentioned the design thing because it's near and dear to my heart. Just like Andy talking about being a cable guy because I'm selfish. So there you go. Awesome. So now you're not going to stay there forever. That's cool. I kind of feel like you've been at this one for quite some time. I'm sort of in the same boat. A little different though. I've moved basically every time I got a new job. And it's not like I moved to the next town. I move clear across the country because Hashtag wanderlust That was a joke Not really like that Although I did move a lot when I was a kid. So that it makes it a lot easier for me Obviously my wife hates it but is what it is. But Yeah, you know, uh, I started out i'm in san diego now and I started out in the midwest closer to dan as a cable guy in St. Louis, Missouri. And I negotiated the heck out of my $12 an hour salary. Cause everybody else was getting 11 and I had experience. And I was trying to work at the cable company, you guys, for years. I could not get a job. They would not hire me. I found out later that the job that I was applying for was at our one union shop in the entire company. So it was a completely different process. Everybody there made the same amount of money. It was a very strange situation. not knocking unions, I'm just knocking this particular shop because they would not hire me. I eventually got hired, shout out to Dan Meener and it was almost like it opened the door to why my internet was the way it was at home and I thought that was the coolest thing in the world. I made the sausage analogy earlier but it's literally like that, right? Once you see how they make the sausage, you probably stop eating it. But in this case, you know, I was the guy that went home every night and was like, no, actually your internet is not slow because of that. So good try. You know, and wireless wasn't really a thing back then either. So that was like new. And so here we were just like, just like every other average consumer, like trying to help them figure out, oh, do you have a 900 megahertz baby monitor? Perhaps. Uh, look at that super genius. I'm basically Albert Einstein guys. You're welcome. I fix that problem for you. You know, stupid stuff like that but I think Andy hit the nail on the head when it was like, you know, you're the guy that's getting called out as the eighth or ninth guy out there because nobody else could fix it and then you find it super easy. I mean, really at the end of the day, all you had to do is rewire the whole place and nine times out of ten that would fix it because nobody wanted to do that and that was the hard thing to do physically and that would fix the problem. But you'd have guys swapping out modems nonstop and that was just kind of frustrating but you know, and then there's just other stuff that you were just so good at and you didn't realize it and you kind of found yourself in... I guess the best way to put it is a league of your own. So I became one of the first business techs that our company had. So that was a cool, new and exciting thing. It's the exact same thing, but it's out of business. So you get to see lands and stuff, doctor's offices and car dealerships. Basically everybody's first job that they had here, I was the other side of that, obviously other than Andy. We were the guys that were going in there and we could see everything that you're doing like, oh, why is it you have this switch here, this router? I had no idea what I was doing from a land side. Zero clue. I could tell you that there was two IP addresses and a slash 30. One of them was going to be the gateway on your modem and the other one was going to be the IP that you got. I didn't know why. That's all I knew. Call it enough to be dangerous, but it's not really a term that applies there. That was not dangerous whatsoever. But you know, that job as a business technician is what got me a job as a trainer because someone needed to train business technicians. So there I was all of a sudden a trainer and I got to be the guy that taught the cable school. You know, you had to do all the nitty gritty. You had to climb telephone poles, right? Teach people how to climb telephone poles with spikes on their feet to troubleshooting the wifi in a best Western. Right? I mean, it just runs the gamut. It's crazy, but it's a lot of cool stuff. So I think being a trainer is very similar to what I do now in that You have to know your audience. Can't be talking over people's heads. We made the analogy of somebody flipping burgers a week before and then all of a sudden you're thrust into this whole new industry of things that you've never even heard of. You know, you got modulation and cable and you know, all the physical stuff that goes with it. It's a lot to palette and everybody learns at a different speed. Fun fact, everybody actually does learn the same, regardless of what you may think. You all learn the same, we're all humans. We have preferred learning styles, but we all learn the same. Um, and it's just interesting cause you're now on the other side of the coin at the same place, right? Having a trainer job that I was there for like three years, super rewarding. And I outgrew that right. Cause you're basically doing the same classes over and over. So I don't really know how, how high school teachers and dude, my dad and I had the same. Geography teacher My dad is 31 years older than I am That guy was in that high school teaching that same class for at least 31 years That that same class dude. I don't know how they do that I really don't like I hats off to you. That's impressive. I just couldn't personally um granted I was you know, it's year-round but whatever but it was still super rewarding so I do understand that part of it, but You know, having that trainer job got me a slash trainer job at another place where I was a sales engineer slash trainer. And again, I moved across country for this job. I moved to the San Francisco Bay area and I did a lot. I wrote curriculum. I did a bunch of stuff. You know, I made it all up. Like, you know, I didn't make it up. It wasn't like fake. It wasn't fiction. You know, scientific. No, it was nonfiction. Okay. I was writing technical stuff, but it just didn't exist at the company. It's crazy. Normally you take something and you teach it to someone because somebody gives you the paper to teach with. I was also writing the paper to teach with. So I was like, what do I wanna say here, right? But then I was also doing the sales engineering stuff, which is cool because then I'm basically doing the same thing. I'm like, oh, now I'm just teaching a customer how it works. Oh no, this is how we do it. And then you go back and you teach the sales team, hey guys, this is how this works and this is how you do it. Oh, it's like, I'm basically saying the same thing, just different people. Again, know your audience. So did you feel like training and sales were kind of the same thing? Identical, absolutely identical. Really, okay. Yeah. You're training, you're enlightening, right? You're, I guess maybe you're trying to always get a point across and how you get that point across is the art of it, right? Which I described earlier, or I said was the art of network engineering, I guess. But yeah, that's an interesting question, but I totally, totally agree that training and teaching and educating are similar to being in a sales role, if you're good. Yeah. And that's why I'm asking, because I was in sales for a couple of years and I hadn't really considered that training would be so close to that because sales was so far and to me at the time, but I guess, yeah, you really are just educating people and giving them information and, you know, you're directing the conversations into a direction you want them to go in, but I guess it is pretty similar. Yeah. I mean, you know, ultimately, I feel like as a human, your first priority should be to help people because you will be much happier. And if I'm helping people by teaching them or telling them about something that can help their business, same exact thing. Yeah. Right? It's teaching, it's helping, it's all that. So you know, there's a nasty kind of like, I guess like dark cloud that falls around I mean, I'm not personally a salesperson, but I do support. It probably depends on what you're selling. I was selling used cars. Okay, so that's the one, right? Right. And everybody who says used cars salesmen like it's a dirty word. Yeah, and there's a good reason that they have a bad rep. I've never met a sales engineer, you know what I mean? So I'm curious to what that job is like and what you do because sales is dirty to me, but I understand what you're doing isn't. You're not. You're not lying to people and manipulating them so that they can buy the only car they can afford on the lot when you know it's a piece of junk. That's the downside of used car sales. Right. When you're trying to get rid of something. So being a used car salesman is like you're trying to get rid of something, right? Like you're trying to just like liquidate. Here it's, and I'll say this about my sales folks that I've supported in the past and that I support now, especially their professionals. They are. just as much focused on the same things that I am because they wouldn't be as far as they are now just trying to push product and get things off quote unquote off the lot, right? Right. If they weren't genuinely helping, they wouldn't be in the position they are right now. And I'll take that with every like all three of the one, the sales folks that I support directly to this day, right? They're, they all fall in the same category. So. When do they bring you in? Cause you're the technical guy, right? Like they're the sales guys, but then they need you to come in and explain technically and talk to the engineers and stuff. Is that, is that when they bring you in? Yeah. I mean, I would talk to like a guy like you, right? Like, like if you, if they pulled you into the thing and the, in, you know, you might have questions like, Hey, I want to get a point to point circuit between my data centers, you know, what are my options here? I currently have, you know, XYZ company that happens to be a, uh, a LEC, which is a local exchange carrier, right? Like the traditional telco. And then I would say, okay, well, we can give you this. This is what the technology is that provides that link between the two. Maybe even things like, hey, this is where it's coming in the building so that it's not anywhere near what your other stuff is coming into the building, right? There's just a bunch of different things, which is the art part of it, which is so cool, right? Hey, you know, what's the what are the constraints? What are the what are the budgets? And it's all stuff AJ and I learned in that CCDA thing, which I thought was always so rad. I use that stuff to this day, like almost daily. Like. Do you remember that first part of that book, AJ? It was like it was very process driven stuff, which was usually you're kind of like, come on, don't give me this crap, right? Yeah. But it was like organizational goals, organizational constraints, technological goals. technological constraints. All of those are completely different and yet they almost like influence each other and most decisions are money driven by someone who's not in like a CIO or CTO role, right? They're coming from the CEO and they have a budget and they've got to find out what to do and then I help them find out what that is from us, right? So I did learn a lot from that so that's cool. Again, shout out to the study group though, because we need to be getting those certs and staying on top of stuff guys, which is why I got the Juniper one too, because we have Juniper stuff in our core. So I'm currently a sales engineer now. I support our Fortune 50 accounts, Fortune 100 accounts. So companies like Andy's. Yeah, and I directly interface with them whenever my sales folks, to answer your question, kind of like get... If it's like a first meeting situation, you know, it just depends on the audience. But I like to go typically all the time. But it goes back to what I was saying earlier about knowing your audience. You want to make sure that, you know, if it's just the CTO and CFO and CIO there, you're talking about organizational stuff. You know, like where's the business going and things like that. You don't need to tell them that, you know, you can guarantee them less than seven milliseconds between two, you know what I mean? They don't care. Whatever, dude. That's the stuff you impress the, the feet on the street guys with, right? But they don't want to hear that kind of stuff. So you got to know who you're talking to and when you're talking to. And the reason I'm asking the question is there's some things about sales I really enjoyed and I always thought now that I'm in an engineering role, if I ever did foray back into sales, I think sales engineering would kind of be the I think you would be good at it personally. I mean, I, I do think there's a certain type of person that can excel at it. I don't think that there's a certain type of person that fits like the quote unquote mold because I work with some people that are very, they're not like me personality wise, like, you know, I'm a bit of an extreme case. I guess I'm more like outgoing and like, you know, boisterous, I guess. But some of them are very quiet, but they know their stuff, right? And speak when spoken to and you know, things like that. But when they say, it's like Dan doesn't talk very much, but when he does, better listen, better listen. The accent. So Yeah, and I had to move, you know, even with my current company that I've only been with for five years, I've moved twice now for this company. For that job? Yeah, just for like, kind of like ranking up within my title, right? So like sales engineer responsibility, I guess is the best way to put that. So yeah, so yeah, we're kind of a mixed bag of folks here, right? Like some of us have been, I've been around the block, literally, geographically. AJ's had every single tech job that's available in the Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine area in some parts of South Canadian. Andy, him and I were working in parallel universes together, and Dan has yet to fly out of the nest. He's a failure to launch. He'll get there soon. I'm just teasing you, Dan. I don't know where I'm going to launch to, though. I don't know either. There's no destination. You don't sound like the type of dude that drinks rocket fuel so I don't know that you're gonna, I don't know you're gonna be launching anywhere. They make moonshine down there man, it's pretty close to rocket fuel. Watch out for that moonshine. I'd almost say it's better than rocket fuel but you know. That moonshine will affect your ability to achieve an encore CCNP exam. I think one of the takeaways for me, Aaron, is that there's so many ways to get into the field and to engineering. When I was a cable guy trying to figure out how I was going to do it, I just didn't, I didn't really know there was a path. I thought, well, you got to go for school for computer science or you got to be a, I don't know. I didn't think I had what it took. Well, is there a path though? Well, there's a lot, I guess. I mean, there's the four of us who talk. I would say that there is none. There's so many that it's almost like, all right, if there's like a bazillion paths in front of you, it's like, where's the spot between the paths, right? There isn't one. It's just like one big open area. Yeah. Like if you're out there listening and you're like, oh, I'd like to get into network engineering, but I don't know how. You talk to 50 different network people. There's probably 50 different stories on how they got there. So I think the more you talk to people in the community, the more helpful it is. And that's... That's why I'm jazzed for, you know, like this podcast, for example, we'll be able to talk to a lot of different people and not only learn technical stuff, but you know, how did you get the job? How did you get in the field? It's the four of us have four vastly different ways we got to kind of the same place, which is important for somebody, I think, trying to get in. Yeah. I think it's important to say that just because there's no wrong answer. There's also no right answer, right? So there's no 100% this is how you have to do it. You need to understand. Right, there's no clear, there's no like prescribed path. Like if you follow these steps, it will guarantee you a job. That's definitely not the case. I thought you had to get your CCNA. Yeah. Dan didn't, AJ didn't. So, you know, my, you know, hey, get a CCNA and get a network engineer job. Maybe not. Dude, I'll tell you this. I know you've mentioned this in the past, you in particular, Andy, is that. You almost quit over subnetting, you know, during your CCNA studies. Yeah. It's strange because I didn't get my CCNA until much later. And I was actually, when I was a trainer, I was actually teaching subnetting to folks and have a CCNA, right? I was like that guy that was like, Oh, what the hell? Why do I need it? I know everything in here. I think, I think I hold it up on a pedestal because it got me, you know, up and out of the field. It was. It was that checkbox that HR needed to talk to me. Totally. I agree with that. Without that, they weren't going to talk to me. But talking to you guys, it's not a prerequisite. You don't have to. There's a lot of different ways in, which is, I think, helpful to hear. Yeah. According to AJ, there's no prerequisites, right? He had a server on his laptop. I didn't get my CCNA until just a few years ago. I got mine in 2018. I had a master's. I've got degrees and stuff like that, but I didn't have the certs. And for me, getting the CCNA was to help me get back into doing the technical stuff, because I had climbed the ladder up to manager. And so, that's when I decided like, okay, no, I want to go back and do the tech stuff. Like the CCNA is what I set my eyes on, because what got me into IT in the first place was networking and that's where I wanted to get back to. Yeah. No, we're all kind of right on the money, I feel like. And what we aim to do here is... I guess like if we had to put like a nice bow and a wrapper on it would be You know teach people that really there really is no Linear path which is why we're sharing our stories right now and like you said we're gonna interview more people and I want to hear as many diverse stories as possible because I Want to hammer home the fact that there's no clear path just like there's no unclear path either so you don't need a CCNA you don't need a An education formal education somewhere In some cases, all you need is a compact prosaeria, right? You know, you have to just want it. That's really what it comes down to. If you want it bad enough, you'll find a way. So we're going to do tons of more topics more specifically on things around that, like, you know, maybe what you should or should not be thinking about, what things can help you. Just know that whatever it is you do, it's not going to hurt you. So like if someone tells you not to get something. just know that like having that is not gonna hurt you. Like if someone tells you not to get a CCNA because it's worthless, having the CCNA is not gonna disqualify you from getting a job. So that's kind of a ridiculous statement. So anyway, I just wanted to make sure that I got that point across because even Dan, when it has a CSENT, we all have some sort of entry level certification out there. So good food for thought. But yeah, we'll dive more into that stuff and we'll get to kind of... the nitty gritty of how I get things done and how to get you to where you need to be as a, maybe not just a working adult, but as a person in general. I'll give you some warm and fuzzies, won't I? So like we mentioned earlier, if you guys want, just follow us on any of the aforementioned, either blog check that out, that's AJ. If you love to read about... cool stuff, Cisco Live does all that. Andy and I, you can find us on Twitter. Dan, he's gonna get his Twitter game up the snuff here. So at Andy Laptev and then, is it, or is it Lapper 13? What is it? Yeah, at Andy Laptev. At his, okay, that's what that was. And then mine's at Aaron Engineered. Dan's gonna get his up, he promised me. And join our CCMP study group, dude. Let's get certified up in this mug. Put 2020 in the dust here. Quarantine certs. So that was my hashtag. I don't know if you guys ever saw that. Oh, that's a good one. Lockdown certs. That's what it was. Yeah. Lockdown certs. Cert lockdown. Maybe I should have been in marketing. All right. We're all in marketing. We, we, all of us, I speak for all of us. When I say this, thanks for listening. Um, make sure you subscribe to whatever medium it is you're listening to this on with Spotify or iTunes or whatever. and looking forward to talking to you guys in the next one. 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 eng. That's art of NETENG. You can also find us on the web at art of network engineering.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.