1

I guess this post is half venting / half asking for advice. I also want to mention that I work and live in Europe. I’ve read some stuff on /r/sysadmin and things seem to work a lot differently in the US. Anyway:

My basic problem is that I feel like I have already failed in having a career in IT. I’m 25 now and am approaching my second year in the Help Desk of a huge company. (10.000+ clients) I went to trade school, worked for my dad (PC store, very simple troubleshooting), went back to school to get my high school degree and then I landed my current job. The truth is, that I was severely depressed and had severe anxiety for more than a decade. Fortunately I managed to turn things around and am in a much better place now, but the whole career thing is really gnawing at me. I feel old and incompetent.

Unfortunately I don’t really have a lot of opportunities to grow at my current job. Sure, it was great seeing how corporate IT works. I developed soft skills. I learned how to manage problems. But from a technical viewpoint I am stagnating. I don’t even know where to begin.

I was hired by a private company to work for the official IT company for our public sector. A few years before, somebody had the great idea to outsource (it’s 9 hours away by car) a Call Center with no technical skills at all. Obviously it was a complete mess, so they decided to hire 3 more guys to form an unofficial Help Desk. I had no idea it would be this way, I was just glad to get a job. So officially I am a Call Center agent, that only solves problems that get reported by mail. Unofficially I have a local admin account, access to Active Directory (only read permissions) and have to explain to the 2nd-Level how to solve client problems. This needs to be kept a secret from the Call Center. I don’t have any access to any servers at all.

The 2nd-Level’s work seems to be consisting of “Delete local profile? Check. Format PC? Check. Escalate to 3rd-Level” It’s a complete mess. No troubleshooting. No analysis. Nothing.

A lot of guys in 3rd-Level are completely drowning in work. ONE guy handles the Exchange server for ~10.000 users. One guy handles the Virtualization. One guy… you get the picture. They don’t seem to enjoy the job at all, but I guess they are staying there for the salary and the job security. (You have to try really hard to get fired from a job in the public sector it seems.)

I absolutely loath this company. They prefer to close tickets rather than solve problems. I have made my peace with it though. Rather than escalate to 2nd-Level, I try to solve every problem solvable with the resources I have, to learn something at least.

But back to the essence of the matter: I don’t know where to go from here. I went to a year long SysAdmin course and saw a lot of different things there. Microsoft Server. Exchange. vSphere. Linux. Cisco. I’m currently studying for the 70-410 exam, which I enjoy a lot. Overall I just feel like with 25 I should have more knowledge and am lagging behind basically everybody else. I don’t even know what I want to do in the future. I really enjoy solving problems. I’d really enjoy designing and maintaining an infrastructure. When I read posts at /r/sysadmin I feel like a kid reading superhero comics. Those guys are so skilled and cool.

Maybe some of you were in a similar position once and have some advice for me. If not, at least finally venting about it felt really good. Thank you for reading if you made it all the way here. :slight_smile:

15 Spice ups
2

A few thoughts here, firstly if it’s public sector they will often have internal job boards so have you looked at those and seen if there are any roles in IT you could move into?

Have you spoken to any recruitment agents to line up interviews for you? Even if you don’t want to move jobs, going for a tech interview will give you a feel for where you are versus where you need to be.

Doing exams is fine but if you want true hands on experience you need a lab. Get some old computers, put vmware on them and build, test stuff out, try stuff. If you cannot do that look at the learning materials from Microsoft’s virtual academy and the VMware hands on labs.

The problem is that you are looking at the top of a mountain and saying “I wish I was there” and not seeing the mountain in front of you. You’re 25. You’ve got another 40 years in the workforce unless you retire early. You’ve plenty of time to learn everything.

If it’s any help, I didn’t find a really good job where I could learn and grow until about year five…

3 Spice ups
3

25 is no age at all - we have apprentices older than that currently with us. You need to gain experience, and if you already feel like you’ve reached your learning point here, then maybe IT is not for you. Learning is constant and if this fail is simply because the company you work for doesn’t see the need to grow it’s staffs knowledge, then the answer is to simply find another company and go from there.

It all comes down to skills and ability to learn and adapt, now you say you dont know what to do in the future - but unfortunately you need a game plan, you need to know where you want to be and if at the age of 25 you have yet to establish the areas you like, then this can be off putting to other employees.

They like to see focus and a plan.

Like Gary said, while you can see where you’d like to be, if only financially, you still need to climb to get there, you wont simply wake up one day and be there

There have been so many posts on here about people feeling they are ready to move up the IT ladder - but without any clue as to where on the ladder they want to be.

Find your focus point, and set a goal of being there in 2-3 years, sadly 6 months or so will not be enough, even if you believe you are ready, your employee needs to feel you are too.

1 Spice up
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I feel your pain as I started at a helpdesk before climbing up in the ranks. But it takes time and most techs start off from the bottom.

use the helpdesk to gain basic knowledge. you have to prove yourself and show you’re competent problem solver.

also job hop, don’t expect your employer to advance your career for you. try going to a SMB where you’re responsible for anything that plugs into a wall. at a SMB you’ll get to touch servers and computer networking equipment. you’ll be a generalist but you can get a better idea what path you want to go down.

use the SMB to develop ‘IT street smarts’ then try to specialize in a larger environment.

5

Great advice so far.

First of all is the mentality. A big project (your career) isn’t handled all at once. It’s handling by decomposing each of the chunks into smaller and smaller bits until they’re actionable. Then you act on them. A career isn’t a race, it’s a journey you take. The question is what can you do to move yourself forward. It isn’t about what everyone else did already that you wish you did and why didn’t you do that other thing 8 years ago… I’m a black belt at that last bit, and the only way to win at it is to minimize your playing time. :slight_smile:

Second of all is the goal. You’re doing well to get exposed to a bunch of different things. Install/Config of Windows is a good place to start, though probably not where I’d place my bets. Windows administration is a commodity skill. I’d look more into the types of tools to administer servers at scale. Linux containerization, infrastructure as code, automation via Ansible/Chef/Puppet/SaltStack/Terraform.

1 Spice up
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One peace of advise from my experience

it defiantly worth specialising in a particular area of tech,

One main reason you are not classed as a jack of all master of non great for understanding the whole thing, but apart from that you cannot move in to a consultant role

One avenue is to move to a Solution Architect in Cloud tech.

Some of the tools I have been exposed to in the past include

Tech:

Azure , AWS
SCCM
NetScaler

Hyper visor and VMware ESX

VMware NSX

PM Work
Prince 2

hope this helps cheers Scott

7

I used to work in the public sector and can totally back up your claim of it being damn near impossible to get fired!

I left purely because i was getting to how you currently feel.

Every time i asked my manager if i could learn something new or spend any time with other teams learning more about the network or server side of the council i was greeted with an answer in the form of a riddle!!..incredible management skills

Looking back i’m completely glad i left when i did as I’ve learnt so much more than i ever would have at the council!

The best way to learn and get exposed to more is to move around jobs, the average staff turnover seems to be a few years in IT around here…I’ve been here for 4 yrs this December so who knows, maybe its my turn to leave next aha

1 Spice up
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25 old? Darn, I wish I had the chance to be 25 again! Not old at all, you really have a whole life in front of you, but it is good for you to want to progress in what you do. I would suggest you to try learning a programming language, Java, PHP, .NET, C#, or C++, software engineering can really take you to the next level, logically from where you are, you could easily jump to network engineering, then systems or network administration. Good luck with whatever you pick to do next.

1 Spice up
9

Take a moment to breath and realize that you are OK. I am 28, going to be 29. I’m not in a much better position than you. Life is a series of steps not a sprint. Fear of missing out is just that. Fear. Where should you be at your age? There is no one set rule. Work through this problem like you would any problem that comes in the help desk.

10

25? You have a looooooot of time left. I was working on my college degree at 25 with a kid. Hadn’t even started a career at that time. Believe me, keep your chin up. You have a long way to go, bub.

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Nothing to worry about, I started my IT Career at 25. Just keep your head clear and keep self-studing along the way! And keep applying for positions on job boards even if you feel you can’t do the techincal work - a lot of companies like to make their postions more then it is and do a lot of training anyway.

12

It’s all downhill after 25. Check some learning sites to help you stay ahead of the curve. Like cybrary or pluralsight.

13

You’re NOT OLD. And you’ll never be too old to grow, learn something new, move on to something else, change companies, change direction - whatever works for you. I’m much older than you and poked around at IT on the fringes of my “real” job (commercial insurance broker), at prior companies and my current company, for many years before finally ending up as the IT person here.

You say you went to a year long SysAdmin course. There were probably some parts of that course that you thought were really cool. That will give you a clue to what you could be your passion. Once you know that, then the next steps will become clearer. Expect to do courses, change jobs if necessary to get experience, even volunteer your IT skills to charitable organizations. All of it will help you grow. Don’t ever expect to stop learning; we work in a constantly changing industry. Maddening, perhaps, but also downright fascinating!

14

Some thoughts for you. First, forget the internal politics. It is not your concern. Moreover such negative energy is REALLY toxic and destroys YOUR morale. You cannot change this, but you can change your response. Besides, you have better things to do, like learn.

At your age, you are a little behind, but have NOT failed. Perhaps it’s better stated you have not capitalized on your opportunities. Our SD (service Desk) took care of everyone from janitor to CEO, you have thousands of opportunities to make good impressions to many VIP’s!. I can assure you the tech who solves the high profile problem for the COO will be well remembered (and specifically requested). You may also buy some immunity to layoffs.

Second, you get to meet all these fine but stressed people, so use this to practice your customer service skills. No, not smiling at them over the phone and all that baloney. REAL customer service comes form knowing someone was having a very crappy day and your just made it much better because of YOUR skills. Now if you can’t claim this success, then yes, you are incompetent. Fortunately, that’s curable. (We are all incompetent at some point, it’s how you get better).

I loved being support, because who else gets such opportunities as above? Hopefully you are seeing it’s all in how you look at things, change your perspective and you change your world!

Next, you mentioned the Tier 3’s are buried? Looks like an opportunity to me. Pick an area of interests like virtualization, then go ask the Virtualization guy and ask what they are using. Learn it. Next VM crisis, perhaps suggest something to the buried VM guy, like you taking on a minor role spinning up pre-configured VM’s, (showing him you have the cert, or completed Ed-X.org classes or the like so he can have some comfort).

By the way, all those tier 2 repetitive work? Well why not learn PowerShell (etc) and go write a bunch of scripts and automate that?

Those two things alone will go a long way to making improvements in your situation. find other problems and fix them too.

Sure, it was great seeing how corporate IT works. I developed soft skills. I learned how to manage problems.
Understanding enterprise IT is HUGE!!! Don’t undervalue it. Soft skills: The days of the little surly, prck tech are over. Now you know how to manage problems, do you know how to mange PROJECTS? You will have to deal with surly little prcks as a PM, but with emotional intelligence and the soft skills you have, should do well and again, make a positive impression.

Steven Covey says, start sharpening your blade NOW. I say, you won’t have time to when you move into a more meaningful role. (been there).

Learning: Look at COMPTIA for career tracks, they should help you decide where you want to go. Take courses thru Udemy, ED-X-org and other cheap MOOCS. Read cert books etc. I only use instructors where AI’m completely stumped, or it’s required. I found a $65 book can increase my salary $20,000 (over a few years), never did that with the stock market. I have a single Microsoft E3 license ($20/mo) and have my Server 2008 on-prem connected via Azure to my Azure cloud so I can learn. I am going to spin up VM’s in Azure cloud next week.

I’ve been doing IT since 1992 and the training available and overall cost to learn has NEVER been this cheap. I will also caution you to soak up all the knowledge you can while young. At my age it’s harder to learn, supposedly the brain is less pliable. I can still hack it, but have to work harder than when I was your age. Second, learn deeply and it will stick with you and all you learn becomes foundation for (easier) future learning, as you will have “API hooks” to stuff you already know when you learn new stuff. Finally, as you get older, you need kids, spouse, mortgage, etc, and all that eats into keeping skilled. You probably have the luxury of time right now, don’t squander it. I can’t friggin’ believe i am 60, seems just a few beers ago I was your age. You can make more money, but you can’t make time.

Always be working on your next skill.

Career path: Have a dream and then you will have your direction. So dream big.

Finally, when I was your age, I was one of those surly pr*ck techs. I read (below) and saw that was only the beginning. Yikes!! I was so embarrassed, I committed on the spot to being a better person. Not sure that applies to you, but I’m almost 60 and I still have that from when I was your age and I still read it from time to time.

I find that the 20 flaws that hold most people back are rarely flaws of skill, intelligence or personality. They are challenges in interpersonal behavior often leadership behavior:

  1. Winning too much. The need to win at all costs and in all situations-- when it matters, when it doesn’t, and when it’s totally beside the point.

  2. Adding too much value. The desire to add our two cents to every discussion.

  3. Passing judgment. The need to rate others and impose our standards on them

  4. Making destructive comments. The needless sarcasm and cutting remarks that we think make us sound witty.

  5. Starting with “No,” “But” or “However. The overuse of these negative qualifiers, which secretly say to everyone, “I’m right. You’re wrong.”

  6. Telling the world how smart we are. The need to show people we’re smarter than they think we are.

  7. Speaking when angry. Using emotional volatility as a management tool.

  8. Negativity, or “Let me explain why that won’t work.” The need to share our negative thoughts, even when we aren’t asked.

  9. Withholding information. The refusal to share information to gain or maintain an advantage over others.

  10. Failing to give proper recognition. The inability to praise and reward.

  11. Claiming credit that we don’t deserve. The most annoying way to over-estimate our contribution to any success.

  12. Making excuses. The need to reposition our annoying behavior as a permanent, fixture so people excuse us for it.

  13. Clinging to the past. The need to deflect blame away from ourselves and onto events and people from our past: a subset of blaming everyone else.

  14. Playing favorites. Failing to see that we are treating someone unfairly

  15. Refusing to express regret. The inability to take responsibility for our actions, admit we’re wrong or recognize how our actions affect others.

  16. Not listening. The most passive-aggressive form of disrespect.

  17. Failing to express gratitude. The most basic form of bad manners”

  18. Punishing the messenger. The misguided need to attack the innocents who are only trying to help us.

  19. Passing the buck. The need to blame everyone but ourselves.

  20. An excessive need to be “me.” Exalting our faults as virtues simply because they’re who we are.

ADAPTED WITH PERMISSION FROM WWW.MARSHALLGOLDSMITHLIBRARY COM.

PS up until recently, I ran a large (30+ person) tier-3 PC support operation for six years. I was onsite PC tech before that. So I know what your role is intimately, and I also know what I wrote is probably the best way to re-spark your career. Have faith in yourself.

3 Spice ups
15

Ok, here’s my It story.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffstokes/

You have a ton of time in front of you, god willing. Use it.

Microsoft virtual academy. Study what you want to learn. max it out. For me it was Windows and Firewalls for a while. Then Exchange, then general administration, telco, etc.

At Microsoft I figured o365 would kill Exchange Admin jobs so in 2009 I went to field consulting for Microsoft as a Windows guy. Built a brand around debugging, performance analytics, tracing, deployment with MDT and also VDI configuration/troubleshooting.

The sky is the limit, don’t stagnate yourself. Don’t be afraid to fail. The best thing you can do is Fail, and Learn from it. Fear of failure makes us punish ourselves for being “wrong”. Learn from teh wrong so you don’t repeat it.

And build a brand around yourself. example; search “ashley mcglone microsoft” and you find powershell

“jeff stokes microsoft” and you find deployment and perf

Building a brand/focus into your career, with a good backup in case one goes away/outsourced/automated, is really key to achieving success, imo.

Hope this helps and didn’t sound to corny.

inspiration reading; Micheal Hyatt - Platform, Peter Drucker - innovation and entrepreneurship

gl and pm with any quesitons, etc. Happy to help!