1

Hello fellas , i find myself in a hard place to decide what to do in the future, thought some experienced guys can provide some advice.

Some background : I have 25 years and this is my second year working , before that i took 2 years of Vocational Education and Training (VET) and after that another 2 years of Certificate of Higher Education (HNC) which was mainly focused on sysadmin , network , some bbdd and a little programation. Was good to get me into IT but i fell was so insufficient a lot of entry level and mostly like “Install an AD with DNS and get it work” but nothing complex or error troubleshooting , just typical configurations you do for test , was a good entry point but i feel i need a lot more.

At working i use to manage to fix things most of the times (bbdd problems ,network etc…) but everytime its something more tricky , not the usual install this i had to Google it.

I had several problems which honestly if it wasn’t for you guys (Spiceworks community) i was not able to fix shit.

You advices help a lot and are wonderful but that makes me figure that sometimes if answer isn’t on Google and nobody respond in the forum (hopefully somebody always do) am i lost.

Now about my placework… its very close to home, the people i used to work with are very kind and the enterprise is big enoght to not have problems like getting fired / not payed or something like that.

The mainly problem is that my IT manager is around 52 years do a lot of stuff apart it (like accounting) and when some problem occurs he takes the responsability but i had to fix it because he do not know how to. This is overwhelming sometimes as i am pretty inexperienced and had to solve things that are pretty critical.

Also the enterprise managers like to keep prices of everything low ( had a sever from 2000 which if you move the ram module motherboard wont detect it and they do not change it) , working with free backup software and that kind of things. Its sad because they make a lot of money (like 23M$ yearly) but do not want to invest on IT.

Besides that i like to work here and i have a very good work relationship with my IT manager.

I work from 8:00 to 17:00 which gives me time to study some certs which is what i want to do since at work i won’t learn that much.

But as IT its so big i dont know if i should go MCSA path , Cisco CCNA , or some SQL server certs.

I want to getting more prepared , now as im young i can find work pretty easy if i got fired from here but if i keep it this way (without getting certs and nothing) in 10 years i will be an useless sysadmin.

I want to thanks you all for the help this community gives to me as i said before i had stuff to fix and i was completely lost but some spicehead come with the solution, i learn a lot from this forum.

7 Spice ups
2

i’m having a hard time gauging your years in IT.

from what you’ve written, you like to get certs yet you cannot resolve an IT problem without google. is that correct?

i’m from the old school and during my time we fix IT problems using guts and manuals. there was no internet at that time so for me, i wouldn’t bother getting a cert because in my experience working with people who have lots of certs, they cannot think for themselves (sorry guys) once the problem is outside the certification training they obtained. again, that is my experience working with certified people. ymmv.

imho, if you cannot fix an IT problem or it doesn’t come to you “naturally” then IT is not for you. i don’t know how to say that correctly but i hope you get my point.

2 Spice ups
3

  • Using Google is not to blame on solving Problems. I do it myself all the time.

  • Not being able to abstract Problems… This is problematic.

You learned a lot about the “ideal” condition in your Network. But it NEVER will be “ideal”. Face that.

As far as I understand you are the guy who is free to fix everything, right? In that case, try to get some Hands on minor changes, like building a helpdesk-environment with all rules, regulations and reporting needed.

Certs are worth nothing, if you just are able to click some masks afterwards.

Maybe you should search for an entry level Helpdesk Job in a different company to learn how to solve Problems. You are still young, you can do it. Certs teach you just how to spell IT right… but right… in english it is “IT” in spanish it is “TI”… Maybe there are courses on how to abstract Problems, I do not know, never had Problems with that.

4

Thanks for the replies guys.

About what you said @rinomardo2 ​ maybe i not explained well on the post (English its not my native language) , i use to fix to problems quite well , but sometimes due to lack of knowledge and if i do not find nothing on google i get stuck.

In this two years i manage to fix every problem i had but some of them with help from here.

I put an example case :

We had a server with a provider and we have communication throught VPN. The server is in domain A.domain.com. The domain i have here is enterprise.com

I need to run a script using a scheduled task but wont work using the scheduled task if i execute it manually it does.

The solution ? execute it under a local user which it have the same name and password in both computers. I could give more examples.

We implement a new ERP system and i manage to create the reports (crystal reports) and manage the ERP with 0 training , so i think im not that bad (its what i want to think)

But assume i should migrate the domain controller to another machine or some like that. You can google yes , but if you do a mistake its an work envoirment. When i study the things i do was like “Build a domain and connect computers to it”.

Or for example in a years we will run out of available IP (we had a /24 subnet) so we will need to migrate everything to another subnet. I may Google it and find how to do it , but doing some major change like that based what you find on google it dont seems ok. Maybe im wrong

@coffeemaker2 Yes im the one who fix almost everything here , when i had to do some major change my manager said he take the responsability if something go wrong but its scary me a little bit to make big changes you know based on Google research.

I really enjoy IT and i would like to learn more. Since you both said Certs are useless whats the path to follow? How all the Spiceguys here learn all they know?

Thanks for the replies , means a lot

5

Hah… I did not say Certs are useless. Not really.

They are useless if you cannot abstract the needed information to solve your Problem. That is a small difference.

The Point is: If I need to migrate a physical Server to Hyper-V… I do not know how to do that either. This is nothing I am doing every Day. If I am lucky, once a Year. Tech changes every Day and you cannot rely on that Information you got from your Cert 3 years ago. Different Server version, even an upgrade can make a 100% difference.

Connecting a new Laptop to the Domain… yeah pfff. Just search for the button on every new build.

The Challenge in IT is: we have change. every day something new comes up.

Therefore best Tip I can give:

  • Get rid of your Fear and start doing. No one will be able to tell you how to, just point you into the right direction.

The Basics come with Certs. Some things will almost never change. Network is still IPv4 and TCP-IP. Not important how I spell it, but… they always behave the same. Updated with different Layers from Wifi to V-Lan, still TCP / ip. (Recorded the difference?)

I need to run a script using a scheduled task but wont work using the scheduled task if i execute it manually it does.

The solution ? execute it under a local user which it have the same name and password in both computers. I could give more examples.

Yes. Get your code into the Forum. Ask and discuss that specific Problem. Someone knows. Sometime you will see that same question… It is like a Cert. You learned that once. Help that other Guy. And you will gain security in your Job. You can do that.

Do not focus on the wrong topics.

Edit: Typo

6

I would go to college and become a meteorologist so you can get paid for being wrong :slight_smile: Forget IT.

7

The IT industry is always evolving. If you are willing to learn new tools or new ways of doing things you will be fine. Sometimes you will not get the budget you want until they realize how critical IT is. To have something run 24/7 is not easy and it takes effort and man hours and of course money. So, budgeting should be in there somewhere, sometimes they forget about you but that’s ok. They will realize that they will need you. Plus, have a ticketing system, these are the things that will help you get your budget plus you can have a ticketing system without paying a monthly/licensing fee since some are open source. Just need to tweak it your way for your network and your company size.

You need to think it this way. They start with 1 employee then 2 employees then 3 employees then 4 employees, etc. etc. by the time they get to 50 or 100, it’s a different story. The internet speed of an office with about 10 employees is no problem. But getting to 50 or 100 employees the internet speed in the office matters. Parking becomes a problem. Office equipment need to be ordered. Computers and peripherals need to be ordered.