Diary of a Network Geek

Yes, there are some.

Returning to simple pleasures, like talking with my wife. Or, watching television with my wife and step-daughter. Losing weight because I “don’t really need that extra slice of…” or dessert, for that matter. A fire in the fireplace, or wood stove, is cozy and an opportunity to enjoy my wife. I learned that store-brand food, and other things, are just as good as the name-brand, and quite a bit less expensive. (We can feed three adult-sized people on less than $300 a month. Easily. And still buy beer once in a while.)
I may be a full-time employee of Loomis Fargo now, but I still remember what it was like. And, I’m not the only one who’s discovered some of these simple truths. David Dvorkin, who is still unemployed, has written an article about the “joys” of unemployment. Enjoy.

I passed my test this time!

So, now, I’m fully certified to work on Netware 6. What a shame that the place I work at now won’t be doing that. *sigh* The worst thing is that I’ve been a CNE since 1993 and now, after ten years of certification, when my next CCR rolls around, I’ll have to decide if it’s worth updating. It always has been so far because I’ve always worked with Netware, but now… Well, frankly, there’s less and less Netware out there, compared to, say, Linux and Windows. I don’t know that I’ll keep working with Netware anymore. I love it, don’t get me wrong, but there’s just not a big market for it anymore. Or, at least, there’s not a big market for Certified Netware Engineers anymore. Heck, I get more calls for my Citrix experience than my Netware certification!
Ah, well, at least I passed this time, so I shouldn’t have to worry about it for a couple of years. Next up, though, is Security+. Then, maybe, CISSP, or, heaven forbid, a Microsoft certification.

No, really, actual Zen!

According to this article on Business Week, more companies are offering free, on-site meditation and yoga classes to help their employees deal with stress. I have to admit that I’d actually get into that. I’m so pressed for time these days that I have a hard time working in any meditation time or spiritual practice, so having it at work would help a lot. Also, lessons and classes can get kind of expensive and, since the job market is still in the hamper, money is pretty tight.
Of course, I don’t have a very stressful job right now, either so I guess I don’t need it that bad. And, I have this blog to let of steam with, too! Ah, well, it would still be a great benefit to get.

I get hits from the craziest searches.

I was looking at my logs over the weekend and saw really strange stuff in there. For instance, I got a bunch of hits from Google on “Strom Thurman”. I guess, because I wrote a little piece about his passing in my blog. But, then, too, I’ve gotten hits from some nut-job who was looking for “cannibal erotica pictures”, who apparently got to me via a misspelling in my blog entry “Corporate Canibalism”. In fact, out of amusement, I haven’t changed the title. I guess I should mention Novell and networking in my blog more often. Maybe I should talk about my resume and higher salaries, too.
So, hey, if any of you recruiters out there find my site and resume, I’m always up for a higher-paying Novell administration gig. Did I mention I have supervisory experience?

What search terms get the best results?

My site is fairly well optimized for Google on the terms “CNE Resume“. It’s mainly what I do. My primary area of expertise is Novell Netware and I am a Certified Novell Engineer. But, that’s not all I do. I know a little Linux and, of course, the never escapable WindowsNT and Windows2000. I even have a little experience with WindowsXP, though it’s just the client side. So, while it makes sense that my resume is optimized for Novell products, I’d like to reposition myself to be more of a generalist Network Engineer.
Right now, I show up on the first page of a Google search for “network engineer resume houston“, but not for “network engineer resume“. I suppose I should be happy. After all, I don’t plan on leaving Houston anytime soon, but it just isn’t good enough for me. I need to be on that first page for “network engineer resume”. So, I’m going to work at it. I managed to get that top spot for “CNE Resume”, so I ought to be able to get it for “network engineer resume”, too!

Well, if you’ve looked at my resume, you know that I’m out of work. In fact, you know that I’ve been out of work since the end of October this past year. So, why, you’re wondering, has it taken so long for me to update the Diary of a Network Geek? Well, mainly, because I’ve been trying to find a job and overcome depression. I’d like to go into details about it, but I’m not quite ready to tear into the crappy company for whom I used to work. At least, not until I find another job. ^_^ I have a funny feeling that the nice folks who might hire me wouldn’t like my attitude toward my last employer, so….
In the mean time, I’ve been playing around with PERL and working on my CCNA certificate. (That’s a Cisco Certified Network Associate, for those of you who were wondering.) And, I probably should update my CNE (Certified Novell Engineer), but I’m not quite willing to do that yet. It’s not cheap and not too many people seem to be looking for CNE’s right now. I guess I should start working on my MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer), but I’d rather not if I don’t have to just yet. When I’m done with my CCNA, I’ll probably work on getting the Linux+ certification that came out this past year. At least it would get my foot in the Unix door! Not like I was promised at Kirby…. Whoops. Almost started in on it!
Well, I’ll update more later, but if you’d like to check out what I’ve done in PERL lately, jump to the Amazing IT Title Generator. Or, head over to my other big website, Fantasist.Net That’s what I’ve really been working on lately. Though I have to admit that I don’t have much there yet. The PERL script is under Resources, BTW. It’s a creativity jump-start tool for authors. Enjoy!

Okay, so I’ve gotten a little deeper into the network and I’m finding more “little” things wrong. For one, the servers aren’t all on the same version of Directory Services. For those of you who aren’t Certified Netware Engineers, that’s a bad thing. NDS, or Netware Directory Services, is the distributed database of everything, including security, on the network. If all the servers don’t have the same revision of the NDS programs, called NLMs in Netware Land, there can be problems with security and access between servers. Enough of those problems and the network stops running. But, so far, that hasn’t been a real issue. So, I’m not too worried. I’m working on correcting the problem, but it can wait until the next “maintenance weekend” to reboot the servers so this will take effect.
The other “issue” that sticks out for me is a bad time synchronization plan. I don’t think that it got this way on purpose, but time synchronization is all wrong. Mainly, it looks like the last Netware Admin had no experience on Netware 4.x or greater. I won’t go into the details, but… Well, let’s just say it needs work. This is something that I can work on, and implement, without taking the servers down. I’ve started working on that, too. It’ll take a couple of days to get straight, but that will improve network performance quite a bit.
And, of course, there’s virtually no network documentation. Not a big surprise, if you have any experience with taking over a network. How many Network Engineers really want to write documentation? But, I know it needs to be done. And, I also know how good that looks to management. (Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m kissing butt already. *sigh*) Anyway, I need to go get my sleep so I can be early to the office and hard at work. Updates soon!

Well, so far, so good. I’ve survived most of the first week of my new job. (For those of you who are joining us a little late, I just started at Kirby Marine Transport Corporation on Monday of this week.) I have a whopping three employees, one of which leaves for vacation next week. The network doesn’t quite run itself and there’s more than just “proactive maintenance”, just like I suspected. For one thing, I’ve got an e-mail system that looks like it was designed by a drunk monkey. Now, I’m sure there was a really good reason to have three e-mail post offices in the corporate HQ, but I have no idea what it could be. Also, I have at least one server that has wholly inadequate drive space for it’s one e-mail volume. That’s a fire that I’ll have to put out, right after lunch. On the upside, I have a nice, new office that has a wall of windows and a door and everything! This may not seem like much, but after surviving a bankruptcy, it’s like heaven. And I have three really nice *wood* desks. My PC is a laptop, which isn’t really all that great, to be honest. The damn thing locks up all the time. But, all in all, the new gig is pretty sweet. I’ll keep you posted.

Okay, so it’s been a while since I had an update, but there’s a good reason. One of the headhunters finally came through for me and I’ve got a new job! DÜT, whose real name I’m still not going to reveal, got me an interview at Kirby Marine Transport and I apparently fit their search requirements pretty darn well. When I first went to see them, I didn’t think they were going to work out, but I guess I made a pretty good impression on them, because they totally rearranged their department structure to suit me. Go figure! My “official” title will be Supervisor – Local Area Network/Desktop Support. I’m still not clear on how many people will actually be reporting to me yet, or if I’ve replace the Desktop Support Supervisor that I talked with when I was interviewing, either. But, no matter which way it goes, I’ll have a pretty sweet new job. They’ve got mostly Netware 5.x, but with at least one Netware 3.12 server, two Citrix MetaFrame servers, two AS/400’s, and at least three Solaris servers, including one that runs the web server.
Anyway, I have to pass a drug test, which should be no problem since I’ve never used drugs, and then I start on Monday, 8/21/2000. I’ve already given a week’s notice at what used to be Harbor Financial, then I’m going to take a week off to “clear my palate” as it were, before starting the new job. After all the time I’ve given to Harbor and their successors, I think a week is enough notice. It’s not what I’d normally do, but given the circumstances of the bankruptcy I think it’s actually quite fair.

After I actually start the new job, I’m going to do my best to chronicle the start of my new job. You can bet that my semiweekly updates will get more personal than they’ve been. Keep in mind that this new job is going to let me and Anne save my bonus money from Harbor for a down-payment on a house. But, before we can get a house together, she has to get he divorce finished up and then I have to get her to marry me. (Don’t worry, after living with her for 2+ years, I’m pretty sure she’ll say yes.) So things will bet pretty darn personal! Also, I hope to spend some more time on my other two web sites: www.Fantasist.net and www.HavePalmWillTravel.com When I start the new, more personal portion of the Diary of a Network Geek, I’ll archive this part. Stay tuned!

Well, it’s been a while since I put in an update, so hold on to your hats! A lot has happened in the past two weeks.

First off, I went back to Binder and made my sales presentation. It actually went quite well, in spite of the fact that I was very nervous. I didn’t sleep for two nights before the day of the presentation I was so nervous. But, I know I did okay, because they made me an offer. In fact, they made me a nice offer. The base salary was a 9% increase over my current salary, and with the “sales incentives” it would have been a 39% increase! Yikes! But, I had to turn that job down. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Well, I just didn’t think that either Anne or I could quite cope with the 75% plus travel that I would have to be doing. And, I just wasn’t sure that this was the direction that I wanted to take my career. But, I have to admit, I’m going to be thinking about that decision for a long time.
One of the many reasons that I thought the travel would be too much for us both is that Anne would be almost totally alone. Her sister, who she’s very close to these days, is getting a divorce and moving to Pittsburgh, of all places. It seems she found her first fiancee, whom she was ready to marry at 18, and they’re getting back together. It seems her parents didn’t approve at the time, but now she’s old enough to make that choice for herself. I say, good for her! After all, I moved down to Houston from Chicago two years ago, and things have worked out pretty darn well for me. Well, except for the whole job search thing… She’ll be coming back this week for a couple of days to stay with us. She has a few things to wrap up before moving up to Pittsburgh pretty much for good. She’ll come back down to get her stuff into a U-Haul and take it back up in a month or two. I wonder how that will effect how Anne’s mother talks to her?
Well, sorry for that departure into Way Too Much Personal Information Land, but it’s a pretty good example of how personal stuff effects the job search.

On other fronts, I’ve been talking to D. at the WacoSyndicate about that management job. She expected to get the job description last week. I haven’t heard from her yet, but she still seemed positive about the whole thing, so I hope I will this week. (D. if you’re reading this, I have my cell phone with me most of the day!)
I never did hear back from T. at DÜT about their position. I suspect that it was because there wasn’t a position at all. I found the exact same job description on Monster.com and I applied there. Also, I think DÜT is part of the WIZARD “family” of companies. And I’m growing more and more disenchanted with them as time goes on.
Which brings me to J. from WIZARD… He wanted me to come to a “job fair” to look at positions they need to fill. Mind, he didn’t have any in particular that he wanted to show me, but he suggested that there might be one that he “missed” that I would like to do. To be honest, after having someone there not return my calls, having another person tell me that I was making too much money for my skill set, and then not having any real jobs that fit me (i.e. no management positions), I really don’t think I’ll be able to make their “job fair”. Also, Anne has worked with the WIZARD people before, so I know that their “job fair” is a list of jobs that they need to fill taped to the wall in their office. Wow. Sounds like the big time, hunh? Luckily, I gave them the excuse that I was going to have houseguests again this week, so I might not be able to make it. Nothing like thinking on your feet, eh?
On yet another front, someone I used to work with at Harbor has found a job at a financial firm. She called last week to tell me that they’re looking for Network staff, so I sent my resume over to her. Her boss, a Vice President walked it over to both HR and to IS, so hopefully, I’ll hear something from them soon.

Well, until something breaks, I’m still pounding the digital pavement. If anyone reading this has a Network Management position, y’all let me know! Anything for a medium to small sized company would be great. I can run a help desk, too, so a position that combines both would work.