“Hey. I just got out of a meeting with Lewis.” I groaned inwardly. Lewis was my boss’s boss, and while Lewis was a fantastic human being, meetings with him were usually in the context of projects. Big ones. I put on a fake smile to mask creeping despair. “Oh? How did that go?”
Life & Career
Marketing Docs Are Not Written For Engineers
· 2 minutes to read
Published · UpdatedMarketing words are not for you, the engineer. The dog whistle is blowing at a frequency your ears are not attuned to. These words are meant to entice folks with purchasing authority. Your boss. Or his boss. Or her boss.
I’ll Be At Cisco Live US Las Vegas 2022. See You There?
· < 1 minute to read
Published · UpdatedI’m attending Cisco Live US 2022 in Las Vegas this June. I’ll be there on the Explorer Pass, crawling the World Of Solutions and chatting with anyone and everyone. If you’ll be there and want to meet up, DM me on Twitter or ping me on LinkedIn.
How To Work With A Sponsor For Your IT Blog
· 7 minutes to read
Published · UpdatedYou’ve got a niche blog where you write as a deeply technical expert in a IT field such as cloud, networking, storage, development, or security. Your audience is made up of fellow nerds in similar orbits. You’ve been writing for years, and have developed a faithful audience who reads most of your stuff. After all this time, a real-deal vendor appears, wanting to place a sponsored blog post on your hallowed site. Now what?
Career Advice I’d Give To 20, 30 and 40-Something Year Old Me
· 2 minutes to read
Published · UpdatedA list of career-related maxims easy to consume, but challenging to apply.
Podcast Guest: Can You Have A Successful IT Career Without A Degree?
· 2 minutes to read
Published · UpdatedI was a guest on the February 22, 2022 episode of the So You Wanna Be In IT podcast. I chatted with hosts Pat & Dean about how my career got started. Along the way, we discussed whether or not someone can have a successful IT career without a college degree. Put another way, are IT certifications good enough? I think that yes, you can have a successful IT career without a degree, but that the question, “College degree. Yes or no?” deserves more analysis than a simple yes or no answer offers. Give the episode a listen for more nuance.
They’ll Remember The Rage Monster
· 3 minutes to read
Published · UpdatedAfter a several minutes of answering her scripted questions, I lost it. I unloaded on this kid. I was yelling over the speakerphone at her. In an open office. With my boss standing next to me. In front of my co-workers and the junior network engineer I was mentoring, all of whom had either also been there all night or come in early to help with testing. In front of everyone else, I just leveled this poor JTAC girl.
The Best Technologists First Try To Solve Their Own Problems
· 2 minutes to read
Published · UpdatedI prefer to hire a person who first tries to figure things out. While I want neither a cowboy nor science experiments making their way into production, I do want a motivated individual who will research difficult technical challenges and grow as a result. As that person grows stronger, their team grows stronger as well.