Ep 70 – It’s never too late!

In this, our 70th episode, we interview Chris Denney – a very prominent member of our Discord community! Chris has built an amazing career, and the foundation is his willingness to take on anything! Chris is also a huge team player – both on and off the field. He is huge into soccer but when he isn’t on the field he is committed to working on whatever he can while doing a site visit. Printers might not be part of his job anymore as a network engineer but if he’s onsite and someone needs help with one, he’s all over it! There are many more sweet bits of experience that Chris shares that every listener should take with them throughout their own journeys!

You can find Chris:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Cdenney04
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-denney-04/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/smilin_chris/

This episode has been sponsored by Meter. 

Go to meter.com/aone to book a demo now! 

Transcript

this is the art of network engineering podcast in this podcast we'll explore tools technologies and talented people we aim to bring new information that will expand your skill sets and toolbox and share the stories of fellow network engineers welcome to the art of network engineering i am aj murray at no blinky blinky unfortunately tim and dan are not damn andy tim and andy are off tonight dan's looking me right in the face dan how you doing tonight i'm doing great aj how are you doing dan at how do you pack it i'm doing well what's new in dan's world oh just doing some electrical around the house and uh you know that kind of stuff what's my favorite data domains i don't know if you're familiar with those or not but um i have ever touched it a little bit in my lifetime yet yeah yeah or fortunately i don't have to touch them that much i just gotta network them you know ah so but you don't you don't have to configure the data stores or all that all that good stuff not a dan problem nope that's the systems team that's their crap i love it i love it and now it's time for the wins this week winning in our discord channel is yao they passed their encore exam congratulations river passed the red hat pe 124 that's the preliminary examine system admin andy passed the palo alto pc nsa congratulations fluba double phil passed the n salad exam that's the enterprise design exam to complete their ccnp enterprise huge congratulations ipv file passed the az900 andrew roderos passed the gi ac which is the global information assurance certification robin c passed the s sscp congratulations robin andre passed the gnfa rayno passed the nse 5 and gibson passed their aws cloud practitioner congratulations to everybody winning this week if you want your win read you can sign up in our discord channel you can go to artofnetenge.com forward slash iatj for it's all about the journey join our discord and drop your win in our winning channel a big thank you to our new patreons this week to jeremy sanders thank you so much for your support of what we do here on the art of network engineering podcast and thank you to all of our listeners we couldn't do what we do without your support and enthusiasm thank you so much for listening to the podcast now back to the show so i am uh very happy that uh we have a guest this evening uh our guest joins us you probably have heard the name if you hang out in our discord at all uh he joins us every week when we record on our patreon chat i am very excited to have chris denny here with us tonight chris thank you so much for joining us how you doing i'm doing great thank you so much for having me hey like i said i am so happy to have you here uh why don't we start off with what do you do uh so i am a network admin for a transportation company um and uh on top of network admin i'd feel i'm a bit of a generalist as well outside of that man of many hats and even more titles i guess no unfortunately not but i'm hoping to change that me and you we're the same man we're the same jack of all trades master of nothing exactly that's yeah that's how i live my life so so when you say generalists like do you what what don't you touch whoo um i get i assume that's the shorter list yeah man um i i can't really think of anything right now i mean yeah because it's pretty much like a single whatever hat needs to be worn yeah i'm sorry so are you like a single person in shop then for for the for the networking side yeah most definitely um it's going to be me that's touching uh router switches uh firewall other uh but still even then i can get dragged into um our azure environment i can get dragged into our on-prem ad environment i can get dragged into print surf or or hell for that matter working on actual printers if i'm on site still um it's basically i'm i'm a guy that just makes things happen i guess um if somebody needs something yeah exactly if somebody needs something and and i'm the one who ends up grabbing the call i work at the completion and i don't really care what the subject matter is nice nice i love that that's a good attitude to have you you know absolutely it gets thrown at you it might not be your wheelhouse it might not be necessarily your responsibility but you're the person on site right there in front of the thing it's easiest to do the troubleshooting you're just going to grab it by the bullhorns and write it until till the end i love that attitude so how long have you been doing that oh um 2008 2009-ish is when i got into uh i.t okay um all right i'm relatively late in the game to be honest with you um it wasn't uh originally uh something i i really thought was a a path available to me to be honest with you um really okay what was the original plan before before you found your way in i.t did you have like a original plan yeah like what did you think you were tracking towards or what were you doing you know man i i so yeah so so i didn't really have a direction um when uh i graduated high school um i i figured i wanted to travel a little bit and uh almost immediately after i made that decision i got called by a coach for a team a local community college was looking for a keeper and uh i played soccer uh in case you didn't pick that up um or you haven't seen me talk about it a thousand times in the discord channel but uh so uh a local coach called me up and said hey we need a keeper um we'll gladly pay you to come to school here if you'll play and uh i took him up on his offer so um i didn't really have a direction even in school um i just hey i'm here to play soccer and also if i have to go to these classes i guess i will um and then when when the soccer scholarships ran out i uh i just took whatever random jobs were available to me i still didn't necessarily have a direction um just uh i've done oh god i've done a lot um i've uh laid asphalt i've worked for the local sewage department uh for the city that i work i lived in that's a shitty job i uh very much uh um i i we needed the side of the interstates uh for summers um i uh wait wait wait wait what yeah needed this side of the interstate yeah we'd eat you know yeah we needed weed yeah were you in jail is that why no no um it was a summer job uh just uh when i was in between semesters that was something i did as well okay um but uh but you know i've done manual labor i've worked behind a desk i've done a lot and yeah um i don't know i just i like i said it with with my education with my uh with the trajectory i had i didn't necessarily feel that that it was an option for me and uh you know like i said around 20 i was 28 i think 27 28 i got an opportunity and i jumped on it and i've been doing it since okay so what was that opportunity so um a buddy of mine uh same same avenue that everybody else has been down um that didn't have like a you know a set path right um gaming i i had a buddy of mine that wanted to play a game called uh counter-strike condition zero with me okay and i didn't have a gaming computer um so he was like hey man i've got all these extra parts i'm gonna show you how to build this thing i need you to buy a graphics card uh so i built a gaming computer and uh i was like oh that's pretty simple you know this is something that you know i could you know i can upgrade i can tinker with you know it became kind of a passion of mine and then um the same guy ended up the company he was working for was looking for just a random help desk guy and uh he recommended me and uh i went in i was very upfront just hey man i have no experience in this i can build a computer though um and uh if nothing else i can google the hell out of things and uh he likes the attitude and he you know it he took a chance on me and uh i'll be forever grateful um sean i i'll name you you're an amazing man and thank you very much for the opportunity for for letting me work my way into this field and uh yeah it it was it was a fantastic opportunity i saw so much in such a short amount of time doing it it was a consulting gig um okay basically uh just whatever they needed um i would be in a dentist office you know for the first half of the morning i'd be in a law office for the second part of the day the next day i might be at a uh plant uh co2 plant uh not far from where i grew up at and you know i'd be working on their network or i'd be working on a you know computer there uh pulling antivirus uh pulling viruses uh you know imaging uh you know upgrading uh backing up uh writing backup programs uh just whatever they needed and uh you know like i said the exposure was amazing if uh if you ever get the opportunity to do it especially if you're just starting out um that is a great great way to see a very large amount of a large amount of uh different environments and and a different look at how people do things or or a different look at how things should or even for that matter should not be done it's an amazing was it like a like an msp or or a partner or something like that or just like a really smooth it was a logo okay yeah it was it was like three of us gotcha we covered a lot of ground wow wow that's that's really cool yeah yeah absolutely i mean like if you can get into a position like that like help desk is really good but man like landing a spot like that is awesome because like you said you get exposure to like so many different environments i mean like you had a little bit of healthcare you had like the law office thing like you had manufacturing like those are three very different environments right and and seeing it like at any level whether it's small business or any price like you're going to get some good experience well and to add on to that though one of the the the better pieces that i felt um that has helped me along the way is it's not cookie cutter there's nothing cookie cutter about it you can go from one more office to you know eight o'clock to another law office at 10 o'clock and it's going to be two completely different environments two completely different budgets two completely different needs and so you know it's not a matter of i'm just gonna go in i'm gonna throw this you know firewall in here and i'm gonna throw this router over there and i'm gonna you know we're gonna use these dells over here you know their their needs and their budgets are two completely different worlds and so you know i'm having to shop around for you know something that can fit their budget for you know this person or you know so you know just the example right we may be throwing in you know a full small business server uh environment over here you know full exchange doing everything and we may be throwing in google apps over here um and this was you know 2012 so you know just for reference but um it was you know you you had to you had to think on your feet you had to you know become a quasi expert on almost everything in in a matter of minutes and uh it was uh it was fun it was exciting and and it was a challenge and it was stressful but it was fun so when you were going to to the community college where were you doing it classes did you finish and get an 19 degree no no i wouldn't even say i was i was i was even doing classes um so i've got a theory guys and this is this is just you know from from the school of chris right you can have good grades you can work a full-time job you can play a sport or you can have a social life pick two yeah yeah i mean there's no way around it um so you know if you if you want to play a sport that's that's great you're if you want to play a sport unless let me rephrase that right unless you were one of the most dedicated people in the world right like you you have to have that level of dedication that is like second to none there are people out there that can do it but like mere mortals like myself um not not possible i wasn't capable of doing it and you know i'm pretty good at taking tests and i'm pretty good at retaining information um but i i i was not capable of you know waking up at seven every morning or six sometimes and then going running going to class you know getting you know a full course load and then training again and then from there hopping on a bus you know going all over the state of mississippi and you know trying to play a game and do my homework and then also try to play and have have fun and you know it wasn't something i was capable of doing um but you know like i said i mean there are people that are i it wasn't me though um so to answer your question in a very long-winded way um no i did not get a degree in college uh unfortunately um and to be honest with you in my adult life that's my biggest biggest regret was the school okay all right so if uh if for whatever reason i ever become a millionaire i may go back and uh you know try to try to work my way through school but it's good lord man school is so expensive right now ah no joke i'm still paying for mine yeah yeah so okay so all right cool you went to school you didn't finish the degree no problem that happens you still landed in i.t uh since then have you gotten any certifications uh no um to be completely honest with you i i haven't uh i i struggle with a lot of what everybody else struggles with um and that is uh i get excited about the next new flashy thing every single time and so you know like right now we're looking at paulo's and i'm like oh my god pcnsa i've got to do it you know chuck keys got to have it right now or i'm going to lose my job you know that's great and then i see somebody in the discord channel talking about uh you know ccna dev and i'm like oh my god that'd be great i could automate everything that's all the things and so like i'm all of a sudden hopping on that cbt nuggets and i'm just like this is this is so much fun and then then my boss is gonna go hey by the way we're also doing this thing over here and i'm going to go oh i got to go over in this direction now and i yeah i i struggle with it so bad yeah i don't know um i uh i'm looking for a study buddy guys uh for the pc nsa right now um study buddy accountability buddy if anybody wants to join up let's do it oh i have to do that soon i i yeah i'm doing my google cloud uh practitioner right now or not google cloud uh amazon cloud partitioner i gotta get that done i get the test on thursday and then right after that i'm jumping into to the palace though oh hey jake fantastic let's do it yeah that's awesome yeah i'm excited we can do some fun stuff as i'm wearing a cisco shirt it's okay my pillow shirts on order it's fine i should be here you sent me the you sent me the shop there so nice too good too good so it's all right so no degree no search still working i.t i love it this is this is not the usual story we hear it's not impossible obviously um but this definitely does not fit the mold that we've we've heard in the past so how did you get the jobs that you've gotten over the years and it sounds like maybe a little bit of networking as a lot of people do and you definitely are a hard worker you're committed to what you're doing so i think just being you got you where you are i i excel at soft skills more so than i do on technical skills that's that's for sure um i uh that's huge yeah no it is it is um i i can talk myself into almost anything and that includes trouble um it is truly a blessing and a curse um but i have always had the ability uh to uh sell i i have done sales um at one point in my life um and uh it's i don't know it's being able to communicate on on all levels um being able to communicate uh no matter who's in the room with you um at you know those levels as well whether you're in an executive office whether you're in the shop uh with a bunch of mechanics you know being able to talk you know quote unquote shop is uh one of my biggest assets and and i use it well and so um if i'm talking to uh the the secretary of the the ceo you know i i can immediately pivot and talk straight to him or her as well um and you know jump my way into those conversations quite easily um but yeah i've gotten a lot of the jobs that i have um through uh especially with the help desk side i mean help desk is you know in and of itself customer service right it's a very technical customer service but it is customer service yeah and so you know being able to communicate being able to reassure the the user you know what i'm doing why i'm doing it and and you know how to also you know relay to them what what needs to be done moving forward or or what not to do moving forward um you know and make them feel good about themselves after that um that's something i've always been able to do as well and so you know yeah i got the the it job i was able to talk my way into it the very first one and the job that i'm in right now um it started out as a help desk job as well with the company that i'm in and and i got that through a recommendation from a client that at the the first company i was working with i've had two it jobs at this point in my career and uh um the the consulting company and then the company i'm at now and and both of them came through recommendations from somebody okay all right so i that was going to be my follow-up question right so we talked about the consulting company and so you went directly from consulting company to where you're at now so so let's dive into it if i heard you right it it came from a client recommendation at the first company so is this company a client of the first company no no um head guy at the company that i'm with now uh his wife recommended me for a job at this company she she knew that i was looking to to move up um to you know put myself in a position to to grow and uh she so when when this opportunity came along um and not the role that i'm in currently but the the opportunity at the company that i'm with right now um when it came along she recommended me and i got in touch with my boss and uh you know hey man i'm i'm looking to uh move up um what do you have available and uh i moved into a role as a quote unquote computer operator for him okay which is glorified help desk one thing that i've noticed is different companies name their different you know areas differently like oh yeah like where i work when i first started there it was called tech pc like what is it tech pc i don't know should it be pc tech yeah but i wasn't a pc tech though that was the funny part everything's backwards in tennessee though yeah okay i mean it's true but there you go andy you got your hitters here even if you're not here you got your hitters here for you so so that that's like a little side path we could take for a second because yeah i i've never had i've i mean i've had a couple of jobs with the same title but they meant very different things right like i've been a systems administrator at a couple different places i've been a help desk technician or i.t support technician in a couple of different places but like my very first job working help desk it was it support technician and i was basically a systems administrator like after like a few weeks where they got to know me they got to trust me they understood that i like understood what was going on and how to administer systems they gave me access to a domain admin level account and i was doing system administration as part of my help desk role now we had sys admins but in order for me to you know troubleshoot certain issues or resolve certain issues i had to have access to that admin level account now flipside step to the next job where i was an i.t support technician still help desk i was completely dumbed down as far as what i could do it would happen to me in a school district i could only unlock student accounts i could not touch an adult account nice uh i was just completely cut off you know and then there was no way that i was touching an admin level account right like and so it is kind of crazy how you can have these these kind of disparities but yet kind of the same title right yeah and i i've seen that too in other positions but yeah so like when i first started i was a systems administrator and well it was weird because they called it the systems slash network administrator right and so which it was funny because the entire group had that name or that title but it was me and one other guy and we were the only two that actually did networking out of the entire group right uh oh okay now and then the other guy he didn't really touch systems but i did i did i did both i did systems and networking and then i think it was like two years after i started they they finally was just like okay we're gonna have a network team like just you guys you know work on networking stuff but still to this to this day i still get called about systems like things that i touched you know because oh yeah that's how it goes with some some companies right like if you if you you know especially like medium small to medium-sized companies um if you touch something you now become the owner of that in the in the users right because whether you want it or not yeah because they were like hey he came down here and that thing started working after after he messed with it and so now and they remember that stuff too so it's like five years down the road they're like they'll call you or send you an email like hey you remember that tom that printer wasn't working right and it's like you were able to fix that i was like i don't even remember what i ate for breakfast if you if you come into a company as chris the computer guy or chris the printer guy you will remain chris the printer guy like five levels from that time but yeah i i mean seriously you have to if you want to get away from that i mean i've moved like five levels from where i started with the company i'm at and you know i'm still i'm still going to get those calls 100 of the time i'm still going to get those calls right but you know again it's you you put on your printer hat and then you go fix the problem you know i hate passing the buck james and the patreon said change your number i wish it was that simple right right block to spam calls all right so so chris you started on on the help desk what was the next step after that you said you've had several different positions there yeah so um it it became uh i i started out as help desk it was a bottom level role you know same situation where limited access limited control and then i moved into a help desk administrator role and then i got to play around in full level domain which i mean i already had experience in that from from the consulting gig it was just kind of a more of a formality um you know so uh uh just uh at that point i was able to you know basically do anything on a sysadmin level um you know if if somebody needed you know a change made here i hopped in uh file file server shares uh ad permissions uh the full gamut i mean you know pretty much anything that needed to be done i did it so nice nice i always love active directory i've just i've done it in my entire career and i i teach it at college i actually just got done teaching file shares monday night you know we talked about dfs and all that good stuff and it's just one of my favorite subjects i don't know why maybe i'm just crazy so i mean it's powerful it's powerful it's very well designed and you know if you if you implement it correctly um from the ground up it is amazingly amazingly great um if you come in behind somebody who didn't design it properly uh it is amazingly not great yeah um in the ass to be honest with you uh so um but when when done well man 80 is awesome and i'm getting to play with uh azure 80 now and uh conditional access it's it's so powerful so fun um you know it there's a lot of really cool uh tricks in there and uh it's it's gonna be a lot of fun too i feel nice hey a1 fans aj here to remind you about nordvpn.com nordvpn will help secure you wherever you go i use nordvpn on all my personal devices whenever i'm out 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who wants ads as i record an ad anyway if you want nordvpn and you do go to nordvpn.com t-a-o-n-e for the art of network engineering and you can get a really great deal 73 percent off two years plus four months free so again that's 73 off two years plus four months free of nordvpn if you forget that url just go to nordvpn.com at checkout you can use the promo code t-a-o-n-e for the art of network engineering and we appreciate your support as well as nordvpn's support of the art of network engineering podcast now back to the show so what what came after the help desk admin uh telco network admin ooh the phone guy yeah yeah we uh we migrated to a cisco call manager uh environment from a hold of iot system and uh it um it was a challenge i mean let's be honest right like nobody just inherently understands how punch blocks work um you know and having to jump her over to another punch block and and you know like that that was it was a challenge um yeah learning how to code that learning how to you know how do you turn this out how do you do that like i mean it's just not intuitive right and so um once i finally got that figured out then we're like hey crap uh we want to start uh trying to bring all of our remote sites into a single phone system so that was when we reached out to a local uh uh var and we decided to go ahead and make the jump to cisco with their assistance we rolled out call manager uh i think it was nine five was our first version uh okay we called manager uh unity uh the full you know full gamut uh we uh built everything out uh yep yep jabber you get it you get it yeah yeah so um yeah uh it was it was fun and then um we we also uh after a while we realized that we did not fully understand what we were doing uh and uh deployed a uh call center environment as well so um oh wow we okay we tried we tried to we tried to go you know try to build it all out with our groups and uh the the queuing system that's built in there uh but we just we have such a high call volume for some of our departments and and it's just the reporting levels weren't there and you know instead of going out and buying a third-party product um and or paying for a third-party product over here with you know a third party you know why not just go ahead and purchase out a uh purchase a product directly from cisco that allowed us the queuing that we need the reporting that we need right and then also the customization that we needed as well so um i got to learn how to do some scripting in uccx and that was fun too um so in in all of that i'm working with consultants because going from zero experience and all of that to you know it's now my responsibility was way way way too much in a matter of you know months uh so um i got to i got to to work with a consultant some amazing consultants to help me build all of this out and uh ensure that we did it the right way uh every time and uh so yeah that was a that was an experience so when you were working with consultants where did you were you like learning during that phase like because anytime i've worked with consultants i've always like learned something from that experience right just curious so yes a hundred percent i always make sure that um they they send me notes on everything that they do um that way i can go back over and uh um first off just make sure that it was done the the what they said they did is what they did um not saying they would or wouldn't but you know it's just good practice man yeah keep honest people honest um second off um you know if with the workload that i had or have um you know i'm not going to be able to sit there and stand over their shoulder um and then watch them type it out also because i'm remote but um you know so yeah send me notes on what you did i want to be able to look at it i want to you know have a better understanding of how you did it but also why you did it too and so you know i'm constantly pestering these guys you know just hey what why why are you doing that what what was the intended goal here you know did we achieve the intended goal and if we didn't what was our our fallback and you know just those dumb questions over and over and over again and they were very kind to answer every single one of them gotcha that's always good when you have a consultant so i wanted to ask if you could put some numbers around like how big is a company how big was a call center just trying to understand you know scale oh uh so company because we're a transportation company if we include drivers um that's a significant number but that doesn't actually a genuine number uh as far as like uh in office workers is probably around 350 ish okay so when you say that drivers isn't like a genuine number is it because they're like can like i don't want to say consultants but are they like 1099 drivers or do you mean because they're not knowledge workers they don't have a computer they don't exactly that right okay they're not going to be an office worker they're not going to be a resource that i have to uh account for whenever i'm building out any systems gotcha gotcha okay all right hey i don't know what they're putting in the 18 wheelers these days you know you see everybody show up with some sort of a touch screen symbol motorola ipad whatever you know who knows what they're doing in there kind of like the delivery tablets that they have and whatnot yeah yeah sometimes yeah logistics is fascinating it really really is a fascinating industry um how things not not only just the the how how you determine how things are getting there but like the actual process of getting things to and from too the the very very very very smart people work in that industry and it's black magic to me um i i can totally understand how you load a truck and drive a truck but the the thought process that goes behind how much are you going to charge for it how are you going to get it what route are you going to take um you know have we accounted for weather have we accounted for you know fuel shortages have we found it accounted for you know driver availability in that that lane um i mean and those are only like very very small that's that is my dumb brain you know giving you off the top of my head the the scenarios that i i can think of not actually in the industry i'm working i.t in the industry yeah um that it's insane what those people do and it's black magic to me the the bean counters right as uh it's awesome so so from your consulting experience uh past life is there because i've never worked in transportation so i'm trying to understand like what other vertical have you worked in that that seemed to the most like transportation or logistics um man it's it's totally unique um yeah but the people are very similar um i mean like the the the stuff i work with uh the the computers the the systems i mean honestly at the end of the day it's no different than anybody else's right the the the human factor need is not all that different than any other industry you know in many regards um you know obviously you can you know go into a very custom environment for the truck and that's unfortunately something that i don't think are in um or the satellite systems you know or whatever other systems that we may be using uh the cellular systems to reach out to uh the trailers or the to the trucks themselves or to the drivers and all of that um you know those are those are things that are are wholly unique to the industry i guess ultimately but that's not necessarily my domain um for the moment anyways um however um the the systems that i do play in um or or work in for that matter uh they're not and and you know again i think that boils back down to um what i talked about with the people that i work with you know i i where i'm at in my role i still deliver a product to a user whether that be internet whether that be you know phones whether that be and that's how i envision it i don't i'm not so far removed to where i'm sitting you know at command line all the time and you know making changes and pushing ones and zeros through tubes like i'm still seeing the direct results and i'm talking to the people that are affected by it every day and so i see it as a um i see it as a very similar product to what i was delivering when i was a consultant mm-hmm yeah absolutely i mean oh no no it does it does it one of the things that like kind of bugs me i guess is when people say like oh i don't want to be customer facing and it's like well you're always customer facing you know you you might not be working in a retail store with customers per se but like everybody is your customer right like i i'm a consultant i'm i'm an engineer that works at a partner the project managers are my customers the other engineers are my customers and my customers are my customers right like i have to keep all of those people happy in one way shape or form uh and so i don't i don't differentiate right like i don't think there's any difference there i think i think so i think the thought process on that though aj is that you know if you have like a public customer whether you're going to see them again they're not they can act crazy sure whereas if you have a working relationship with like like our customers right if our users on our network and whatnot right you know there's some difference in you know how they carry themselves yeah yeah i will say i have been cussed out by a customer slash user before but you know says the life of uh when when you're on the like web filter and all that stuff uh when you're running out of that system you know people get pretty pissed about yeah why why is youtube blocked and they'll write you a nice little a little request but yeah so i think that's kind of the you know because yeah i personally don't want to work for public facing customers for sure sure i've worked in retail so but yeah yeah definitely don't i i i don't know my where i'm at and and you know the things that i do i i one of our responsibilities let's say we turn up a new site right and i i evaluate uh what type of resources we have available to us what type of infrastructure is actually in the area you can only imagine um where you would rather have a significant amount of trucks uh hanging out in a large amount of time they don't necessarily allow us into the nicer areas with the nicer fiber and uh you know all the nicer infrastructure there so we end up in some pretty run-down industrial areas so you know what kind of options do i have are we going with a dedicated wireless option are we going with broadband are we going with a you know dedicated internet dedicated fiverr what what do we need what do we have available to us so start from the ground up and then um i'll assist with uh the structured cabling design uh the assist with the i'll actually actually assist i will design the structured cabling and then from there i will sub that out i'll design the wireless i'll sub that out and then purchase hardware program hardware install hardware during all of that communicating with the head of that department the terminal manager the office manager whichever it may be my goal is to make sure that the move or the the setup is the very last problem that they have right they're going to have personnel issues they're going to have you know getting crap to and from new location or you know to new location i don't want is my internet going to be up to be an issue or my computer is going to be working um is this going to be a none of that is a concern of theirs from from beginning to end i handle all of that um you know we'll uh i'll work with my helpdesk team to make sure that we have the computers uh available programmed ready to go and then if you know push comes to shove if i'm the only person in that area at the time because i was setting up the network i'll set up the pcs too shit two weeks ago i was in rogers arkansas setting up pcs uh the week prior to that i was in jackson mississippi uh setting up pcs and tvs um you know as well as testing that work and making sure everything was going so um wow again it's a product right yeah so this is another um side of our our our world i guess you want to say that i um that is kind of newer to me right like a lot of people are constantly doing these you know new circuit turn-ups and stuff like that andy talks about it all the time i every time it's like every week he has a new circuit that he has to turn up um so how often is that for you because like where i work i we might have five new offices in a year right like so not a whole lot of you know turning up per se um so what what is like that frequency for you uh so this year uh we kind of got the overflow from last year too so um and furthermore construction delays and uh cost issues and et cetera et cetera i mean there's a full you know thing going on in the world if y'all haven't noticed and uh it's made my life a living hell yeah uh so um it's uh we have uh we've done i i didn't have anything at all until roughly this quarter and then i had four okay three but i guess like let's go back to before building pretend but then also we yeah um pre-covered i mean you know it's there's an evident flow to it right you know we'll build two lose two you know depending on the need in the area and so on um so it's not like we're we have this massive uh you know growth vertical going on but it's um it's always there and you know it's always a possibility and to be completely honest with you in some instances i could find out about it you know in a very short amount of time and you know i have to stand up a lot of crap really quick and i'm sure you have a beautiful ticket system that will build all that out for you and everything and it has a checklist for you and all that oh yeah dude um nice we're totally not using spiceworks it's not not that yeah well i mean you know and you know he said some are coming up some new ones are coming up some old ones are going down depending on the need right but i i would say in in my experience it's there's just as much work that goes into a tear down of a site as there is bringing up a site 100 percent so that's 100 yeah making sure that you get all your resources back to the home office making sure that you um you you yeah inventory is is a pain um it sucks but it's it's a part of it you know communicating with users yeah inventory department or anything like that like it does they're responsible for their inventory basically yeah so i i don't i don't want to say that i'm the only one responsible um i have a team um i work with a team i don't have a team i work with a team that um you know each one of those guys are amazing in their own right and um you know i may be the the guy on the ground at the time um somebody else maybe they got on the ground at the time it just depends on who who drew the short straw um but uh but yeah sometimes uh you know yeah you go out there you inventory everything make sure that you know we're getting it all packaged up and then how sometimes it's a really small site and you know hey guys can you just take the stuff ups and have them pack it and send it to me and then you know we're getting it and inventorying it back at the office at the main office so um you know it's a different it's a different uh challenge every single time you know depending on um you know the size of the office the location of the office uh the proximity of the office to you know any other resources that we may have available somebody else that may be available in that area um you know trying to you know sub out some of the stuff uh we have some uh structured cabling guys that we trust uh you know i'm sure you all have done this too you know you build a relationship with the company and yeah you know that's uh that's your guy um you know and but they're not always available and so now you're having to to hire a company you've never used before and you're calling around asking anybody and everybody reading reviews and you know doing your research and um man it's a different challenge every time and you're exactly right aj you hit the nail on the head um you know whether it is a build-up or a tear down it is it's fun right challenging but fun right so with everything going on what technologies do you target or do you currently use to help you you know meet meet all these like ever-changing demands who excel um i guess i was thinking like are you using sd-wan are you oh so so yeah no we use uh um we have a uh ase network through atmc um we have uh partnered uh our parent company has actually partnered with uh atm t um with a with an atc team i should say and uh we've got a great relationship with them they work uh very hard for us um we we beat them with sticks and whips and and make sure that they stay in line but they they work really hard for us and uh um we uh i would love to say that we have an amazing sc-wan network um built out we don't um it's just not something that uh we can justify right now we don't have the the size we don't have the complexity we don't have the need um it would be amazingly awesome though because also um that means that sometimes i'm having to wake up at three o'clock in the morning to manually flip over a network um you know to the backup circuit but you know it it's coming it's just not there yet um yeah and uh but yeah so one thing too is like you know we have to realize that we're living in the real world right like just because some someone comes out with some fancy technology not everybody can just migrate to that right away you know so well sure the thing that the only reason why i jumped to that was because of the the the circuits that he was talking about right like you know in in those those areas where you typically see logistics places you know like like you said they're you're not gonna have the greatest internet connections there so i'm thinking like sd-wan broadband connection cellular like you know just throw it on there and it builds the tunnel back to home um but if if you have a relationship with an isp like that if you have you know if you're doing enough business and you have the kind of clout where you can get a team like not everybody can get a dedicated team from an isp so that's that's fantastic that you have that resource and they can help you provision and de-provision circuits as and when you you need them to so that's that's a game-changer right like if everybody had access to that nobody would need st yeah well and and to be fair though i mean we we have barber cuts just like everybody else oh yeah you know i mean it last mile doesn't care how connected you are they they don't care that those fiber fighters don't they don't care so yeah i mean we yeah we have we have broadband um that we back up to um you know or a dedicated internet circuit through a third party uh yeah you know it we we jump different types of services uh based on what's available in the area um but you know as far as having a smart box out there that can handle you know making the transition right now we just don't have it built out we haven't sure uh we haven't invested in it to be honest with you um we've we've got several other major issues that we're we're trying to fight right now but yeah that is on the horizon and i'm stoked um i'm if nothing else just for the fact that i love my sleep um but it's uh it's coming nice that's good nice so i'm trying to remember where we left off here uh did we cover all of the different positions that you have worked in leading up to your current position yeah i think so so um started out as computer operator then moved to help desk administrator then moved to network slash telecommunications administrator and yeah that's currently where i reside okay all right so still the networking telecom guy and you're you got rid of the pots and you're using the pans if you don't know what pots plain old telephone system pans pretty awesome new stuff referring to voip yeah i've never heard that before but uh yeah i dig it yep pots and pans awesome um all right uh i can't believe it we're we're almost coming up on our hour here um i don't want to to ditch without giving you an opportunity to discuss anything that we didn't cover any tidbits of information that you want to share yeah um man so one of the things that i would like to so i think i've established that i haven't taken a a very direct path to the career that i'm in right now and nor do i feel like even in the career that i'm in right now have i maintained a direct path i i've always been the type of guy that um i i just do what needs to be done right i i'm i i i hope ultimately that my team has always known that when when somebody's needed in the trenches you can always look to the right and i'll be there um and uh that type of resource has been being that type of resource i feel is what really pushed my career to the level that it's at um just hey man whatever you need i'm here whatever whatever technology whatever whatever you got i'm there and so i think that you know if you are struggling in the company that you're in become that guy become a guy that just says hey man i'll take ownership of this become that guy that just says hey i i will do that um it sucks i mean let's just be honest man you know becoming the the guy that does the shitty job nobody really wants to do that and that's why you will become noted is because you will become the guy who will do the shitty jobs right at some point it will benefit you i promise um so so do that but also and i want to i want to notate this too have some sort of have some sort of goal with with what you want to accomplish within that company as well so whether you talk to your boss or whether you talk to your boss's boss or whoever you report to make sure that there is some structure to your advancement within that company make sure that you have designated if i accomplish x goals i am going to be at this level if i accomplish these next goals i'm going to be at next level coming from a sporting world playing on a team that's not winning games playing on a team just for for minutes means nothing right you want to get better you want to do things you want to become somebody in that sport or in that field for that matter and ultimately make sure that you're not just getting minutes tenure means nothing if you're not moving so just remember that guys is that you're in gals for that matter that you need to have a goal you need to have a direction and you need to make sure that you're continuing to push towards that i love every bit of that chris i think you you hit a lot of solid points um you know being the person that is willing to do anything is is going to yield you a ton of great experience and i'll i can you know give you another example so i just started a new position in the last week i'm sitting down with my new manager and we're going over a skills matrix so what technologies are you comfortable with and we get we go through this thing it's like hey look man i'll try anything once you know like i'm i'm not afraid to like have i ever touched that no am i willing to touch that yes absolutely if something's going to come my way yeah i would love to take a shot at it you know i personally never touch palo alto firewalls do i want to absolutely so you know when we're talking about the skills matrix like a and he asked me you know do you have experience with that no i don't but i want to do that you know and so sure enough within like 24 hours i get a job you know they come at me like hey we got this palo opportunity coming up in december do you want to try it like hey that's plenty of time for me to get some training in to be able to be prepared for that later on so being open to trying new things you know tackling problems that nobody else wants to solve you're going to get some great experience learning how to troubleshoot stuff and you're just going to get some great experience on you know if if nobody else wants to do it there might be a good reason why we'll say that but be that person that you know and then you're just gonna learn so much from that experience i love it that's wonderful i agree what else i feel like i cut you off i'm sorry if i didn't no no not at all i i appreciate the the reaffirmation i i know that again i i don't have the the i don't have the degrees i don't have the search i don't have the amazing you know experiences i'm not working for cisco i'm not working for this massive bar you know i'm not doing these amazing things but what i do have is a lot of experience in dealing with people and and you know an amazing work i think i feel that that is going to continue to push me into the next direction and um to hear somebody that is at a level such as yourself you know confirm and you know reaffirm that what i've how i feel and what i'm i'm doing is uh you know the the right thing is the right direction um yeah it's invaluable to me so thank you so much for doing that for me you're you're knocking out of the park i mean you know you may not have the the the search or degrees or whatever but what you have are skills that you can't be taught right like you have the s the soft skills you have the drive the desire to want to learn something new all the time like that stuff that they don't teach in college they can't keep they can't teach insert books right like you that's that's like that's in you you want to do that and that is a huge part of this industry and like forget everything else right like if i find somebody that has those kind of qualities and i'm in a position to hire them i will take them all day long over people that have degrees in certs because all that tech stuff can be taught that soft skills that drive that can't be taught i can't make you want to show up to work every day and do the stuff that nobody else wants to do so you come at me with that like you're you're extra hireable in my book so you're you're killing it man you're doing a great job i love the the tidbits that we've pulled out of this story tonight and i hope that uh anybody listening takes this to heart like absolutely to heart like be more open-minded have the drive soft skills like if you're not somebody that i wouldn't go so far to say soft skills can be taught or learned but i think more than anything they can be practiced right like if if you're feeling uncomfortable having conversations with people then have more conversations with people put yourself in those uncomfortable positions and then you just end up getting more comfortable with it you learn how to navigate those conversations those topics or join a podcast that's one way to do it yeah can't have too many networking podcasts so i don't know no i'm just kidding awesome uh chris this has been a ton of fun um i i'm trying to think i think that's like the best way to put a bow on it um dan any any last-minute thoughts from you no i i think you both you guys nailed it so i don't want to i don't want to bring that down to anything not at all man all right chris anything else from you no thank you again for for this amazing opportunity it's been an absolute blast yeah i i can't you know it it i i love doing the podcast and i hate it because this time goes by so fast like i feel like we could keep going with you and just you know but you know we're doing this thing we got to try to keep it to a certain amount of time and uh and so uh thank you so much for joining us chris i'm sure we'll hear from you again i know we'll talk to you again we'll see in the discord and we'll chat with you in the patreons if you are interested in joining chris you can go to patreon.com forward slash art of netenge and join the patreon program we thank all of our patreons for your support of what we do here you can also join our discord you can go to artofnetinch.com forward slash iatj4 it's all about the journey and you can join us in the discord and you can jump into a study group you can uh chat with us on our happy hours every friday it seems like they're happening every friday and saturday i don't know how i'm missing the announcements i wake up the next day and i see people on twitter that happy hour was so much fun i mean shit i missed another one uh but no i i love it i love seeing all that stuff go on so you can join us there and uh awesome guys thank you so much for another wonderful time here and we'll see you next week on the art of network engineering 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 netench that's art of n-e-t-e-n you can also find us on the web at artofnetworkengineering.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 you