This is a series of posts about my journey so far. You can read the previous entries at:

The Story So Far… (Part 1)
The Story So Far… (Part 2)

Last time on Darrell Tang Z! Teenage Darrell learned so much in his youth about technology! But will it help him now?!

Snap Back To Reality

"Unfortunately, I can't. Desktop support has all the peripherals locked in a cage in their office. I know HOW, I just can't get a replacement for you."

If it had been just the once, I might have let it slide and moved on. Maybe if I was given more access to distribution and core network hardware to learn more, I may have stayed longer. But enterprises don't get to be enterprises by giving the newbie access to core switches and firewalls. And I kept running into cases where I had the knowledge and experience but lacked the access rights and permissions. I knew HOW to fix it, I just wasn't ALLOWED to because it wasn't my job.

And, as it often does, Opportunity came at the perfect time. This enterprise was a contract position, I had a new baby and a new wife and my daughter to support, and some human network connections came through with a position at an IT Managed Service Provider (MSP). They were looking for someone with network & VoIP experience to bolster their skillset in the Service Desk for multiple clients and I was looking to learn everything that I hadn't been able to touch. At just under a year in the enterprise position, I left the narrowest scope of responsibility for the broadest scope possible (although I had yet to learn HOW broad it really was).

The Wonder Years

MSPs are pressure cookers. You either get one of the most delicious, tender meals you've ever had in your life or you get turned into mush. Maybe that's a bad analogy since it implies the techs were consumed one way or another.

Regardless, we were a team of 10 that serviced every break-fix ticket that came in for between 50-75 clients we had over the years I worked there. We did it all:

• AD

• Exchange

• networking

• VLANs

• wireless

• VoIP

• colocation

• server rack & stack

Some of these activities belonged to a Projects team but we were involved and working on all of it, at a breakneck pace.

I loved it.

We were a great team. It was one of the rare occasions where camaraderie blossomed organically in a workplace. The work was hard, the ticket queues unending (and always growing!) but we knew that we could rely on each other for support and backup in any circumstance.

I was also learning at that same breakneck pace. Soaking up anything and everything I could while also contributing my networking & VoIP expertise and mentoring anybody interested. It was here that I learned my love of teaching and mentoring (and also started to get decent at it, I think).

Part 4 next time! Keep learning and keep growing!

Darrell