From: Tony Olzak (aolzak@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx)
Date: Thu Jan 11 2001 - 17:07:18 GMT-3
That's not true. Actually, they tell you that if you suspect a hardware
problem during day one, notify the proctor immediately and you will get time
back for however long it takes to fix it. However, if it turns out to be a
config problem, you lose all that time.
Tony
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert DeVito" <robertdevito@hotmail.com>
To: <ccielab@groupstudy.com>
Sent: Thursday, January 11, 2001 6:31 AM
Subject: Re: Second Attempts
> I hear alot of stories of faulty equipment, especially cables, in the lab.
> Is this on purpose or by accident? I am talking about day 1 and day 2
> morning, not troublshooting.
>
> Thank you,
> Robert (Feb 10 SJ)
>
>
> ----Original Message Follows----
> From: "Doug Hammond" <dhammond@rcsis.com>
> Reply-To: "Doug Hammond" <dhammond@rcsis.com>
> To: "Price, Jamie" <JPrice@isgteam.com>, "'Michelle T'"
> <mtruman@mn.mediaone.net>, <ccielab@groupstudy.com>
> Subject: Re: Second Attempts
> Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 21:15:03 -0800
>
> I had a similar, although not nearly <so> bad, experience on my first
> attempt. Faulty cables, wierd serial ports, etc. I lost a LOT of time. It
> really didn't hurt me so bad, I really didn't belong in the room. On my
> second attempt, I had another problem come up and after 2 minutes of
> troubleshooting I went to the proctor and said, "Something's broke, can
you
> fix it?" 5 minutes later, he said, yeah it's broke use this port instead.
> Didn't even slow me down, not that the outcome was any different! The
moral
> of the story is to trust your instincts, if it should be working and you
> know it, ask the protor. They hardly ever bite.
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Price, Jamie" <JPrice@isgteam.com>
> To: "'Michelle T'" <mtruman@mn.mediaone.net>; <ccielab@groupstudy.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2001 12:56 PM
> Subject: RE: Second Attempts
>
>
> > My horror story from a few weeks ago:
> >
> > My day 1 was chaos. I had no less than 4 cable defects with my rack, a
> > flaky patch panel (the proctor admitted this), and unstable routers.
> Each
> > issue (remember that on day 1 the rack is supposed to more or less
> > work....troubleshooting doesnt occur until day 2 if you make it that
> > far....1 or 2 issues are ok but I had many more than that) took 10-15
> > minutes to identify, because I had to make sure it wasnt me, and then
> took
> > the proctor at least another 10-15 minutes to fix. One incideent
> stretched
> > beyond 30 minutes. Some examples:
> >
> > 1. I was tasked with creating an "environment"....no problem....but
the
> > cables that connected 2 of the outlying routers to the core were faulty
> and
> > therefore the interfaces would not come up. With no connectivity to
the
> > core, the routed environment, and any subsequent routing loops, could
not
> be
> > proved/identified. After triple checking to make sure it wasnt a
config
> > issue and that things were cabled correctly, I told the proctor who
then
> > went into maintenance mode. I had 4 distinctly separate cable problems
> like
> > this which took them a fair while to fix. Maintenance guys were coming
> in
> > and rewiring portions of my patch panel!!! And the cable problems
werent
> all
> > identified at once either, some cables/ports worked ok at the start of
> the
> > day but then went bad throughout.
> >
> > 2. Realizing I was having numerous cable issues I (stupidly) jiggled an
> > Ethernet cable in the back of a router thinking that that might be the
> > reason this particular interface wouldnt come up. On doing that the
> entire
> > rack shut down and powered back on. Wasnt I overjoyed to find that
> > everything I had entered on the routers had been lost to me and I had
to
> > reenter it. Luckily I was saving every 10 minutes but it was a pain
> > nonetheless. But you'll be happy to know that after the power down of
> the
> > rack the Ethernet interface came up.
> >
> > 3. The patch panel only had a few ports patched to interfaces.
> > So...thinking that router A was connected to router B, I was entering
> > another realm of frustration as to why I was not getting connections.
> > Admittedly I should have checked straight away but when you lose so
much
> > time because of other physical faults you start to get a bit rushed.
> This
> > in fact took the proctor a while to find as he expected them to be
cabled
> as
> > such too.
> >
> > There were a number of other rack related issues that arose as well but
I
> > wont go into them - NDA and all. These additional issues totalled
about
> > another 4.
> >
> > Needless to say the proctor was very helpful and appreciative of the
> > situation. I was given some more time at the end of the day to
> compensate
> > for the lost time in the middle.
> >
> > >From a personal standpoint though it didnt really help. As each issue
> arose
> > I had to move onto the next task (provided it wasnt dependant on the
one
> I
> > was working on) and return to the original task when he had fixed the
> > problem. I didnt have time to wait until the issue was resolved due to
> the
> > amount of tasks that you need to fulfill in the day.
> >
> > I ended up having to work on 5 different tasks at once due to physical
> > failures and/or the dependency of that task on a different router/cable
> that
> > had a problem.
> >
> > That was the sort of crappy day 1 I had. So....to cut an excessively
> long
> > story short (for any of you that are still reading)....I arrive on day
2
> to
> > find that I do not have my day 2 folder sitting on my desk. I had some
> > issues with that. I'm not saying I would have blitzed it but I
honestly
> > believe I would have made it to day 2 had no errors occurred (but then
> again
> > you never know). The errors threw a gigantic speed hump into the flow
of
> > the day and as corny as it sounds, "the flow" is an important factor.
> > Finishing half of one task to move onto another and only being able to
do
> > 1/3rd of that while I moved onto another simply screwed me up. I
couldnt
> > prove solutions, test for routing loops, etc until later towards the
end
> of
> > the day - and then I had to prove/test them all at once.
> >
> > Geared up for a confrontation I suddenly get called to the side by the
> > proctor. Before I could say anything he offered some acceptable
> > compensation. I will not divulge what it was so please don't ask, but
> > needless to say that both of the proctors were appreciative of, and
> > sympathetic to, the situation and did all they could within the
> boundaries
> > of reasonable actions to make amends (thankfully I didnt pay for the
> attempt
> > out of my own pocket or my calmness may have been a different story).
> >
> > With regard to attitude and confidence though my second attempt was
much
> > better than my first. I had calmed down considerably - in spite of all
> the
> > crap - and by slowing the old brain electrons down I read the
questions
> for
> > what they were, realized that many things were nowhere near as
> complicated
> > as I had imagined them to be on my 1st try, planned accordingly, and
> > actually did well....considering everything else that had happened.
> Within
> > myself I feel I would have made it to day 2 had the rack been ok.
> >
> > Now I'm not saying that I would have passed the entire lab had my rack
> been
> > ok - I'll never know that - but I feel within myself that the learning
> > experience of attempt 1 was very beneficial and applying that which I
> learnt
> > in attempt 1 (I'm not talking Cisco stuff here - more strategies and
> > attitudes) to attempt 2 made me a serious contender for that 4 digit
> cert.
> >
> > All in all my 2nd attempt - as frustrating as it was - actually
instilled
> > more confidence in me. Pity I have to wait another 6 months now :)
> >
> > Thats my brief story.
> >
> > Jamie
> >
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