From: Scott Morris (smorris@ipexpert.com)
Date: Thu Nov 01 2007 - 23:03:06 ART
Heheheh... Excellent points! And sometimes life hands you things like
that. But in the end, it's nice to hear that it was still all worthwhile,
and that you still realize you don't know everything. :)
Sometimes you'll touch everything, sometimes you'll touch hardly anything
you did on your lab exam. But it's not about real life. It's about knowing
the technologies enough to pick the best solution!
I still remember my first consulting job after getting my IE. It was a
client with some DLSW work (which I always hated anyway, but figured I was
an IE so how hard could it be?) and it turned out that while they ran DLSW,
their problem was with a BSTUN configuration (which I had never ever seen
before). Amazingly, the skill of looking things up, quickly assessing
possibilities and trying things out led to a quick solution (WAY quicker
than I anticipated after the initial panic!).
There's always value. And then there's free time. You'll find something to
take it up! :)
Scott Morris, CCIE4 (R&S/ISP-Dial/Security/Service Provider) #4713, JNCIE-M
#153, JNCIS-ER, CISSP, et al.
CCSI/JNCI-M/JNCI-ER
VP - Technical Training - IPexpert, Inc.
IPexpert Sr. Technical Instructor
A Cisco Learning Partner - We Accept Learning Credits!
smorris@ipexpert.com
Telephone: +1.810.326.1444
Fax: +1.810.454.0130
http://www.ipexpert.com
-----Original Message-----
From: nobody@groupstudy.com [mailto:nobody@groupstudy.com] On Behalf Of
Scott Smith
Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2007 7:07 PM
To: groupstudy
Subject: CCIE First Year Review
I thought I'd take a moment and do a quick review of the past year...
my first year as an IE.
- Got a promotion. Same company, different department.
- Was completely confused, for like a month, by the fact I didn't have to
study anymore... man, that was weird
- First assigned task <drum roll>... team lead enterprise QoS development.
My least favorite topic of topics... joy, joy! Wish I could have seen the
look on my face.
- Number of times I've heard "We'll you're the IE" when presented with some
off the wall question: lost count back in the spring
- Number of times I've said "I don't know everything!" in response to the
line above: lost count
- Number of times I've been asked "How did you past the lab?": ~20
- Have received zero appreciation for my lab induced creative solutions :-)
- Have received praise for suggesting what I thought was an off-the-wall
feature Cisco made me learn... go figure.
- Number of times I've had to clarify the fact that I'm an R&S IE when
presented with VoIP, security and MPLS questions and of course the always
mentioned "We'll you're the IE" statement: way too many
- Found out my non-IE co-workers like to make a big deal out of my
mistakes... after all "I'm the IE"
- Number of times I've wished Cisco had not removed ATM from the lab (to
make me learn it) : several! 95% of the connectivity I deal with is ATM...
not sure what Cisco was thinking there.
- Surprised by the number of people who are inclined to regurgitate their
resume' when they find out I'm an IE
- Biggest screw-up: Fubar'd an ATM connection to a 400+ user call center...
who knew PCR/SCR was THAT important? :-)
- Coolest new (new to me anyway) technology I've been working on... WAAS
- I've learned way more about QoS than I think I wanted to know
- Have enjoyed having access to the expertise of our Cisco AS team...
instant guru on any topic
- Number of times I've had to deal with BGP: 2
- Number of times I've had to configure multicast: 0
- Surprised by the amount of knowledge I've lost over the last year...
of course I've gained a lot of new stuff
All in all I'm having a blast and it was absolutely worth all the blood,
sweat and tears to become a CCIE:-)
Cheers!
-- Scott CCIE #17040 (R&S)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Dec 01 2007 - 06:37:27 ART