Re: PhD vs CCIE

As a matter of fact I have... I think we're connected on LinkedIn, and I
keep all of my info up to date there. It's basically a living, breathing
resume. I'm pretty open about everything...

Ronald Angello - CCIE 17846

Early in my career (starting at age 16), I worked at a national accelerator
facility where I was exposed to people of many different nationalities and
cultures. I worked there for 12 years supporting the various accelerator
electronics systems, control system, and controls / data acquisition /
scientific computing / high performance computing networks that make the
electron beam reach its target for all of the physicists from all over the
world to research the nucleus of the atom. I started there terminating
fiber and UTP, then configuring routers, switches, and single-board I/O
controllers. We looked like rock stars when we replaced those damned Fore
PowerHubs that crashed daily! I worked as Network Administrator for the
entire site before I left there in 2006. I recall attending a Joint Techs
conference where I met Dr. Scott Shenker... pretty cool to see what he's up
to these days!

More recently I worked as a Sr. Global Net Eng / Network Architect for a
Fortune 100 headquartered in the UK, consisting of 20+ operating companies
in 20+ countries. I designed and implemented a global network - global WAN
and data centres. Yes - I had the pleasure of working with BT and Orange
/sigh (no offense to any of you that work for either telco). I lead a
"Global Network Services Council" that had the unfortunate task of
developing global standards for networking.

The challenge for me wasn't sitting on conference calls all day with folks
across the pond in UK, FR, DK, etc., but there was a technical barrier
between myself and my counterparts. No one over there even had as much as
a CCNA. I grew tired of all of the politics and micromanagement, and quite
honestly, I became more interested in flipping my salary.

The last straw for me was not all of the op co's undermining the standards
that we worked so hard to develop and get approved... not management
ruining my chance to go work for Cisco... not me paying $2k a pop out of
pocket twice to go to Chicago to take the CCDE practical exam... but my
manager making me take vacation each time for those 3 days. Vacation is
hard to come by over here! Leaving was the best move I ever made, and I
could NEVER go back to a typical 8-5.

See, I still can't think of anything about sitting in a classroom or
virtual classroom that could replace any of that. BTW - if anyone ever
asked me to fetch them coffee or cake, they would have a serious problem
on their hands... unless it was Scott Morris or Dr. Bill Parkhurst! :)

Ronnie

On Tue, Mar 6, 2012 at 1:17 PM, Bill6521 <bil6521_at_netscape.net> wrote:

> Hi Guys,
>
> Just had a thought and my apologies about this if am I wrong but have many
> of
> you guys really had international experience by that I mean not just the
> odd
> business trips to Rio, Paris, London or Rome to do a bit of install ,
> configuration etc but a real international project - say of 18 months
> duration
> etc. I mean I was talking to my USA colleagues on a project here and the
> differences between how CCIEs operate and are regarded in the USA and in
> Europe for example are staggering. The differences are not just via
> language
> but also cultural - as I am sure we are seeing now. By the way true
> international experience is regarded as a big plus by most companies.
>
>
> Blogs and organic groups at http://www.ccie.net
>
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Received on Tue Mar 06 2012 - 15:23:05 ART