Experience
I remember going to my dad's house every summer when I was a kid. My step mom, would always have an awesome computer at the time. We're talking like a 200Mhz Pentium, 128MB Ram, Windows 95, with prodigy internet. Man that thing was a beast. I would always find a game or something to play on that thing. My favorite game being Tie Fighter of course, this being the best Star Wars simulator even a decade later.
The first computer I ever owned I paid cash for from a friend at school. I paid $100 for a 333Mhz, 256MB, 6GB, Modem, sound card, man what a steal. That was in 2002 I believe. It came with Windows ME. I still argue with everyone that Windows ME was the best OS ever. I never had any problems period.
Well, I finished high School and enlisted in the Air Force. I almost became an f-16 crew chief, when the recruiter told me about the 3C0 opening. He told me about it and I was interested. He setup an on base visit at Travis to actually see what I'd be doing. I got on base and I loved it. I saw their server floor, I saw their helpdesk area, it was great. I was sold, and I enlisted.
Tech School was somewhat redundant, although I did get a few things out of it. I got introduced to AD which was completely new to me. Networking was fairly new to me, but I understood completely. Computer hardware was a breeze. All in all, it was decent training. I got about 33 credit hours in 4 months.
I was stationed in Grand Forks. I went straight to the Help Desk. I vaguely remember answering my first call. I was stumped on some problems the first few months. I had to learn how all these special applications worked, and what our procedures were for everything. Most stuff dealing with AD was as always a cake walk. You learn the meaning of busy when on a helpdesk supporting 3,000 local users.
I'd go on a few calls but most troubleshooting was done over the phone. Some common problems I remember included port security, network connectivity, E-mail, software errors, hardware problems, VPN, just about anything. I quickly gained knowledge and was soon answering calls like crazy.
I got ordered to deploy to Djibouti. This trip was actually the best time I've ever spent in the Air Force. The weeks were 72 hours long, so there was no shortage of work. I was originally put in a radio shop, but I had no real usefulness there. They learned of my Help Desk background and I got transferred to the S-6. I wanted to do it, I was bored as hell in the radio shop.
This was the first time I encountered another network. Things were different, procedures were different, and the tempo was different. That didn't faze me though, I adapted. The marines I was working with were reserve, and I think most of them didn't work in a Help Desk environment on a daily basis like me. After about two weeks, I was starting to tackle the most difficult problems. I handled their web requests for a while. I was the only tech available to go in the SCIF, so that kept me pretty busy. I did some troubleshooting on our Satellite WAN. That thing was pretty cool. At the end of my deployment, I was at the top of my 'game'. Time to go home.
I returned home and this time I found myself in Network Services. There I was responsible for DNS, DHCP, and our HP Openview server. Openview was a pain in the rear and I never fully understood it. It was very customizable and difficult to work with. Our Openview server was performing poorly, and we had a spare server to upgrade it at the time, so I took the time to rebuild it from scratch onto a Dell 2450 if I remember correctly. DHCP was our daily ritual. I'd have to reserve a few addresses every day at least, but nothing too difficult. Now DNS was a blast. I've made a few errors working with DNS, and you learn about them real quick. I never realized how important DNS really was until I was responsible for it.
I always wanted to get into the Server shop, but I guess they felt I was good where I was at. I didn't get a CJR to reenlist as a 3C0, so I decided to get out. I stayed in California for awhile with family. I then moved to Texas and got a job working with the City of Abilene pretty quick.
I started as a computer tech. Basic go fix any problems a user may call about. Luckily there's a help desk so I don't have to deal with that normally. Replacing monitors, installing software, returning parts from the manufacturer, I did a bit of everything. After awhile I started getting my hands a bit dirty with the servers. I built up a few file servers from scratch, implemented a couple GPO changes, installed a few new Switches, and performed daily backups on all the servers. This is a great place to see everything work, and actually get a chance to play around with it all. In the Air Force I was pretty much stuck on what stuff I would be working on. At the City, if it needs to be worked on, you can do it. A nice perk of a small IT shop I would say.
As of now I'm still working at the city, and I plan on staying for the near future.
