Going to be quitting Computer Networking

[brandonkick]

It is scary that I am still doing it... same job. I guess it is paying the bills, so there is not much to say.

A bit of an update to my own post above:

I jumped ship. I moved to working as a software engineer for a fortune 500 company, same level (still considered a "mid level" software engineer) and went from a total compensation of around 85K (72 base + 401k match) to a new total compensation of around 135K(110K base + 401K match + 12% bonus). I function more as a mid in this role (read less work, less responsibility) but the manager (who I do know and have worked with before in this industry) tells me he is going to try hard to get me promoted to senior level this fall. The next pay band warrants a TC bump of between 25K-30K.

I hated to leave my old employer. HATED it. It was one of the hardest decisions I've ever had to make, even given the massive bump in TC and what is essentially an easier job than I had before. The president of the company called me personally, upset (in a ... oh my god you can't leave, why are you upset tone) that I was moving on. Wanting to know how he could stop it, what could be done. But what they could do, what they could have done.. they wouldn't do. They just couldn't even get remotely close to the TC I was being offered elsewhere. They say couldn't. I say wouldn't.

I went out of my way to transition away from that role to ensure the legacy project I worked on (and I was basically the only one left with good domain knowledge on, a tech lead basically) didn't suffer and someone else could keep that ship floating. They screwed my on my yearly bonus, which was about 2 grand or so... but still irked me pretty good and gave me some BS about it being " a tool to keep up employee retention".... horse crap, I earned it. They wouldn't pay it. Oh well. And I later find out that they are in not so good shape financially now and an employee would have likely been let go. I can't guarantee that it would have been me, as I managed to stay through a lot of "crap, we lost a contract, we gotta let people go" periods without getting let go... but, the crew was pretty lean to begin with when I left.

As hard as it was, I think I made the right decision.

 

[Sky-Knight]

It's funny how when the rubber hits the road, no matter how good we are... they just won't fork over. And then act shocked when we jump at a better deal.

 

[johnrobert]

You chose a relatively low-paid, hard work industry you should have got a government job like Joe Biden.
If I had to do it again I would do it differently.

 

[britechguy]

It's funny how when the rubber hits the road, no matter how good we are... they just won't fork over. And then act shocked when we jump at a better deal.

It has been a very, very long time indeed since American management, at least, has valued retention of talent. From the very first job I had in IT in the 1980s, it was known that the best way to increase your earning potential the most rapidly was to job-hop, and for those who could tolerate doing so it was great. You didn't even need to last a full year at a given company when things were at their hottest, and you never needed to last two.

But, since I did change careers from IT into healthcare, I can also say that the same thing is absolutely true in that industry as well. If you are not willing to quit a position you love, but that does not pay you "the going rate" offered elsewhere, you are not going to get that "going rate."

There have been rare instances where I've seen a current employer offer a match for what the new employer is offering, but I've seen very few people given such an offer take it. You instantly end up in the same situation you were in, perhaps worse, where your salary is now considered "inflated" or that "we've been blackmailed" (whether that's stated or not, and where every freakin' person involved knows the game and how it's played) and cannot expect any salary increases or position advancements anytime in the foreseeable future.

I've also seen plenty of hopscotching beween several employers where someone leaves to get a higher salary (or whatever other benefits they're seeking) where they return a year or two later, at a higher salary and with better benefits than they left for [and that were refused earlier, sometimes]. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Until and unless there is actual salary surveying being done "in house" with regard to competitors and a willingness to match both salary, benefits, and advancement in-house to retain talent, without stalling them out because "they've been here so long, they're not going to leave," nothing will ever change. And I don't see it changing. This stupid game has been going on for generations, at least in the USA.

A quotation I picked up in the 1990s, when I was at my second job with one of the USA's then telecomm giants, from a letter writer to the Washington Post also, unfortunately, is as accurate today as it was then:

". . . American business has yet to learn how to measure the productivity and effectiveness of professional and technical employees. As a result, employees who get little done, but spend a lot of time doing it, are often rewarded more than those who fulfill or exceed job requirements while keeping reasonable hours.

A job that routinely requires 60 to 80 hours per week is mismanaged, understaffed, or staffed with the wrong person.

A badly managed firm isn't a good place for men or women, parents or not."
~ Sophie M. Korczyk

 

[Sky-Knight]

Employers don't even have to go that far... they just need to offer actual raises. They fork over 2-3% if you're lucky, which doesn't even keep up with inflation. So you're actually taking a pay cut year after year, meanwhile they'll act like it's a huge favor.

Any actual annual raise needs to be inflation rate + 2-3% to keep up. It's a math problem, and employers get away with it because Americans are so stupid thy don't understand percentages. Our educational system is THAT BAD. Worse, the programs developed to correct this are often maligned because the previous generation that was failed doesn't understand them, and votes them out.

It's all a huge race to the bottom, no idea how to fix it... just trying to survive it.

 

[johnrobert]

I recently had the mother of a nightmare/complicated network to fix
3 PC towers acting as 1 with one monitor. 2 of them XP were the data was stored either network share or remote in
the client had not used them for some time and did not understand the setup only it did not work as soon as I started she asked me how much it would cost I told her this is a 10 out of 10 difficulties. I thought what have I got myself into.

network error (Server Message Block protocol (SMB protocol)
Preventing network shares and her lawyer program PCLaw from working.

It turned out to be the easiest fix ever added a few features to allow SMB protocol 3
it could have gone the other way

 

[NETWizz]

I recently had the mother of a nightmare/complicated network to fix
3 PC towers acting as 1 with one monitor. 2 of them XP were the data was stored either network share or remote in
the client had not used them for some time and did not understand the setup only it did not work as soon as I started she asked me how much it would cost I told her this is a 10 out of 10 difficulties. I thought what have I got myself into.

network error (Server Message Block protocol (SMB protocol)
Preventing network shares and her lawyer program PCLaw from working.

It turned out to be the easiest fix ever added a few features to allow SMB protocol 3
it could have gone the other way

Not sure what you are referring, but I do not recall XP ever supporting SMB3

Pretty sure SMB1 is turned off on all new builds of servers though it can be added in features (don't do it for security reasons).

My recommendation would be to simply upgrade to a supported build of Windows. Basically, the customer MUST run Windows 10 20H2 Enterprise/Education or 21H1 or later (any version) OR any version of Windows 11... or I cannot support it.

 

[johnrobert]

it must have been SMB2 it was a few weeks ago she needed it working to wind down her business and make backups so its short term

 

[Sky-Knight]

Windows 2000 and XP only support SMBv1. SMBv2 game with Windows 7, and worked on nothing older. SMBv3 came along later.

So the only thing you can do is slap SMBv1 on a modern system to access it. Personally... I REFUSE to do this on Windows. What I do is isolate all XP assets into their own network, only allowing RDP in from trusted IP addresses. Then I build a Linux VM that has a foot on the main and isolated network, its job is to act as a SMB bridge, providing as many endpoints on the main network as necessary and doing the SMBv1 access itself.

YES it's a ton of work...
YES it's not cheap...
But the solution affords permanent access to legacy systems if required.

If that's not good enough? Fire me... anything older than Windows 10 and Server 2012 has no place plugged into any sort of network anymore.

 

[britechguy]

anything older than Windows 10 and Server 2012 has no place plugged into any sort of network anymore.

A-freakin'-men!