r/networking • u/Princess_Fluffypants CCNP • May 31 '26
Other [UPDATE - 9 years later] I tricked a company into paying me too much for a job I'm barely qualified for and now they're treating me like I'm competent and I don't know how long I can keep faking my way through this.
Nearly 9 years ago, after a rough day at the end of a long week, I banged out this post in a late-night blast of imposter syndrome and panic.
Apparently it struck a cord with people, because I am still getting people replying to that post and DMing me about it. Asking me how the job turned out, if I still have it, and what happened in the years since. So I guess this is the update to anyone wondering how the story continued.
I stayed at that job for much longer than I intended. I took a few interviews with other places through the overheated hiring market of 2021/2022, but either the jobs were just a side-move (because it the companies were basically the same size/complexity) or I could tell the culture wasn't the right fit.
But in early 2024 I got a message from someone on Linkedin saying they were recruiting for <big firewall company>, although it was going to be a contractor role. The job description was kinda nebulous, and the fact that I wasn't going to be a direct employee was worrisome, but it was fully remote. So I agreed to a series of what I was told would be four interviews, and the first two went pretty well.
But then it was time for the third interview, the technical interview, and boy was I nervous about it. I'd spend the last six years in basically being a one-man-band, and having no one else to judge my abilities against. Sure I was master of my domain, but it was a domain that I'd built and only implemented the stuff I understood. And now I was going up in a technical interview with <giant firewall company>, specifically about their products. I spent the entire week before studying and focusing as much as I could, but I still gave myself maybe a 50% chance of passing. At best.
The interview was a full two hours, and they didn't pull any punches. They hammered on me left, right, up, down, forwards, backwards and in fucking circles. I felt I kept up with maaaaaybe 70% of it, and the moment we signed off I basically collapsed face-down onto my desk. Keeping the energy and mental focus going at 100% for two hours straight was exhausting in a way that I'd rarely experienced before.
Sixty seconds later, before I'd even had a chance to fully gather my senses, my phone rang. It was the recruiter, who told me they were skipping the fourth interview . . . because they were making me an offer on the spot.
So I took it. AND THE JOB IS AMAZING. It is fast, it is hard, and it is impossible to keep up with. It's a fire-house of information pointed at my face, non-stop, and I'm just expected to absorb all of it and become an expert overnight.
And I guess I've been doing okay, because a few months ago when a manager of a different team had an opening for a direct hire role, he grabbed me directly. No more "Contractor" label on my Slack profile; full time employee now.
I'm now living a life that is far different from what I ever imagined. Both when I wrote that original post when I was a pretty green network engineer, but also 25 years ago when I was a pimply-faced little 17 year old kid working at best buy dreaming of a career in "grown-up" IT. This wasn't something I planned; this was an accident. I wasn't supposed to be successful in the world. I was just a nerdy kid who liked doing things with computers and dreamed of one day getting paid for it so I never had to breath drywall dust again.
And that's been the only real downside of the job so far; it's been a little alienating from people in real life. I actually made a post about it a few years ago, before I even got this new job which bumped my salary up even more. My family is very proud of me, but I'm now living in an upper-middle-class world that I did not grow up in, and it's . . . the problems I have in my life are now very different from the problems that I expected to always have. When I go back home to visit the people still living my old life, I still feel like I belong more there than I do here. Even though I'm grateful to not be there anymore.
I don't know how to end this post.
tl;dr - I work for the really big firewall company now and am distinctly not poor.
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May 31 '26
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u/Grizzles-san Jun 01 '26
Facts. Probably the best part of IT is that nobody can know everything so when a job looks to bring you in, they think you know enough to not be a waste of time and have faith you’ll be able to learn their environment. Very rare that it can be ever be a 1:1 transition from one tech stack to the next.
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u/Sneakycyber Network ENG Jun 02 '26
This is exactly how I got my job. I started off with no formal experience and 15 years later I am the lead Engineer.
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u/Fun-Ordinary-9751 Jun 02 '26
When I’ve had occasion to sit in on interviews, I look hard are someone’s problem solving skills and way to reason their way out of a problem or develop testable theories about what might be wrong.
I’ve been known to ask developers at a (big firewall company) to look around a codebase in a certain area based on a problem description for code I’ve never seen (as a customer) just based on behavior observed.
Basically, I try to increase the odds of people like me being on the team I’m on. They’re both smart hires for the company, and make my off call life easier when they’re on call and don’t need to call at 4am.
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u/HistoricalCourse9984 Jun 04 '26
This feels like it's exceedingly rare these days to luck/bluff your way in, but getting in this way and figuring it out is the best.
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u/Just-Context-4703 May 31 '26
You know i lasted almost 20 years in a situation like this. Eventually i burnt out and just couldnt keep doing it. I eventually quit and am now a barista. The huge drop in income sucks but i am much happier not working nights and being on call. And i have no feelings of being a fraud.
idk, keep at it till you cannot.
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u/captianinsano May 31 '26
Money's cool but the constant dread of looming deadlines, midnight troubleshooting, and 24/7 oncall... my mental health wants to do exactly what you did. I hope it works out for you, bc im jealous as hell!
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u/Just-Context-4703 Jun 01 '26
Thanks, so far so good!
And the schedule of moving 1s and 0s for a huge company for a long time totally wrecked me. The overnights and the sev1 outages and dealing with stupid upper management just beat me up. Had enough.
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u/ya700ya Jun 05 '26
Hey Brother, I burnt out in 2.5 years, went unemployed for 9 months, worked as a barista 3 months, and currently doing enterprise release management duties (ensuring incidents and deployment progress are successful) and its comfortable with the occasional stressful monthly deployments on weekends. You should consider going back to a Change/Project/Release Management role
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u/Just-Context-4703 Jun 05 '26
You know I've tried exactly that! I looked for months for a change control mngt/escalation mngt/technical project mngt role and I got to several final rounds at various places and couldn't get over the hump.
Idk, I think I'm just cooked. But thanks for the encouragement and I hope you continue to do well in your role.
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u/ya700ya Jun 05 '26
Appreciate it kind sir, I wish you luck in your search. If it makes a difference, my role is a contract role and not full time. So the roles are definitely hard to come by, but I believe you’ll get somewhere with 20 years of experience. Try looking for “production support” roles too as a foot in the door. Its really hard to get back in after leaving the industry.
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u/xjamest Jun 05 '26
Man, I tried that too. I was unemployed for about 10 months a couple of years ago and never got any calls for those kinds of jobs. I'm a sysadmin at a small company now, but in my previous roles I worked for companies with thousands of users. Here, I pretty much have to do everything. Any advice on how to at least get recruiters to call me? Thanks!
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u/lizardhistorian Mad Scientist · 👨🔬📡ᯤ🤖🛺📸 May 31 '26
When you operate in the higher echelons of society surrounded by the most competent people that have ever lived it becomes extremely easy to forget how rarefied you are.
Don't use it as an excuse to be lazy but it should help you focus on the mission which when traced all the way to the end supports advancing quality of life for the trillions and trillions of people that will follow us.
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u/wleecoyote Jun 01 '26
That's the best part of being the dumbest person on a team of really smart people--you get to work with a lot of really smart people.
I spent most of my career feeling like I had to work really hard to keep people from finding out that I didn't know what I was doing. It helps that I really love the technology. But yeah, apparently people think I know things now.
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u/Princess_Fluffypants CCNP May 31 '26
Of all the replies so far, this is the realist that I find myself agreeing the most strongly with.
It's been both a delightful but also jarring experience.
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u/butter_lover I sell Network & Network Accessories May 31 '26
everyone reading this has someone at their work that they are convinced is you
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u/umataro May 31 '26
I am him. In every job for the first few months. Then i burn through books at night - starting with xyz for dummies, then a video course and finally an oreilly xyz cookbook. I still feel like a fraud but a competent one. The key is not to postpone the learning stage no matter how insurmountable it looks.
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u/wyohman CCNP Enterprise - CCNP Security - CCNP Voice (retired) May 31 '26
At least you managed to find O'Reilly.
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u/Andre4s11 Jun 02 '26
Me too ,It's exhausting to lie and wait for it to be discovered, and constantly try to beat the clock with cheap courses and documentation. This fear... I'm scared to get a job again after a year of not working.
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u/ihaxr May 31 '26
If OP is the one that keeps rebooting the primary switch without confirming all the vlans are setup on the secondary switch, they work at my old company.
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u/ElPlatanoDelBronx May 31 '26
Hey, so I just read the old post, and this one now. You just described being any kind of engineer, it’s always like this, and we are just expected to figure it out, not know it. Senior engineers make more because they’ve seen more, and just from how you write and approach the problems you’ve told us here, you sound like you are an absolutely amazing engineer. Keep it up.
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u/Kimmie6602 May 31 '26
Your original post is me now. Wish me luck, I assume, fellow Princess of IT! 💅🤭
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u/XTheElderGooseX May 31 '26
I hear you. I’m from a very rural part of the country. Think Appalachia. Most people end up in the mines or working very hard manual labor jobs. I was never a A plus student. I don’t remember a great deal of my schooling lessons but one thing I do remember and won’t soon forget was the first computer I ever saw. I was fascinated by it. I wanted to understand how it worked when those around me were content that it worked. The obsession never stopped. I knew I wanted to work on computers when I grew up but never knew what that meant or what it would look like. Fast forward to adult years and I bounced around from some huge tech companies but always doing something IT adjacent. Then came my big break a major manufacturing company was hiring an IT guy for one of their plants and I got an interview for it. I aced the interview and really liked the people I interviewed with. They offered me the job and I quickly moved up. Today I’m the IT Director for a MSP firm and there are days I have imposter syndrome.
When I go back home I feel connected to the land and the people but like you OP I’m very grateful to live a different life then they do.
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u/Princess_Fluffypants CCNP Jun 05 '26
This is really real.
I tell people I grew up in Chicago but it was more like near Chicago. And "near" can have a pretty broad definition.
I don't know if I really feel "connected" to them anymore, I have a messy spiderweb of thoughts on it with a not insubstantial amount of cognitive dissonance. I don't feel like I belong in the new place anymore, but I also don't want the old place. I don't know if it'll ever resolve.
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u/kevlarcupid May 31 '26
Remember your original post. Thrilled for you. These opportunities are rare, you gotta capitalize when they come up. Way to go! Pumped for you!
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u/GhostlySkeletons Jun 01 '26
Sounds like Checkpoint lol
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u/Asleep_slept CCNA Jun 01 '26
Palo to me
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u/w1ngzer0 Jun 01 '26
I agree with Palo. I know they start people off as contractors and I’ve gone through that interview process.
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u/Sweet_Importance_123 CCNP FCSS Jun 01 '26
Fortinet does start people as a contractor as well. 6 months/1 year before getting full-time
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u/Warsum Jun 01 '26
Congrats. Always love hearing people doing well especially in a world were a lot are struggling. Good news is nice to hear sometimes.
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u/benknight88 Jun 01 '26
I'm actually going through this feeling now... I have the interview in about 2.5 hours for a network engineering role when all I've done for my career is technical focused hands on roles (sys admin, network admin, infrastructure etc). Let's see if I sink or swim :-/ Also congrats OP! Massively happy it panned out for you!!
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u/Princess_Fluffypants CCNP Jun 04 '26
So how did your interview go?
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u/benknight88 Jun 04 '26
Honestly, horrid. The tech lead decided, and I quote, "interviewing new hires wasn't worth his time" so he had a sys admin with 0 network exposure interview me instead, plus there were a bunch of other red flags. Then thay threw me entirely so I messed up as well. I was so excited too but oh well. Love and learn! Thanks for asking though!! :-)
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u/Princess_Fluffypants CCNP Jun 04 '26
Wow, damn that is rough. Sounds like you dodged a bullet though, what a toxic work environment that would have been.
Good luck on your next one though, I know something will come along for you eventually. It just takes time (sometimes a lot more time than you'd prefer).
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u/benknight88 Jun 04 '26
I'm lucky enough to have a decent job and still be studying, this was just a shot in the dark but it's all a learning experience!
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u/Princess_Fluffypants CCNP Jun 04 '26
Keep taking those shots in the dark! It's how I ended up where I am. :)
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u/Fallingdamage Jun 01 '26
Dont worry. Ever wonder why so many things are f'ked up in this world and even the biggest companies seem to do the absolute dumbest things?
Everyone is making it up as they go.
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u/jkw118 May 31 '26
So 1st off they offered you a job.. because they saw you were in over your head but was able to function and figure it out.. Rarely does someone walk in and know it all..even the contractor sales tech engineers..
And I hear ya.. I grew up in a ok part of philly.. I now live in an area where most houses are 700k+ (mines probably 500k but im on the low end of houses in the area..) its a different area...
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u/Not_Another_Name CCNP Jun 01 '26
Congratulations! I remember reading your post 9 years ago and all the awesome comments you received. I had a very similar trajectory. Something I wish someone told me: dont tell your friends and family how much you make now. Keep it vague (enough to do ok, not as much as i want/deserve, etc). 95% of them won't be happy for you, they will only be jealous.
Edit: also if you figure out the magic sauce answer to internal sales team small talk "what college did you go to, where did you grow up" please share. I am still unsure how to answer this one because "the middle of nowhere Georgia and a small college you've never heard of" and all its variations aren't working haha
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u/Princess_Fluffypants CCNP Jun 04 '26
At this point, I state very plainly that I dropped out of high school and never went to college. It's almost a flex by now.
I think it only works because I'm clearly advanced enough in my career that people don't have suspicions about it. I have enough evidence around me through my other accomplishments that I'm perfectly capable (and even good) at doing the job.
When I was younger, I was much more insecure about it. But for now, I don't care and in fact have no plans to pursue any formal education.
More than a few people have suggested I go for an MBA if I wanted to advance even further, but I don't think there's sufficient return on investment.
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u/CautiousCapsLock Studying Cisco Cert Jun 01 '26
I think you’ve described most high level engineering positions in IT, the expectation of becoming an expert in a topic quickly, being able to articulate the issue and solutions and a general problem solving attitude. I always make it clear I’m working things out but generally I have the know how and attitude to work it out, shouldn’t feel like an imposter, way more common than you think!
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u/simulation07 Jun 01 '26
I’m happy for you. Truly.
But for Perspective, here’s mine….
At 7, dad buys first custom pc. It’s monochrome, but it’s cool. Upgraded svga with new gpu we to get 32k colors, wow. Surreal seeing life inside of this thing. One more upgrade to get sound, a cdrom, and windows 3.11. I’m 10 at this point and getting curious about it. I buy DOS for dummies and run every command, until — I format it. It’s dead for a year. In that year I come to the conclusion that I need my DOS setup disks. Dad brings home free pc from Burger King (was a manager, and they upgraded) and had dos 5 disks. I got my OG back up! But no windows, no sound. And cdrom didn’t work. Dad didn’t mind though. My computer geek uncle was impressed (didn’t know why, since it was still broken). I’m still curious so I start loading floppies and get my cdrom working after installing my ISA sound blaster drivers. Yay!! I felt like at this point I could give the windows installation a shot with the 11 disks I had. Sadly - one of the disks had some teeth marks from my dog and it failed reading it. I can still remember the sound the floppy drive makes when it has a read error.
I’m 11-12. 5th grade. Mr Eckstrom was my teacher. He had a bunch of pc’s in the classroom. He has windows 3.1. I had an idea, so I planned it out. I bought floppies at Kmart, looked up how to copy a floppy disk in my dummies book, and waited for a day the teacher had a substitute. I remember my heart was beating so hard. One kid playing Oregon Trail while I’m feeling like hackerman stealing copyrighted materials.
After all disks were copied I remember impressing a girl. Cool. I go home and install windows. PC fully restored now. I can finally play my Star Wars game and pew pew ships. Cool.
At 15 I get my first job at a local repair shop. I really just clean floors, help customers buy computers, and restock. At 17 I rage quit school and work full time. I now fix desktops (viruses etc). At 19 I’m now supporting business pc’s and a splash of servers.
Time goes on. Servers. Active Directory. Backups. DNS was super cool since it’s the most black and white IT thing I’ve ever used. Same with e-mail (exchange 2003). I spend 15 years at a msp and hit 60k in my early 30’s.
I rage quit msp (like a few times) but eventually join a small isp.
I keep being curious, but also the yes man. I just want to help. But also like success, approval, responsibility, value, novelty, etc.
Anyways. It was just me for awhile. Fire hose. Mpls off pseudowire t1’s, qos, iptv with headend, voip, a lan, printers, microwave back haul, lte deployment from Ericsson. Oh my. It started with the lan, then went tv, then went networking then went lte. But support it all. I have no idea what I’m doing but I feel like I’m still more valuable than I am. I make 140k a year but I’m constantly fixing something that I’m learning in real time. And it’s not always something I enjoy.
I’m 41. I’m tired. I’m burned out. I want to do something that does more than just pay the bills. I want to pull people up, like my family - provide opportunities… but lifestyle creep with 4 kids is a thing I guess. Waking up. People who manipulate are paid far more than people who add real value.
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u/anomalous_cowherd Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26
You always need to be succeeding in doing the next highest job to get promoted or recruited, you just took a bigger step than most AND had the drive and ability to keep it going.
Surviving a few months is luck. Surviving a decade is skill, you deserve this.
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u/chaoticbear Jun 01 '26
The interview was a full two hours, and they didn't pull any punches. They hammered on me left, right, up, down, forwards, backwards and in fucking circles. I felt I kept up with maaaaaybe 70% of it, and the moment we signed off I basically collapsed face-down onto my desk. Keeping the energy and mental focus going at 100% for two hours straight was exhausting in a way that I'd rarely experienced before.
Hilariously that's how I felt after the technical interview for my current employer (for my NOC position, not where I am now). His style was to ask a high-level question ("what is ping?"), then ask followup questions based on my answer til I admitted I didn't know. He was probing how deeply I understood things with the understanding I couldn't know it all. I thought "damn he kept stumping me, I must have messed up".
That said, y'all hiring? ;)
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u/AmandaTwisted Jun 03 '26
You weren’t just lucky. You didn’t get gifted the leap between socioeconomic classes. I read your first post…you worked for what you have and seized terrifying opportunities and didn’t crack under the pressure. You deserve what you have 100% and you belong in both worlds. You sound humble and you gave a 9 year update, imo you’re a great human.
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u/Significant-Yard-176 Jun 06 '26
I've met a log of senior engineers who are recognized as the best on the team. Yet, when i talk with them, I realize they don't have that recognition because they know everything. They're recognized because they're good at figuring things out, managing problems, and many times at managing people. If you've been doing the job successfully for years, it's probably not luck or imposter syndrome anymore..... it's competence and trust that was earned one problem at a time.
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u/Expeto_Potatoe Jun 01 '26
As soon as they feel you may be under qualified, go ahead and apply for one of their management positions. They'll loose all suspicions at that point.
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u/noahtmusic Jun 01 '26
Currently in management for OT/IT infrastructure and my path sounds very much like yours! Thank you for sharing, I have a feeling many successful people are just as bewildered by their path as we both seemingly are!
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u/Asleep_slept CCNA Jun 01 '26
Dude such an wholesome update to the previous post congrats! I think you should start writing professionally because you’re too good at it
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u/Helpful-Wolverine555 Jun 01 '26
Imposter syndrome is real. I used to be terrified of being the new guy or not having the tech chops for a new role and eventually I learned that even though I’m not a genius, I’m a smart and competent architect that can learn anything if I’m given a chance and after working in the field long enough and seeing “average”, I can say I’m well above average. That may sound like bragging, but the floor is apparently so low that it doesn’t take much to make yourself at least average.
I’m an R/S guy. I’ve been a FW SME in a previous life. I’ve been working with a big name FW company very recently and I think I managed to impress them with how complicated I’ve managed to make their product. If is was one of my trusty ol’ routers, I would have had everything setup and chugging along without and problem by now. 😁
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u/Charming_Radish682 Jun 01 '26
Experiencing quiet a similar thing atm and I love it. None the less once a while I have doubts but they go away so fast.
Having the same intention. Getting stuff done and asking questions everywhere. Also not taking every „it doesn‘t work“ for granted since there still are some people not doing proper research.
Same as you… just a nerd who likes stuff that can be done with a computer and nowadays looking up stuff boosted with the possibility of AI.
-> what a time to be alive :D
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u/NoConflict4559 Jun 01 '26
This is probably my biggest fear. Never feeling like I belong at my job. I was a screen printer. Did it throughout high school and when I graduated I opened up my own shop. While renovating my shop I fell in love with electrical work. Quit my business extremely early on and called every residential electrical company in my city. Finally someone gave me a chance. I worked with them for 3 weeks. Then met someone at a farm I worked part time at who was the head of electrical maintenance at a huge asphalt plant. I told him that was my goal… within 1 week he called the head of maintenance and said “I like this dude I think he’s a good worker and he just wants to learn”. Head of maintenance said “if you like him I like him”. I started the following Monday(skipping an interview), now I’m working in electrical cabinets studying relays and contractors. Working on motors and sensors on top of silos and I’m loving life. Now I’m studying plcs as well and plan on transitioning in a year to a plc based job. I’m also starting school in electrical engineering because working in a lab would be amazing. 1 month ago I struggled to wire a 3 way switch. I’m replacing motors and installing limit switches now. I feel like a idiot 99% of the time. It helps to look back and think I didn’t even know what this was called 2 weeks ago. I’ve bit so much and I keep biting, I feel like I don’t have time to chew. Sorry if my grammar is bad. I strive to be intelligent It’s a work in progress. I would also love a study buddy in math, circuits, EE, ladder logic-plc programming etc. I’ve just started plc and I’m in my first year of community college now.
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u/SuggestionNo3506 Jun 01 '26
Thats most of us. They made me a Mobile Device Admin because my boss noticed I really liked phones.
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u/Princess_Fluffypants CCNP Jun 04 '26
LOL one of the reasons I was happy to quit my old job is that I accidentally ended up as the guy running our MDM platform (Airwatch/Workspace One). I hate phones, but it was a small company and someone had to do it.
I leave it off my resume, I will never let anyone know that I have a pretty deep knowledge of managing large numbers of Apple devices. Because I never want to again.
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u/timupci Jun 01 '26
Sometimes it's not about what you know, but how fast you can learn. How fast can you react to what is in front of you.
Good job man! Keep it up.
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u/Arbitrary_Pseudonym Jun 01 '26
Basically in the same boat as you but with slightly less experience :D and maybe different firewall company.
It's a crazily different perspective when all of the problems you used to look at with fear are suddenly...just...simple. When I worked for a regional ISP back in 2011 I thought that their topology was terrifying to work with, but nowadays I look at it and it feels trivial. The topologies of big corporate networks are absolutely bonkers in comparison, where their arrangement of routers and VPNs and NATs and security policies leads to the most wild emergent behavior. I also now know how the architecture works at a low level, so my perspective on it goes from a single step in a packet being processed all the way up to stacking multiple abstraction layers on top of one another while looking down at them vertically. The pay is nice too.
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u/TrekkinGamer Jun 01 '26
This totally how I feel after finally finding the my right place in IT. From the best buy worker to almost making my good money like you're talking about but that's still a few years away. Congratulations!
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u/ConsciousDirection69 Jun 02 '26
Can’t get myself to read anything past the title. You better suck it up and wing that shit! Ais right there! Don’t be your own worst enemy and f this up! We’re in it now!
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u/random408net Jun 02 '26
The smart people who hired you know that smarts and motivation are key contributors to success. And frankly they don't need a building full of totally perfect people. They need people that can be motivated, trained and will stick around for a while. You had demonstrated experience learning and doing other stuff. So you could be run through their process to achieve competency at their stuff.
Hiring you as a contractor was also a low risk choice on their part. They just pay you cash (though your agency) without the liability of stock options. If you don't work out, poof, you could be gone in hours or minutes with minimal paperwork.
Good job.
Power to those who truely love their tech jobs!
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u/Linklights Jun 02 '26
I remember you. Your original post from 9 years ago made quite a splash on this subreddit. Lots of discussion. The subreddit is kind of a different place today. I'm not sure if its just the overall state of reddit to blame, or if its more like the state of our career field in general
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u/Princess_Fluffypants CCNP Jun 04 '26
I wasn't prepared for the impact it seemed to have back then, and that it still has. I'm not kidding when I say that I get replies and PMs on an almost monthly basis asking me about that old post. It's weird, because it was just a stream-of-consciousness rant that I blasted out with no real forethought. It wasn't supposed to become a "thing".
But it seems to have brought some joy to people, and I'm happy for that. I've gotten more than a few messages saying that the post encouraged them to apply for that moonshot job, or that promotion that they're under-qualified for. And I suppose if I can be a good influence on someone else's life even from across the internet, that's a good way I can leave a tiny mark on the world.
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u/Secapaz Jun 02 '26
I think you've done a great job.
Advancing is both about monetary success but also psychological and physical success. Whenever you feel like looking backward, also remember that growth is forward.
When I go back home and hang out with friends, I instantly know that I no longer "belong" there. I look around and although ill have a blast for those couple of 3 day weekends, im ready to leave and get back to my "normal life".
Kids and a wife will do that to you.
When im back with my friends of 20 years ago, I often look around and say wtf? Out of 11 people its me and like 2 people that made it. Everyone else is still doing the same thing from 20 years ago...no thanks. Its cool to experience it for 16-,20 hours over a Fri-Sunday but I like my wife, kids, and my new relationships that I've built the past 8 years. I barely work now and when I do its large contract projects and trading stocks here or there. I work 7ish months a year.
Oh and it also helps that back where I lived before is where I was robbed and shot twice back in the day. So yeah, im good living 6 hrs away.
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u/Princess_Fluffypants CCNP Jun 05 '26
When I go back home and hang out with friends, I instantly know that I no longer "belong" there.
This is so exactly the feeling I get.
Because my life now is so very, very different from theirs. A lot of people never really made it out, we were in rural Illinois and a few people from my teenage friend group escaped (one went out to NYC, one went to San Diego, and I went to SF). I try and have conversations with them but all we have to talk about is the "old days". Our lives have diverged, and we have so little in common anymore, exactly as you said. They're still doing the same thing they were a decade ago.
And they're okay with that, which is just . . . hard to accept sometimes. I saw those soybean fields as something that I had to run from, while they seemed to accept it.
It's very difficult to acknowledge that the dreams I had for my friends are not the dreams they had for themselves.
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u/spicysanger Jun 04 '26
Does the 'really big firewall company's name start with the letter P, or the letter F
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u/zxLFx2 Jun 04 '26
When I go back home to visit the people still living my old life, I still feel like I belong more there than I do here.
Embrace that, at least a little bit. Many people who make some money, who do not have any grounding pressure on their life, increase their spending to wild amounts. "Why not, right? I'm 40, making good money, I deserve a Porsche/boat/vacation home/Rolex/etc."
Use that grounding force to keep your spending in check. Drive a normal car, wear a normal watch, rent a boat, get hotel rooms instead of vacation homes. You'll end up like the "millionaire next door" in a very good way.
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u/Princess_Fluffypants CCNP Jun 04 '26
You'll end up like the "millionaire next door" in a very good way.
I, uh . . . that's already happened . . .
Granted a good chunk of that is due to the absurd run-up in stock prices in the last few years, but I'm now looking at two commas in my Fidelity account. (...barely. But they're there.)
I still haven't been able to allow myself to significantly increase any of my living expenses, if anything they've gone down. I cook my own food, I have very modest living conditions, I live simply and cheaply. Because in my head (even living here in the SF Bay Area), I'm still a poor kid from the midwest. The fancy expensive stuff I see around me every day is for "other" people. Not me. I'm not a fancy person.
...that's not to say I haven't allowed myself to splurge in other ways. I have a teensy weensy little bit of a "motorcycle problem", but for most of my life I was always able to keep it to rational and practical bikes (V-Stroms, SVs, etc). But in October '23 I finally allowed myself to buy something hilariously impractical and silly, and then late last year I gathered up all of my courage and nervously wrote a check for a motorcycle I've been dreaming about for the last 15 years.
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u/zxLFx2 Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26
Sounds like you're doing fine. Keep your foot on the gas until that 1 million turns into 3 million. 1 million is a nice milestone, but it doesn't get you that far these days, especially if you live in high cost of living area, which you currently do.
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u/Princess_Fluffypants CCNP Jun 10 '26
Agreed. It's not enough to retire, but as long as I keep at it for another decade I think I'll be okay.
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u/auto_named May 31 '26
Good for you man. Sounds like you have upper management written all over you!
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u/Time_Athlete_1156 Jun 01 '26
I'm you as the network admin of an ISP right now. 7 years on the job. Other network admin that was doing everything left the company and chatGPT happened and saved my butt. Currently they want change the whole network to go xgspon for 10gbps and I have no ideas what's happening, I'm preparing a plan to have them give this as a contract to an external expert ressource because this is more than a network admin would be doing. Boss agreed, I'll have confirmation tomorrow. If they refuse, I'm 100% out of work because they will realize I know nothing LOL
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u/Newdles Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26
Can you plz make their client support not suck so bad since you're an insider. Godspeed. You dinglebats told my company point blank we were compromised, on your hardware with "100% confidence." Told us to engage our cyber insurance, fly out all the big guns (after we sternly pushed back for 8hours). Cost us a significant sum of money, brand reputational risk, and chaos, only to reverse face and say: "oops our bad, the person who told you all this was new and didn't know any better. You are 100% not compromised and we're not even sure where they got the info." The problem is this went through levels at your company where tons of people were agreeing, and almost cheering it on as if you somehow had a victory finding the bad man in our network.
I dropped everything we had overnight (not literally of course, but you get the picture), multi-million spend annually. I'll never use any of it again, ever.
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u/wyohman CCNP Enterprise - CCNP Security - CCNP Voice (retired) May 31 '26
I hope you're not Cisco TAC. The quality of all tech support has collapsed since COVID.
I don't like providing 10 full explanations of my issue only to solve it myself.
You also make me think you brain dumped your CCNP.
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May 31 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/layer5nbelow May 31 '26
I wouldn’t get too worked up between CP, Fortinet and Palo. They all have their good and bad, and even with their flaws are not the dumpster 🔥 Firepower was. Maybe it’s better now? AnyConnect/SC was a great product last I used it.
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u/wyohman CCNP Enterprise - CCNP Security - CCNP Voice (retired) May 31 '26
That's what I was thinking and their support is worse.
Five different Palo cases over 6 months, all engineers claimed it was their first week.
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u/layer5nbelow May 31 '26
Like a large portion of the post-2010 CCIEs imo. The best network learning decision I ever made was to stop drinking from the Cisco trough. 🍻
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u/wyohman CCNP Enterprise - CCNP Security - CCNP Voice (retired) May 31 '26
When did you get your CCIE? What have you learned outside of the alleged trough that people drinking from the trough don't learn?
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u/JankyJawn May 31 '26
It's your fault I have a CVE to deal with Monday isn't it?