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This episode explores the theme of change, drawing on personal anecdotes from the hosts as they navigate transitions in their careers and lives. The discussion highlights the importance of embracing change and automation in the ever-evolving tech industry, fostering resilience, and nurturing community connections.

• Reflections on personal experiences of change 
• The evolution of the podcast amidst transitions 
• Importance of automation in today’s networking landscape 
• Navigating the emotional impacts of career changes 
• Suggestions for leveraging community for support and growth 
• Embracing vulnerability and creativity in facing fears 

Find everything AONE right here: https://linktr.ee/artofneteng

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is the Art of Network Engineering, where
technology meets the human sideof IT.
Whether you're scaling networks, solving problems or shaping
your career, we've got theinsights, stories and tips to
keep you ahead in theever-evolving world of
networking.
Welcome to the Art of NetworkEngineering podcast.
My name is Andy Laptev and,folks, it's been a year.

(00:20):
There's been a lot of change inmy life.
There's been changes in theshow, in my personal life, in my
career, and what a good time tohave a discussion about change
in general in our lives.
How do we approach change in ourlives?
How do we see it?
How do we frame it in our minds?
How do we deal with it when itcomes up?
I could tell you that when Iwas a younger lad, I did not

(00:45):
like change all that much and Iwanted things to stay the same.
And when things in my lifechanged, I did not handle it so
well and I would fight like hellto get back to the way things
were.
And, as it turns out, thatmight not be the best strategy
to deal with an ever-changingworld.
So tonight I am joined by twowonderful chaps.

(01:06):
First, william Wilhelm Collinsof the Cloud Gambit podcast.
How are you, william?

Speaker 2 (01:12):
Never better Happy to be here.
I can already tell this isgoing to be a giggly
conversation, because I can'tstop laughing for some reason I
feel like a five-year-old.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Your middle name is not Wilhelm, correct?
I just made that up on the fly.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
No, actually my first name is William.
My middle name is awesome.
No, Levi Levi, everybody knowsmy middle name, wow.

Speaker 3 (01:32):
I totally bought into the Wilhelm thing.
What a regal name he has.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
If you say anything with confidence, people are like
oh, that must be true.
William, william, wilhelm,confidence is a straight face.
Yeah, that other voice you hearin the ether, or the face that
you may see on this YouTubevideo later, is Jeffrey Jebediah
Clark.
I was trying to think ofsomething with alliteration.
Jeff Clark, how you doing,buddy?

Speaker 3 (01:56):
Doing all right, doing really good.
Glad to be here, thank you forbeing here.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
It's lovely to see your hatless face.
It's been a very long time.
Jeff is like a baseball capwearing kind of dude, and you
look great without the cap on.
I mean, I might buy somethingfrom you if you look like this.
I don't know, I don't know ifthis is your normal look with
customers, but I'm digging itit's not In person.

Speaker 3 (02:16):
In person I would say it is, but you get cap wearing
Jeff, but cap wearing Jeff hitsall of his numbers.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
So no complaints on the War of Joy department from
Jeff.
And this might be a good segue,because here we are on the Art
of Network Engineering podcastand the usual cast of characters
cast.
What accent did I just adopt?
The usual cast of characters isnot on this show and hasn't
been around for a couple ofshows.
Aj Murray on this show andhasn't been around for a couple

(02:47):
of shows, um, aj murray.
So there was founding members ajmyself, dan richards, um and
the gentleman aaron weilerstarted the show.
Aaron went on to do differentthings.
Uh, we brought in tim bertino,um, and over the course of the
years, for a number of differentreasons, people came, people
went and I guess that's not toouncommon, right, like you start
a business or a company or ateam, I I mean there's dynamics
and things change and prioritieschange in people's lives.

(03:10):
So I guess that's to beexpected.
But we're coming up, I guess,on five years it'll be this July
for the Art Network EngineeringPodcast.
We've done like 770,000downloads in like the four and a
half years and it's been anamazing ride.
And what a community 770,000downloads in like the four and a
half years, and it's beenamazing ride and what a
community.
But I am the last standingfounder of the show.

(03:31):
You may have seen.
Not too long ago on socials, ajannounced that you know he was
moving on to other things.
His priority changed and youknow, and I mean you can't blame
anybody for like there's onlyso much time in the day.
We have careers, we havefamilies, we have hobbies and
like you really have to bedeliberate about your time if

(03:51):
you want to live a fulfillinglife.
And you know, aj just hispriorities changed and he, you
know he's doing other cool stuffnow.
So I guess so.
So Jeff had asked me a while agolike different people have been
jumping in to help me with theshow.
Like everybody's gone Right.
So I'm like what the hell am Igoing to do?
The show almost ended in fulltransparency with the audience,
so everything was going to shutdown and through a lot of

(04:14):
conversations I decided I wantto keep the show going.
The former team before likethis podcast is probably the
most fun part of my technicalcareer.
That like I've had all thepeople I've got to meet, all the
conversations I've got to havethe things I've learned.
I mean, like two months in, I'minterviewing, like Keith Barker
, like come on, dude, like thepeople that, like you know,

(04:36):
taught me how to do all thisstuff.
And now Keith knows my name.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
Well, yeah, like you gotta be kidding me.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
Keith.
You know, keith and our areaccountability buddies.
Like, are you kidding me?
Like what?
So it's been a wild ride andyou know, I guess four to six
months ago it all almost stopped.
I mean, it did stop and then wehad to decide.
So there's been a lot of change, right?
I decided to keep the showgoing and that requires, you

(05:01):
know, I got to start an LLC andfigure that out.
And how do you do taxes and Ineed a lawyer and, like you know
, a bank account.
And I guess Jeff had asked me awhile back, like, are you going
to like talk about this?
Like, are you going to have aconversation with your audience
about the changes in the show?
Because there's going to be newfaces, there's going to be new,
like, we have a bunch ofdifferent ideas for topics and
series and I, going to, I'm like, nah, I'm just going to keep

(05:21):
creating great content, we'rejust going to put it out there.
People will figure it out.
But the more I thought about itfor four and a half years we've
been so honest and transparentwith the audience about our
lives and our challenges andwhat's happened it feels really
inauthentic to after all thistime of being completely honest
and vulnerable with our audienceto be like oh no, we're not
going to talk about anything,we're just going to pretend that

(05:48):
doesn't happen.
That'd be pretty dysfunctional.
So anyway, here we are.
A lot of people have beenhelping me out, which I really
appreciate.
Mike Bouchon came on.
We interviewed Dr Jay Metz fromthe Ultra Ethernet Consortium,
which was great.
My pal Colin Doyle came on.
We talked about some automationwith.
Jeff.
William has been kind enough tojump in here.
So I guess what I want to sayfirst off is the show will
always stay true to its coremission, really, which is just
to keep this conversation goingof.

(06:10):
Like here's what it's like tobe a network engineering.
Here's how you get in, here'show you stay in, here's how you
upskill.
It's you know it's.
It's always changing.
We have thousands of people inour Discord community.
People reach out to me everyweek telling me you know the
show changed their life, or theadvice helped them get this job.
Or like thank you so much forlooking at my resume.
Like it's just a wonderful.
At the end of the day, this isa community I didn't have when I

(06:31):
was coming up, when I wassitting in my Comcast cable
truck reading the CCNA book andeverybody was telling me I was
wasting my time, money andeffort, except for my girlfriend
, who's not my wife, so I kepther around.
So you know, I don't know if wewant to talk about any of that,
guys, or if we just kind of wantto pivot to, I guess, just
change in our lives in general.
I mean, I've also changed jobsthis year.

(06:51):
Right, there's a lot to talkabout, I think, around change.
And I just wanted to start withlike, there's a lot of changes
happening in the podcast.
It almost ended, it's stillgoing and I have a lot of cool
ideas coming up for this nextyear on stuff we're going to do.
Any thoughts or feedback on anyof that rambling?

Speaker 3 (07:07):
Well, one thing I was going to say was I am really
glad that you decided to kind ofhave this episode specifically
talking about change and thechanges around the show, because
you called me kind of in themiddle of the kind of
transitional stuff and what washappening, kind of the
transitional stuff and what washappening, and the one thing I

(07:29):
really heard in your voice washow much passion you really had
for the Art of NetworkEngineering and the A1 community
and really the Discord channel,and one of the things you said
to me was just how much this has.
I mean, it's such an importantpart of your week, such an
important part of your life.
And we've got Connor in thechat who just, I think, says
something that's really truewith this show and really with

(07:50):
any podcast that any of us aregoing to want to listen to,
which is that the humancomponent of the show is really
the major piece that makes it.
And I think that over the yearspeople have seen your passion
and it's interesting as I'vebeen on the last few shows, um
with you, kind of kind of seeingyou navigate, um, what's what's
new for you, it seems.

(08:11):
It does seem like you really arelooking to, like you said,
maintain the same spirit.
But it also seems like you'vegot some ideas and maybe wanted
you know to change some of them.
Is it the format you want tochange?
What do you?
What do you think is acomponent that you really what
would you want to see in thepodcast in the long run?
So I don't know, maybe I'minterviewing you now.
I mean, I will interview you.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
Well, no, it's wonderful, and that's why I ask
smart people to come in here andhelp me, because I can't talk
to myself for an hour about thisstuff, right?
So, yes, please, please,interview me, both of you.
I think the hardest part aboutand again, just for the audience
, we're not going to spend anhour talking about the change of
the art of network engineering.
I really want to widen theaperture to navigating change in
life in general and have somegood advice you can take away

(08:52):
from this from some olderweather gents who may have gone
through a few changes andweathered them better than
18-year-old Andy.
So I can't speak for William,but I'd like to hear his
feedback because he's apodcaster as well.
But the longer you createcontent for a particular
audience, I kind of feel likethe harder it is to.

(09:12):
It's hard to stay true to youroriginal mission.
So, like our show, the first Idon't know 30 to 40 episodes was
us interviewing networkengineers about their career,
and it was really the sameformat of like who are you, what
do you do?
Where do you work?
When did you get interested intech?
Oh, that's really cool.
You were eight years old andyour parents bought you

(09:33):
Commodore.
And then what happened?
And then what happened?
And we spent a couple of yearskind of trying to tell stories
because what came out of allthat was there isn't one way,
there isn't one path.
Like, I failed out of computerscience in college and thought
that's it for tech, for me.
But then I got in a differentway and if we interviewed 60

(09:54):
different people, they all camein a different path, a different
way.
So I think this career is foranyone.
You don't have to be a coder ora math whiz or computer science
major or a CCIE to get in.
And that was really nice.
But after we did that for acouple of years all of us got
tired of the format.
Like if I have to talk to onemore network engineer and ask
them every career fart along theway, I'm going to throw up
right.
So then what do you do?

(10:14):
So I guess the shorter answerto your question is to try to
continue to create engagingcontent and change when change
is necessary Again like thetopic of change.
So okay, we can't do straightinterviews anymore.
So then we kind of went topicalbecause we were sick of it and I
didn't want to listen toanother career journey.

(10:34):
We had done that and killed itand they're all still there.
So there's 45 episodes in thebeginning that you can get that
if you want.
I mean, jeff, you saidsomething to me which I thought
was really insightful.
I don't know if it was sixmonths ago before a lot of this
stuff started to change.
But you listened to the showmore when we started but we kind
of stayed beginning of careerfocused.

(10:56):
As your career grew our contentbecame less relevant to you
because you're like, well,that's fine, but I'm 18 years
into my career.
I've gone from engineering intolike an SE now and like me
talking to the help desk guy,you know, or the.
What I'm trying to do, I thinkthe changes in the show is I'd
like to stay relevant to networkengineering and tech at large
and like there's a lot of thingschanging right there's, I think

(11:19):
automation is finally becominglike you're going to have to do
this.
I mean so I've talked aboutthis before, but the job I had
in FinTech for six years that Iwas very good at, I couldn't get
that job today because I don'thave enough foundational Python
knowledge.
You cannot get the job I hadunless you can pass a very
technical Python interview.
So the industry at least haschanged, I think, to where

(11:41):
automation has kind of become.
And look in the certificationtracks I mean I was studying for
the CCMP, as an example.
There is a ton of automationthere.
People who take and fail thatexam are like, oh my God, there
was so much automation.
I don't think we're breakingNDA, but you really got to know
a good amount of broadautomation information to pass
professional level networkingcertification.

(12:01):
So what I'd like to see wetalked about maybe doing like an
automation series to try tohelp people, because me I don't
want to automate, right, I don'tlike Python, I don't, you know,
I don't understand all thisstuff, but that, but, but.
But.
So that was the old me, right,like, I've been saying that for
years.
But then I found a course thatI liked and I used NetMeco to

(12:22):
log into a Cisco router to likechange the host name.
I'm like, oh my God.
So I just needed like something, just log into a router, figure
that out.
You know, I thought we could doa series with William on like,
like GitHub, right, like, whatis it?
I mean, I have a GitHub account.
There's a couple of things inthere.
I star people, I know, likethey're my Facebook friends but,
like you know, if I wereinterviewing for a job and you

(12:43):
looked at my GitHub repository,you'd be like, well, this dude
doesn't really have any code inthere.
So I like the automation stuff,I like to do some GitHub stuff,
ai, llms I mean I know thatwe're all sick of hearing it and
everything's AI whitewashed.
But, jeff, you had some reallygood examples of how you've used
large language model stuff likeOpenAI to help you in you know
networking kind of tasks, and Imean I use it frequently in my

(13:07):
content creation.
You know role.
So the short answer is.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
Let me interject here real quick, andy.
Yeah, please, I'm going to saysomething.
I've been like that's thelongest silence I've ever had in
my life Shut up.
I was just soaking all that inno-transcript variety of cool

(13:54):
shows with differentperspectives out there.
And another thing you said Ithought was pretty interesting
is like in the beginning focusit was just okay getting started
in the career and thebeginnings of that career
trajectory.
And I know that one thing thathelped me out a ton in my early
days was just hearing seasonedprofessionals talk about stuff I

(14:16):
didn't understand.
Like what are they saying?
That sounds so cool and itbecomes like a very salty
scenario.
And hey, when there's salt,there's thirst.
You become thirsty and you'relike, ok, I want to learn about
that.
You know these folks seem toknow a thing or two and they've
made it so like having thevariety of beginner level all
the way up to advanced.

(14:36):
You know where you can keepfolks like Jeff interested.
You know later on in the career, you know super important and I
think it's awesome thedirection that the show is going
to take now.

Speaker 1 (14:46):
And that's tricky.
How do you keep everybodyengaged, right?
Like you want to let peopleknow that this career is for
everyone, and you can too but atthe same time, you have folks
like yourself and Jeff who arefurther along in their career
and, like you know, what can I,what could I possibly teach you
two guys or help, you know, havethe conversations.
I mean I really just see myselfas a moderator, Like I've met a
lot of smart, cool people andif I could just bring them

(15:06):
together and have theseconversations I know some people
have said like their favoritepart of the show.
It just sounds like you'resitting around the pub with a
couple of you know friendstalking shop, right, and it's
very casual and that's what Ilove about the show.
Like we don't legal page.
I've probably heavily preparedfor three shows and I was
probably the worst on thosethree shows because I'm looking

(15:28):
at notes and I'm trying to thinkof what I'm going to say next
and I want to sound really smart, being vulnerable and open.
I can tune in right now andlisten to you guys and be very
aware of what's happening and inthe moment, If I'm reading
notes or reading chats orlooking at myself on a screen.

Speaker 2 (15:44):
I'm just not present and I'm not there and it doesn't
really make for conversationalstyle wins, like in the episodes
I think we're at like episode45 now and the ones that, like
avon and I, went into that werelike completely unscripted, like
we're just having aconversation and we're we're not
going to overly plan this thingthose are the episodes that
coincidentally did did the bestas far as views.

Speaker 1 (16:06):
So and I wish it.
I wish I hadn't blabbed thatlong jeff about where do I see
the show going.
I have a whole asana full oflike, like you know, topics that
I'd like to do, but I I'dalmost put that back on you guys
and even the community at large.
Like I, I haven't wanted to belike, I haven't wanted to go on
linkedin or twitter and be, hey,everybody quit, I'm by myself.
Tell me what you want to hear,but that would be super helpful,

(16:27):
but that's not what people arelooking for.
I don't know if everybody wantsto be free producers on the
show, and so that's my challengeand I'm being perfectly honest
and transparent is I want tokeep doing the show because I
love it.
I really enjoy this.
I mean, I do it for a living.
Now I'm in product marketingand it's the best job I've ever
had.
But five years in, how do youkeep network engineering

(16:48):
interesting?
Fortunately for us, along thelines of change, there is so
much changing in tech and in theindustry that I mean it's
dizzying and it's scary and it'slike holy crap, now what do I
have to know?
But these are the topics, theseare the conversations that I
want to have.
Right.
What do you need to know whensomebody asks you guys, how do I
get a job in networkengineering?

(17:09):
For the longest time I think itwas at least for me, it was get
your CCNA, create some kind ofcontent to share your
communication skills and build ahome lab.
And if you can't afford a homelab, do packet trace or whatever
.
That was my advice forever.
Do you think that's good advicetoday?
Is it enough?

Speaker 2 (17:24):
I always said learn Linux as a first.
That was always my because.
I can only say that, though,because that is the road that I
took and it was very, it workedvery well for me.
Knowing Linux has paiddividends, even to this day,
because I use it in cloudpipelines like Linux, like bash
scripts or the glue in thesepipelines that like basically
glue these disparate taskstogether and set things up like

(17:45):
you know, get into, make filesand get into those different
things and uh yeah, why is linuxso important?

Speaker 1 (17:51):
because the whole world is built on linux, right?

Speaker 2 (17:52):
well, if you think about it, every, every network
appliance that you probably loginto now is linux under the hood
.
And I mean even like in theearlier days, like when in some
I'm not to throw vendors around,but like you'd have a, an
overlay sort of shell.
You know the, the, the shellthat you interact with.
But under the hood you couldalways go down a layer deeper
and when you really needed totroubleshoot, you really needed

(18:14):
to debug, you'd have to debug atthat layer a little bit lower
and pull these logs or do thesethings to send to you know
vendor x, y or z.
And just being able to log in,being able to navigate the file
system, being able to SCP somefiles for goodness sake, at
least learn how to SCP Differentthings like that it's just very
and it's not hard.

Speaker 1 (18:35):
It's not hard at all, it's just time a little bit of
time and every smart networkingperson I talk to tells me that
exact same thing.
Pete Lombos, just to throw somenames around, like he's one of
the smartest guys I know, andhe's been telling me for years
learn Linux, bro.
Right, and I think I know alittle bit of Linux, but
probably I mean I can do most ofthe things that you said.
So maybe I know a little bit ofLinux, but I wouldn't.

(18:57):
I don't know if I could teachsomebody Linux Like I.
I do the three things Imentioned.
William says Linux.
Is there anything you'd add tothat?

Speaker 3 (19:06):
I think, learn Linux.
I don't know that I would havesaid it necessarily that way,
but I think it's a good pointand really Linux is it's an
important part of my day-to-day.
I mean we talked aboutautomation before.
I automate because I know Linux.
I mean I have a ton of scriptsthat I've turned into little
applets in Linux.
I'm running a Mac which isLinux under the hood, and I have

(19:29):
a bunch of scripts written inBash which we were talking about
before the show started that dothings like go and find the
next available IP address in mylab and SSH into something and
you add this to my list of hostnames in my DNS server.
So I didn't really think aboutit until you said that, william,
but I do spend a ton of time inLinux daily just doing basic

(19:53):
tasks.
So I would absolutely saythat's true.
But the other thing that I willsay the best engineers I know
and it's something that I havebecome better at is diagramming.
And I don't mean creatingamazing diagrams, I mean being
able to walk up to a whiteboardand draw out the network you're
trying to design and explain tosomebody what you're looking to

(20:16):
do, or when you're having aconversation with somebody else
say hold on, let me diagram thisout, and then diagram it out
while you're having aconversation with them.
And I'm not saying go and learnVisio diagrams.
That can get really complex andthere are people who are
amazing at that stuff.
But I mean, I use diagramsnet.

(20:36):
There's a dozen differentchoices out there.
But I would say learn to diagram, learn to whiteboard something.
It makes it easier when you'rebuilding your own lab to have a
diagram of your lab.
It's something that is neededin every network.
They need someone who candiagram that stuff and who can
trace out how that network looksand provide some kind of

(20:57):
documentation on it.
So I would say learning todocument a network is as
important as learning to build anetwork, and it's a skill that
most network engineers don'thave and it's a task that a lot
of guys just you know they don'twant to be involved in.
So if you can learn to do it, Ithink that it puts you in a
position where you're reallyunique and it gives a visual
thing that you can show someonein an interview or put into your

(21:19):
GitHub or on your webpage orwhatever.
So I guess that'll be my thing.
An additional to learn Linux islearn a diagram, learn to
whiteboard.

Speaker 2 (21:26):
I was hoping you'd say automation Whiteboarding
actually validates your comfortlevel and your ability to spin
an idea too, because it's goingto test you, Like when you're
trying to whiteboard in front ofa room of folks and then
somebody else comes up.
I mean, this has happened somany times in my career.
I can't even count being ableto communicate that idea and
effectively draw it out and insimple enough terms to get

(21:48):
everybody on the same page orfor other people to give them
enough to actually poke someflaws in that idea and you know,
sort of everybody leaves theroom with the best possible
outcome.
It is super important, veryabstract in the beginning and
you just reminded me like.

Speaker 1 (22:03):
So whiteboarding can also be used at?
So not only just diagrammingyour ideas, like you said.
But I know someone who I won'tname and instead of using
PowerPoints when he presents tocustomers, he whiteboards.
He already knows what's goingto be on the whiteboard before
he starts, but because it's ablank slate and it's interactive

(22:23):
and he'll ask them leadingquestions to write things down,
it looks like he's takingfeedback from the audience, when
in fact he knows where he'sgoing the whole time.
But the what would you call it?
The magic trick, I think, isthey can see, they know where
this is going before it getswritten down, because it's their
idea.
And and at the end, here's thereal beautiful part of it they

(22:45):
think it's their idea and at theend here's the real beautiful
part of it they think it's theiridea.
So he comes in to sell them ona different idea and he somehow
magically uses a whiteboard toconvince them that this is their
idea, even though it was hisidea.
Now, if he comes in with aPowerPoint deck and shows you 15
slides showing you what hisidea is we've all done that
before where we're like arguingwith our wife or our kids or

(23:06):
like if I just say it enoughtimes or loud enough, they'll
change their mind.
So anyway, it just reminded me.
It's a different use of awhiteboard I never thought of
until I was talking to thisgentleman, inception.

Speaker 3 (23:19):
There's a guy named John Kares who wrote a book
called Mastering Technical Sales.
If we could get him on as aguest, he teaches a whole class
on whiteboarding and sillythings.
Like you know, if I asked youto write you know to.
You know to draw a router onthe board, you could, you know,
you kind of know.
You did a little circle thing,but one of the things he talked
about was you know if is routerone?

(23:43):
But the thing that too manypeople do and this is a silly
thing that he taught was likeyou'll draw the circle then
you'll try to squeeze router oneinto it instead of writing
router one then circling it.
Like there's so many tricks towhiteboarding.
I'm amazed when I see peoplewho are really good at it so
selfishly.

Speaker 1 (23:59):
I love this conversation because I'm writing
these topics down, becausebecause, honestly, I'm trying to
like you're asking me where doyou want to do with the show?
I want to continue to createvalue, I want to continue
helping people, I want tocontinue to bring cool stuff to
light and you know, I know Ihave my like.
So when automation came up, I'msurprised you lean on Linux,
jeff, because I figured you weregoing to say Python.
Right, I guess it doesn'tmatter.

(24:19):
Like does it?
Do you need Python?
Not to me, I.

Speaker 3 (24:23):
I don't dislike Python.
I write in whatever.
The fastest thing for me towrite in 90% of what I do is in
bash, because I can just writeit quickly.
I don't again.
I told you in a previous one,I'm a selfish, you know,
scripter.
I'm not writing it for anybodyelse, I'm writing it to
accomplish a task that I need.
It's a repetitive task andPython I just don't know well

(24:47):
enough to sit and chunk it outbecause it's not what I do every
day.
But Bash is simple.

Speaker 1 (24:49):
When you say Bash, is that the Linux shell?
Is that what you're talkingabout?

Speaker 3 (24:51):
It's the Linux shell Born again.

Speaker 2 (24:53):
Yeah, say it again Born again, shell, yeah, born
again shell, is that really whatit stands for?

Speaker 1 (25:01):
I mean, that's what I've heard other people call it
Okay.

Speaker 2 (25:04):
I mean, I got to Google it.
I mean, unless I changed it,yeah, all right.

Speaker 1 (25:11):
So we have Linux automation whiteboarding, which
I really like, and honestly Ican stand in front of a crowd of
as many people and not benervous.
But you put me in front of awhiteboard and I seize up and I
think it's because all thetechnical interviews I've had
over the years at a whiteboardare just terrifying.
Yeah, you know, draw me anetwork.

Speaker 2 (25:26):
What is it?
It is Pornigan Shell, pornigan,shell, pornigan Pornigan.

Speaker 3 (25:30):
I like it All right, so One of the things I was going
to say, andy it's funny is Iasked the question you know,
what do you want to do with theshow?
I actually saw you them out orreally just the engineering.
Because the thing I've alwayssaid about a good engineer is a
good engineer doesn'tnecessarily know things.
They know how to figure thingsout, and it's, it's fun, as

(25:51):
we've been doing a couple ofthese episodes together.
It's like we're I'm watchingyou like all right, we'll figure
this out.
Not, you don't know necessarilywhat the end goal is, but
you're figuring it out, and soit's.
It's kind of fun to be part ofthat journey.
But I also think it's kind ofwhat's really resonating with me
is this is an exciting show tobe a part of right now, because
we're figuring out, we'retalking about topics, we're
talking about things we want todo in the future and as

(26:12):
engineers we're all a little ADD.
So I don't think it has to beabout one thing.

Speaker 1 (26:17):
There's a lot of it's just let's figure it out and
beginning like the fact that ittook off and people, as many
people listen, was a bigsurprise to us as anybody,
because we were just a bunch ofpeople and a study group who
started studying together andthen aj, one day was like huh,
it's kind of funny, you thinkanybody would listen to us, just
like talking, just because,like the universe put together

(26:37):
these like four people, thatjust it was this weird synergy
that we never could have plannedand and and it just took.
So here we are, all these yearslater and you know, the timing
wasn't great because I started anew job right around the time
all this went down.
So I'm talking to my wife.
I'm like listen, you know thisis going down.
I'd like to keep the show going.
I'm going to have to do allthis stuff to keep it going,

(26:59):
including running it myself fora while, like cause I need-in, I
am not gonna.
I am not gonna piss off my wifeor screw up our marriage over
this right.
So there were many times alongthis path of like this might not
.
I love this show.
I want to keep it going.
I love the people whocontribute to it and listen, but
I'm not gonna end my marriageover it, and I don't know if I

(27:21):
can do that and be effective inthis new role, because it's a,
you know, it's like it's a newtype of role for me.
So it's kind of a miracle thatwe're here doing this, because
there's been a lot of barriersin the way.
You know.

Speaker 2 (27:31):
I think you have to figure things out too.
Like you go and like I don'tknow if you all have had this
experience, but there's beenlike, especially in the past
five to ten years for me, you,you get to know someone that you
like in your mind.
You thought you know what.
They have it all figured out.
They know what's up.
And then you get to know themand you get to see a little more
behind the curtain and yourealize, wow, they, they don't

(27:53):
have all this figured out.
They're just gone a day at atime to just like I am.
It's just they have, like youknow, five years on me.
They got a little bit of a headstart.

Speaker 1 (28:01):
Well, William said one of the funniest things to me
when I met him in person and itjust jumped in my head and I
just want to tell the audience.
So I guess he had beenlistening to the show or
whatever.
And we were in Knoxville, Ithink, or I don't know if it was
KTEC Connect, it was some event.
It was the first time we met.
Do you remember what you saidto me when you met me?

Speaker 2 (28:26):
I do, because me, I do, because I still think it
like uh, yeah, I look at andyand I'm like, wow, you're
exactly in person, like you areon that show.

Speaker 1 (28:29):
It's like the same person, there's nothing
different because you're exactlythe person I thought you were,
or something like that, and andI and I took a minute and I
looked at him and I'm like Idon't know if it's a compliment
or if you're like great, becausewhy did you meet so many people
?

Speaker 2 (28:42):
it's like the like I I work with someone and I you
know working with them on zoomfor a long time and camera
angles and stuff.
You, you think it's this justlittle, this little small man,
and I meet him in person andhe's like six foot four.
He's huge, he's a giant and I'mlike okay, like wow, I mean
it's a little bit differentpersonality wise when you're
talking.
But a lot of folks on Zoom oron, you know, online, they're

(29:05):
very different than how theyreally are in person a lot of
times.
And part of that is you want toput your best foot forward.
You want to.
You want people to see the bestof who you are, but Andy's just
raw.
You know as raw as you can getyou know in person.

Speaker 1 (29:18):
And I still don't know if that's good or not.

Speaker 2 (29:20):
But yeah, I think it's great.
I don't know who he expected tomeet.
Authenticity these days iswinning.

Speaker 1 (29:26):
I don't know who else to be, though I'm amazed that
people can be other people indifferent contexts.
The last thing I would you know, I think we should pivot out of
planning the show, but Linuxautomation I really like the
whiteboarding thing.
So again, we're talking aboutwhat.
Would you need to be a networkengineer today?
That's different than maybe 10years ago.

(29:46):
Is anybody going to say the Cword, cloud, yeah.
Do you think you need to beversed in one of the CSPs?
Should you have your AWS,whatever, whatever.

Speaker 2 (29:58):
I'm a thousand percent biased here, so I should
take myself out of the ring.

Speaker 3 (30:05):
I'm a coward and I'm scared of it, so I'm going to go
ahead and just shut up to you.

Speaker 1 (30:07):
But William fully pivoted to cloud right, but you
were a network guy through andthrough.
So I mean, what do you think?
I mean, if you're hiringsomebody, they obviously got to
be cloud, because you're a cloudcompany, right.

Speaker 2 (30:20):
I think, no matter what, if you're in network
engineering and you work for areasonably big company, you're
going to do better by yourcareer if you do learn a little
bit about cloud and cloudnetworking.
And the starting point issimple.
The landing point is verysimple, because you land and
it's like, okay, how do we getto the cloud?

(30:41):
Well, hey, at the end of theday, hey, this is just some VPN,
tunnels or a circuit, a directconnect, which is essentially
just single mode fiber goingfrom this to that in a data
center.
It's very network centric, soit almost feels like you're not
learning anything new.
But once you are in that cloudprovider, be prepared, as you're
experimenting, to paintyourself into many corners and

(31:02):
then get paint everywhere,including on your face.
It's just going can be a mess.
It's complicated a lot ofstatic routing, like
functionality applied in manydifferent ways, like route
preference, shortest path first,like.
Some things are still a kind ofapplicable to, like what you
would expect, but transitiverouting, routing across regions,
like, and then it's alldifferent across, mostly

(31:24):
different across clouds.
Same concepts at a high level,but it's not very deep either
once you get in the cloud.
Because I think, because of theeconomies of scale and you know
because of how these cloudproviders are able to, you know,
scale up to support so manydifferent businesses.
They've built a system thatthey're very rigid in and

(31:45):
because of the way that traffic,you can't just hairpin stuff
everywhere that you want and youknow things work a certain way.
Part of that is for scale.
So you have to put on yourengineering cap to design around
a lot of things to meet theoutcomes of your organization.
But getting in there, freetiers are amazing.
Get in the free tiers and justexperiment.
You can do it from your desk.

(32:06):
While you're on that long Zoomcall as you zone out, You're a
project manager or something ifyou're not needed in the
conversation.
You know multitask.

Speaker 3 (32:15):
And you guys change the names of things a bunch in
the cloud.
Oh yeah, just take things wealready know and then just give
them new names.
Make it all confusing.

Speaker 2 (32:23):
A WAN is not a WAN.
It's a cloud when or when it'sa v.
When it's a v net it's a vpc ora vcn, what's the same subnet.

Speaker 1 (32:35):
They assign to everything the default subnet
was like 172.
Like everything that's built isgiven.
Like the same address, rightyeah, I mean you.

Speaker 2 (32:43):
If you don, if you don't give it anything, it's
going to give you the default 10.
Like it has a default addressrange, you'll give it.
But whenever you create a VPC,you're definitely putting in
your own slider range.
I think folks learned a lot ofhard lessons about that because
many businesses put in the sameslash 20 or slash 16 for every
VPC they created and theneventually they're like, oh wait

(33:10):
, he's got to talk.
Oh boy, now we need a networkfolks, we need some gnats.
Uh, we need some folks tounderstand natting and want to
do that exclusively for likefive years now, because we've
kind of mucked this up a littlebit.

Speaker 1 (33:17):
My cynicism there, all right.
So, um, there's a couplecomments in the chat I'd like to
read and then if we could pivotto or maybe pop up a level away
from the podcast and into, like, just change in our lives.
And I have, I guess I have twostories from this past year that
I think I'd like to tellbecause I think getting through

(33:38):
hard things I think we can alllearn from you.
Know, if you talk to people whogo through difficult times and
get through them, I thinkthere's some like common, uh,
advice or common.
I mean, we're all going to getour ass handed to us at one
point or another in our personaland professional lives.
So, um, change is the onlyconstant right and everything's
changing all the time.
I mean, isn't that like whatthe Buddhists kind of say?

(33:59):
Like you know, everything'schanging all the time.
So you got to, you got tofigure out how to accept that
like nothing's gonna stay thesame.
So, anyway, let's look at acouple of these.
So I like what Bill Murray saidhe's been avoiding learning
network automation On his end.
He thinks this hurdle is reallyunderstanding use cases to
automate for, and like I hearpeople say that and what I

(34:23):
immediately think is when we hadto change the SNMP community
string on 600 devices at the jobI had and they had to be done
in like 48 hours because of somePCI compliance thing.
That, like you know something,we got hit with an audit and
like, oh, we got, how are yougoing to do that if you don't
automate it?
600 devices and we didn't havea big crew.
Like you're going to go into600 devices, do a show, run pipe

(34:47):
, match, snmp pre-check, do yourchange, write post-check, look
at the logs.
You're going to do that 600times.
Like, how many maintenancewindows is that going to take
you to do right?
Like so for me, every timesomebody says, oh, I got to find
a use case, I mean there's,what would you say to somebody
who's like I can't find a usecase?
I mean, is that a valid thingor is that an excuse?
And I'm not trying to pick onBill Murray, but repetitive

(35:09):
stuff is going to take a longtime.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
It's like my child painting.
Children are so funny because alot of times I almost get
creative ideas just by lookingat my children.
My daughter will sit there andcreate these beautiful pictures
and she's only six.
But it's like she thinks out ofthe box and like with that,
just in tech, like, okay, somuch stuff is free.

(35:31):
Yeah, you need to buy maybe acomputer.
That's got some, you know, agood CPU and lots of Ram, but
set up a lab and then puttogether you can literally map
and mirror most, uh, a lot ofnetworks I've worked in.
Anyway, you can get pretty close, like think about it, like you
know, test yourself, like goback and think, okay, I worked

(35:51):
on a network and this is whatthat network looked like.
This is where the aggregationof all these routes is happening
.
These are how the branchoffices are connecting back.
And no, you don't got to dolike 100, 500 branch offices, do
like five or 10.
And okay, now I have someautomation that's going to go
out and update the config oreven bootstrap a new device.
You know, once it has TACACS orwhatever and it's talking back

(36:12):
to the mothership, it's beingmonitored, then go in and, you
know, build out some automationto go and bootstrap the actual
configuration.
So really it's the one thingthat I thought or that I
experienced.
That was fantastic and that's agood question, because I've
struggled with this at somepoint too.
But my best sort of thing thatI learned was be creative.

(36:38):
Just don't listen to a lot ofother folks, just think about
the experiences you've had, thenetworks you've worked on, and
maybe even how networks aresupposed to be built.
Just, and you know, lookthrough that lens and you just
mess around test prototype.

Speaker 3 (36:52):
I mean I.
For me, automation, like I saidis is is selfish, it's it's
saving myself time or it's it'sme wanting to learn something.
So I'll give you an example ofan automation I wrote in my own
house I I have teenagers.
Until recently, groundings werea pretty common thing, but
grounding doesn't work in termsof you can't go anywhere because
they're teenagers, they don'twant to go anywhere, they just

(37:14):
want to sit in their rooms andbe on their phones.
So what I had done was I'd setup firewall policies, because
I'm a firewall guy now andfirewall policies could just
block my kids' access to theinternet.
It's not that it was so common,but it got common enough that I
wrote an automation script thatI put into my iPhone using the
scripting stuff that was inthere, and all it did was it was

(37:36):
a script that put SSH into myfirewall turn on the ground
Logan policy or turn off theground Logan policy.
That's all it did.
But I was able to turn it to alittle button on my phone.
I clicked that button.
It would SSH into my firewall,it would edit policy ID 71.
It would turn it on with enablethe policy.

(37:56):
It would log back out and thenit would ask me would you like
to set a reminder to ungroundhim?
And it was all built to myphone and it wasn't that I was
using Python, I wasn't usingPerl, I wasn't using Bash, I was
using the stuff that was rightthere on my phone.
But it was a simple automation.
That was kind of a fun thing todo.

Speaker 1 (38:13):
And you're blocking all of his internet.

Speaker 3 (38:15):
I was blocking all of his internet absolutely.
And then, of course, he figuresout that he just turned off the
Wi-Fi.

Speaker 1 (38:26):
That's where I was going.

Speaker 3 (38:27):
Next, I got cellular.
But here's the thing I want himto start figuring things out.
So it's great, I'm okay.
If he can hack around me,that's great.
This is exactly what I'm hopingfor.
I guess that's what I would say.
If you think automation of somesort is what you want to get
into, don't worry about learninga language.
Don't learn a language first.
Come up with an idea of what toautomate.
If you can't think of an ideaof what to automate, going back

(38:52):
to the AI thing, go to chat GPTand say hey, I want to automate
something, I want to learn toautomate.
Give me 10 ideas, give me 100ideas, give me 1,000 ideas.
That's something that AI isgreat for.
It can give you 1,000 bad ideasand out of that is probably at
least one good one you cantotally do.

Speaker 2 (39:04):
there's so much things in the cloud you can do
very ephemeral for free, likethe other day I was working on
something and using somethingcalled Terraform Infrastructure
as Code tool, completelygenerating this pre-can
environment.
So, using the random stringresource set in the link, the
numeric value, specialcharacters, whatever of a name

(39:25):
like a unique name, then I'mcreating an AWS, vpc and I'm
doing tags to format the namelike VPC, hyphen, whatever that
random string is.
And then I'm creating aninternet gateway IGW, hyphen,
random string.
And then I'm using the CIDRsubnet functions with Terraform
to actually take the slash 16 Ihave and like, etch it out into

(39:48):
different subnets and thensetting the route table and
attaching it to the gateway ID.
You know all the way down tocreating an EC2 instance that I
can SSH into.
You know automagicallybootstrapping tail scale within
this device, so then I canconnect to it.
I don't even have to set umyour security group rules
because it uses udp holepunching to get through right

(40:09):
down as long as I have that igwyeah love

Speaker 1 (40:12):
me some tail scale, williams is talking 30s whoa
tail c udb punch I I whoa hellothere's so many cool things you
can do.

Speaker 2 (40:23):
Yeah, and it's free yeah, I like free stuff.

Speaker 1 (40:27):
Free stuff is good.
You said infrastructure as code, which I actually put on my
list as we were talking with aquestion mark.
I had a guy I worked with atJuniper, Chris Marget, and he
was big in infrastructure ascode and he built a Terraform
provider for one of our toolsand he spent some time showing
me Terraform and IAC.
And again, someone who hashistorically been repulsed by

(40:52):
coding he was that guy that waslike listen, dude, let me see
your Cisco CLI and I'd show himin my lab.
He's like you're telling meyou're not coding.
Look at all this logic in thisarcane language you're doing If
you can do this and you'retelling me that Bash or Python
is beyond you.
Like, it's not true, You'relying to yourself.
So he showed me infrastructure'scode and Terraform and I was
just blown away because I reallylove.

(41:14):
I really love the.
I don't want to call it likebeautiful, That'll be like a
little too far but seeing whathe was doing, just I was really.
I thought he was doing just Iwas really.
I thought, huh, like I, I wouldlike to try to like if I had a
small environment, maybe at home, like maybe that's where I
should start like, try to try tolab with some terraform and
just kind of you know see, seehow that goes it is beautiful,

(41:36):
though.

Speaker 2 (41:36):
You're right looking for it.
Right, it's very beautiful.
Imagine like logging into anexcel sheet or a word doc and
like writing some stuff out,versus opening a vs code with a
beautiful theme pretty colors,dark theme.
It's like glowing in your roombecause the lights are off.
Yeah, it's beautiful.
It's gorgeous code magic I loveit.

Speaker 3 (41:57):
Home automation get into some home automation stuff.
There's some really cool stuffyou can do with home automation
and it at least gets your brainworking in the, in the, in the
area of writing scripts it's fun.

Speaker 1 (42:07):
You just read my mind .
So like, if we're out and wecome home, I get in my driveway,
I have to get on the phone,flip it up, hit the alarm, turn
the alarm off.
Then I have to hit the garagedoor opener and hit that.
Then I have to go and turn theheat back up because we turn it
down before we left, like thisis what I do every time we come
home, when we get in the car toleave close the garage door with
the one button, turn the alarmon with the other button, get
the music going on the other,and it would be so nice.

(42:29):
Every time I come home I haveto do those same steps.
Now I have no idea where I'dstart, but for the gentleman
Bill Murray, I think he waslooking for use cases for
automation.
It doesn't have to be networkautomation.
If you get home every time andpress 32 things on your phone
every single goddamn time to getyour house like, maybe I could
automate that right here.
I don't know how, but I knowjeff clark and and william and

(42:51):
they could probably.
You know you got google, I dothat you can.
You control your own destiny,andy well, even chat gpt, right
like jeff, you were telling methat weren't you going in there,
like didn't you ask it to teachyou ansible one night?

Speaker 3 (43:01):
yeah I literally went in there, was there and was
like teach me.
I have no idea what Ansible is.
I did not know if Ansible was aprogram I had to download off
the internet or Ansible was awebpage I logged into.
I mean, I was that cluelessabout two weeks ago and I went
into ChatGPT.
I said I want to learn Ansible.
I already had a couple of Bashscripts going back to Bash.

(43:24):
I already had a couple of bashscripts going back to bash.
I already had some bash scripts.
I knew what I wanted to be ableto string like five or six
different things together,because every time I turn up a
brand new firewall in my lab, Iwould have to go in.
I'd have to give it amanagement IP.
I'd have to go in and set theusername and password.
I would have to go in and giveit a host name.
I would have to then go.
If it was a lab that was goingto stick around, I'd have to go
create a DNS entry for it.
All of these things are thingsthat I do in my sleep and I can

(43:48):
just type them out and I canturn up a firewall in five
minutes or I can run an Ansiblescript and do it in less than 30
seconds.
And if I can do something in 30seconds instead of five minutes
, I'm going to do it in 30seconds.
Even though it took me an hour,two hours to learn to write
that I can now turn up a hundredfirewalls in the same time, it

(44:08):
would have taken me to turn upone and that two hours I learned
something that I wouldn't havelearned by turning up a hundred
firewalls, because I do it allthe time.
I already knew that, so I mightas well learn how to do the
same thing I do constantly in adifferent way.
That was automated.
That was faster.
So this whole episode is aboutchange.
I think that's really whatchange is about.
It's kind of about we get sostuck in a mindset that this is

(44:36):
the way it has to be and this iswhat I know and I can't do this
other thing.
Just do what you already knowin a different way.
That's change.
That's an easy way to getmoving, like this podcast.
You know all the stuff to putit together.
You're now just kind of you'removing.
You're moving some piecesaround at this point.

Speaker 1 (44:51):
You're figuring out different content for it and
it's scary, it's the, it's the,it's the unknown.
Yeah, it's scary, you'reuncomfortable and like so.
So I don't know if I don't knowif you guys are comfortable
sharing a personal story, butbut I will.
Maybe we'll spend the rest ofthis just talking about, maybe,
a change in like a personalprofessional lives and kind of
how we got through it, because Ithink it's.

(45:13):
I think it's relevant.
I mean, we started out with thepodcast because this has been
so.
One very brief story I'll tellyou is I was sitting at the bank
opening up the business accountthat that I needed to to
continue the show, and the guywho I was doing the paperwork
he'd think, oh, let me make abunch of copies and I'll be
right back.
And he left the room and I'msitting there by myself and the
loneliness that I got hit withbecause I'm at this bank by

(45:36):
myself, opening a bank account,because I no longer have anybody
on my team that I've had forall these years.
That felt like family to me andthe unknown ahead of me, like I
don't know if I can keep theshow going.
I don't know if anybody's goingto be willing to come in and
help me.
I don't know what the futureholds, but it means something to
me.
I love it and I'm going to, inspite of possible failure.

(46:00):
Like success isn't guaranteedand you know, maybe it would
have been easier just to shutthe doors when everybody else
decided that they were going toreprioritize.
But I just remember that momentof sitting there and it was
like I got like a lump in mythroat because I'm like God, I
hope I can do this right,because it's scary and it's the
unknown.
And so two other quick storiesthis year.

(46:23):
But I guess the point is, eventhough I was scared and I felt
alone and I had a lot offeelings around it, it's been
hard to maintain the friendshipswhen all these other feelings
of you know, whatever, I don'twant to get too like mushy, but
it just brings up some stuff,you know.
But I decided I'm going to doit anyway.
This is important and you haveto do things and maybe I'll fail

(46:45):
, maybe I won't, but I'm not.
I'm not going to give up, I'mnot going to let fear stop me,
like I I was I was alludingearlier to like younger Andy and
the choices I used to make LikeI really let fear rule my life
as a younger man and I'velearned and I got another
example coming up but one of thebiggest lessons I've learned in
life and it's helped me in mycareer as well is what's the

(47:06):
thing about like courage, likeit's not lack of fear, it's
taking action in spite of fear,right, like it's okay to be
afraid.
You just can't quit.
So I guess, like a year, yearand a half ago now I get laid
off from this job.
Right, I wasn't expecting it.
Some of my other friends andstuff were getting laid off, but
when I took this job, this youknow, somebody I really looked

(47:28):
up to brought me in and Ithought we were good and
everything was said.
And like I didn't take that jobknowing two years later I'd be
out of a job.
I didn't take that job as aproduct manager, having not
managed a product, knowing thatI hit the market later and all
anybody wanted to talk to meabout was managing a product and
I'd have to tell them I didn'tmanage a product.
Like this was not a short termdecision, this was like I'm

(47:51):
going to be here a while, I'mgoing to get laid off, and I
thought it was okay.
Like the first day goes by.
I'm like, yeah, I've beenthrough a lot, I'll be fine.
Second day goes by right, it'sright before Christmas, right,
which is great.
The first Monday comes around.
It was like a Thursday.
So like Thursday, I'm fine.
Friday I'm fine, we do theweekend, I'm distracted.
Well, monday comes around.
My wife goes to work, the kidsgo to school to do that day, and

(48:19):
it just hits me like a ton ofbricks.
I'm like fudge, like what thefrick, like sucks and I I felt
like I'm like I'm just gonnastay in bed, I'm gonna pull the
covers up over my head, I'm justgonna hide here, like this is
right, I'm an ass grown man, ifI can quote dan richards.
But like I'm a grown ass manand I'm like I'm going to hide
in bed, right, and, and that'snot good Cause again, earlier
times in my life I didn't feelso great about things and I

(48:42):
didn't make great decisions atthe time.
So I'm like, well, I got a wifeand I got kids and I got a
family who's depending on me.
I can't hide in bed.
What am I going to do?
I started to run Now I hadn'trun in 10 years because I got
bad knees.
I got a bad back.
I got a story I tell myself,right.
But I started to run becauseI'm like, well, I got to keep my
head right so I can interviewand keep my career going.
So anyway, I run 400 miles ineight months.

(49:03):
I run so much that I fracture.
There's something called afemoral neck at the top of your
femur bone.
It's what turns into your hip.
I don't only fracture that, itwas a grade three fracture.
So grade one is a crack.
Grade two is a worse crack.
Grade three there's bone marrowleaking out of your bone and
I'm still running through it.
Right, but I needed to run.
So I lose my job, I'm runningfor my mental health, I get

(49:25):
injured, I can't run anymore.
So where am I going with allthis?
So you know my wife's stillworking the whole time and we
got two little kids and she doesall the food shopping and the
cooking.
Usually I'm not proud of this.
I've changed it since, but soanyway, you know she's like, oh,
I got to go to you know thefood store and get some food.
So I'm like, listen, let me doit for you.
Like you know you're busy,you're working, like, let me go
get the food.

(49:45):
I'm driving home from the foodstore and the thought occurs to
me that my family would bebetter off without me, and then
I should just take off myseatbelt and drive as fast as I
can into a tree.
Now, I've never said thispublicly and this isn't
something that I'm reallylooking forward to anyone or my
employer hearing, but the reasonI'm telling you this is getting
laid off and being out of workfor nine months brought me to a

(50:07):
point, even with running 400miles in eight months, that the
thought occurred to me that myfamily would be better off
without me, because I got apretty good life insurance
policy on my head and I thoughtwell, they'll have the money,
she'll find another husband, thekids will be fine.
Now, it was just a passingthought.
The seatbelt didn't come off, Igot home.
But as soon as I got home I toldmy wife, because I've had

(50:28):
mentors in my life, and some guytold me once like well, you're
only as sick as your secrets.
Man, you got a bad thought, yougot to get that out, you got to
work on it, and so why would Ishare this and be vulnerable and
possibly embarrass myselfpublicly?
People who find me on the showand hit me up like William you
kind of alluded to it earlieryou seem to have everything
together and you have this greatjob and you have these people
that listen to you.
And like my son was in hereearlier and I showed him some

(50:50):
stuff on the internet, he's likedaddy, are you famous?
I'm like, well, not really.
And there's a handful of nerdswho know.
So he's like he watches theseguys on TikTok and all and he's
like, well, daddy, go on Googleand put your name in, that'll
tell if you're famous.
So I put my name in, my facejust comes like everything is
mean.
He's like, oh, my God, daddy,you're famous.
I'm like I seem like, oh, Iwish I had that life, or I wish

(51:18):
like right, but I'm a guy who afew months ago, wanted to take
my seatbelt off and drive into atree because I got laid off.
Now the point of all this isI've been at a new job for six
weeks.
It's the best role I've everhad in my life.
It's the most fulfilling roleI've ever had.
It aligns with my strengthsmore than any other role I've
ever had, and I think I'm goingto be the happiest I've ever

(51:42):
been in my career as a40-something year old.
It's taken me a long, long timeand a lot of jobs and a lot of
pain and stress to get to a joband a company and a role where
I'm like this is what I was bornto do.
It's been a hell of a year andI've had a lot of struggles and
there's been a lot of change andthere was a moment when I

(52:02):
thought about giving up.
So what's the point of all thatLike for me?
I think that you have to beafraid but do things anyway, and
I think that it's okay feel solost and find yourself in a dark
place that you consider givingup the fight for a better life,
because if you can just keeptaking action and keep doing the

(52:24):
next thing that you got to doto change, right.
This is all about change, then,because if you give up, you
can't get out of a bad situationif you give up, right.
So as long as you fight andstay in there and and and kind
of believe that things can getbetter and just hang in there
long enough, you can.
So, um that was a lot of shit todrop on you guys and the

(52:44):
audience, but I think it'simportant because I've had a lot
of people come to me and say,oh man, can you help me with
this or that?
Or resume like.
You seem to have your stufftogether and just know that
everybody that you might put ona pedestal, they're as human as
any of us and life is a bitchand change will come and some of
it's going to be really hardand we can get each other
through it.

(53:04):
I'm joined here by two amazingmen who are helping me keep the
show alive and going andcreating a great podcast right
now, and that means a lot to mebecause you guys don't have to
be here.
You have families and careersand stuff to do.
So thank you for being here.
Thank you for listening to mystory that turned dark but ends
happily.

Speaker 2 (53:24):
Thank you for sharing , like.
I know so many folks that wouldbenefit from listening to that,
that are in the sort of thesame situation.
The job market's hard right nowand when you know, when you if
it's just me, I can you know, Ican you know, live and just
figure things out.
But when you have a wife,that's depending on you, you
have a family, you have childrenthat are like looking at one
thing that now, with the agesthey're at, they look at you

(53:46):
like you're their hero, you'relike the most important person
in their life.
You can't do any wrong.
I know, going from when I wasyounger and sort of getting my
career going and I wasn'tmarried, all I had to worry
about was numero uno.
I could study as long as Iwanted.
I can do as many fall nights asI wanted.
I could.
You know my structure, myschedule was so rigid I could

(54:08):
just throw time in blindly toeverything, to where you know.
Okay, I'm three kids now, threeyoung children.
They all have differentactivities.
I'm doing a ton of driving.
I'm traveling a ton for travel,sports.
You know, the other day I was inI don't know what city I was in
, either Fort Wayne or Detroitat a hockey tournament.
The whole family had come along.
I'm sitting there like an hourand a half, or no, about an hour

(54:29):
, before I have to get them tothe rink.
The rink's like 30 minutes away.
I'm holding my, my new daughter, and she is spit up all over
the last pair of clothes I haveI've.
I'm like a target for her.
Like I've been spit up on everyoutfit, like it was so bad we
had to find a laundromat to dolaundry in, because, like always
, I only pack exactly what Ineed, not accounting for spit up

(54:51):
accidents.
So I look and it's just I'mcovered in it.
Like, oh, my goodness, you gotto be kidding me.
Um, and then I turn around andI noticed a whole bunch of
yellow stuff on my sleeve.
So not only did she spit up onme, she was having a blowout,
I'd poop all over my mom andit's like oh goodness and and at
this at the same time, likewhat's streaming through my head

(55:13):
is all the stuff I have to goback to work for on monday that
i't done that I, you know I havequeued up and it's like this is
the peak of stress at themoment for me.
But you know, having otherfolks that are dependent on you,
you really got to figure outtime management.
You have to consider stress andburnout your personal
relationships and you thinkabout your career plateau.

(55:35):
You have to take time for thepeople in your life that matter.
You have to be able to adjustyour priorities.
But when you do that I don'tknow about, for you too, but
there's this feeling in my chestlike okay, now I'm missing out,
I'm not learning or all thesethings are happening and I'm not
going to be able to keep up,and that's hard.
It takes a toll on your mentalhealth.

(55:58):
Anyway, that's all from me,totally.

Speaker 1 (56:01):
Totally, dude, I'm right there with you.
It seems like family and careerare just two diametrically
opposed forces and you neverknow what the right balance is.
And in tech, you're right,you're always.

Speaker 2 (56:13):
Tech is different, though.
Like I, a friends in a cat,like I have lots of friends that
do other things and they arelike nine to five and they make
real good money and they'redoing just fine and dude, like
you gotta work on mysister-in-law's.

Speaker 1 (56:26):
My sister-in-law is a pediatrician.
She teaches medical school atthe college, like and her
continuing education credits area joke.
Like.
She tells me that like she'sshe's nine to five, she's got a
ton of aka.
Like right.
A freaking doctor with likelives in her hands and us
schmucks in tech are like ohgotta learn the next thing.
Tech, though I love learning out, it's just well, you have to,

(56:47):
you have to are you, but to yourpoint, with like a family and
kids and like it's it's it'sreally hard.
I stopped studying for a coupleof years because I did get
burnout at the tail end of myfintech thing and we went from
zero clouds to multi-cloud.
We went from no automation toautomate or get out, and I was
so burnt out with it all.
I'm like you know what I'mgoing to do, my job.

(57:08):
I'm going to do my maintenancewindows.
I'm not learning anything.
I've had it and I don't know ifthat was a great choice or not.
Probably not.

Speaker 3 (57:20):
I was going to say.
I think that kind of brings usall the way back around to how
we started, which is what'ssomething that you think it
takes to become a good networkengineer was one of the first
questions we asked, and thatepisode's about change.
I think that, in reality, partof being a network engineer,
part of being in IT I mean, hell, part of life is embracing the
change.
Network engineers, we figurestuff out.
We don't know things.

(57:41):
We figure things out and thingsare constantly changing.
Things are going to change, thejobs are going to change.
What you used to have to knowyou're going to have to know
more and that thing that youknow really well is no longer
going to be as important as itused to, and it's going to take
a toll on you personally.
If you can embrace the change,if you can embrace that, I don't

(58:03):
know that there's many betterjobs out there, because, frankly
, I think this is a really goodtime.

Speaker 1 (58:07):
Good Well, thanks for being on here, guys.
I'm hoping to do it more oftenwith you guys.
For all things, art of NetworkEngineering you can check out
our website, ar,artofnetworkengineeringcom.
That's where all of ourepisodes are.
We have a link tree,linktreecom, forward slash.
Art of NetEng All cool things,art of NetEng.

(58:31):
Most notably, it's all aboutthe Journey Discord server.
There's about 3,500 folks inthere studying for all kinds of
things helping each other out,patting each other on the back
for wins, picking each other upwhen they fail.
If you don't have a community,you can hop in there and check
it out.
It's a great collection oflike-minded folks in there.
So we're going to keep the showgoing.
I hope that you continue toenjoy it.
If you have any feedback, let meknow.

(58:52):
Reach out.
If there's something you'd liketo see or hear that you haven't
, I'm happy to consider it.
If you want to get on the show,hit me up, and I'm hoping this
time next year.
We're through this littletransition, through all this
change, and we're keeping on,keeping on.
So, as always, thanks forlistening and we'll catch you
next time on the Art of NetworkEngineering podcast.
Hey, folks, if you like whatyou heard today, please

(59:16):
subscribe to our podcast andyour favorite podcatcher.
You can find us on socials atArt of NetEng and you can visit
linktree forward slash Art ofNetEng for links to all of our
content, including the A1 merchstore and our virtual community
on Discord, called it's AllAbout the Journey.
You can see our pretty faces onour YouTube channel named the
Art of Network Engineering.
That's youtubecom.

(59:46):
Forward slash Art of NetEng.
Thanks for listening.