When I first started at TAC, I wasn’t allowed to take cases by myself. If I grabbed a case, I had to get an experienced engineer to help me out. One day I grabbed a case on a Catalyst 6k power supply, and asked Veena (not her real name) to help me on the case. […]
Tag: cisco
Recertification Pain
Note: This article was written in 2016 and has not been modified. A number of changes have been made to the CCIE program which have dramatically improved the re-certification process. Continuing education is now an option, as I suggest in this article. The re-certification frequency has been reduced. I may modify this article in the […]
TAC Tales #6: The best organization tool ever
I’ve come back to Cisco recently, and I think I can say that I haven’t worked this hard since the last time I was at Cisco. I remember my first manager at TAC telling me in an interview that “Cisco loves workaholics.” In an attempt to get more organized, I’ve been taking a second crack […]
A CCIE Goes Home to Cisco
In this article in my “Ten Years a CCIE” series, I describe my experience going to work at Cisco as a CCIE. Unlike many Cisco-employed CCIE’s, I earned my certification outside of Cisco. A CCIE leads to a job at Cisco I returned to my old job at the Chronicle and had my business cards […]
The CCIE Mystique
In my first article in the “Ten Years a CCIE” series, I discuss the mystique of the CCIE certification which made me want to attempt the test. Learning about the CCIE My first vague awareness of the CCIE certification came in 1999 while I was a Master’s student in Telecommunications Management at Golden Gate University […]
10 years a CCIE
When I approached my tenth anniversary of first passing the CCIE routing/switching exam (November 2004-2014), I had the idea to post some short reflections on the exam, its value, and my personal experience being a CCIE. I hoped that, although the nature of the exam has changed quite a bit over the last 10 years, these […]
Tac Tales #5: MWAM
New Year’s resolutions are made to be broken, and I haven’t been keeping up with my resolution to do more blog posts. Now that I am back at Cisco, I am focusing on programmability and automation, and I do have a lot to say. However, in honor of my return to Cisco, I thought I would […]
Goodbye Juniper, Hello Cisco
I feel a bit of guilt for letting this blog languish for a while. I can see from the response to my articles explaining confusing Juniper features that my work had some benefit outside my own edification, and so I hate to leave articles unfinished which might have been helpful. In addition, WordPress is not […]