One of the funniest, my wife majored in British literature in college. She’s read all major works, reads Shakespeare for fun, and can read and speaks middle English. I worked and traveled to England a few times a year and had lived there in my early 20s, before we met.
For our fifth anniversary I took her to England. It was her first time ever leaving the US. In fact the first time she left the southern US.
We’re standing at the curb at Gatwick waiting for a cab and there are two guys behind us talking. My wife leans over and whispers, “what language are they speaking?”
I just started laughing, and explained they were speaking English, they are just Scottish. All that book learning and studying of the language couldn’t prepare her for the Scottish accent.
Air crash reconstruction using flight simulator. No fluff, no unnecessary dramatization, no bullshit. Has been going due years and years with the exact same formula.
Weird including Internet Historian after the Hbomberguy video. Wouldn’t care so much but I found Historian’s statement on it pretty gross. Doesn’t seem to take the plagerism very seriously.
We moved from Texas to Minnesota in February when I was 6.
There were huge snow banks and while the movers were loading our stuff into the new house, the neighborhood kids were watching from behind the snow banks, all bundled up in snowsuits, hats, scarves, etc.
I, very logically thought they were snow monsters watching us…
I have my yearly review coming up and I have no idea what kind of questions to ask. I’m drawing a total blank.
You could ask a question demonstrating you’re thinking about how your actions influence the success of the company. Such as:
“What technologies or certifications are our customers asking for now or in the near future? If I could obtain some, that could increase my bill rate to because of that higher level of expertise.”
It comes off as an altruistic question, but knowing that answer, obtaining that skill makes you a more valuable worker in your industry irrespective of who is your employer. Especially closer to the beginning of your career the most valuable investments you can make are in yourself. This means skills, credentials, or tools. Have the ability to do things that your other peers can’t.
I am interested in literally everything. I wanna learn more server stuff and phone systems especially. I am last in line to learn phones though. I do a lot of basic stuff with most of the things you’ve listed, though. I’m currently trying to fix the backups on a client’s server and I’m actually making progress on my own.
So you want to advance to a higher level and have a broad interests?
You failed some MS cert exam?
You have a review coming up?
Broad interests. Don’t miss the forest for the trees. Learn core concepts and things that are useful in many contexts rather than specifics. This is where a lot of newbies go wrong. E.g. don’t learn about AD, learn LDAP and AD, OpenLDAP, DS389, will all come much easier. In most roles some basic programming with Python will come in handy. Once you learn to write code in one language, learning others comes a lot faster. Some worthwhile things to have a foundational grasp of: PKI and how it is used by SSH and TLS, a high level understanding of common network protocols. Peruse IETF RFCs for that. E.g. if you know how say DNS works, you can manage it using any DNS server software. Ditto http and web servers. You will need to learn configuration management SW and monitoring SW. I prefer salt stack and zabbix. There are many good choices.
Seriously learn PKI and TLS. I can recommend some good sources. TLS is used by pretty much everything to secure connections. Backup server to agent, browser to web server, AV to server, you name it.
Open Source is your friend, learn a bit about big projects. E.g. say you get good with backups and want to work for your favorite product vendor. That fancy backup appliance or cloud service is probably running Linux or FreeBSD on the metal and using something like Tomcat for the WebUI.
Learn a bit about licensing models. You will have to deal with it no matter what path you choose.
I wouldn’t try to impress your supervisor. Chances are, they’ll see through it. They may or may not care about their employees. Assume they don’t. Don’t assume the worst either. You can almost always trust interests. Their job in an MSP environment is to make sure contractual requirements are met and clients are happy. Focus on where your interests are aligned. Happy clients mean less headaches for you and your boss. I would let them lead the conversation, but focus on that aspect. If a lot of clients use X thing, mention that to your boss that you want to learn more about X thing as it will help you close tickets faster.
Try to secure a firm schedule for your L2, and what conditions need to met-to achieve it, . Not because you are especially ambitious, just because you want to keep growing into your job.
Demonstrate a wider interest in a) your department (what is the current state of tools, processes, what are the pain points) b) the wider company (how is the company performing, does your dept have a good reputation within it)
Tell him you think you are in a good place to grow both technically and as a person and as long as that remains true, you are happy and loyal.
When you are running the place, don’t forget your friends 😉
A yearly review is generally more for them to give you feedback so you really don’t have to ask questions if you don’t want to. If you’ve been doing a decent job you have nothing to be anxious about. But here are some questions you could consider asking:
What do you consider my strengths? Is there anything I can improve on?
I would like to develop my skills in xyz, are there any opportunities in the company for me to do that? Or do you have recommendations for how I could do that outside of the company?
What are the career path options after level tech 2?
Am I meeting your expectations for where I should be at the current point in my career?
What direction do you see the company/our team moving in in the next few years? How could I help us align with that?
Ask what the most important skills or experiences to develop are for the transition to level 2, if there are any new or unexpected needs emerging in the department, if there are any specific departmental or company-wife priorities or goals for the coming year, and if there’s any way your specific role can more actively support those goals.
Depending on the type of place, you can ask if you’re perceived as taking feedback well and/or being up for a challenge, saying that you want that to be clear and would like to work on it if it isn’t. The fine line is asking a question that seems like it’s just meant to make you look good vs. a legitimate request for somewhere you can grow or do more good for the team/company, which is why keeping things focused on questions that will have actionable responses is a great move. Hope this helps and good luck! Sounds like you don’t have much to be worried about if they’re already prepping you for a promotion!
If you’re on the path to level 2, ask what you need to get there.
If you can get specific feedback then you can work on those things, and it also shows your boss that it’s your goal so they can help you work towards it.
I know that I have to get a specific Microsoft cert to get discussions on a promotion started. I attempted the cert exam and failed pretty badly. Gotta study more.
I plan on asking for specific feedback and how I can improve and all that.
Would it be helpful to ask for suggestions on getting better at the exam stuff, or do you already have what you need and just need to put in the study time?
I could look into that. I got a udemy course on sale that has simulations and stuff. If those don’t cover what I am struggling with, I can totally see if we can spin up some temporary vms
Don’t have any MS certs myself, but the conventional wisdom is this: Answer how you think Microsoft wants you to answer. If there are two correct answers, go the Microsoft way.
I know that’s a little nebulous at your experience level. Wish I had some examples, been a few years since I looked at it.
Don’t take random people’s advice at face value. You know your circumstances best.
That being said:
“I’ve done the following this year and feel my work meets or exceeds expectations. That being said cost of living has been going up quite a bit and I would like to discuss how my pay can reflect this”
Or
“What steps do you think I should take to advance my career here? What’s the best path forward to taking on more responsibility and the commensurate compensation?”
And, if you’d rather just ask in general how things are going
“I feel this and this has been going great. Are there any areas you feel I do best in? Any areas that I should work on refining?”
And if the last question doesn’t have anything then that may be a good time to ask about pay. Just the COL alone is reason enough because there’s always the option of finding a new job whose starting pay is what you want.
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