mario a. spinthiras

This is how I “grew up” in ISPs. I mean no disrespect to any other ISPs from the content of this blog post, including the ISPs that employed me in the past and my current employers. Try and think of it as a spiritual insight of what things are supposed to be and where people tend to trip and lose their way sometimes.

When I was roughly 15 I first got into Linux. I built upon the idea of having Linux on the desktop , got into networking , ignored my school teachers and their foolish lessons on trying to teach me the periodic table all over again (I studied it on the Internet) and of course we couldn’t forget the Grammar School;s oh-most-boring History lessons. Building and building knowledge left and right I wanted to become a sys admin. The very thought of being able to do things that sys-admins did at the time gave me a big rush.

So when I was 18 I applied at SpiderNet (a local ISP) and got myself into the customer service. It was okay for a while I guess and I made good friends with all the guys at the NOC including the CTO which I have respect for. At some point I started studying for the CCNA. I clearly remember the CTO saying something along the lines of “If you do the CCNA , Ill get you a place in the NOC instantly.” . Guess what? Being a sys-adm there didn’t really interest me anymore. Not because of the people , or the place , but just because someone saw something in me , gave me the motivation to up my standard , hunt for something maybe “better” in a sense. So I did go looking. You would expect that someone who just got a job offer from one department , to the best department (in an ISP/NSP) would rush to finish the requirements (the CCNA) and on-board he comes. Well no , thats not me. I simply resigned
I tried a few other places for a while (not ISPs) but it just didn’t tickle me. One day though I heard a really cool Netway ad on the radio while driving. So I thought , okay I should give them a call.

I rang them , made an appointment and went to see them. All dressed up as I was nervous. The guy took half a look at my CV (the look that would take the average person the exact time to read five words in a sentence) and chucked it. Then he just hired me.

When I began there it was still a tech support position. When we moved into new offices though located elsewhere , I started to gain things you need in any job , respect , trust , admiration (not such a requirement). In continuation to that I started working with VPN connectivity , LANs/MANs/WANs. I was dipped into networks right away and I was loving every second of it. Anything I didn’t know , I requested it explicitly to be assigned to me just for the learning experience. And there I was , a network engineer I started to work towards.

After a while I was also assigned to building up the Customer Support department which I know my work was appreciated ten times more. I got to work with some pretty interesting people and I made quite a tech support department out of it all. Then it just got boring. I continued to study in parallel , passed the CCNA , started on the CCNP , went through endless documents, howtos , articles , books , you name it. Learning and learning , I just wanted more.

Ufortunately the infrastructure and technology used there couldn’t allow me to go further. It was the end of the line. I needed to be somewhere corporate , somewhere with procedures , professionalism , interesting , where people have interest and care for networks , passionate for what they do co-workers and most of all I wanted to be somewhere where I can find every kind of project , every kind of toy , every kind of complicated network structure. I wanted to go further.

So I kept quiet for a while. Gave it thought. Waited to see if the mood swing was real. Yes it was real. Luckily enough…

… I found exactly what I was looking for:

• Enthusiastic people
• Respectfl people
• big big networks
• big big big bigger networks
• interesting things to do
• interesting things to learn
• passionate network engineers

And most of all the ultimate goal ; people that want to deliver a service that is up to standard , no less than the best that it can be based on the design and implementation. Therefore I walked into the CableNet door and it was probably the best professional move I’ve made so far.

I get to work with people of a higher grade caliper into networking which I like. No disrespect to previous employments what so ever but this is just a higher grade
The quality services being offered over an infrastructure of high capacity is beautiful. Working as a team in a NOC with people that think and act passionately with networks has been a wonderful experience so far! And of course I don’t mind the occasional pat on the back “well done”
So this is where I am so far.. Senior Network Engineer at CableNet Commuinication Systems Ltd - the first cable operator in Cyprus.

Thats all I have to say. I have to go back to studying more on a BCMSN exam.

Bye.

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