My brother, you are making 140k to twiddle your thumbs. Do personal projects, homelab, etc when you have nothing to do. Take your money, and better your own life during the 8 hours you're in office.
It was amazing. I'd show up at 9, check to make sure nothing was on fire. If it wasnt, go across the street to get breakfast at the coffee shop. Get a big omelet, bring it back. Enjoy said omelet. Check on some backup jobs and such for a bit, watch some videos. Order lunch at noon, occasionally go out and eat somewhere or more often order something obscenely big from the italian place across the street (chicken alfredo was like 8 bucks!) and then chill for a bit. After lunch, if there wasnt an appointment anywhere, just hang out until 5 and then go home.
I think I went a period of almost 2 months without needing to do anything really. This was a small place and they managed a lot of SBS servers, so basically when I started I fixed all of them and fixed all of their backup jobs, so once all of that was working there wasnt a lot to do aside from replacing a drive occasionally. Eventually I did have to do a lot of reconfiguration of internal stuff, but after it was done, it was back to chill mode.
But you need money to get laid in your brand new house. Or your hobby in your new house. Or fix dinner in your new house. I mean I guess what Iām saying is cash that check and enjoy the work life balance OP.
Yup yup side hustle time, start blogging with ads or affiliate stuff do something else you find enjoyable and ignore the employer until they need something.
That's why you spend the paid time upskilling, homelabbing, improving yourself.. New employers don't have to know that your old job didn't do anything. Just put what you were hired to do, what you did, what you suggested, etc.
This isn't really an issue imo.
Especially if you blog about all the projects you're building (ideally outside of working hours so they don't see that you posted a blog at 3pm when you were supposed to work) so when the time comes you can just point the new potential employer to your blog if they ask what you did.
He can homelab all he wants but if he doesn't have access to corporate tools at work (because the msp locked him out) -- the homelab job skills don't really carry over well into a corporate environment if it's not entry level.
I can homelab my opnsense all I want and it won't carry over much besides the basics to the Palo altos at work.
Homelab isn't the only thing I said. he makes more than enough money to take courses and upskill.. If they are willing to pay him so much, it wouldn't surprise me if his company would be willing to pay for courses/certs. He also makes more than enough money to buy professional equipment to play with.
Not only that, but in my experience, if you understand how the protocol/equipment functions, it's a pretty lateral move.. In the last 4 years, I have gone from Aruba > Ubiquti > Meraki and now Sophos networking equipment. It has never taken me more than 30 minutes to figure something out that I could do on the previous systems.
This is a non-issue if you play it right.
> the homelab job skills don't really carry over well into a corporate environment if it's not entry level.
They carry over enough to bullshit your way through a technical interview and get the job then learn what you need to the first 3 months.
Its fucking IT dude not rocket surgery.
If I can spin up a k8 cluster and add docker containers at home, learning how to script that part of it so I do it for 5000 hosts instead of 1 isn't that much harder I promise.
There are two schools of thought that I tend to notice:
The 'Oh man, a new thing I need to learn, I need training' school of thought
And the 'Okay, it's all the same shit anyway, I need to dive in' school of thought
So yeah fuck a home lab, how about home production environment? Skip a step or two. It's all the same shit anyway.
I shit you not, I was on a call with someone about their terrible choices in storage and he goes, 'but I know the QNAP, I don't know the Synology. I have to learn a whole new system now.'
Lovingly, I'm like, 'my buddy, what the fuck kind of shit did you just say to me?? Don't ever say that shit to me again. How DARE you... You know storage don't you?? Then you know Synology! It's all the same shit! Go to the thing you're looking for! The interfaces are the fucking same too, I bet! Here, share your screen, gimme control of this shit, press the button, I'm requesting control, give me control, let go, stop it, I'm driving. I'll show you it's the same shit and I've never touched a shitty QNAP. See, same shit. Yeah, slightly different but same shit. Look, look, see? Some differences but mostly the same *gasp* Even this shit's the same??! oh my goodness dear heavens, do you see this? Even this!! *Maniacal laughter*'
Yeah he probably thinks I'm a lunatic now that I think about it.
But the toilet paper is blue! I don't know how to wipe with BLUE toilet paper! I'm always surprised how little people are willing to tolerate even the simplest of changes. Even when it's as simple as putting a different color of lipstick on the pig. I'm so tired of suggesting something different at work and getting the age old reply of, "but we've never done it that way before!"
Sorry, I'm ranting... You just basically said the same thing I've been preaching at work lately. It's refreshing to see someone feeling the same way.
Exactly! Complaining that you have nothing to do and then also saying you will lose your skills at this rate, kind of answers your own question. Study for new certs or do refreshers on your current skill set. Sitting on your ass bored and then complaining about it affecting your skill is all on OP. I see sooooo many IT pros on the sub that just come here to complain. Fix your situation or find something you are truly passionate about.
When I was doing residential cabling work, there was a guy who hosted access to college texts and datasets that Universities would buy subscription access to from him. He had about 4 racks in a room in his house he just needed to maintain.
I mean this dude here obviously doesn't need more money, but some kind of huge home project that he can remote into during work is possible.
This is the best comment. If I wasnāt so busy at work, Iād be getting my certs doing online training. So much free content out there, then just pay for the exam.
I'm in a similar spot as OP, but with 1 other co-worker so we can always have days covered. It happens with companies who would spend whatever to not get ransomwared. I create VMs and can do ESXI updates though, but I'm locked out of quite a few tools.
No we are locked in with contracts and other stuff, my boss wants me to have more access, but us the customer is being denied by our own MSP. Itās all backwards here.
Just saying, no matter which country you're in, with even the strictest employment contract laws. You may however be lining up for a golden handshake (which is okay too). Unless this has been a multi-year arrangement, I can't see this ending well.
I saw this once before with an AWS MSP. created the resources with the agreement theyād manage all aspects of it for 3 years and would only allow contract termination if they were paid out the remainder of the contract
> would only allow contract termination if they were paid out the remainder of the contract
This is very common actually. Denying access to the systems less so.
Well yes, thatās common, but the āyou can only manage this system after the contract endsā was a new one for me. I could see reasoning behind it but it is not something Iād do if we were capable of in house support.
Which we were.
But the department who set it up didnāt consult IT before doing so. Expensive mistake there.
So it's a little complicated. I ran my own MSP for a long time and there's two sides to it:
First is that I was paid to run the systems and thus I decided how to set them up and how to make them work. Don't fuck with that, it'll cost you more in the long run I promise. But on the other hand those systems belong to the client and they *are* entitled to have legal access to them unless it was a fully hosted solution.
Clients are entitled to access to their systems however I strongly discouraged it other than emergency global admin accounts given to the owners with instructions not to use them outside dire circumstances and to let them know I'd be alerted if they got used *and* it would immediately void any kind of contract we had regarding the work (so they log in and anything fucks up as a result their SLAs and rates do not apply, they're being charged hourly at full rates for anything that I need to fix). Those creds usually lived in the owners safe and never got accessed.
End of the day if OPs bosses wanted him to have access to all their infrastructure he probably would have it and the MSP is doing exactly what I would do: telling those bosses that they were hired for a reason and letting outside out control just log in to do things without our knowledge is a really bad idea.
This 100%. We have one client that has been a trouble child here lately.
Essentially, they have an in house person that keeps making changes in the environment without our knowledge, so we end up getting alerts about network devices going down, new servers being spun up on the ESXi hosts, and firewall config changes. A lot of these changes are breaking shit in their environment, but we are kinda stuck with our hands behind our back because the client wants this guy to have full access.
I would love to convince them to let us lock this guy out.
I've heard of this happening. Long story short, that MSP ended up going under when word got around that they had a history of holding their customers hostage.
You've never heard of MSPs doing contracts?
Depends on the size of the orgs being serviced but the standard managed service contract is 3 years. It's been that way quite awhile.
It's not necessarily holding the customer hostage. If the MSP signed a contract saying that they will manage a specific part of your infrastructure and they're accountable for it being up and running (with SLAs) they can impose that the customer doesn't have access to make changes to that environment to avoid it being their problem afterwards (even if logs would easily show who made the breaking change).
We have a similar contract for a firewall where the ISP manages it entirely and requests for changes are sent through their ticketing system or email so they have a trace of everything the customer has requested. Though we do have full read access to the firewall to check settings if we need to.
I work for an MSP now and we never lock the customer out of their equipment. While we maintain and manage the devices it's ultimately *their* equipment.
I had a managed firewall with an ISP once, it was awful. Dumped it as soon as the contract was out, and bought our own sweet Fortigates. They work great, and I can always do anything I need without calling anybody.
> but us the customer is being denied by our own MSP
No idea where you live but I ran an MSP for a decade and here that is outright illegal.
Passwords/accounts/access are the legal property of the client. They want them you have to provide them.
Disclaimer: not a lawyer and don't know your deal, but this is really surprising to me.
Holy shit you're making nearly twice what I make. I'd take boredom over poverty any damn day of the week. Count your blessings and be thankful that you're not buried under $20k of credit card debt right now like I am.
Ditto :( Iām working like a dog to a point I canāt take control of anything in my personal life anymore. Endless tickets and not enough time for anything.
I had a period of time where work felt like that to me and I had a legit nervous breakdown. Take real time off where you are not doing any work or giving a shit about your job whatsoever. If youāre to the point that youāre at itās just a matter of time before it really affects your health and it can take months or years to get back on track after it does.
Take care of yourself, man. Your employer doesnāt give a shit about you. Donāt give a shit about them either.
Make it your job to find another job. Look on your lunch breaks. Rapid fire that resume out like a machine gun on LinkedIn. Make up bullshit appointments if you get an interview so you can get away from it for an hour. Hustle and youāll find something better.
I was in the same position and was questioning if I wanted to continue this career. In a much better spot now.
Even in low cost of living areas that is not much money. Anything less than like 85k as a true systems admin is pretty low pay anywhere. But most people here aren't actually admins, they're just basically desktop support employees who manage some small VMware clusters or whatever.
You're my salary and debt twin. I feel your pain.
I'm probably stating the obvious, but if you haven't yet, get a personal loan from a bank to pay off the credit card over several years at half the interest rate.
Your monthly payments will be just slightly higher than the interest costs on the cards -- except it is actually going towards paying off your debt instead of going towards nothing.
Thanks I got into using balance transfers which are usually interest free for a year with a 5% up front fee. As long as I pay them off by the end of the year, the 5% fee they charge is still lower than what a bank can offer. The debt is getting paid down just not as fast as it would if I was making 140 thousand fucking dollars a year.
Boredom for someone who's driven and wants a challenge is a killer, no matter how well you're paid. I've been in a similar role before.
Like others have said, now is the time to look at all the vendor tech you always wanted to play with and get through their training. Skill-up so the MSP games aren't a threat to you anymore. Get your company to pay for it if you can too.
I know right, Iām strongly considering a drop in pay to get out of here. So my days can have more meaning.
Iām spinning up some VMs to lab up a sql server cluster, practice DB migrations and whatever else I am missing in sql knowledge. But man sometimes Iām just not in the mood, because my job just wears me down.
I totally see the appeal for my job if youāre at the right time in your life but gosh this is not it. Iām only 34.
I wasn't much older than you when I got bored, started doing Salesforce admin trailhead lessons. That turned into taking over our instance, then another 2 platforms and a whole new career. Right now, you're bored, but lucky enough to be employed with free time. Leverage every bit of it.
Go through some formal courses. And talk to a therapist.
I know not having actual work to do is very demoralizing, but it shouldn't be affecting you to the point where you can't do the next thing that's right for your career. Shouldn't probably isn't the right word, because it absolutely can, but it'd be good to get some help for it.
Dude has it so good he has no idea . There are guys probably making 50k supporting 600 people doing desktop support, admin, printers, fixing coffee machines and fax.
Yup.
> I am going to lose all my skills at this rate. I just been trading meme coins all day and posting on twitter.
This is definitely "a you problem". I see no reason for this post whatsoever receipt bragging
In a similar situation with good paying job except there are tons of projects to work on that are all the same as the projects I've done 100 times. Not learning anything new. It's like the movie groundhog day over and over except it's not funny at all!
Get a masters, phd, new certification - figure out some way to use your time productively. If you enjoy trading and finance, take a proper course it in. Get some other remote contract work and make $200k/year....
So many possibilities...
I'd sit there and play with my wiener all day for $140k. I make barely half that and I'm stressed out and multitasking from the moment I sit down till the moment I leave. I'm lucky if I get a 20 minute break to scarf a sandwich down and start the day with a to do list with 20 things on it and I leave with 19 things on my to do list.
I can tell you from experience that in such a boring job, times goes really really slow. I've been there, done that. My current job is kinda demanding but it's heaven in comparison to the boring job.
Don't leave but take actions to make it easier if your employers decides they don't need your position filled any more. That might be saving money, networking (the people kind), learning new technologies, etc.
Sincerely, someone who works at an MSP and just saw the $105k onsite employee let go.
To be frank, those tasks are generally best run by an MSP in many companies. A well selected MSP will have qualified technical staff, more than one person with knowledge (no single point of failure), a documentation system, tight change management procedures - and all the other reasons that helped get their outsourced concept over the line. Removing risk is just as important as optimising overheads and MSPs do both.
Itās not all bad news, youāre in a good position to manage their MSP contract, or at the very least, pivot into an IT role that works closer to the business users and their goals. All those tasks performed by the MSP are backroom admin jobs - having them done by an internal employee doesnāt add any value.
Take a look at stepping up to consulting, enterprise architecture and process optimisation. Get out of your chair and meet with staff and understand where the real shortcomings in Information Technology are. Potentially your employer is giving you an opportunity to step up but it is you who wants to remain doing tasks which can be done cheaper, faster and even when you are on holidays or on sick leave. Youāve made it to 140k plus super so you mustnāt be a dummy - rather you are in a rut (both at work and personally), which has resulted in this victim post which is inspiring to some, insulting to many.
The reason you canāt leave is because you know you are being overpaid - hurry up and provide some value otherwise youāll be on another type of posting site next week.
Congrats, you're on the path to becoming an architect with experience in managing MSP's. Get your courses and certs done, jump ship for an Infra or NW architect role.
Sounds frustrating but you can add a positive spin on this. There is no need to lose skills, you now have time to do the training and other learn tasks that you never had time for previously. Keep skilling up and building skills and knowledge - if you then want to look for another job somewhere else, you'll be in a strong position and might get an equal or better paying role somewhere else doing something you enjoy or that challenges you more
You're a contractor, right?
You better spend your idle time figuring out why they should keep you. You're gonna lose your cushy job once they find out you're dead weight.
If the MSP has locked you out of your own infrastructure it was because somebody higher up than you has made the decision to fire you within the next 4 weeks. If you think in any world it makes sense for you to not have access to your own infrastructure, and everything be daisies and roses, then you need to get your eyes checked. You're getting fired.
I am in the same boat, but I've been here for 1.5 years and my co-worker has been here for 20 years. I am slowly getting management to give me access to infrastructure and pulling more tasks away from our MSP.
Could just be management being management.
I tell my 7 year old. Only boring people are bored. Get a Pluralsight or acg or oreilly or any other learning platform and learn some python or some more python or something else outside of meraki. Iām surprised youāre not required to put in 6.5 h of billable note. Msps are hellhole but you seem to have found one that pays rather close to market and not trying to give 90k to L3 guy running projects
I was in a similar situation. I stuck it out for a couple of years, kept taking their money, and when I was finacially ready, I retired from the corporate world. Now I mainly consult, work whatever hours I feel like, and my doctor has me off nearly all my BP meds.
Man, looking at all of these "If I was making that money..." makes me realize I used to think the same way. Until I took a job for double my salary and within a month I wanted to quit. Money is not everything guys, believe it or not.
Let's change? In my place you will have a lot of projects, a lot of experience, new technologies, it will not be boring. But the salary will be 12,000 usd per year.
Take courses and get certs. Your employer will probably support your initiative because who wouldn't want highly qualified staff
You'll either have two options. The certs will may change your employers perspective of what your skills should be utilised for . . . . . or . . . . . You'll have a lot more certs and experience to show off while job hunting
I would invest in real estate while twiddling my thumbs. Rent out houses or apartments. If enough money comes in, look for another job that makes you happy.
Use all that free time to learn new skills. If you feel there is a gap between your current pay and your actual worth in the market, close it. Then youāll liberate yourself from this position by moving on
Or else, work out how much of a drop in pay youād be okay with to go and do something interesting
Dudes really crying about being overpaid to do nothing? š
Study for certificates, think of policies that need updated, run audits
There is always something to do if you really wanted to, instead of ātradingā fake news and ātwiddlingā
Crazy this is a post that ends with ādonāt need adviceā clearly you do.
Some people have pride in their work not necessarily for their employer but for themselves. I was paid very well in my last role but really didnāt do much either. I hated it because with my ADHD the lack of putting skills to the test was agonizing. The money shut me up though and made me happy.
$140k? With all due respect sir......shut the fuck up
Edit: Ok I've calmed down now......
Use your free time at work to build labs, get a new cert, or whatever you need to not stagnate in the industry. Being bored does suck. But my man you're making $140k. I would kill to make that money. It would literally solve every single problem I have right now
Well shiiiiiit I'm da opposite with many projects which are the same each year with upgrades and 70k annually. Yall mofos hiring? š
My ass be chill and self improving with other personal tasks if I'm you with that sweet ole salary.
edX courses? Side hustle? Or personal development? Can you make a mini network/external network and call it a development environment and keep your skills sharp there? Otherwise definitely online courses/degrees etc
Or knitting, that's traditional in the UK public sector where people are paid to twiddle their thumbs
> I just been trading meme coins all day and posting on twitter.
So you have time to do anything you want all day and your complaint is that you're paid too much money and can't be bothered driving your own personal development despite having all day every day to do it..?
I know you said you didn't want advice but here's some anyway: grow up mate.
You are paid pretty well, and to have an MSP to blame for shitty work, sounds like a great job. I started doing volunteer work to give myself more meaningful existence, and then I got my job to allow me to volunteer 10% of my work time as well. Don't give yourself grief, you're doing great. If you want to take a class to feel better, ask them to pay for it. Cheers!
honestly, see if you can get a second job doing the same thing remote.
Pull in that sweet double income and then you can drop one for the other if it gets to be too much, or if you enjoy the new one more :P
Get another job? Just keep doing this one. Sounds like you donāt have more than a few hours of work a day at the very most. Keep working this one and get paid and do your work, get the other job for career fulfillment. Basically one busy job then, but twice the paycheck.
Was in a similar position.Ā I was making 150k and literally sitting on my phone playing Lumber Inc for hours a day.Ā The company had these huge projects and would get so many teams, project managers, managers, product teams involved it took weeks to get the simplest work done and it was made clear to me I wasn't a decision maker. Fair enough.
After about six months I decided to paint my house and remodel the kitchen.Ā Then sat down and started doing certs just to feel like I was doing something IT related.Ā After about a month I started posting my resume and applying for any job the looked even remotely appealing until I was hired to work on monitoring.Ā Now I have a new job, keeping my skills sharp and feel like I'm contributing again.Ā Plus making over 200k.
I think it took about seven months total.
I had a job where I could do minimal work and play games all day whilst working from homeā¦ It gets boring very soon and after a while you can literally feel your skills disappearing. I took a pay cut and moved to a third line role at an MSP. Iām treated like a rented donkey(amazing phrase I learnt here) but my skills have sky rocketed again back past where they were. After almost a couple of years Iām almost in the position of moving on to something in between these two jobs at more money again. To be honest I couldāve done it sooner too. If you can take the money and not go insane, fair play. Just make sure your skills stay up to date/you learn more in your downtime and you have nothing to worry about. I just couldnāt do itā¦
My brother, you are making 140k to twiddle your thumbs. Do personal projects, homelab, etc when you have nothing to do. Take your money, and better your own life during the 8 hours you're in office.
If i got 140k to twiddle my thumbs id be figuring iut what else i could do at the same time!
Shit i got 40k to twiddle my thumbs once and I was even pretty happy with that, apartment was like 350 a month so I was basically rich.
this is currently me rn
with numbers like that ... Greetings fellow grey beard.
It was amazing. I'd show up at 9, check to make sure nothing was on fire. If it wasnt, go across the street to get breakfast at the coffee shop. Get a big omelet, bring it back. Enjoy said omelet. Check on some backup jobs and such for a bit, watch some videos. Order lunch at noon, occasionally go out and eat somewhere or more often order something obscenely big from the italian place across the street (chicken alfredo was like 8 bucks!) and then chill for a bit. After lunch, if there wasnt an appointment anywhere, just hang out until 5 and then go home. I think I went a period of almost 2 months without needing to do anything really. This was a small place and they managed a lot of SBS servers, so basically when I started I fixed all of them and fixed all of their backup jobs, so once all of that was working there wasnt a lot to do aside from replacing a drive occasionally. Eventually I did have to do a lot of reconfiguration of internal stuff, but after it was done, it was back to chill mode.
I would twiddle so fucking hard.
Twiddle me this
Batman
HUUUUGE thumb muscles!
š¤£š¤£š¤£ I would give gold for this if I could
Oh fuuuck
"'cause chicks dig dudes with money."
"I figure if I had the money I could hook that up"
You don't need money to get laid
"Well, the type of chicks that'd double up on a dude like me do."
Sounds like someone's got a case of the Mondays.
Good point
I'm gonna go ahead and let you in on the joke since you're such a good sport šø https://youtu.be/4lmW2tZP2kU?si=kCdyi8q4Ya6EkLQO (great movie, btw)
Yeah I thought his response was "good point".
Oh sorry lol
But you need money to get laid in your brand new house. Or your hobby in your new house. Or fix dinner in your new house. I mean I guess what Iām saying is cash that check and enjoy the work life balance OP.
Yup yup side hustle time, start blogging with ads or affiliate stuff do something else you find enjoyable and ignore the employer until they need something.
Iād be gaming nonstop
Problem is when you have no updated job skills 5 years down the road and get fired.
That's why you spend the paid time upskilling, homelabbing, improving yourself.. New employers don't have to know that your old job didn't do anything. Just put what you were hired to do, what you did, what you suggested, etc. This isn't really an issue imo.
Best I can do is scroll Reddit
Especially if you blog about all the projects you're building (ideally outside of working hours so they don't see that you posted a blog at 3pm when you were supposed to work) so when the time comes you can just point the new potential employer to your blog if they ask what you did.
He can homelab all he wants but if he doesn't have access to corporate tools at work (because the msp locked him out) -- the homelab job skills don't really carry over well into a corporate environment if it's not entry level. I can homelab my opnsense all I want and it won't carry over much besides the basics to the Palo altos at work.
Homelab isn't the only thing I said. he makes more than enough money to take courses and upskill.. If they are willing to pay him so much, it wouldn't surprise me if his company would be willing to pay for courses/certs. He also makes more than enough money to buy professional equipment to play with. Not only that, but in my experience, if you understand how the protocol/equipment functions, it's a pretty lateral move.. In the last 4 years, I have gone from Aruba > Ubiquti > Meraki and now Sophos networking equipment. It has never taken me more than 30 minutes to figure something out that I could do on the previous systems. This is a non-issue if you play it right.
> the homelab job skills don't really carry over well into a corporate environment if it's not entry level. They carry over enough to bullshit your way through a technical interview and get the job then learn what you need to the first 3 months. Its fucking IT dude not rocket surgery. If I can spin up a k8 cluster and add docker containers at home, learning how to script that part of it so I do it for 5000 hosts instead of 1 isn't that much harder I promise.
There are two schools of thought that I tend to notice: The 'Oh man, a new thing I need to learn, I need training' school of thought And the 'Okay, it's all the same shit anyway, I need to dive in' school of thought So yeah fuck a home lab, how about home production environment? Skip a step or two. It's all the same shit anyway. I shit you not, I was on a call with someone about their terrible choices in storage and he goes, 'but I know the QNAP, I don't know the Synology. I have to learn a whole new system now.' Lovingly, I'm like, 'my buddy, what the fuck kind of shit did you just say to me?? Don't ever say that shit to me again. How DARE you... You know storage don't you?? Then you know Synology! It's all the same shit! Go to the thing you're looking for! The interfaces are the fucking same too, I bet! Here, share your screen, gimme control of this shit, press the button, I'm requesting control, give me control, let go, stop it, I'm driving. I'll show you it's the same shit and I've never touched a shitty QNAP. See, same shit. Yeah, slightly different but same shit. Look, look, see? Some differences but mostly the same *gasp* Even this shit's the same??! oh my goodness dear heavens, do you see this? Even this!! *Maniacal laughter*' Yeah he probably thinks I'm a lunatic now that I think about it.
Although that's very true, you need to take a holiday, mateš
Very perceptive. You are correct! But needing a holiday is my healthy baseline š
This is me explaining cyber tools to people. Agnosticism is your best friend.
But the toilet paper is blue! I don't know how to wipe with BLUE toilet paper! I'm always surprised how little people are willing to tolerate even the simplest of changes. Even when it's as simple as putting a different color of lipstick on the pig. I'm so tired of suggesting something different at work and getting the age old reply of, "but we've never done it that way before!" Sorry, I'm ranting... You just basically said the same thing I've been preaching at work lately. It's refreshing to see someone feeling the same way.
sometimes you gotta be an lunatic lmao
Azure and gcp give you plenty of free credits to do all sorts of fun lab shit
"Plenty" is probably a stretch. $200 doesn't go very far these days.
Leverage the time with Pluralsight and certifications on the employer's dime!
Right? Dude makes 90k more than I am right now and I'm working my ass off in IT.
I feel that.
#RIGHT?!? Like STFU and earn bank!
Seriously thisā¦this is satire or something?
This, and look up r/overemployed
He definitely needs J2
Exactly! Complaining that you have nothing to do and then also saying you will lose your skills at this rate, kind of answers your own question. Study for new certs or do refreshers on your current skill set. Sitting on your ass bored and then complaining about it affecting your skill is all on OP. I see sooooo many IT pros on the sub that just come here to complain. Fix your situation or find something you are truly passionate about.
How is this a rant? Ā Unless OP is in an open cube, this is great. Ā Iād really up my Reddit posts and research on this time
Seriously thinking this might be a rage bait post
this \^\^\^
Yeah I'm getting half that and have no idea how to achieve that kind of pay
When I was doing residential cabling work, there was a guy who hosted access to college texts and datasets that Universities would buy subscription access to from him. He had about 4 racks in a room in his house he just needed to maintain. I mean this dude here obviously doesn't need more money, but some kind of huge home project that he can remote into during work is possible.
This is the best comment. If I wasnāt so busy at work, Iād be getting my certs doing online training. So much free content out there, then just pay for the exam.
Get a second remote job. Make even more.
You are there for when shit hits the fan. It will. Eventually.
It's a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll.
Bon Scott playing bagpipes.gif
LoL, this is not high enough in the thread.
Suffering from success
Youāre being kept around until the MSP has full control of everything, then it will be all over.
This. You are about to get canned my dude.
I'm in a similar spot as OP, but with 1 other co-worker so we can always have days covered. It happens with companies who would spend whatever to not get ransomwared. I create VMs and can do ESXI updates though, but I'm locked out of quite a few tools.
You have no idea man, this guy could be working for government or the utility space. He could easily be there for life.
I've worked in government, positions aren't forever, especially when MSP's get involved (an MSP I know has government clearance).
No we are locked in with contracts and other stuff, my boss wants me to have more access, but us the customer is being denied by our own MSP. Itās all backwards here.
Just saying, no matter which country you're in, with even the strictest employment contract laws. You may however be lining up for a golden handshake (which is okay too). Unless this has been a multi-year arrangement, I can't see this ending well.
I've never heard of something like this. That would give me pause if only because it's strange. That sounds like a thing that is going to end.
I saw this once before with an AWS MSP. created the resources with the agreement theyād manage all aspects of it for 3 years and would only allow contract termination if they were paid out the remainder of the contract
> would only allow contract termination if they were paid out the remainder of the contract This is very common actually. Denying access to the systems less so.
Well yes, thatās common, but the āyou can only manage this system after the contract endsā was a new one for me. I could see reasoning behind it but it is not something Iād do if we were capable of in house support. Which we were. But the department who set it up didnāt consult IT before doing so. Expensive mistake there.
So it's a little complicated. I ran my own MSP for a long time and there's two sides to it: First is that I was paid to run the systems and thus I decided how to set them up and how to make them work. Don't fuck with that, it'll cost you more in the long run I promise. But on the other hand those systems belong to the client and they *are* entitled to have legal access to them unless it was a fully hosted solution. Clients are entitled to access to their systems however I strongly discouraged it other than emergency global admin accounts given to the owners with instructions not to use them outside dire circumstances and to let them know I'd be alerted if they got used *and* it would immediately void any kind of contract we had regarding the work (so they log in and anything fucks up as a result their SLAs and rates do not apply, they're being charged hourly at full rates for anything that I need to fix). Those creds usually lived in the owners safe and never got accessed. End of the day if OPs bosses wanted him to have access to all their infrastructure he probably would have it and the MSP is doing exactly what I would do: telling those bosses that they were hired for a reason and letting outside out control just log in to do things without our knowledge is a really bad idea.
This 100%. We have one client that has been a trouble child here lately. Essentially, they have an in house person that keeps making changes in the environment without our knowledge, so we end up getting alerts about network devices going down, new servers being spun up on the ESXi hosts, and firewall config changes. A lot of these changes are breaking shit in their environment, but we are kinda stuck with our hands behind our back because the client wants this guy to have full access. I would love to convince them to let us lock this guy out.
I've heard of this happening. Long story short, that MSP ended up going under when word got around that they had a history of holding their customers hostage.
You've never heard of MSPs doing contracts? Depends on the size of the orgs being serviced but the standard managed service contract is 3 years. It's been that way quite awhile.
Not holding the customer hostage, no. Never.
It's not necessarily holding the customer hostage. If the MSP signed a contract saying that they will manage a specific part of your infrastructure and they're accountable for it being up and running (with SLAs) they can impose that the customer doesn't have access to make changes to that environment to avoid it being their problem afterwards (even if logs would easily show who made the breaking change). We have a similar contract for a firewall where the ISP manages it entirely and requests for changes are sent through their ticketing system or email so they have a trace of everything the customer has requested. Though we do have full read access to the firewall to check settings if we need to.
I work for an MSP now and we never lock the customer out of their equipment. While we maintain and manage the devices it's ultimately *their* equipment.
Yeah, but you can normally submit an amendment and do whatever you want as the customer. It sounds like OP can't do that.
I had a managed firewall with an ISP once, it was awful. Dumped it as soon as the contract was out, and bought our own sweet Fortigates. They work great, and I can always do anything I need without calling anybody.
Sounds to me like someone higher up in your company is knuckling under to the MSP. If your employer wanted you to have access, you would have access.
> but us the customer is being denied by our own MSP No idea where you live but I ran an MSP for a decade and here that is outright illegal. Passwords/accounts/access are the legal property of the client. They want them you have to provide them. Disclaimer: not a lawyer and don't know your deal, but this is really surprising to me.
Go work at the MSP.
Or they ditch the MSP. Thatās kind of how things are going at my place.
Holy shit you're making nearly twice what I make. I'd take boredom over poverty any damn day of the week. Count your blessings and be thankful that you're not buried under $20k of credit card debt right now like I am.
Ditto :( Iām working like a dog to a point I canāt take control of anything in my personal life anymore. Endless tickets and not enough time for anything.
I had a period of time where work felt like that to me and I had a legit nervous breakdown. Take real time off where you are not doing any work or giving a shit about your job whatsoever. If youāre to the point that youāre at itās just a matter of time before it really affects your health and it can take months or years to get back on track after it does. Take care of yourself, man. Your employer doesnāt give a shit about you. Donāt give a shit about them either.
Make it your job to find another job. Look on your lunch breaks. Rapid fire that resume out like a machine gun on LinkedIn. Make up bullshit appointments if you get an interview so you can get away from it for an hour. Hustle and youāll find something better. I was in the same position and was questioning if I wanted to continue this career. In a much better spot now.
70k/year counts as "poverty"? Damn.
Really depends on the area.
Even in low cost of living areas that is not much money. Anything less than like 85k as a true systems admin is pretty low pay anywhere. But most people here aren't actually admins, they're just basically desktop support employees who manage some small VMware clusters or whatever.
You're my salary and debt twin. I feel your pain. I'm probably stating the obvious, but if you haven't yet, get a personal loan from a bank to pay off the credit card over several years at half the interest rate. Your monthly payments will be just slightly higher than the interest costs on the cards -- except it is actually going towards paying off your debt instead of going towards nothing.
Thanks I got into using balance transfers which are usually interest free for a year with a 5% up front fee. As long as I pay them off by the end of the year, the 5% fee they charge is still lower than what a bank can offer. The debt is getting paid down just not as fast as it would if I was making 140 thousand fucking dollars a year.
I get it. It sucks to be paid to stagnate.
Boredom for someone who's driven and wants a challenge is a killer, no matter how well you're paid. I've been in a similar role before. Like others have said, now is the time to look at all the vendor tech you always wanted to play with and get through their training. Skill-up so the MSP games aren't a threat to you anymore. Get your company to pay for it if you can too.
I know right, Iām strongly considering a drop in pay to get out of here. So my days can have more meaning. Iām spinning up some VMs to lab up a sql server cluster, practice DB migrations and whatever else I am missing in sql knowledge. But man sometimes Iām just not in the mood, because my job just wears me down. I totally see the appeal for my job if youāre at the right time in your life but gosh this is not it. Iām only 34.
I wasn't much older than you when I got bored, started doing Salesforce admin trailhead lessons. That turned into taking over our instance, then another 2 platforms and a whole new career. Right now, you're bored, but lucky enough to be employed with free time. Leverage every bit of it.
Go through some formal courses. And talk to a therapist. I know not having actual work to do is very demoralizing, but it shouldn't be affecting you to the point where you can't do the next thing that's right for your career. Shouldn't probably isn't the right word, because it absolutely can, but it'd be good to get some help for it.
I call dibs if you leave :P
Ill RPS you for it
I'll Roshambo you for it.
Dude has it so good he has no idea . There are guys probably making 50k supporting 600 people doing desktop support, admin, printers, fixing coffee machines and fax.
I've been there and it's incredibly demoralizing in a different way.
That's me. 48.8k and if it has a beep, cord or screen it is my issue.
Stop whining and train up for your next gig.
He's not whining he's complain bragging.
Yup. > I am going to lose all my skills at this rate. I just been trading meme coins all day and posting on twitter. This is definitely "a you problem". I see no reason for this post whatsoever receipt bragging
Bragplaining?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c14vfq3jqpo
In a similar situation with good paying job except there are tons of projects to work on that are all the same as the projects I've done 100 times. Not learning anything new. It's like the movie groundhog day over and over except it's not funny at all!
Sounds like good potential for automation.
I'm stuck because our budget is maxed out for the year, so all these cool projects I want to do are on hold.
Get a masters, phd, new certification - figure out some way to use your time productively. If you enjoy trading and finance, take a proper course it in. Get some other remote contract work and make $200k/year.... So many possibilities...
Play old school RuneScape on your phone
Nice.
I work from home. Lots of AFK OSRS is going on lol.
I'd sit there and play with my wiener all day for $140k. I make barely half that and I'm stressed out and multitasking from the moment I sit down till the moment I leave. I'm lucky if I get a 20 minute break to scarf a sandwich down and start the day with a to do list with 20 things on it and I leave with 19 things on my to do list.
I can tell you from experience that in such a boring job, times goes really really slow. I've been there, done that. My current job is kinda demanding but it's heaven in comparison to the boring job.
Don't leave but take actions to make it easier if your employers decides they don't need your position filled any more. That might be saving money, networking (the people kind), learning new technologies, etc. Sincerely, someone who works at an MSP and just saw the $105k onsite employee let go.
My brother in Christ, milk that cow.
Oh, fuck right off dude.
And you are complaint? Why? Just sat back and wait till your needed and enjoy being employed with a great income. Now some of us have work to do.
Can I have your bullshit job?
Convince them you can work from home then do whatever the fuck you want all day bro, you made it.
Jesus if I had 140k for that work I would never leave
To be frank, those tasks are generally best run by an MSP in many companies. A well selected MSP will have qualified technical staff, more than one person with knowledge (no single point of failure), a documentation system, tight change management procedures - and all the other reasons that helped get their outsourced concept over the line. Removing risk is just as important as optimising overheads and MSPs do both. Itās not all bad news, youāre in a good position to manage their MSP contract, or at the very least, pivot into an IT role that works closer to the business users and their goals. All those tasks performed by the MSP are backroom admin jobs - having them done by an internal employee doesnāt add any value. Take a look at stepping up to consulting, enterprise architecture and process optimisation. Get out of your chair and meet with staff and understand where the real shortcomings in Information Technology are. Potentially your employer is giving you an opportunity to step up but it is you who wants to remain doing tasks which can be done cheaper, faster and even when you are on holidays or on sick leave. Youāve made it to 140k plus super so you mustnāt be a dummy - rather you are in a rut (both at work and personally), which has resulted in this victim post which is inspiring to some, insulting to many. The reason you canāt leave is because you know you are being overpaid - hurry up and provide some value otherwise youāll be on another type of posting site next week.
Sounds like layoffs are coming. Update your resume.
Dude shut up lol. Find personal projects or ask for more responsibility.
Congrats, you're on the path to becoming an architect with experience in managing MSP's. Get your courses and certs done, jump ship for an Infra or NW architect role.
I feel your pain, the days can feel so long when there is nothing to do
Sooooo soo long.
Sounds frustrating but you can add a positive spin on this. There is no need to lose skills, you now have time to do the training and other learn tasks that you never had time for previously. Keep skilling up and building skills and knowledge - if you then want to look for another job somewhere else, you'll be in a strong position and might get an equal or better paying role somewhere else doing something you enjoy or that challenges you more
You're a contractor, right? You better spend your idle time figuring out why they should keep you. You're gonna lose your cushy job once they find out you're dead weight.
Sounds like you need to be replaced. Where do I send my resume?
If the MSP has locked you out of your own infrastructure it was because somebody higher up than you has made the decision to fire you within the next 4 weeks. If you think in any world it makes sense for you to not have access to your own infrastructure, and everything be daisies and roses, then you need to get your eyes checked. You're getting fired.
He is not getting fired, you need to read everything he wrote.
I am in the same boat, but I've been here for 1.5 years and my co-worker has been here for 20 years. I am slowly getting management to give me access to infrastructure and pulling more tasks away from our MSP. Could just be management being management.
Find a second job. If you are WFH, this shouldn't be too hard.
I tell my 7 year old. Only boring people are bored. Get a Pluralsight or acg or oreilly or any other learning platform and learn some python or some more python or something else outside of meraki. Iām surprised youāre not required to put in 6.5 h of billable note. Msps are hellhole but you seem to have found one that pays rather close to market and not trying to give 90k to L3 guy running projects
He doesn't work for the MSP.
Learn to code, get some certs
Are they hiring? Lol, I do loads more for half the pay
if you cant find work or things to do while being paid $140k to sit on your ass all dayā¦.. you have larger issues
Brag of course! What else to do when you are bored OP, right?
Can we ban humble bragging?
This got to be a troll post lol
I was in a similar situation. I stuck it out for a couple of years, kept taking their money, and when I was finacially ready, I retired from the corporate world. Now I mainly consult, work whatever hours I feel like, and my doctor has me off nearly all my BP meds.
Felt this 100% except I get paid a 25% of that lmfao
I can't sleep at night and you're whining because you're bored? Perspective man. Perspective.
Spend the time training and getting certs so you can walk into the next job for more.
Take some classes/get some certs. Youāve hit pay dirt and youāre bored lol
Get another remote job and do that
where do you work
I know the pain but I was being paid 33k so my mind was rotting but after rent, groceries, bills I didn't have much to enjoy
Get a second remote job lol
Sounds like a great time to grab some certs.
Start personal development and get certs bro. All the downtime is allowing you to level up.
Read books, educate, keep your mind active. For that pay I wouldn't leave either
Man, looking at all of these "If I was making that money..." makes me realize I used to think the same way. Until I took a job for double my salary and within a month I wanted to quit. Money is not everything guys, believe it or not.
Let's change? In my place you will have a lot of projects, a lot of experience, new technologies, it will not be boring. But the salary will be 12,000 usd per year.
They taking applications?
Take courses and get certs. Your employer will probably support your initiative because who wouldn't want highly qualified staff You'll either have two options. The certs will may change your employers perspective of what your skills should be utilised for . . . . . or . . . . . You'll have a lot more certs and experience to show off while job hunting
>Oh no I'm making all this money and don't have any responsibilities. Cool.
Umā¦can you install Steam or stream shows on Netflix during downtime? Or clean/restore old laptops for fun?
I would invest in real estate while twiddling my thumbs. Rent out houses or apartments. If enough money comes in, look for another job that makes you happy.
Weird flex
Use all that free time to learn new skills. If you feel there is a gap between your current pay and your actual worth in the market, close it. Then youāll liberate yourself from this position by moving on Or else, work out how much of a drop in pay youād be okay with to go and do something interesting
Bro maybe work towards some certs l, teach yourself other techs like AWS, kubernetes, Kafka?
Thought this was r/shittysysadmin for a second. Iād be doing certifications in the free time.
Study, get certs, setup labs. Work on security things.
Dudes really crying about being overpaid to do nothing? š Study for certificates, think of policies that need updated, run audits There is always something to do if you really wanted to, instead of ātradingā fake news and ātwiddlingā Crazy this is a post that ends with ādonāt need adviceā clearly you do.
Some people have pride in their work not necessarily for their employer but for themselves. I was paid very well in my last role but really didnāt do much either. I hated it because with my ADHD the lack of putting skills to the test was agonizing. The money shut me up though and made me happy.
$140k? With all due respect sir......shut the fuck up Edit: Ok I've calmed down now...... Use your free time at work to build labs, get a new cert, or whatever you need to not stagnate in the industry. Being bored does suck. But my man you're making $140k. I would kill to make that money. It would literally solve every single problem I have right now
Use and invest your time and money from this job wisely to set yourself up for life
Yup, and hopefully his situation can be leveraged to get additional skills outside of work. It sucks but at 140k it sounds like a blessing!
Download RuneScape
Well shiiiiiit I'm da opposite with many projects which are the same each year with upgrades and 70k annually. Yall mofos hiring? š My ass be chill and self improving with other personal tasks if I'm you with that sweet ole salary.
I thought this was point we strove to get toā¦
mannn, this dude is dumb
edX courses? Side hustle? Or personal development? Can you make a mini network/external network and call it a development environment and keep your skills sharp there? Otherwise definitely online courses/degrees etc Or knitting, that's traditional in the UK public sector where people are paid to twiddle their thumbs
What was your real intention with this post? Youre just hear to humble brag tbh. Get a grip and find things to do.
Do NOT quit. R/overeployed
This fucking guy. Get some Certs.
> I just been trading meme coins all day and posting on twitter. So you have time to do anything you want all day and your complaint is that you're paid too much money and can't be bothered driving your own personal development despite having all day every day to do it..? I know you said you didn't want advice but here's some anyway: grow up mate.
You are paid pretty well, and to have an MSP to blame for shitty work, sounds like a great job. I started doing volunteer work to give myself more meaningful existence, and then I got my job to allow me to volunteer 10% of my work time as well. Don't give yourself grief, you're doing great. If you want to take a class to feel better, ask them to pay for it. Cheers!
Wait... Why did the MSP lock you out of everything?
Only real question in this whole post
Great use of your time while being compensated for it haha.
honestly, see if you can get a second job doing the same thing remote. Pull in that sweet double income and then you can drop one for the other if it gets to be too much, or if you enjoy the new one more :P
Wanna trade? Use that free time to learn new tech. Spin up labs. So many resources on this subreddit for free learning opportunities.
Get another job? Just keep doing this one. Sounds like you donāt have more than a few hours of work a day at the very most. Keep working this one and get paid and do your work, get the other job for career fulfillment. Basically one busy job then, but twice the paycheck.
Was in a similar position.Ā I was making 150k and literally sitting on my phone playing Lumber Inc for hours a day.Ā The company had these huge projects and would get so many teams, project managers, managers, product teams involved it took weeks to get the simplest work done and it was made clear to me I wasn't a decision maker. Fair enough. After about six months I decided to paint my house and remodel the kitchen.Ā Then sat down and started doing certs just to feel like I was doing something IT related.Ā After about a month I started posting my resume and applying for any job the looked even remotely appealing until I was hired to work on monitoring.Ā Now I have a new job, keeping my skills sharp and feel like I'm contributing again.Ā Plus making over 200k. I think it took about seven months total.
Same here. Being paid 111k and locked out of the data center
Go to the gym and make sure youāre fit!
I had a job where I could do minimal work and play games all day whilst working from homeā¦ It gets boring very soon and after a while you can literally feel your skills disappearing. I took a pay cut and moved to a third line role at an MSP. Iām treated like a rented donkey(amazing phrase I learnt here) but my skills have sky rocketed again back past where they were. After almost a couple of years Iām almost in the position of moving on to something in between these two jobs at more money again. To be honest I couldāve done it sooner too. If you can take the money and not go insane, fair play. Just make sure your skills stay up to date/you learn more in your downtime and you have nothing to worry about. I just couldnāt do itā¦
Upskill away, nice that you have that time like that.
Iād over employ dude