Posts made by david.wiese

@wirestyle22
so you are using your own personal resources to test out things for work? That seems backwards.

@wirestyle22

@wirestyle22 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

@david.wiese I have remote access to it so I can work on it here or at home but it helps me learn as an individual instead of whoever is working at a particular company. I could lose my job tomorrow and retain the ability to learn. It's not contingent upon the company that I work for.

then the question comes into play, why are you remoting into your machines at home, when you are at work?

What I am getting at is, if it is work related, your work should provide the environment to test.

@wirestyle22

@wirestyle22 said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

@MattSpeller IMHO the point is to have something you can completely screw up, fix, rebuild, etc without having any repercussions. Sometimes something should work a certain way theoretically but doesn't. If I'm not sure I use the test environment. If I want to build something like Rocketchat, Nextcloud, etc. I just build it and play with it. It's great.

counterpoint, if you need it for your job, why are you doing it at home?

@dafyre

I get that part and agree with most of what you said, for certain positions. Positions were not named in the OP (but has since morphed into that). For a helpdesk /desktop support, a home lab most likely cannot be afforded, for a network admin/sys admin it might be warranted. For System engineers it would most definitely set you apart and is almost warranted. It all depends on the level of personnel the company is hiring for. I don't know NTG and what they typically look for so I cannot speak to that.

I am not denying that a home lab cannot set you apart from those who have equal experience, but would that really sway your decision on who to hire? Personally I have seen more positions hire based on your people skills and not your technical skills, since those can be taught.

The question was asked that would you hire someone who doesn't have a home lab? My answer? Depends on the position being applied for.

@art_of_shred said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

It's kinda simple. You're building a team. Do you pick people looking for a paycheck, or people with a passion about what you're doing? If you have the option, you're looking for passion... or you shouldn't be the one doing the hiring.

once again passion shouldn't be determined on if they do stuff outside of working hours. I work to get a paycheck yes, but I also show passion for my job while doing so.

@art_of_shred said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

@david.wiese said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:
A job shouldn't ever be based on what someone choses to do with their time outside of the office.

You've obviously never applied for a high-level position. Your life goes under the magnifying glass, including social media posts, etc. That's absolutely how it's done.

that is beyond the scope of the OP in my opinion. There were no qualifiers put on what type of position was being applied for. The question was asked, would you hire someone who does not have a home lab? I have been in IT for 9 years so no, I haven't applied for a high level position.

@Minion-Queen I can portray passion for my job, because I am passionate about it. If I were being hired at ntg I would show my on the job accomplishments, I would show how I constantly strive to better than I was the day before, through gaining knowledge on the job. Yes my learning of IT stops after I am done for the day, why? Because I value my family time. I value the time with my 2 month old son (time which if spent working on my home lab I wouldn't get back). I value the time spent away from a computer because it keeps me grounded Now this does not mean that if I get a call from an executive who needs my help, that I wouldn't answer and help them. This means that I value the work/life balance. I work to live, I don't live to work.

Passion can be shown in many different ways, as can dedication. I am very dedicated and will put in time when needed and or asked to. For me however I don't see having a home lab as not being passionate, it just means that my time is spent in other ways.

I feel it is very important to not be married to work. You need that separation to keep you grounded (at least I do).

The question that should be asked is does the dedication to the IT industry mean you should sacrifice your hobbies?

I guess at the end of the day my accomplishments should speak for themselves. If you don't find me qualified than so be it, but to have a qualifier of well this person has a home lab and this person doesn't, to me is crap. A job shouldn't ever be based on what someone choses to do with their time outside of the office. Maybe I am an oddball that likes to get away from all things tech, but that is me. And obviously I wouldn't fit in at ntg because of this.

@Minion-Queen

@Minion-Queen said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

Well also the argument comes in that why should I pay someone to work on a client's environment if you don't at least have some idea. I can't charge a client for a staff member to learn. Where do you fit your learning time in, if when you are at work you are..working?

There is always a little piece as an IT person that GOOGLE comes to the rescue but it can't give you the wisdom to know how to apply what you are seeing. Wisdom comes with doing.

I agree with this as well, but that comes with experience, both on the job and to a small extent self taught. As every IT person knows, every environment is different and you cannot quite possibly be exposed to everything. So inherently there is going to be quite a bit of on the job learning that comes with it. My point is, I don't have time or money to do a home lab setup, but why should that disqualify me from working for you? If I can demonstrate the knowledge, and if I hit a wall I can resolve it (it might take me a little more time, but still get it resolved) isn't that doing the job?

That is why you have specialists, windows, Linux, mainframe etc....

@Minion-Queen

@Minion-Queen said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

Our hours can also be 24/7 so while it might seem unfair it is the life. While I have no issue with someone who wants to disconnect and just not be available. We could never hire someone who does that, our clients need us during outages etc. when they need us. We have had times where we are all hands on deck and work in 24 hour shifts for days and then all crash and take vacation days.

IT is what IT is

Don't get me wrong, if that is apart of the job description where you need to be reachable at anytime that is fine. That is IT in a nutshell. I am not arguing that. I am arguing the point of the validity of hiring someone based on the premise of a home lab or not.

@Minion-Queen

@Minion-Queen said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

Something to remember: we are an IT firm. We have much higher standards than a business hiring an IT person. I talk to other managers etc. from other IT firms... we all ask this question.

IF you aren't playing with technology and constantly learning how to use both new tech and things you haven't used before, (old or new) then you won't be whole lot of use for a company like NTG, that has clients with 100,000 different environments that run everything under the sun.

So at NTG, if you don't have a home lab and aren't learning outside of work then you won't be hired?

I have interviewed at msp's, large and small companies over the past 10 years and have yet to be asked if I have a home lab or not. I don't know if this is a relatively new line of questioning to whittle down candidates or not but it doesn't seem fair. You cannot know everything out there, you get the knowledge by being exposed to it on the job.

Also it takes money to stay on top of new tech. I have a 8 year old tower, 5 year old laptop and a 5 year old android tablet at home. I don't have the means to go out and buy all of the gear necessary to setup a home lab and nor do I want to. Sure you could set it up for under $800, however, that is a mortgage, that is car payments, that is a new stove. For those that make under $50k a year have other things to pay for, so why should that disqualify me from working at your company?

@scottalanmiller said in Would You Hire Someone in IT Who Does Not Have a Home Lab:

So some things that I think are important, some are questions, others are points...

• If you don't have a lab at home, how do you cover that same educational ground in other ways? I understand that some people think that needing a lab is unnecessary, and I'll bite: what's the alternative that would show the same dedicated to learning on personal time and without needing outside resources?
• Given that the reasons that labs are seen as important are 1) a dedication to learning on your own 2) ability to learn without needing to be taught only by others and 3) passion because mostly we look for passion more than experience.... what would be alternative or better ways to gauge these factors?
• Given that practically unlimited candidates do have home labs, what differentiators do you feel should cause someone without a home lab to be considered above them (because without that, it's just another term for ruling out those without.)

1. Why do we need to show dedication outside of the office? What impact does that have to the job at hand?
2. I am passionate about my job and how I do my job, just because I do not show that same passion for IT outside of my job, does that make me any less qualified for the job?
3. My experience for the job duties outlined in the description should be enough. My time outside of work is my time and shouldn't come into play when comparing candidates. If I did, I wouldn't want to work for that company anyways.

Personally I see it as, if someone likes to disconnect the less likely they are to be burned out due to stress.

edited #3 comments

I think you basing your decision on hiring someone on whether they have a home lab or not is complete and udder crap. For example, I do have a media "sever" but that is it. I chose to not spend my money (whether it be on a home server or the electricity to power said home server) on things I have access to at work. My time out the office is my time, spent with family, doing things I enjoy. Not having my head buried in technology (I do that enough at work).

Scott you are different than most since you have come out and said that you cannot disconnect from technology (even when you are on vacation). Those like myself like to leave technology at work. When I get home, I usually (if I can) leave my cell phone on the opposite end of my house and spend time outside. When I go on the weekend camping trips, my phone stays in my tent. We as a society have become so dependent on technology to run our daily lives, we lose sight with the fact that the things we did as children, (hanging out with friends, playing at the park and not coming home until dinner...etc.) we no longer do. Most adults have their heads on a permanent 25 degree downward angle with a phone/tablet glued to their hands.

Yes IT is a hobby/passion but that does not mean IT needs to be your life. I think you discounting someone based on if they have a home server or not is total bs.

@scottalanmiller you never had a tv or you never had cable?

this is what we are using for our sales and customer service group. They each have 3 monitors and it works great. Just remember you need to purchase Active Display Port Adapters in order to get all 3 to work.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487025&cm_re=evga_geforce_gtx750--14-487-025--Product

congrats!. I just had my first on 6/1 and went back to work after 7 business days off. It has been a very long 2 weeks thus far but quite rewarding. There is nothing like coming home from a crappy day at work and see them smile or just holding them. It just makes everything better.

@scottalanmiller said in Teamviewer hacked:

300 is nothing We moved thousands when we dropped LogMeIn!

300 is a lot when i'm the only one doing IT support for the company. I am sure I could write a script to do an uninstall, but the last time I did that, things went sideways and we had to end up manually uninstalling vipre a/v on about 80 computers.

@BRRABill said in Teamviewer hacked:

@david.wiese said

Then what do you have to say for my case? Passwords changed from an 18 character password to 20+, unattended access disabled, computer wiped and my computer was still compromised using their software. How can I not point the finger at their software having a security hole?

Honestly. I would re-contact them, and post what they say here. If this happened, they have sworn to take it seriously. The ML users will be able to tear their responses apart if they are BS.

Everyone on Reddit said the same thing, then clammed up when asked for proof. I'm not saying it didn't happen to you, it's just that many people have said this happened to them, then disappeared when TV showed up on reddit and started asking questions.

Just out of curiosity ... since you were hacked via TV, why did you put it back on your machine? People haven't even been hacked and are distancing themselves from it. I got pwned once via VNC, and have been afraid of it ever since. (Though I am thinking of going back to it.)

BTW: way back when when that happened to me with VNC, they blamed me. And it was indeed my fault for having not have updated to the latest version. (If you can blame require manual updating a fault of the user.)

I haven't had time to go back to them yet since the compromise was over 4 months ago. And in terms of why haven't I removed it? Because my organization still uses it for remote support. We are currently evaluating different companies but have yet to make a decision. The software is installed on over 300 computers so it is going to be a fun project.

@scottalanmiller said in Teamviewer hacked:

@david.wiese said in Teamviewer hacked:

@scottalanmiller said in Teamviewer hacked:

@MattSpeller said in Teamviewer hacked:

Edit: for clarity, points against them

• poor communication
• its ultimately their software
• could have put in stronger password requirements
• etc

Poor communication, certainly.

Ultimately their software... I don't agree. Ultimately it is end user access. If TV didn't have a breach, it's ultimately on the end user.

Stronger passwords requirements... not relevant. It's not their responsibility nor do those things really protect you.

Then what do you have to say for my case? Passwords changed from an 18 character password to 20+, unattended access disabled, computer wiped and my computer was still compromised using their software. How can I not point the finger at their software having a security hole?

None of that is related to what I said. I only said that IF they didn't have a breach, they they are not at fault. If they DID have a breach the post does not apply.

So I'm unclear of the question.

Sorry miss-ready what you wrote.

@scottalanmiller said in Teamviewer hacked:

@MattSpeller said in Teamviewer hacked:

Edit: for clarity, points against them

• poor communication
• its ultimately their software
• could have put in stronger password requirements
• etc

Poor communication, certainly.

Ultimately their software... I don't agree. Ultimately it is end user access. If TV didn't have a breach, it's ultimately on the end user.

Stronger passwords requirements... not relevant. It's not their responsibility nor do those things really protect you.

Then what do you have to say for my case? Passwords changed from an 18 character password to 20+, unattended access disabled, computer wiped and my computer was still compromised using their software. How can I not point the finger at their software having a security hole?

@Dashrender said in Teamviewer hacked:

@david.wiese said in Teamviewer hacked:

I have had my work Surface Pro 3 taken over Twice while teamviewer was running. Changed all Passwords, enabled 2FA and it still happened again. Contacted Teamviewer Support and what did they say? They said it must have been my fault and their software had no security holes. My Co-workers computer was also taken over, however he didn't have 2FA enabled. Nothing was compromised on our systems but we are now in the search for a new provider. Teamviewer can no longer be trusted! Their support is crap. They play, let's blame the users and not actually look at our software.

edit: I should add that I had a 18 character password with letters, numbers, caps as well as 2FA enabled plus the normal work security settings. Teamviewer was the hole, not our system.

How do you know it was team viewer the second time? The hackers could have installed some other software that gave them control.

I wiped my machine and started from scratch.