From: Lee Newman (jlznewman@xxxxxxxxxxx)
Date: Thu Jan 11 2001 - 03:13:14 GMT-3
YUK !!!!!!!
----- Original Message -----
From: "Price, Jamie" <JPrice@isgteam.com>
To: "'Michelle T'" <mtruman@mn.mediaone.net>; <ccielab@groupstudy.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2001 2:56 PM
Subject: RE: Second Attempts
> My horror story from a few weeks ago:
>
> My day 1 was chaos. I had no less than 4 cable defects with my rack, a
> flaky patch panel (the proctor admitted this), and unstable routers. Each
> issue (remember that on day 1 the rack is supposed to more or less
> work....troubleshooting doesnt occur until day 2 if you make it that
> far....1 or 2 issues are ok but I had many more than that) took 10-15
> minutes to identify, because I had to make sure it wasnt me, and then took
> the proctor at least another 10-15 minutes to fix. One incideent
stretched
> beyond 30 minutes. Some examples:
>
> 1. I was tasked with creating an "environment"....no problem....but the
> cables that connected 2 of the outlying routers to the core were faulty
and
> therefore the interfaces would not come up. With no connectivity to the
> core, the routed environment, and any subsequent routing loops, could not
be
> proved/identified. After triple checking to make sure it wasnt a config
> issue and that things were cabled correctly, I told the proctor who then
> went into maintenance mode. I had 4 distinctly separate cable problems
like
> this which took them a fair while to fix. Maintenance guys were coming in
> and rewiring portions of my patch panel!!! And the cable problems werent
all
> identified at once either, some cables/ports worked ok at the start of the
> day but then went bad throughout.
>
> 2. Realizing I was having numerous cable issues I (stupidly) jiggled an
> Ethernet cable in the back of a router thinking that that might be the
> reason this particular interface wouldnt come up. On doing that the
entire
> rack shut down and powered back on. Wasnt I overjoyed to find that
> everything I had entered on the routers had been lost to me and I had to
> reenter it. Luckily I was saving every 10 minutes but it was a pain
> nonetheless. But you'll be happy to know that after the power down of the
> rack the Ethernet interface came up.
>
> 3. The patch panel only had a few ports patched to interfaces.
> So...thinking that router A was connected to router B, I was entering
> another realm of frustration as to why I was not getting connections.
> Admittedly I should have checked straight away but when you lose so much
> time because of other physical faults you start to get a bit rushed. This
> in fact took the proctor a while to find as he expected them to be cabled
as
> such too.
>
> There were a number of other rack related issues that arose as well but I
> wont go into them - NDA and all. These additional issues totalled about
> another 4.
>
> Needless to say the proctor was very helpful and appreciative of the
> situation. I was given some more time at the end of the day to compensate
> for the lost time in the middle.
>
> >From a personal standpoint though it didnt really help. As each issue
arose
> I had to move onto the next task (provided it wasnt dependant on the one I
> was working on) and return to the original task when he had fixed the
> problem. I didnt have time to wait until the issue was resolved due to
the
> amount of tasks that you need to fulfill in the day.
>
> I ended up having to work on 5 different tasks at once due to physical
> failures and/or the dependency of that task on a different router/cable
that
> had a problem.
>
> That was the sort of crappy day 1 I had. So....to cut an excessively long
> story short (for any of you that are still reading)....I arrive on day 2
to
> find that I do not have my day 2 folder sitting on my desk. I had some
> issues with that. I'm not saying I would have blitzed it but I honestly
> believe I would have made it to day 2 had no errors occurred (but then
again
> you never know). The errors threw a gigantic speed hump into the flow of
> the day and as corny as it sounds, "the flow" is an important factor.
> Finishing half of one task to move onto another and only being able to do
> 1/3rd of that while I moved onto another simply screwed me up. I couldnt
> prove solutions, test for routing loops, etc until later towards the end
of
> the day - and then I had to prove/test them all at once.
>
> Geared up for a confrontation I suddenly get called to the side by the
> proctor. Before I could say anything he offered some acceptable
> compensation. I will not divulge what it was so please don't ask, but
> needless to say that both of the proctors were appreciative of, and
> sympathetic to, the situation and did all they could within the boundaries
> of reasonable actions to make amends (thankfully I didnt pay for the
attempt
> out of my own pocket or my calmness may have been a different story).
>
> With regard to attitude and confidence though my second attempt was much
> better than my first. I had calmed down considerably - in spite of all
the
> crap - and by slowing the old brain electrons down I read the questions
for
> what they were, realized that many things were nowhere near as complicated
> as I had imagined them to be on my 1st try, planned accordingly, and
> actually did well....considering everything else that had happened.
Within
> myself I feel I would have made it to day 2 had the rack been ok.
>
> Now I'm not saying that I would have passed the entire lab had my rack
been
> ok - I'll never know that - but I feel within myself that the learning
> experience of attempt 1 was very beneficial and applying that which I
learnt
> in attempt 1 (I'm not talking Cisco stuff here - more strategies and
> attitudes) to attempt 2 made me a serious contender for that 4 digit cert.
>
> All in all my 2nd attempt - as frustrating as it was - actually instilled
> more confidence in me. Pity I have to wait another 6 months now :)
>
> Thats my brief story.
>
> Jamie
>
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