LagerHead

Quick question for you guys: When you hunt coyotes, what do you do with them? Do you leave the carcasses or skin them and sell the hides or what?

  I worked for both Gateway and the county when I lived in Clarksville. Spot on assessment. They both served as excellent stepping stone jobs to get me to HCA. I have some pretty interesting stories about my jobs at both of those locations, but they aren't relevant to the current discussion. :D

  The private sector is the private sector. Your employment depends somewhat on the success of the company which, for the most part, isn't really controlled by IT, though it can certainly have a substantial negative impact when it is down, like in Asurion. But to be fair, I have never been laid off. IT isn't generally a revenue generating department, unless you're a consultant, so they tend to run somewhat lean anyway.   The amount of autonomy you have is governed by the company culture, your position, and your management. And it depends on what you mean by autonomy. For example, in my view, the average help desk position doesn't have a lot of autonomy. That doesn't mean you will necessarily have a manager breathing down your neck watching how you serve each ticket, but you are basically tied to the help desk ticketing system and that phone. Others may see it differently since you are somewhat free to creatively solve problems. In general though, the longer you've been at it, the more autonomy the positions open to you will afford you. In other words, it's not that different from the military in that respect.   I am fortunate enough that my current position affords me almost total freedom. I work from home, rarely see or speak to my boss or even my direct customer(s), but I speak to my indirect customers daily. If I need to go to a customer's site, I don't need to get permission, generally, I just go if it doesn't involve overnight travel, or just let them know in advance if it does. But as I like to tell my wife when she gives me a hard time about working from home, I did work my ass off for a lot of years to get to a position where I don't have to. ;)   Fortunately, IT is viewed by many as not being staffed by total idiots (though as my experience at Asurion shows, this is not always the case) so you're expected to be able to accomplish tasks/projects with minimal hand holding. If you work a lot of projects, your project managers will keep you in line and on time, but that is generally the extent of the hovering. Most of the folks I have worked for have been stand up once I got into the corporate world, which might sound counter-intuitive to many. That's just been my experience, though. Even at Asurion my manager was a great guy. In fact, we work together again and often lament the Asurion days together.   Finally, as far as Op Tempo goes, that's all over the board. Asurion was the fastest paced environment in which I have worked, but ironically it is where I got the least done. Imagine running for your life uphill in quicksand. I worked at HCA for a little over 3 years and that was a medium to medium-fast paced environment, but when I was there we got shit done. My current job is pretty chill most of the time, with moments of dizzying activity every now and then.

  My title when I worked there was Network Routing Architect. Technically I designed solutions and analyzed the current environment to find where changes that could help improve the network could be made. Realistically, very few proposed changes were allowed to be made because of the risk, even if the risk of not making the change was greater than the risk of making it. In other words, let's not risk breaking anything, but when it does break, you're going to have to answer for it.   As far as certifications, they do help get your resume noticed. But so do the keywords in your skills section. I haven't held an industry cert since I believe 2004, but I still get regular recruitment calls and emails based on the keywords in my resume. I would suggest getting some certs soon to help fill in gaps where you lack in experience. Depending on what your goal is, I might skip A+ and possibly N+. It sounds to me like you're not quite entry level, but maybe not technical lead yet either. Forgive me if I am short changing you, that's not my intent. If I am correct, the A+ isn't going to add anything to your resume that will translate to money in the bank. The N+ may or may not depending on who's doing the hiring. Microsoft, Cisco, Linux, storage, cloud, big data - these are more likely to pay off in the short and long run.

  Here's the skinny on Asurion. I worked there for 9 months. 9 long, hellish months. But I will try my best to be fair and objective in my analysis.   The pros: You can wear whatever the hell you want to work, short of anything having profanity. Shorts, flip flops, your favorite beer T-shirt, all OK. I rode a motorcycle to work, so it was nice be able to wear jeans and riding boots. Very flexible work hours. As in, show up when you have some coffee in you, as long as you make all your meetings and meet your deliverable dates. They do utilize their technology and are not afraid to spend money where it's justified and might positively effect the bottom line. Vacation policy (could be listed under both pros and cons) - it doesn't exist. There are no guaranteed vacation days. You basically just work it out with your manager. Assuming it doesn't conflict with a project deadline that depends on you, it will probably get approved. You can get some very good experience here working in a very fast-paced, rapidly-growing, global company. They have offices in (at least) the U.S., Japan, China, Philippines, and the UK. They pay well, and if you can stick it out until bonus time, you will get a nice fat check. But you must be employed there when bonus checks are sent out or you forfeit every dime. There is no pro-rating. The cons: To say the company blows would be the understatement of the year. I started there on a Monday and was convinced I had made a terrible mistake before the end of that day. That is no exaggeration. They could not care less about your personal time. If there is a CIRT (Critical Incident Response Ticket) after hours and you are on call, just the fact that you proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the problem doesn't reside in your area of responsibility is not necessarily justification enough to let you go back to sleep at 1:00AM. I have literally been on calls for 6 hours or more after I proved that the network (my area) was not responsible for the issue they were having. During that time, not a single question was asked of me, the network was not mentioned, etc. but I was not allowed to hang up. Their change control process consists of you trying to explain a technical change to people who don't understand 25% of what you're saying, them asking questions so mind-bogglingly stupid that you have trouble formulating a response that doesn't make you sound every bit as stupid as their question. Let me give you an example, with the following relevant information: All the engineers basically sat together in one big room/cubicle farm with half height cubicles. I once had a change to modify an existing firewall rule that consisted of me adding a single port number to the allow rule that already existed. This change was necessary because one of our paying customers, AT&T, needed it for whatever reason. I was asked several questions along the lines of "what is the risk if you enter the port number incorrectly?" I tried to explain that the effect is that what doesn't work now, still won't work, i.e. very little, if any risk. This discussion went on for about 15-20 minutes until they finally approved my change, though they had to let me know they were very reluctant to do so. The very next person on the change call basically stated that he was going to take down the entire network, including the very same %!@#$!!!@%$#& firewalls I had just discussed, and they approved it without a single question or comment. The entire room just burst out in laughter when I stood up and made my disbelief known. It is a very political environment where basically those who pretend the best that they know exactly what is going on are listened to. I'm not sure how familiar you are with Cisco gear, but if you are, you will laugh at this. One of the "experts" they would commonly ask to assist when you didn't solve a problem in 10 seconds or less, extended a call for about three hours because he was convinced that a Cisco ASA firewall was switching between the startup and running configurations. Luckily I wasn't on the call, but this is the kind of insanity that was rampant when I was there. Here's the rub though: I'm not advising you not to take the job. You will probably get paid more there out the gate than most other companies are willing to pay. Coming out of the military you know what it's like having to say yes sir and no mam to incompetent boobs, so maybe you are more equipped than I was when I worked there. I was out of the military for quite a few years when I started there. Worst case scenario, it's a great place to learn and use as a stepping stone. When I accepted their offer I was in a good position, but Asurion threw some money at me and I felt I could not refuse. In the long run it turned out to my benefit because it helped me land my current position. So if you don't get a better offer, then yea, take it. But I would seek out other positions as well.   I just want you to know what Asurion is about. I was asked to return more than once, and even offered money and promised some perks and I told them not just no, but hell no. The stress wasn't worth the money to me, but there are people that have been there for several years that feel differently.   Best of luck no matter what you decide.

No, this is actually true. Russian guns were designed to eat everything from .22LR to small artillery shells without the pesky need to swap barrels. They also never, ever, ever, ever, never ever jam. I once saw YouTube video of a Spetznatz Soyuz door gunner who filled his AK47 barrel and chamber with Quik-Crete, let it set for 3 days, then successfully fired a magazine on full auto from it, underwater, upside down, with no hands. It was on the Internet so you know it's true.

I too once swore I would never buy a Glock...         and I haven't. :D

  The bailout money was also a loan. But to be fair, GM and Chrysler's were in two forms: partially in the form of loans and partially in stock purchases. I believe they have both paid back all the cash portions, but the deal with the stock purchases was that they would be paid back when the stock price reached the inflated level at which the government purchased them. My understanding is that neither company ever purchased the stock back, but the government sold it on the open market at a measly $9.3 billion loss.

This is the same mayor Berry that just put an end to gun shows in Nashville, is it not?

Nice truck, but Ford did indeed benefit from the bailouts. Their CEO lobbied for the bailout to happen, happily accepted nearly $6 billion in government interest free loans, and they certainly participated in and profited from cash for clunkers. ;)

LMAO @ "It's unclear if they were ever compensated for the toothbrush."   I'm guessing no.

I feel ya. I'm more of a tinkerer. If I can find that complete package, of course like you I'm going to jump on it. But even then I wonder if I can make it better.

That's a shame, because we know how much traction unscientific polls on local news channels' websites get in the legislature. ;)

  I might have to look into that.

Well folks, since I don't have a bow my deer hunting season is officially over. However, I have already scheduled my time off for the fall 2016 season, have purchased a shotgun for turkey season, and am considering getting a bow or crossbow so I can start my deer season earlier.   Yep, after 42 years on this earth, many of them wanting to start hunting, I have gotten the bug. Now I have a lot of catching up to do.

  Well trained. That's what the term "regulated" meant when the Constitution was written. That's why they called the standing army "regulars," because they were the trained military fighting force.

  Not like that's a change.

  Why? It can't be that the only people capable of designing a decent trigger work at the established manufacturers. In fact, the relative lack of decent stock triggers suggests that very few actually do. ;)   All I know is, both my XD and XDM have Powder River Precision trigger kits in them and they are head and shoulders above the stock trigger. I'll take the Pepsi challenge any day of the week and twice on Sunday plus any other appropriate cliches you wish to throw in the mix. ;)

  If by "fast-tracked" you mean waited over 220 years for the federal government to grant them equal protection under the law, then yea, I guess it was lightning quick. ;)

  I don't know; the trigger on the XD has been a complaint since pretty much day one. And people are still dropping Apex triggers in their M&Ps right out of the gate.

You guys know why. Don't try and strain yourself figuring out the obvious. I think it's high time somebody started some liberty minded social networks, where regardless of the opinion or viewpoint being spewed - yes, even the ones that make your skin crawl - it's allowed. The only way freedom spreads again is if encourage it in its truest form.

  Yea, it's been that way for years; at least 9 that I know of.

I found my gun: Beretta A300 Outlander. Gonna pick it up tonight. Thanks for all the suggestions. If yours didn't get picked it wasn't because you didn't make a good case. ;) Definitely appreciate all the help.

  Honest bank: Is that like military intelligence?   Honestly, with the feds keeping interest rates low, it really doesn't matter where you bank. You're not going to get any kind of interest on your accounts, whether saving or money market. Just get one that has free checking (almost all of them) and offers you a free debit card (almost all of them). The fed will take care of devaluing your money and ensuring that it goes to bailing out their members and their debtors in the form of taxation and inflation.   How's that for honesty? ;)   Oh, and welcome to the forum.

  What's wrong with the Super Nova?   Any opinions on the Mossberg 930?