I listened... had I stuck with my career path I would've been purchased by the usda for a six figure salary... not amazing, but pretty good for someone without a degree...

Touche'... lol.

Ya just need to know someone to get you in.

When between jobs, I prolly could have gotten in with the MA dept of transportation/MBTA. A previous boss (one of my favorite in my career) contacted me about an open position under him. I didn't want to do the commute but it sounded like a sweet state job gig of doing a lot of nothing.

Mine at #7 was about how proud I am of My daughter and that the $60k student loan is a drop in the bucket of life over the net nine years or so or sooner.

What are you in school for?

I have a kid in school earning an MBA from Florida State. I have zero problem with the $30k he has in student debt. He's interviewing for some good jobs and will have it paid off within 5 years. YMMV.

Dying field....

[sarcasm]

That's GREAT!!!

That's what I have and held for quite some time. It has made me a premier SME on anything Cisco, Juniper, ION, Meraki, SonicWall and Aruba can put on a network. I get utilized on a Fortune 100 company as a field engineer...I forget if I'm a level IV or a V...doesn't matter to me. To put yourself in my shoes for a sec, we were outsourced from HP to another company of this Fortune 100's choosing. See they love our organization, just didn't like the hierarchy of HP. Anyhow, another account brought a fellow engineer and my name into the fray. They wanted what we brought to the table. A company like HP. The 2 of us were able to differentiate our skillsets and abilities from the rest of the over 200K employees even though we were no longer with HP! They leveraged us for this account by reaching senior management and asking permission to talk to us. The job was pretty massive. It was to be just one building (that was almost a mile long and half a mile wide!) that turned into 5 which resulted in their entire complex. That turned into 2 more midwest cities for them, one on the west coast and one in the Carolinas. This turned into an 18 month adventure. Then I ended up writing a SOP for their European, East Asia and Middle East plants as well. It's been a great ride and my willingness to leave the management ladder to a system analyst back to the field has served me and my customers well. It's a great field. One thing I can tell you is don't be afraid to learn. Don't stick with one technology or you'll get run over when management does. Stay current in certifications and read read read up on anything and everything from trends to current publications as far as it goes. I wouldn't trade it for the world and during this whole Covid debacle...been declared essential and have the Homeland Security papers to drive after dark...yeah...I suppose they thought it was going to get that bad!

As a great friend here told me, "One of these days that light at the end of the tunnel won't be attached to a train". He was more right than he knows and I'll gladly thank Charlie again for those kind wisdom filled words. Don't give up, push on and keep on going forward!