Interpersonal skills needed for Network Engineers

Sun Feb 17 02:07:13 UTC 2008

'Hi, I'm Bill.. and I took down the network.'
"Hi Bill!"

- billn

On Sat, 16 Feb 2008, Joel Jaeggli wrote:

> There is a topical tutorial for people attending nanog 42 sunday afternoon...
>
> http://www.nanog.org/mtg-0802/zwicky.html
>
> Bill Nash wrote:
>> 
>> On Sat, 16 Feb 2008, Kim Onnel wrote:
>> 
>>> I am looking for defining what are skills needed in people that will work 
>>> in
>>> an ISP's operational/NOC environment as Network Engineers.
>>> 
>>> In my humble experience, i have came across people that i just feel they 
>>> are
>>> not right for such technical jobs, people would act and take their golden
>>> fingers to the devices without logic and others who has more of a 
>>> structured
>>> approach to solving problems and thinking, some that will crank under
>>> pressure and just loose it and others who will act rationally.
>>> 
>>> Please correct me if i am wrong and if you believe such skills could be
>>> gained by time/training?
>> 
>> I think you're talking very generally about the 'cowboy' type of operators 
>> who will reboot first, and then troubleshoot if that doesn't fix it. There 
>> are also the territorial types who feel threatened in the face of outside 
>> ideas or questions.
>> 
>> Speaking as a volatile loudmouth (in recovery), I do think that 
>> interpersonal skill training, or at least practice, is useful for folks to 
>> be able to inter-operate both with other people, and other network 
>> operators. The single most useful troubleshooting skill anyone can bring to 
>> the table is a good pair of ears and a willingness to use them. With that 
>> as a base, you can move on to good teamwork and best practices.
>> 
>> As cliche as it may seem, I readily recommend 'Negotiating for Dummies' as 
>> reading for anyone who doesn't want to be the person that no one can work 
>> with. It works great when given as an anonymous gift, too.
>> 
>> - billn
>> 
>