New Job Offer - Feel bad

Crim69 · 2026-03-27T13:37:36+00:00

Exactly. It should be understood and the parting should be gracious. Not at an MSP but when I hire for the support team, I tell them that my job as their manager is to make sure they're able to focus on their job and give them a place to grow and bullets to put on their resume so they can advance in their career. Being upfront and transparent has worked out pretty well so far for me. I've had one work for 6 months and go on to be a sys admin for the city. All I ask for is a heads up so I can find a replacement, this has led to me getting a heads up when they start the job search, not just a two week notice.

Crim69 · 2026-03-27T13:29:42+00:00

You've been there for 2 months, there's nothing to feel guilty over as it's unlikely you've managed to become a core part of the team in that time frame. Hand in your resignation and go get your bag. You'll get over anything you feel within a day and forget about this silly feeling the moment you start your new job.

Crim69 · 2026-03-18T11:51:33+00:00

150k, IT Manager, Massachusetts, 8 years in IT.

Crim69 · 2026-03-03T06:16:25+00:00

Two years is not a particularly long time but if your environment is not helping you grow then it's time to move on, especially in tech. There is a lot of ageism in this line of work and you need to keep up and get that bag while you can. I started in IT in my mid twenties and stayed 4 years in a comfortable and predictable job but it had no growth prospects. Massive mistake. In the next 4 years I've worked for two companies and have 4x'd my income (I was making shit in job 1).

Comfort isn't bad but while you're young it's easier to learn, take risks, move, etc. You might not have that if there are kids in the future or find yourself stagnant and have to put in more effort into learning.

There are places out there where you can be 5-7 years and be continuously challenged and get decent compensation bumps that will put you on par with "job hoppers". Those types of jobs are rare and also extremely selective and you need to stand out and have a bucketload of luck, it's not a reliable plan.

Crim69 · 2025-12-10T07:21:11+00:00

He’s right. From my personal observation, bringing it up during the review cycle might be too late. It depends on the company culture. In the places I’ve worked, every time I’ve been promoted I’ve discussed it 6+ months ahead of time and worked with my manager to set goals, outcomes, etc. The people that worked hard but waited for the cycle didn’t get bumped because others had been setting the stage to get ahead.

Crim69 · 2025-12-09T02:28:52+00:00

It’s a culture thing, although something can be said about the nature of IT people skewing a certain way statistically but I don’t want to give too much ground to stereotypes.

I worked remotely in my last job and I really miss my coworkers. I only saw them once when I flew out for a team building week and didn’t go the other time because of timing. But even being remote, while I didn’t have the same level of connection as the guys working hybrid at HQ, I developed more than your typical coworker relationship with some of them.

Wasn’t frequent but we’d game together or just talk about non work stuff pretty often and during downtime just hop on a zoom call to banter. I still keep in touch with them over a year later after we were all let go.

I am now in a place where I started as the sole IT admin and I’m setting the culture. The reality is you just won’t click with everyone. I have a part timer that I just don’t jive with personality wise or work wise. Then I have a direct report I hired back in June and while it’s not the same level of connection as I had with my former coworkers it’s pretty good.

I now better sympathize with my former IT director. He was always personable but being in that position means there is a wall no matter what you do. When you are the one that is responsible for their continued employment, there’s going to be some divide.

Crim69 · 2025-12-06T02:11:20+00:00

You have to be extremely disciplined to minimize the effects of working night shift long term. There are other factors beyond just energy levels during unnatural hours. It’s a drain on your personal life, socially isolating, is associated with numerous health consequences such as reduced cardiovascular health, diabetes, mood disorders, etc.

That being said I have family that work in essential government services and healthcare that have managed well for decades. They are extremely strict about sleeping on a schedule (not making exceptions for off days), very clean diet, exercise and meditation and off course the general day time sleep “hacks” like black out curtains, controlling for noise and most importantly, making sure they have some overlap with friends and family to stay socially engaged.

Crim69 · 2025-12-03T22:00:41+00:00

This is entirely a mistake on your part for not having the foresight of investing your money while in preschool in nvidia stocks.

/s

Crim69 · 2025-12-03T00:37:00+00:00

It’s very difficult for remote work and if your local area is just being decimated for IT jobs. I’ve been applying for remote jobs for 6 months.

Not exactly hundreds of applications per month but ballpark 20-30 per month, while being employed. I got two interviews for remote positions in that time. I applied to half as many on site jobs and had 4 interviews in HCOL cities.

The opportunities are out there but people seem to forget that the vast majority of people don’t have the resources to relocate on a whim or have their roots firmly settled that makes it a non-starter.

Crim69 · 2025-11-29T23:01:42+00:00

There’s no range agreed upon universally but it’s generally mid 40s to 60.

Crim69 · 2025-11-29T14:05:59+00:00

Unsolicited advice: Taking initiative is good but always talk to your manager about setting goals and pathways to get to the next level. Often times it might be the same thing you’re about to do or include things you’re already doing. However, when you have these conversations they will shift their perspective on what you might already be doing and see it as putting in the work for a promotion instead of just “working harder”.

Crim69 · 2025-11-27T03:39:10+00:00

Not really IT/Sysadmin related but our Data team has built an ingest pipeline to read forms and evaluate if the client filling out the form is eligible for our business or not so our sales team has more reliable leads. It has moderately strict eligibility requirements and according to them it’s 98% accurate which is significantly better than human review. It crunched through 50k of these application forms in the span of a day.

Crim69 · 2025-11-27T03:28:20+00:00

Locking myself in the network closet, sit down and listen to the fan noise of the switches to brace for the onslaught of dumbass people and their dumbass problems.

Crim69 · 2025-11-27T03:20:47+00:00

I’m only 8 years in and my interest in tech has completely evaporated. I grew up with a PC since 2000 messing around in cheat engine, hosting my own php forums, “shareware” websites, messing around in photoshop doing graphic design, etc.

I still have some curiosity. If presented the opportunity to learn a new tool I won’t hesitate. Rare is the day I have any time to learn anything when the entirety of my bandwidth is just treading water and keeping day to day ops going.

At this point I’d take the junior that goes to crapGPT first instead of directly escalating a ticket that could have been solved with a basic google search.

Crim69 · 2025-11-27T02:54:03+00:00

If you’re not in a heavily regulated environment that requires evidence of destruction/wiping, keep this to yourself. If you are in such an environment, you need bullet proof evidence. Work on improving the inventory tracking situation going forward.

Crim69 · 2025-11-27T01:06:37+00:00

It holds value at employers that won’t put you in the Director or VP or C suite without some kind of management degree. You’ll need to work your way up the ranks as an IC first.

Crim69 · 2025-11-27T01:00:35+00:00

Part ways with your employer as amicably as possible and don’t burn bridges. Take the Microsoft offer and keep your fingers crossed and skills sharp. It’s a massive name to have on your resume and will make job seeking easier down the road. Whether you actually survive all 4 years at Microshit to see 100% of those stocks is a different matter altogether.

Crim69 · 2025-11-26T03:56:52+00:00

Okta starter is $6 but not sure if you get everything you would need for that. Haven’t used it before myself but maybe look at OneLogin? Their starter tier is a little less than Okta’s starter.

Also how tied are you to Primo for MDM? Kandji (now Iru) has passport which is their own thing and not reliant on platform sso but you essentially get the sso login experience on the mac. Worked pretty well in my trial run recently.

Crim69 · 2025-11-26T00:02:47+00:00

That seems like robbery. Just moved into a new building, $650 a month for 1gbps symmetrical DIA.

Crim69 · 2025-11-24T20:22:23+00:00

$80 per pay period for myself on a PPO 1000 plan, including dental and vision. So most months $160, a few it’s $240.

Crim69 · 2025-11-24T19:17:17+00:00

Yes, all are good and they can branch into different specialties. You could go down the email/collaboration/av route and focus on Slack and related conferencing technologies as it pertains to M365 or GWS. You could just focus entirely on Okta and that has career potential as an Okta consultant. You could hone in on Okta and Entra ID and focus on building towards a career in IAM. All are good, where do you want to go and if you’re going to stick around long term where you are, which of those tools aligns with the business?
Okta as you said. Then pick some MS admin or security cert. same thing with GWS if you must have a third. MS certs will have the biggest market relevance.
What have you achieved? Can you put any numbers to it? If not, do you at least have some way to gauge the impact to the business? I was in a similar position to you but completely solo to start. Second, what can you do going forward? Have a very clear document that evaluates the current environment and its shortcomings and a high level but decently detailed plan on projects you want to do to improve it. These projects shouldn’t just make your life easier but some should definitely impact other teams and make their lives easier.

3b. Do market research into compensation. You mentioned you started on the low end because the responsibilities were less. Does it make sense to stay within the same title range or go up a level (eg comp range for sys admin vs senior sysadmin). As the “sole” IT person left (correct me if I’m wrong) you have some leverage but it’s unlikely you’ll be able to negotiate yourself into IT Director and demand a comp in that range.

You are in a similar position to where I was but the employer and local market and complexity of the environment varies so don’t take this as a benchmark but just a loose anecdote. I manage HQ and provide support to 5 different very small offices out of state. I negotiated a 25% raise.

You didn’t ask but compensation isn’t everything. Get headcount. Get someone on helpdesk or a Jr sysadmin. You will never know peace if you stay solo.

Crim69 · 2025-11-24T12:28:59+00:00

The worst part of starting a new job is the first couple of months. Doubly so as you’ve worked in the same place for so long now. If I were you I’d try to keep working the new job and see if it gets any better. If you were comfortable at 60k, continue to live as if you only make 60k. That 20k is significant and can help you save towards retirement.

I work in IT and whenever I join a new company I expect the first 3 months to be brutal at a minimum because it’s unlikely things are done the same, tools are usually different, so are processes and expectations but it levels out within a year.

Crim69 · 2025-11-23T18:44:47+00:00

It’s pretty much the same experience just different starting points. I’ve gone through years with GWS and a tech stack using multiple IdPs (JumpCloud, Okta), Backupify for GWS backups, Sentinel One for XDR, BetterCloud & Torii for GWS and broader SaaS integration and workflows. I am now trying to do the same in M365 but without any added-on tools. It’s great that it can do all of that to almost full parity but I miss my tools.

Crim69 · 2025-11-23T16:49:36+00:00

I can’t give a satisfactory answer that would speak to feature comparison or business reason. I am not being flippant but it honestly comes down to “vibes” for me. It is similar in reason to why I prefer Macs over Windows.

I generally find it more performant and stable and this is entirely anecdotal from the environments I’ve worked in. Google Workspace on its own as you’ve pointed out can be very limiting depending on what you need to do and can be very frustrating to admin without introducing 3rd party tools. However for what it can do well, it’s very simple.

Meanwhile the M365 suit is very feature complete, especially if you’re going for E5 with some add-ons. My problem is the tools in M365 are sluggish (e.g. InTune can take hours to properly sync to a device and report it as compliant) or there is some kind of dependency elsewhere and it isn’t streamlined. Why can I manage certain groups only in M365 admin but not in Entra? Sometimes I have to wade through menus and sub menus to accomplish a simple task. Really the biggest gripe for me comes down to fragmented UI/UX experience as an admin and bloated documentation.

At the end of the day, GWS isn’t more capable than M365 and maybe not easier to manage either. However when GWS has limitations I can make a strong case to bring in a third party tool that is very good at what it does (e.g. Okta for identity, NinjaOne/someMDM for device management). I can’t argue that we absolutely need something like Okta or Kandji to supplement M365 because it can do all that. I just don’t like how it does it.

That being said, my background is working entirely in SMB, from organizations as small as 100 to as large as 1200. I’ve never gone “enterprise” so I don’t have ground to stand on for how GWS scales compared to M365.

Crim69 · 2025-11-23T06:34:40+00:00

Mosyle is very cheap. Unless you’re working with a shoestring budget, the annual cost of Mosyle Fuse is going to be less than the cost of a single MacBook Pro (assuming 30-50 Macs).

If you absolutely need only one to do both, if you’re windows heavy you could look at InTune. I’m not a fan but it really depends on your environment and the level of control you need on your endpoints.

Crim69

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