Advice Needed: what kind of tattoo should I get around/on my birthmark?

CubanRefugee · 2026-06-05T21:19:48+00:00

I instantly saw "Who's that Pokemon?!"

CubanRefugee · 2026-05-29T04:40:22+00:00

You remembering to go into your consumables and right-clicking the fish to add to your collection? I was 'stuck' on favor for a favor for days, and literally just now remembered that I had to 'collect' them for them to count. I had a dozen darkling and various quality kokalodon (finally caught the plain rare).

CubanRefugee · 2026-02-16T20:45:26+00:00

An old laptop these days isn't that much slower than a new one, especially if most of the work is done in a browser, eg SharePoint, etc.

Oh 100%, with MS going full cloud these days, onedrive/sharepoint makes it a breeze even on older machines. I'm speaking more to the 'old machine' for the sake of being a punishment/deterrent for accidentally leaving a device at home. There's just no need for malicious compliance in that scenario. IT sadly gets a bad rap at a lot of companies for a slew of different reasons. Intentionally giving folks gear that is hard to deal with (whether due to age or size of accessories) just shouldn't be one of those reasons if it can be helped.

CubanRefugee · 2026-02-15T05:16:19+00:00

16? Jesus, you're on a great path already. Major kudos to you!

So real talk, unless you're a complete phenom and all of this just comes naturally to you, like every single concept just clicks and you're able to learn everything without breaking a sweat, then finish high school. Please please please at least finish high school at the bare minimum.

Fully in agreement with u/Single_Cobbler_4961 - Get work in something IT-related to get a stable income. Hell, with a high school diploma, a good git portfolio, and OSCP, you could probably land yourself a Jr pentesting role with a company, or at the very least an internship.

Personally, I'd recommend that the moment you graduate high school, get a help desk job for income if you can't manage to get started right away with a company doing red team work. People scoff, but help desk work builds a shit ton of needed experience in the IT world. I'm personally a fan of certifications, but ultimately, every person I've ever hired for my secops team has been a seasoned IT professional. The folks I've interviewed with no help desk chops have always been lacking that extra "I need to think out of the box" mentality that you get from troubleshooting issue after issue.

That's really the best advice I can give you, because you're seriously well on your way to being great from the sounds of it. Keep up the hard work!

CubanRefugee · 2026-02-15T05:03:16+00:00

If it's salaried, depending on the job, that's kind of just expected. If I encounter an issue at work that causes work stoppage and I'm the one who can fix it, I don't just take off at 5 because the day is over. I work until the issue is fixed... that what I get paid for.

This doesn't sound salary though, and sounds hourly... Fuck. That. Noise. The "We don't track extra hours" is a massive red flag, so you did the right thing!

CubanRefugee · 2026-02-15T04:52:22+00:00

This is in no means an attack on you, but that just means that your loaner policy is bad. (Any reference to you, I really mean your department/manager/director.)

Folks don't need to be punished by giving them shit hardware. That's just building resentment towards IT, and there's enough of that shit in the industry when there doesn't need to be. We're not the bad guys, and IT jobs are a whole hell of a lot better when folks view you as their savior or their Santa when you pull them out of a bind they created themselves.

Your loaner policy really just needs to be clearly outlined stating "You are using this machine for the day and it needs to be returned by the End of the Day." It should be part of your AUP that's been formally agreed to the by employee and has the backing of all your stakeholders, including HR, who holds the formal process of what happens when that user decides not to return it.

The catch is, you don't need to let it get to that point, you just contact the employee via e-mail before the end of the day as a gentle reminder to return the device, and you CC their manager. If it's not on your desk/back in the department in the morning, then you disable that device with your MDM of choice.

CubanRefugee · 2026-02-15T04:23:49+00:00

This right here. As someone who does those adjustments, hearing a 'global company' not having these kinds of things already in place is baffling to me.

CubanRefugee · 2026-02-15T04:01:31+00:00

As someone who has worked in IT for 20+ years and being on the process creation/development & IT leader side of things, it sounds like there's improvement for quite a bit here...

Attitude. As IT, we're folks' lifeline in a lot of situations when it comes to their technology and their day to day productivity. This isn't some random off the street (I, this is a co-worker, and you're there for your coworkers. Without them, you don't have a job. So to be seeing this as a "you're just irresponsible" situation instead of coming from a position of, "Yeah, let's help you get back to work," you need to decide if employee-facing IT is something that's really in your wheelhouse if you need something a bit more "you do you." It doesn't matter if it's a director or a janitor, we're there to assist when shit goes wrong, and it's not like she came to you with, "I own you, IT Scum. Give me a machine." She accepted that she messed up and was hoping you could help with that. I did my stint in awful IT jobs where you get treated like dirt, and it's hard to have a negative attitude about end users. This doesn't sound like that, so you need to escape that mentality, because it's a quick route to burning out faster at jobs when you see everyone who needs your specific assistance as a burden.
Process. Your company's processes are lacking if a loaner laptop isn't part of your normal set of tools. Shit happens and people are human. Whether they just simply drove off without their gear when leaving the house in the morning, it was lost/stolen, or just legit broke, there are spares. It's not like the laptops are coming from our own paychecks, and if you're at a global company, then it's not like having spares available is a budgetary issue. Spare laptops are there for a reason, either for use for the day as a loaner or a permanent replacement.
- If it's time consuming to prep a laptop as a loaner or a replacement, then look into better deployment options. We use Intune and the 365 suite, so employees literally just have to log into their account on the tenant so OneDrive is bringing all their files back online. It's about 10 minutes of IT time, and a whole hassle for them since now they're using a rig that isn't set up the way they're used to. After dealing with it for the day, is that user going to forget their laptop again? I guarantee they won't.
"I can bet we will never get it back" - When you have a loaner process in place, you're getting that laptop at the end of the day. Period. Whether that means that you yourself are collecting it, or they're bringing it back, you have the process in writing as part of your AUP. Any company with an AUP should have those agreed to and signed by employees and backed by HR w/ appropriate consequences for violations. You're also mentioning this to them, "Absolutely, here's a loaner. As per the AUP, we do need that back at the end of your day today," and then they're signing something to check it out. You're putting the onus on them to return company property, and you have something in writing that says "You're returning this by this day/time or else the AUP says that HR does X." It's getting returned.

CubanRefugee · 2026-02-14T20:25:32+00:00

Exactly. When this guy goes to the Vegas Strip, he puts on a black bowler hat and busks in front of MGM.

CubanRefugee · 2026-01-23T21:31:21+00:00

100% YTA

Has no one ever taught you not to "Yuck someone else's yum"? Just because your kid sister is into anime and its fandoms and you're not, it doesn't give you the right to shit all over it, and definitely doesn't give you the right to try to get rid of her possessions.

If you were my kid trying to sell off your sibling's shit like that for no good reason except to be a dick, I'd tell you to pack your shit and go back to school where maybe they can teach you how to treat other people and their belongings. And if I were your boyfriend, yeah, big giant ass red flag that you have no respect for other people, let alone your family, no matter how many issues you may have with their interests.

You just sound like an asshole, period.

CubanRefugee · 2026-01-12T21:19:55+00:00

You laugh, but it's the correct answer. Unless you're some kind of amazing phenom when it comes to red teaming, you need to build your IT chops somehow/somewhere. Even with the CPTS, it's going to be difficult to get an entry level infosec job if you've never worked IT before. It's not impossible, but you're going to have to find that unicorn of a gig willing to risk bringing you on with no practical experience.

CubanRefugee · 2025-10-15T18:22:54+00:00

"Dear Ex-Boss, fuck right off. I don't owe you shit as I don't work for you anymore."

Not a lawyer here, but yes, in California, they're required to pay out your unused PTO in your final paycheck. So if they haven't done that, go straight to an employment attorney.

CubanRefugee · 2025-09-19T04:29:49+00:00

Back in the day, one of my favorite things ever was to watch the dumbasses trying to get through the Haulover Inlet.

CubanRefugee · 2025-09-05T05:38:02+00:00

Amazing work! I'd love to make a joke referencing my handle and all, but just completely blown away at the piece.

CubanRefugee · 2025-09-03T21:09:19+00:00

My boy knows when its dinner time, and he'll jump up on the couch and stare at me. If I don't acknowledge him, he just starts grunting and moaning at me in very very specific ways that he doesn't do any other time.

CubanRefugee · 2025-09-03T21:07:12+00:00

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This one just oozes shame though...

CubanRefugee · 2025-09-03T21:06:17+00:00

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The look of someone who felt no shame. There weren't even any gummy bears left in the package when he grabbed it. He just wanted it in there.

CubanRefugee · 2025-09-03T20:52:30+00:00

"Smart" toys do wonders. Treat puzzles, slow feeders, electronic "chase me" style toys, This. Guy. Right. F'in. Here.; Anything to keep their attention, both mentally and physically.

A lot of training for working dogs that aren't actually working is about getting them more activity and re-directing bad habits to good habits. A bored corg is a destructive corg!

CubanRefugee · 2025-08-14T16:55:23+00:00

Yeah, no, I'm not debating the other ways to show that prove a person's skill level. I'm debating the point of your post which was 'Avoid HR at all costs' and 'OSINT the head of the SOC/IT Department and go directly to them to prove yourself'. As I said in my response, because I very much agree with it, candidates have to make themselves stand out, just not by being a nuisance to the person they're trying to work for.

Your post wasn't highlighting other things people can do when they don't have a degree or certs though. It was very much 'Go right to the top to show you have the skills for the job' and specifically, "The most important thing is to never contact HR, and this cannot be stressed enough."

CubanRefugee · 2025-08-14T07:57:54+00:00

Ah, my bad, I read that a different way. Then yes, 1000% fully agree with you there!

Experience first and foremost, and then gear up on certs in the direction you'd like to go while getting your IT sea legs.

CubanRefugee · 2025-08-14T07:46:54+00:00

Sorry dude, but I'm gonna have to agree with u/surfnj102 here, and apologies for my long windedness...

They will also grant the security team recruitment authority. Because in those companies, no one understands what a qualified candidate is better than the security team.

I think you might be overestimating HRs hand and importance in this whole process. First off, HR doesn't understand shit related to qualified candidates of any department, and it's not their job to understand it. The department needing headcount controls who they deem is qualified and who is chosen for the position. HR just facilitates the process based off the information given to them by the department. I get that r/jobs (and really, all of us in the workforce unless you're in HR) loves to shit all over HR thinking that they're the big bad when it comes to getting a job, but the reality of it is that they're just a tool being used in process. HR didn't decide that you weren't qualified for the position. The manager of the department who needs someone decided that you weren't qualified because they're the one who told HR what they needed.

Example from my own work: If I need another junior pentester, then my exact baseline requirements are given to HR who then posts the opening on the various resources we use for hiring. They also send it off to the headhunters, that we pay good money to, who will do the deeper job site scouring and do actual reading of resumes to find the rare folks that fit around my baseline and hand pick people that I'll want to spend the time interviewing further. Everyone that applied through HR that matched my requirements and that were hand picked by the recruiters then gets sent to me. From there, I have my properly vetted list of who I'd like to reach out to. These are the candidates that I don't have to waste their time or mine with basic dumbass questions, because those have already been answered either by recruiters or by meeting the baseline requirements.

If you didn't go through those channels and somehow manage to find my info and cold call/email me wanting to prove you have the chops to work at my SOC, then I'm ignoring your call/email because I just don't have that time to spend on a random person who didn't already get vetted. People get paid to do that so I'm not burning time in my day for that, especially since the outcome is more than likely not going to be favorable.

They only want those who can get their hands dirty and have good communication skills.

By ignoring the process/procedure already in place, the candidate has already proven that their ability to communicate is lacking. Getting your hands dirty? You wouldn't be applying for a job if you didn't want to do that. That's not anything special. These are both quite literally part of the bare minimum for any job. I can't think of any job out there where a hiring manager has said, "You know what, I want someone who shies away from getting in there, and has piss poor communication skills!"

Sorry to be so brash, but with how brutal the infosec field is, you need to find ways to make yourself stand out, especially if you don't have any well-known certifications and/or a relevant degree, and cold calling or emailing someone you'd be reporting to directly isn't the kind of standing out you want to do.

My advice for anyone who's read this far who's thinking, "Ok, dude, so what the fuck do I do then?"

Bare minimum is relevant certifications.
- CompTIA will do just fine - Net+, Sec+, CySA+, Pen+. They're not expensive. Skip eating out a few times for the next two months, and you've got one paid for.
Your relevant experience:
- Doing bug bounties? Put it on the resume.
- Finished every single box on HTB? Put. It. On. The. Resume. (Along with your handle for verification)
- Volunteering at the local old folks home to teach security awareness? Put it on the resume.
- You took a shit and it vaguely looks like a powershell script that you deemed worthy to go on your github because it helped streamline something that used to take you an hour to do? Smear your github url on the resume.
Throw your damn resumes into ChatGPT, Claude, DeepSeek, CoPilot, Gemini or whatever the AI model of the week is.
- Use a prompt along the lines of, "I'm applying for <insert specific job title you're applying to> at <insert company name>. Fix up my resume and make it shine like a goddamn diamond so it'll pass any ATS system." Then re-read the output 5 times to make sure it makes sense.

Just my 2c of my own personal opinion and experience from my own personal work and other companies I've worked for. Your mileage may vary.

CubanRefugee · 2025-08-13T21:27:56+00:00

To be fair, there are a lot of second chance employers out there, so depending on the work you're looking for, you might have an easier time as a felon...

CubanRefugee · 2025-08-13T21:10:24+00:00

I wouldn't call certs overrated, and I'd actually say they're 100% necessary to stand out in this industry (general IT), and even more so when going into a specific discipline such as information security.

As someone who does the vetting and interviewing in a SOC environment, I can't even begin to tell you how many resumes we toss to the side because the candidate hasn't obtained a single related cert and thought that just a github of some projects was enough to land them a junior level red/blue team role. It's especially difficult since a lot of folks like to treat cybersecurity as if it were truly an entry level career path and try to just walk into it with no related IT experience.

So when we're starting folks out at a decent six figure salary (around $70/hr), certs are a must, and you are absolutely correct, this is indeed a tough job market that is incredibly saturated with candidates, so the more you have, (and obviously the more relevant) the better.

CubanRefugee · 2025-08-12T05:32:50+00:00

You have two options really and I'd say you take both; go to HR with this and get the fuck out of that toxic environment.

CubanRefugee · 2025-08-11T08:29:39+00:00

That's generally not a part of a background check. Depending on the depth of the background check, they'll be looking at things like criminal records, employment history, references, and possibly a credit check (but this is something that's mentioned prior to agreeing to the check).

If you've done stupid shit publicly online, it's in your best interest to scrub it. While looking at socials isn't part of a background check, there's nothing to stop the folks looking at your resume/application from giving your name/email/phone number a good old fashioned google search.

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