I never thought I would be writing a blog post about how I took my CCIE R&S lab 3 times unsuccessfully and where I will go from here. I honestly don’t know if I want to torment myself again to take this test. We are at the point where I don’t even want the numbers anymore, and it is more of me just passing the test so I can look at it and say, “You didn’t get me,” but how much can one person take?
Many people said I should ignore what happened this time because I let my nerves get the best of me. I did not sleep the night before my lab at all. I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, watching the seconds melt off the clock. That night felt like the longest night of my life, but surprisingly, I woke up refreshed, did my morning routine, and made my way to Cisco RTP.
Once I arrive, probably around 6:40 am, a handful of people outside chatting it up; I join in the chatter and find out an interesting fact about one of the candidates there. After he left a previous employer, I replaced his role, talk about a small world. We chatted about the company in question. It is now 7:15 (or thereabouts), and Dave comes out usually. Much to his surprise, there are no first-timers today; everyone has been his guest before, and he is excited because it seems like he doesn’t have to repeat his rules over and over again.
We are now standing outside the doorway to the most excruciating 8 hours of anyone’s life, he does one final check to make sure no one has anything they shouldn’t, and we enter. He quickly goes over the rules, like anyone there really needed to know; we have all been Dave’s $1,500 lunch guests before, so none of this was news to anyone. I sit at my POD, RS19, and take a deep breath, and get started.
Without breaking any NDAs, Troubleshooting was challenging, but I felt good after the two hours were over, going off of no sleep. Then, I start the configuration. I looked around the requirements, and I see that it is a very comfortable test. I’m super excited to start. Now, I am deep into configuration, and before I know it. I reach the end of section 2, look at the clock, and only an hour and a half has passed.
I was never this quick in any of the practice labs I took; let me go back and ensure everything is how it should be. I write my TCL script to test reachability. I make a tick sheet on my scratch paper with a section with a few columns. A column for 100% complete, not 100% complete, verified with TCL (for IP reachability). Everything verified as OK, so at this point, Dave comes in, and we go to lunch, and this is where the story goes from OMG, I am going to be a CCIE after today, to I want to go home and forget today happened.
I return from lunch and let me bring up this point again. There was no sleep the night before. I crash and crash hard. I lose all focus, can’t concentrate, and don’t want to be there. It is crazy what emotions happen when you think you will get to the top of the mountain. Then, when you are almost there, you slip on a rock and tumble down to the bottom of the hill.
I finish up (if that is what you want to call it) and head back to the hotel. I still can’t sleep and wait until I get in my car and make the 8-hour drive from NC back to Northern NJ.
Today is one week since my attempt, and I am deciding if I should retake it; I don’t know if I want to endure this ordeal again. My mindset is that I don’t need this number to prove I am an expert engineer. You can put me in front of a CCIE, and I can talk there, talk and walk their walk, sometimes even better than them. I have told this story to certain co-workers, family members, and blog followers and asked them, what would you do? Right now, I think I will take the rest of the year off to spend time with my 2-year-old son. I missed him growing up because of my hardcore study schedule and spending some time with my wife, who has been uber-supportive in this quest. Then, sometime in January, I will see if I want to reattempt one more time.
I ask you the blogging world, if you were me, what would you do?