Work has been really busy lately, which I think is a good thing. Cisco has a bunch of SE (system engineers) running around setting up Cisco's Voice over IP solution. I get to run around with them, helping them out and learning a whole bunch of stuff from them. They are pretty cool guys too. First of all, they are all really smart and know a lot. All of their engineers have to go through constant training, so that they can move up on the Cisco Certification ladder. Their training is fairly intense too... they have to study tonnes of material and pass their exams with more than 85%... and they are doing this constantly! The result of all this is that they know what they are doing, which is better than a lot of people I've met over the course of my work experience. Plus it's a very difficult process to become one in the first place - you have to pass 6-12 interviews that test different skill sets. First of all, they have to know their technical stuff cold. They have to be intelligent and flexible. They have to have good people skills to be able to effectively relate to clients. They have to be able to make presentations that are good enough to sell people Cisco products. And if they don't perform, they get fired! Cisco fires the bottom 5% of their engineers every half year to maintain quality.

Despite how difficult it seems, It does sound like an interesting career path though. All of them love what they are doing. They get to travel a lot, their work is always different and varied from day to day, the material that they are doing is interesting and they get paid a whole lot. They all drive Beemers and such, have good stock options (actually, not that good anymore...) they have nice pads and then there's the gadgets! These people are definitely into gadgets. And they have the money to buy it too! I myself, as you probably already know, am into gadgets too, and I've had many conversations on all the cool gadgets they have. How's this for geeky? I've spent time at work trading palm applications, discussing how envious I was of one the guy's low ICQ# (in the hundreds of thousands, for those who were wondering), debating the merits of carrying certain pieces of equipment in our tool kits and talking about where to get cool cell phone rings. And I got props for my Clie, which is quite flattering in a geeky kind of way.

There are bad things about that sort of career though. Work takes up so much of your time that you might not get the chance to enjoy all the money you've made! The other major negative thing is the constant high stress levels (which has caused premature loss of hair colour in all of them). Anyway, something to consider as a career path. Which is also one of the best things about co-op -- the exposure you get to future careers and such.

Just can't say enough good things about co-op.

-- Nelson