Did my boss build a bad network or am I a bad junior employee?
Hi! I'm six months into my first IT job as a junior network technician. I've got my Net+ and schooling in CS and networking. Basically, I know enough to know I know nothing.
The environment is a small university, so it's a mix of needs. Our team size is 3, and we use Meraki. I know this is a "non-standard" environment, but I'm starting to wonder if our network is a ticking time bomb of issues and will teach me bad practices. I'm also know I might just be an arrogant junior, so have kept my mouth shut so far.
Some issues include:
-Our firewall, isp, switches, and wireless are all separate dashboard networks. Based on daily/monthly users I believe that combining all but the wireless network would be best practice and allow for better troubleshooting. I really can't see how traffic flows had to use the API to cobble diagrams together. My boss won't commit the documentation or even look at it, so no idea if they are even correct.
-I regularly find acces ports on loop guard. I wanted to add portfast with bpdu, but my boss said we don't use that. I asked why and he said we don't need to.
-During my probation period I shadowed on like 4 tasks, including another AP being switched to loopguard, likely due to a reboot leaking a bpdu (looked it up myself). I'd say Ive had max an hour of interaction a month with my coworkers.
-I have been assigned an API integration project for our monitoring system. I know I can do it, but I am also totally isolated and my meeting requests get ignored, so I don't even get a chance to verify what tools I should be building.
-multiple public-facing APs in low power mode. This could be budget issues, but also like I don't understand how it would be considered an upgrade and no one will explain why.
Im fine working with a broken network and working outside my title, because that's just life. However, my confidence is getting destroyed because I'm left to assign myself projects, rarely get tickets, and when I ask questions regarding our actual operations either get ignored or told to figure it out, despite there being zero (truly zero) documentation.
This post is long enough, so I'll just end it with should I focus in getting my CCNA and RHSCA and leaving sooner rather than later, or is this environment not as messed up as I think and I should stop being a whiny baby and actually learn. I know Reddit can be brutal, so let me have it.