Debt Free In IT w/ Mike

Send us Fan Mail Everyone says a call center job is how you break into IT. I spent a couple of months in one and I still don't count it as my first IT job here's why, plus how to tell whether a "help desk" posting is really a help desk or a call center wearing a badge. Help desk vs call center is one of the most confusing comparisons for anyone trying to break into IT, because sometimes they're the same job and sometimes they're nowhere close. Same headset, same queue, sometimes the same bui...

Send us Fan Mail Before I got into IT, I worked in a call center doing tech support. Every call was timed. The time between calls was timed. Bathroom breaks were timed. That was my only reference point for what a job looked like so that's what I assumed IT would be. I was wrong. About that, and about three other things. In this episode I go through four beliefs I carried into this industry and where each one broke: what I thought a manager would do, how much I thought I needed to know befor...

Send us Fan Mail Is networking still worth learning in 2026? Short answer: yes but it's not the same job it was five years ago. AI isn't replacing network engineers. What it did was split the career into two paths: traditional shops where you're on the CLI every day, and modern shops where automation and AI handle a big chunk of the work. Most of the country is still traditional. Both paths need the same thing from you first. In this episode I break down wh...

Send us Fan Mail You passed the certification. So why isn't anybody calling you back? If you've got the cert, updated the resume, and you've been applying for weeks with nothing but silence — you're not doing anything wrong as a person. But something in your process is probably broken. A certification was never a guarantee. But it should be getting you interviews. In this episode I break down 4 reasons people pass their cert and still can't get hired in IT — and what to change about each on...

Send us Fan Mail Same title. Totally different job. A network tech at a 50-person company and a network tech at a Fortune 500 can do completely different work for completely different money. The variable most people ignore: company size. Why it matters: Where you start shapes how fast you learn, what you get exposed to, and how high your ceiling goes. Pick wrong for your stage and you either stall out or get thrown in over your head. In this episode: 🔹 Small — You touch everything: networ...