Techie With Three Months' Experience Was Sent In As The Cisco Expert And Proceeded To Blow Everything Up
The Register, Monday, August 31st, 2026
This week, meet 'Martin' who told us about his very first job in tech. 'I had just started working as a network engineer for a very small IT infrastructure company. Since I was the only person who worked with Cisco gear, that made me 'The Cisco expert',' he told The Register.
That dubious status was enough for the company to send Martin to a customer who needed a new switch for a network that ran Nortel kit – not the Cisco boxes he kind of knew.
Martin told us he arrived to a warm welcome from the customer’s IT team, a decent coffee, and some friendly chat about adding VLANs.
With those pleasantries accomplished, he got to work.
“I completed rack and stack, basic default configuration, and the VLANs discussed over the coffee,” he wrote. Then he hooked everything up, tested the results, decided all was well, and prepared to leave.
While he packed up, the phone rang.