So, after an awesome WLPC where I got to meet, share and learn new Wi-Fi standards, I am back home. What I love about that kind of event is that I get back to the office pumped and ready to make our network better. Unfortunately, while I was gone, my union decided to prolong the current strike. That means that I don’t get to go back and do the stuff I love. Instead I have to freeze on the side of the street and strike on schedule for as long as they see fit. I am not against unions or strikes but I feel this one isn’t going anywhere. We (the workers) are stuck in  the middle of a fight between two instances who it seems couldn’t care less about us. We are fighting a fight that is not ours, but since we live in a democracy we have to go with the misinformed majority who wanted to strike.

I miss my job to be honest with you. I love what I do as a wireless Lan admin and my current assignements (AAA and controllers upgrades) are quite exciting.  I am quite optimistic our next best practices review will bring interesting improvements in performance for our users. Can’t wait to implement them. Really.

This strike also brings the perspective of a future that might not be exactly as I imagined it would: I’ve been working for the same company for 15 years of which 13 were all about Wi-Fi. I am experienced with only a handful of vendors and hold two vendor neutral certs (CWNA and CWDP) in addition to my CCNP R&S. Truth is, there are not so many big playgrounds for a person like me if I want to stay in Quebec. I’m sitting on the bench, wondering how this is all going to unfold. Some opportunities have showed up which I hope will become realities. I hope others will pop up as well, as I am always open for a challenge.

In other news, the WlanAB met at WLPC and some interesting work has been done: soon there will be an official website and people will be able to sign up for it. The idea of this board is to standardize the practice and make us better as professionals but also as a community. I see it like the Bar (the lawyers kind, not the beer-serving kind of course) or the IEEE: an opportunity to make things uniform amongst ourselves to make our value greater for our customers.

The Wi-Fi Pros Slack channel has also seen quite an influx of new members and the conversations there are all about Wi-Fi and not limited to 140 chars. If you’d like to join us, please DM me or Sam Clements on Twitter  (@Mae149 or @samuel_clements) for an invitation. All we need to add you to our Wi-Fi groupe is your email address.