One of the most valuable lessons I have learned in IT I learned from one of our network guys at the time. I had misdiagnosed an issue as a “network problem,” a term which is a catch-all used by noobs and vendors to say that they don’t know what the problem is.
Chris, the network guy, helped me troubleshoot it, and the issue turned out to be not a “network problem,” but a “something wasn’t plugged in” problem.
After helping me, he gave me a lesson:
“Always check the physical layer.”
For you non IT people, there is a seven layer model used to specify how networks work. The physical layer, or Layer 1, is the stuff you can actually touch–cables and jacks and things.
However, the mantra “always check the physical layer” doesn’t just work on networking–it’s just as useful for troubleshooting pretty much anything electrical. You could also say, “Is it plugged in? No, I mean it–is it really plugged in?”
Once in a while I still fail to check the physical layer, but not often.
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