It Makes You Go Like This: The Real Stress of Running Network Operations

Let’s get one thing straight. Network ops is not for the faint of heart. It’s not just late-night alerts or tracking down bad configurations. It’s the constant low hum of worry, the what-ifs that live in the back of your mind even when everything looks green.

I’ve lived this. Built an ISP, ran it, sold it. And through it all, the thing that never let up was the mental weight of knowing that anything could knock you sideways: weather, firmware, power glitches, or one wrong keystroke.

That’s what we unpacked on Episode 4 of Bandwidth—what really keeps network operators awake at night.

24/7/365: No Metaphor, Just Reality

You hear “always on-call” and you might think it’s a figure of speech. It’s not. If you've run network ops, you know it’s a lifestyle. It’s watching weather maps like a meteorologist. It’s hearing phantom alert sounds. It’s putting your phone on silent — hoping that somehow this will stop the ping from your monitoring system.

Rick talked about how long it took him to enjoy thunderstorms again after stepping out of the operator role. Same here. For years after selling my ISP, I'd still tense up every time lightning struck. It's muscle memory—because you know what could follow.

The Three Usual Suspects: Weather, Misconfig, and Power

Let’s talk about where things actually go wrong. A few culprits show up more than the rest:

1. Weather – The classic. No matter how much you prepare, there’s only so much you can do when mother nature gets involved.

2. Misconfiguration – This one hits close to home. I’ve personally taken down an entire network with one wrong config change. Didn’t catch it in time. Couldn’t reverse it in time. Thank goodness for backups. And thank goodness we implemented config management software shortly after that.

3. Power Systems – A lot of folks cheap out here, and they pay for it. You think you’re saving money, but then the power flickers and you're blind. Or worse, your batteries are 3% from that next power outage, and you don’t know it. If you don’t get an alert when your primary drops, you’re flying with no instruments.

Alert Fatigue Is Real—and Dangerous

We’ve all been there: woken up at 3 a.m. by a “critical” alert that turns out to be nothing. And when real ones come through? You’re already desensitized.

That’s why tuning your alerting system is critical. Not everything deserves a 2 a.m. wake-up call. And if you’re not calibrating thresholds, you’re trading operational readiness for burnout. One of the smartest things we did was set up layered alerting—some for sleep-hours, some for the workday, and some for only when redundancy drops.

Retaining Talent in the Chaos

When people are burned out, you can’t just throw pizza parties and hope for the best. They need rest, rotation, respect—and real pay. Paul shared how he’d cycle through on-call rotations to avoid fatigue. I did the same, and when we didn’t have enough people, I got on the rotation myself. Not to prove a point—just to share the weight.

Rick made a great point too: if someone pulls an all-nighter, give them grace the next day. Don’t wait for them to ask. Recognize the impact their efforts have had on building customer loyalty!

Vendor Roulette and Firmware Landmines

“Vendor uncertainty” may sound like a procurement issue—but it can be a network-killer. Firmware updates that look harmless can clash with your hardware stack. We’ve rolled updates that passed every test we could throw at them, only to see unexpected failures out in the wild.

When that happens at scale (say, 6,000 radios) you learn really quick to roll firmware slow, even if the system says, “all clear.”

What Actually Helps

If you’re looking for peace of mind in network ops, it won’t come from just crossing your fingers and hoping for the best. It comes from systems:

• Redundancy everywhere: power, backhaul, config backups.
• SOPs that actually get followed, not just written.
• Tools that are tuned, not just deployed.
• Alerting that respects your sleep, but doesn't miss real problems.
• And most of all—team coverage that doesn’t wear people out.

That’s how you build a NOC you can trust. That’s how you avoid the shoulders-up, teeth-clenched feeling that network ops folks know all too well.

If you’re still duct taping your ops together, it's probably time to look at what Sonar can do. But regardless of what tools you use, take this seriously. Because when the lights are on, the alerts are quiet, and the team’s still sticking around - that’s when you know you’ve done it right!