In 1996 I went back to college for an MIS degree. I was switching from technical entertainment, audio engineer mostly for TV, theatre, concerts. That fall I got a gig as a help desk tech for one of the medical school departments. Working IT with doctors in the 90's was, entertaining ... Very smart people that couldn't deal with the complexity of a pc and Windows 95.
The next summer a friend asked if I could get him an account on the University's VMS system. I didn't think that was a good idea so I went in search of an alternative. Several tries later and I have been a Debian user ever since.
In early 1998 I parleyed that gig into a staff sysadmin role with the department after I hired my boss. Used that to move states and started into my fastest career growth year, 1998, with a 347% pay increase over 4 roles. Ended the year as a network/server group supervisor and Solaris admin. It has been a fun trip since.
The foot-in-the-door moment was in the fall of 1996. I was in the lecture portion of an Intro to Computers required freshman course. This was my third go at college and things had changed since I went a few years before. The lecture was on the history of computing and the lab was how to use MS Word. I happened to have been reading a computer history book and was firing off answers to the Profs questions as quick as he could ask them. He stopped mid-sentence and asked me if I wanted a job. Luckily I followed up.
The next summer a friend asked if I could get him an account on the University's VMS system. I didn't think that was a good idea so I went in search of an alternative. Several tries later and I have been a Debian user ever since.
In early 1998 I parleyed that gig into a staff sysadmin role with the department after I hired my boss. Used that to move states and started into my fastest career growth year, 1998, with a 347% pay increase over 4 roles. Ended the year as a network/server group supervisor and Solaris admin. It has been a fun trip since.
The foot-in-the-door moment was in the fall of 1996. I was in the lecture portion of an Intro to Computers required freshman course. This was my third go at college and things had changed since I went a few years before. The lecture was on the history of computing and the lab was how to use MS Word. I happened to have been reading a computer history book and was firing off answers to the Profs questions as quick as he could ask them. He stopped mid-sentence and asked me if I wanted a job. Luckily I followed up.