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Benched's birth song.

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    Benched's birth song.

    Can every/most/any single professional out here tell the story about how they started with computers. But try to emphasize on the emotional moments - the excitement , the scientists in you , etc , etc.

    The goal basically is to try and cheer up all us benched , god forsaken endangered kind that needs a high-dose of pro IT career propaganda.

    #2
    Originally posted by newblood View Post
    Can every/most/any single professional out here tell the story about how they started with computers. But try to emphasize on the emotional moments - the excitement , the scientists in you , etc , etc.

    The goal basically is to try and cheer up all us benched , god forsaken endangered kind that needs a high-dose of pro IT career propaganda.
    Well, for me, I was a failed cashier at a building society so they farmed me off to head office to be a software tester.

    Meaning IT is lower than cashiering.

    Hope this provides the desired cheer

    Comment


      #3
      My intoduction to IT was certainly full of excitement, drama and very very large rewards in terms of money.
      I was unemployed at the time, and had been for a very long time. It was the lowest point in my life, depressing and there seemed to be only one way out.

      Then I was given a zx spectrum and some basic programming manuals. What happened next is a story to warm the cockles of your heart. I threw the programming manuals in the bin and bought a game called elite.
      The hours merged into days into weeks into months as I forged an intergalactic empire based upon courage skill and many reloads.

      I vividly recall dodging the fer de lances as they unloaded dozens of radar guided missles onto my tail, and the strange buzz as I traded hundred of ilegal slaves to Alpha-Proxima, keeping the best one for myself. I made it to deadly with millions of galactic credits to my name

      Ah yes, IT opened new horizons


      (\__/)
      (>'.'<)
      ("")("") Born to Drink. Forced to Work

      Comment


        #4
        Originally posted by EternalOptimist View Post
        My intoduction to IT was certainly full of excitement, drama and very very large rewards in terms of money.
        I was unemployed at the time, and had been for a very long time. It was the lowest point in my life, depressing and there seemed to be only one way out.

        Then I was given a zx spectrum and some basic programming manuals. What happened next is a story to warm the cockles of your heart. I threw the programming manuals in the bin and bought a game called elite.
        The hours merged into days into weeks into months as I forged an intergalactic empire based upon courage skill and many reloads.

        I vividly recall dodging the fer de lances as they unloaded dozens of radar guided missles onto my tail, and the strange buzz as I traded hundred of ilegal slaves to Alpha-Proxima, keeping the best one for myself. I made it to deadly with millions of galactic credits to my name

        Ah yes, IT opened new horizons


        Ah, the joy of destroying a police ship and then trying to get away...
        ǝןqqıʍ

        Comment


          #5
          I started about a year after getting a BSc in Geography, working for a water company in Holland testing models for forecasting water requirements following spatial demographic changes. Interesting stuff and quite complicated. I'd done some work with computers at poly and realised I had some ability if not a strong interest. It was interesting work at the water company, but the pay was tulipe. However I was idealist, believing my work was contributing to society, and I enjoyed the slightly academic atmosphere; we enjoyed our work and were quite free to experiment. Then some 'system integrator' arrived to implement some new software and I did the testing. Soon after the project was completed system integrator phoned me and invited me for a drink. I accepted and he put his cards on the table as soon as I arrived in the pub; 'come and work for me and I'll pay you 20% more basic salary than you're earning now plus you'll get a company Audi and a yearly bonus'. My idealism and academic curiosity dissolved more quickly than a teapoon of Nescafe in a cup of hot water.
          And what exactly is wrong with an "ad hominem" argument? Dodgy Agent, 16-5-2014

          Comment


            #6
            I was an electronics apprentice with the MOD - which meant that if I wasn't sleeping in the back of a tank somewhere, or playing in Land rovers on the test track, I'd be sat at a desk with absolutely nothing to do. This of course led to be trashing whatever PC that was sat on the desk whilst playing and trying desperately to fix it before my apprentice master came back and walloped me around the side of the head. This led nicely into a PC support role....I still duck when someone comes into the office to collect their machine!
            A bad workman blames his fools

            EDIT: *tools

            stupid keyboard.

            http://twitter.com/TheAnonTechGuy

            Comment


              #7
              I did a Govt Sponsored Tops computer programming course because it was easy and I got paid £23 per week for doing it which was £3 more than my social.
              ...my quagmire of greed....my cesspit of laziness and unfairness....all I am doing is sticking two fingers up at nurses, doctors and other hard working employed professionals...

              Comment


                #8
                Originally posted by Wilmslow View Post
                Well, for me, I was a failed cashier at a building society so they farmed me off to head office to be a software tester.

                Meaning IT is lower than cashiering.

                Hope this provides the desired cheer
                How can you fail to be a cashier ? Where you pinching the money ?

                Comment


                  #9
                  After becoming a drop out to my a-levels from chasing too much "jack and danny" and all the good things in life I went to work for a couple of years in a factory.

                  Having got bored of that, my girlfriend of the time (now my wife), told me to go to the local college and see what they've got. Met a fellow there who was running a foundation course that linked in to a degree at the local uni. He asked if my maths was any good - told him I remember bits of calculus from the a-level. Before I knew it he had sold the foundation degree to me, which I found out later he was struggling to get the numbers for.

                  Now to tell work that i'm leaving. However, it turned out that they required people to work nights over the weekend. Two birds, one stone and all that. So, for the next two and a half years I managed to keep up a 36 hour week over three nights at the weekend and a full time foundation/ degree course. Monday was a killer and I would regularly fall asleep in lectures. Degree timetables being how they are, about 30-something weeks, I managed it for this time. In the mean time I bought a house, and my wife also inherited a house, which she sold, (before the boom - doh), and I gave up work for the next 6 months to concentrate on the degree.

                  The following year I opted to do a placement year to get some experience and it was a really crap wage compared to what I gave up working in the factory - just over half. They promised me a job when I finished my degree however. This is also where I became familiar with the contractor. They were generally looked down on and people generally said bad things about them. There was a contractor on the team and he was fantastic. He always knew the answers to the problems you had, always had time to help you out and was an out and out good guy. But people were jealous and would bad mouth the contractors generally - never really understood that.

                  Final year of the degree was uneventful, apart from probably blowing more money than we should have, but had some good times. Got a 2:1 so OK.

                  Went to work with the aerospace company as a permie and boy was it boring. Not only boring but about the same money that I was on at the factory job a few years earlier. Never really found myself to fit in this time, although I worked on varied projects doing many different things never really found my groove and hated it.

                  Looking desperately for something else, bearing in mind I only had a couple of years experience under my belt, a PhD role came up. Jumped at the chance. I would recieve, after adjustment for the tax you don't pay, only a few grand a year less than the job I was currently doing.

                  PhD was good, although a struggle at times. Coming to the end of it however when funding had run out I needed to get a job and stumbled upon a contract position doing more or less what I had done during my studies and a bloody good rate too, but only 5 months. Having known the contractor where I worked before I had always looked up to him and wanted to be a bit like him so jumped at the chance.

                  Did that contract and then finished my write up going on to another contract after that, again only a 6 monther and now finally benched.


                  So you asked for my intro into IT and I give you my life story - does it cheer you up. I was a bit bored anyhow.

                  And i'm still absolutely rubbish at AC theory.

                  Comment


                    #10

                    cracking story CT
                    (\__/)
                    (>'.'<)
                    ("")("") Born to Drink. Forced to Work

                    Comment

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