What did you do before you worked in IT?

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My professional career has always been in IT.

Did the college thing and graduated as a Programmer. Started as a Cobol and C++ programmer with a smaller company. Hated it! Moved to another small company and took a job as a call agent for a proprietary software.

Quickly became friends with an old college acquaintance who was Sr. Sys Admin (at same company). He did CENG in college. He saw my eagerness and offered me a role to assist the Junior Helpdesk / Sys Admin. I took it and excelled. Got to work with lots of stuff.

Fast forward – I specialized into the networking track…

 

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Wow, they had high school back then?

Okay, I'm shadding up, I'm shadding up...

 

Yeah - I could have sworn educational institutes were effectively caves back then.

You know... to teach defense against the dinosaurs...


*snigger*

 

I haven't broken properly into the IT field, had an interest in computers since I was 8 years old, had my first computer an Amstrad CPC464 complete with green screen and a built in tape drive when I was 14.

Left school at 16 with dismal GCSE grades because frankly I was a lazy git at school, whilst everyone else was revising I was messing around and getting into trouble with the teachers.

At 17 I did YTS training scheme and was sent to do all sorts of office work at an engineering supplies firm, doing everything from goods in to answering the telephone to serving on the trade counter.

After a few years agency work in '95 I got a job building epson printers (one of the main reasons why I won't touch them with a bargepole, because I knew how they were built :twised.

98 to 2001 I did some more agency jobs, then landed my 2nd only ever permanent job working for a joint venture for the OHLE (Overhead Line Equipment) modernisation for Railtrack/Network Rail.

That's when I got my first properish taste of IT, sat down after 3 years being bored out of my skull, then I got talking in my annual appraisal where they finally discovered I had an interest in IT and that's when I landed the role of local IT support at the depot I worked at, anything with a plug on it seemed to be my responsibility even the kettles!!

Ever since I got made redundant from that role in 2006, I seem to have gone back to square one doing office jobs again and am currently stuck at home without a job

As a bit of co-incidence I've just had a phone call from an agency wanting to discuss an IT contract with me

Sticking point may be the transport though, the agency has gone to find out where in Smethwick the contract is, just thinking to myself not a good start

 

Hi folks - cracking thread!

To my parents' exasperation I have changed job a lot. I have even been in IT in the past until it all went a bit wrong.

Here are some highlights:

Pre-IT: Professional wrestling timekeeper (it helps if you're dad's the MC!), fancy good sales, pasta sales (Poland), BBC local radio presenter (unpaid while a student), back office investment bank worker, sales support, grape farm bucket collector (Australia) and house painter (Australia).

IT: Multilingual tech support (man I loved that job), project manager (I knew next to nothing about the product or the industry so I was rubbish)

Post-IT: Sales, trainee secondary school languages teacher (until I got ill through stress) and for the moment a voluntary English teacher to the Polish community.

My motivation with certification is to ensure that I never have to work in sales ever again!

Regards
Rick

 

I trained as a car mechanic when I left school did that for about 4 years and decided I couldn't do it for the rest of my working life. I didn't know what I wanted to do, just what I didn't want to do. I went through loads of short term jobs, telesales, manufacturing, machine shop, car dealer parts department, stores and despatch et al (so many jobs). Eventually I found IT

 

Hmm maybe I'm the odd one one
I've worked in IT since I was in secondary school, my work experience landed me my first IT job aged 14, still here 12 years later!

I DID do a few things to earn a quid or two before that, delivered the local free rag and washed cars at the local Toyota dealer, that was it

 

Before IT? I was a taxman. Actually, I still am....

 

Ah yes.. but I am a nice* taxman. I haven't worked in mainstream tax for about 17 years now. I am a Change Manager, so I manage change through the Infrastructure. And I am responsible for our remote access services (3G, broadband, etc).


(* and the people I tend to work with are very nice too...)

 

I started off doing two things ... a coach (Judo and general fitness) was my dream goal, but I also worked in children's playschemes (usually for kids with special needs). I went to Uni doing sport science (specialising in disability studies) but dropped out after 2 years, mainly through lack of cash to continue (student loans just started and it wasn't really enough to cover things).

I was on the dole for a bit ... and if anything has made me realise how important a steady job is .. that did. I was still living in Crewe (where I had been at Uni) as my girlfriend was still studying there. Eventually I had a variety of jobs ... linisher and spot welder in a metal fabrication shop round the corner from Rolls Royce, some temp work (garden centre, cheese factory, warehouse packing), security guard, various things on building sites (general labourer, carpenter's mate, hoddie, painter), back to security guard (and store detective .. far more fun) before joining the army.

Originally went in to train as Royal Military Police but didn't make it to probation (it took me 9 months of basic and trade training to realise I really did not like the sexism, racism, misogyny and ego-culture that can arise ... my mistake was actually telling the training staff that!) so a transfer to the Intelligence Corp went in. I was at the AGC depot for over 2 1/4 years, 2 of which were spent as Regimental Police (I carried my birth certificate to proof that being a b'stard was not an accident of birth ... I had to work hard at it) where I had some fun, doing some interesting things with interesting people in interesting locations ... sometimes driving cars, sometimes doing lots of shouting and sometimes doing a lot of crawling around (finding dropped change on the NAAFI floor perhaps?) ... but after passing the tests and interview for Intelligence an injury I got in police training flared up ... surgery and rehab didn't work so I was medically discharged and my sporting career was over too. It wasn't a complete loss though.

Because I had used a computer at Uni ... and could do simple things like type and format documents, I got to do a lot of the admin around the guardroom. Considering this is at the depot where they train army clerks ... you would have thought some of the regimental police staff could at least type ... I managed to get on a few apps based course and then my resettlement was PC maintenance and repair (C&G Level 2 ... pretty much my only formal IT Qual to date ... the rest are courses and just not doing exams ... soon to change with ITIL and PRINCE2).

My wife (remember that girlfriend from earlier ... one leap year she proposed to me ... it would have been a shame to say no ... See Arroryn, if he says no get a large stick out!) was now a teacher and we had a house we rented (only home at weekends due to the army) and I knew the school she was at ... so I had a quick chat with the Head who agreed to let me do my 2 week resettlement placement (work experience ... sort of) at the school. I was to start after the christmas hols ...

I went to the staff christmas party with my wife ... had a good chat with the network manager and his deputy (and the other techie), the head and deputy head were there too ... and after about an hour I was told that starting in Jan would not be a problem. I was confused ... until the pointed out that I had just been interviewed for a job they had been looking to create (junior tech) but had just not got round to it yet. The 2 weeks were to be a probationary period ... 5 1/2 years later I left, having gone from basic repairs through to rolling out W2K domains integrated with Macs and Unix, discovering the intricacies of DNS, routers, firewalls, proxies ... Started to work on VLEs ad get into the education aspect of things too.

I moved to being a network manager of another local school (IT support in schools can be a case of dead man's shoes ... and I liked my boss too much to bury him under the foundations of the new library and the guy who became the junior under me was a switched on lad and I didn't want to give him any ideas about getting rid of me ... instead he now goes to course run by Ken to learn that sort of thing) ... and after 9 months there I became Director of IT ... a non-teaching Assistant Head (we tend to prefer the phrase 'associate staff' to non-teaching ... less derogatory!) I did that for 3 1/2 years and the last 18 months of it I have been involved in things with the local council ... procurement for broadband for schools and for learning platforms. Eventually I could not do two jobs (three if you count EduGeek ... admins of forums really need to learn how to get a life IMHO) so I said I was going back to the school full time.

Next thing I know I am on secondment for 12 months as Technical Manager of the ICT in Schools team, Northants County Council, dealing with broadband, harnessing technology (and other grants / labels for IT & technology stuff from the Govt.) and project management. I now run the Northants IT Managers' meetings (AJ - you are invited to the next one if you want ... not just for LA schools. Next friday in Northants. Ken ... a big nudge to you!), work out how to spend those lovely grants the Govt gives us for broadband and technology in schools, help schools out with advice on IT (pay your guys a decent wage and train them!) and helping shape the use of the County Learning Platform using MOSS 2007. I have stepped down from the majority of things on EduGeek (apart from organising conferences and the stand at the BETT tradeshow) so I actually have a bit more time now.

So ... a long list, but I have been a play leader, a coach, a metal worker, a labourer, a security guard / store detective, a soldier / copper, a general technician, a network manager, an Assistant Head and a technical strategy manager / projects manager.

I tend to think of this as really my fourth career change (playleader/coach > soldier / copper > technician / network manager > senior manglement / strategy manager) ... not too sure where to go next.

Wow ... a bit long ... I really should learn how to trim a little ... or stop changing careers.

 

I am only working part-time in I.T (web design/development) so i am still in my much hated job. But i am working in the construction industry and have just left the fire service, serving as a retained firefighter. So sitting down at a desk INSIDE! is a little different, but it's something that i want to do....I was BORN to work in the I.T industry.... ARRRRRR! GIVE US A JOB!?

 

I tend to find the tax office OK to work with (I've had a lot of dealings with them over the years) but every year they still serve a summons on me but what started out as a £45000 debt is now a £2500 credit without any money being paid because they keep losing records

 

I'm 41 so been around a while, worked in engineering, textiles (working around women is scarry!), Engineering again and then I bacame victim of mass redundancy where I was asked what would I like to do now and I said work with computers so they sent me out do do some training. I came out of there and was lucky to get a job as an ICT technician in a school where I have stayed for 9 years and am now Network Manager.

 

Hi,
Before IT i worked mainly in leisure and events management. Working my way up in a leisure centre, then i progressed to events management for my local council.

 

Aren't ALL women nosy ?? Nothing to be ashamed of !! Well I started working in IT when I was about 20 years of age when I worked as a programmer during the summer vacation of my degree course in Mathematics and Physics, writing an information management system for a large corporation (NCR), which was actually extensively used for several years after I left, and was the reason I was hired permanently as a software engineer. Since then I have had some ups and downs in my career which has included :-

computer programmer at ANU in Australia (another summer vacation job)

maths tutor at Oxford University

driver for car-hire company in central London (good at reading maps at traffic lights)

a butcher's assistant (during school)

night shift taxi-driver (sometimes, just sometimes, the very WORST job on the planet)

C/C++ software engineer (probably the best job I have ever had, though the pace of change around me after working for the same company on their aging systems for a number of years caught me unawares and vulnerable in the job market - BEWARE all who the enter IT field)

not a lot else, I tend to stick to the same things ('plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose', I think is the appropriate quotation in French).

 

I was a professionally trained pastry chef and saucier. I had to leave that career behind when I broke my back and could no longer take the physical strain that accompanies kitchen work.