I was talking to someone on Slack today at work while … um … working, yeah … working really hard.
The person I was chatting with was looking to get into IT and asked me how I got my start. I shared with them my very non-typical journey. Then later I figured, hey, why not jot that down on ye old blog.
Twas’ the early 90’s. I was working at an Architectural/Engineering firm in St Louis as a computer-aided draftsman. This meant I did what architects told me, they designed, I created what was in their heads. Hmm, not much has changed I guess right?
Our tool of choice for drawing plans for large retail buildings was AutoCAD, a piece of software by AutoDesk. I had excelled in drafting in high school – it was something that came naturally to me. And maybe you could even say I had a gift for it.
I started teaching evening classes at work for 3D modeling and rendering. I started helping others at their desks during the day with questions they had about how the software worked. People asked me about shortcut keys, optimizations, quicker ways to work, how to re-use drawing snippets over and over without having to re-create it.
It was all just fun to me; I loved what I did and loved sharing it with others. The IT guy there noticed. He approached me about working with his team.
Now I hadn’t really done any programming for ten years maybe. I taught myself Color Basic on a Tandy Color Computer 2 way back when. But I hadn’t done anything IT-like since then.
But I said, “Sure! I’d love to help out!”
So I started working for his team in the first half of the day, then doing my own work in the afternoons. After working like this for a while – maybe 90 days – I’m not sure anymore, I had my first IT job.
I learned about networking computers together (DOS machines at the time since my company hadn’t upgraded to this thing called Windows yet). The team schooled me on building computers from the ground up. And I learned the basics of writing Unix shell scripts.
From there I moved on to writing custom batch files for DOS and eventually picked up my first book on programming in a long time, on Visual Basic 4.
Eventually, I moved on from that job for a full-time programming job where I did VB5/6 work but mostly I was an EDI Coordinator. But my feet were firmly in IT by that time.
The rest is kinda, as they say, history. I move from place to place, learning what I needed for each job. I’ve never been to college. I have no degree. But somehow, someway, I have been in the IT industry all this time.
That is not bragging. I’m grateful for the opportunities I’ve been given. Often I regret that I’ve not worked even harder than I have, to make the most of them of those opportunities.
It’s been a weird road. Kind of a wild ride. And it’s certainly the road less traveled.
Sure there are things I wish I’d done differently. But then would I have had the experiences I’ve had, met the people I’ve met, or had the same memories/learning experiences that I hold dear?
I don’t know and it doesn’t matter.
I try not to live in the past. I try to just keep moving forward, learning from what my experiences have taught me and just #DoTheThing.
What has your journey been like?