[olug] Finally, geek for a living

[Cale Lewis]

On 1969-12-31 at 18:00:00 [-0600], you wrote:

> >From a hiring standpoint I'd be more likely to hire a fresh-face
> know-nothing newbie right out of school who has been actively working with
> computers recently than a guy with several years of experience which all


So how would a poor schmuck like me go about trying to impress someone enough 
to even get an interview?

I've only been in 2 classes, both of which I quit after 3 weeks, BUT I was 
going to early morning classes and working late evening shift, driving 50 
miles a day for class, and the 'computer internals' class was taught by a 
very nice lady who unfortunately used a Mac for several years and was rushed 
through a crash course over the summer because they needed another body to 
stand in front of a class and try and teach it with a textbook that was 2 
months shy of 4 years old. If I'm smart enough to work with computers, I 
should be smart enough to know when I'm wasting my money!

On the other hand, I started about 5 years ago with a hand-me-down 286, was 
spured to study shortly after by a Compaq Presario 5200 series craputer 
running Win98 First Edition, and now build, customize, and repair in my spare 
time, do volunteer tech support for BeOS related issues, and am currently 
running MacOS 7.x thru 9.x, NeXTstep, OS/2, Linux(x86, SPARC, Alpha, PPC), 
FreeBSD(x86 & Alpha), Solaris9 SPARC, IRIX 5.2 thru 6.5.18, QNX, 
AtheOS/Syllable, 5 variation of BeOS(x86 & PPC< booted on DreamCast once), 
and 2 varients of BeIA. There's about a half dozen others I've tried for a 
while just to push myself to learn more than the world of Windows. Oh yea, 
I've got 98Lite on an IA I hacked around here somewhere.

The problem now is that without that piece of paper from a college or 
university no one will even let you get your foot in the door. No other field 
has ever 'locked up' so fast. It's great to see the cracks forming in the 
Micro$oft wall and Opensource stepping forward into the public view, but I'm 
still going to work 2 or 3 times as hard or do something to really stand out 
and be noticed to get anywhere.

Cale Lewis