In school for welding while also working at the machine shop. Making ~10.20/hr machining parts to repair electric motors. I start thinking about my future a bit more as I was making money (lol @ me thinking 10.20/hr was money but I was 19 and working more than I ever did). I started thinking about the doomsday scenarios where if this machine shop closed down, what would I do? The world was going more toward CNC machining. While today there is a place for a manual machinist, what place will it have when I'm 50? This fact, alongside the fact I could make more at Arby's, led me to quit.
I decided to give another trade a shot, which was plumbing. A family friend was a solo plumber and I inquired about being a helping hand. I enjoyed the work, but my boss wasn't exactly pleasant to work for. I got a decent pay raise in comparison to my last job, but exactly 0 vacation or benefits. In the beginning I was fine with this as he was 'doing me a favor' by showing me the ropes, but in the end it didn't work out.
When that job was winding down, I decided to go back to school for computers. I built computers in my day and I knew my way around which led me to pick this 'trade' up next. I started applying for L1 help desk jobs and got in with this company doing internal IT. Very thankful I ended up here as it was NOT a call center. We fielded maybe 10 calls a day, sometimes we had as little as 2, so I had a lot of downtime to study up on the next role. I signed up for LinuxAcademy and grinded courses.
LinuxAcademy has cloud servers, where I learned Linux on. The corporate security team caught that (oops), which is where I met them. Eventually they had an opening for a SecOps Analyst and now I'm here :).
THIS is the proper path to becoming a crusty, crotchety, greybeard. Self taught. Pulled up by your boot-straps. Doing it because you like it, not just because of $$$.
In school for welding while also working at the machine shop. Making ~10.20/hr machining parts to repair electric motors. I start thinking about my future a bit more as I was making money (lol @ me thinking 10.20/hr was money but I was 19 and working more than I ever did). I started thinking about the doomsday scenarios where if this machine shop closed down, what would I do? The world was going more toward CNC machining. While today there is a place for a manual machinist, what place will it have when I'm 50? This fact, alongside the fact I could make more at Arby's, led me to quit.
I decided to give another trade a shot, which was plumbing. A family friend was a solo plumber and I inquired about being a helping hand. I enjoyed the work, but my boss wasn't exactly pleasant to work for. I got a decent pay raise in comparison to my last job, but exactly 0 vacation or benefits. In the beginning I was fine with this as he was 'doing me a favor' by showing me the ropes, but in the end it didn't work out.
When that job was winding down, I decided to go back to school for computers. I built computers in my day and I knew my way around which led me to pick this 'trade' up next. I started applying for L1 help desk jobs and got in with this company doing internal IT. Very thankful I ended up here as it was NOT a call center. We fielded maybe 10 calls a day, sometimes we had as little as 2, so I had a lot of downtime to study up on the next role. I signed up for LinuxAcademy and grinded courses.
LinuxAcademy has cloud servers, where I learned Linux on. The corporate security team caught that (oops), which is where I met them. Eventually they had an opening for a SecOps Analyst and now I'm here :).