[kotor]

Generally similar story. I was in college and working part-time for a structural engineering company in the mid 80s as a manual drafter. We got a contract that required drawings be submitted in electronic (DWG) format. Because I was the "young" guy and had taken a couple programming classes, the partners asked if I was willing to learn AutoCAD and become the company's CAD drafter. At the time it was not an obvious yes answer. CAD drafting was not universally accepted as viable and people at my company, and within the industry, considered CAD as the last bastion for incompetent drafters. After I said yes the "old" veteran drafter at the company told me I was wasting my time and making a career mistake. I taught myself Lisp in order to make the most of the opportunity, and now 40 years later, the vast majority of my career has been spent inside AutoCAD, drawing and programming many, many lines of Lisp code.