Who works in IT?

scheming_gypsy

points and laughs.

spurs1234

Ive been in it for 7 years didnt goto collage or uni , self learning and hands on is by far the best, Have been with a major english company as a technician for 5 years which they have now put me through GNVQ IT , A+ Hardware ,A+ Software and A+ Networking .

I must say i also have a co-worker done his A+'s and MCSE but until now hadnt done anything "hands on" and he is useless :T

hrafndot

scheming_gypsy wrote:

points and laughs.

No good pointing and laughing, it still doesn't work

scheming_gypsy

laughs even more

pault123

Little_John wrote:

I work in IT, been doing it since I left college self taught PC building and software piracy back when it was lucritive people were happy to pay £20 for a blobby cd, cd writers were slow 1x or 2x and disks cost £2. I would build at least 1 pc a month and sell it to a freind and make a few hundred quid which I used to find my time at college while all my mates were working weekends I was watching Bolton Wanderers.

I ended up working in a shop I had been buying parts from for 6 months for very little just to learn and get cheap PC parts so I made more money. I was head hunted by a company that built high spec PC's for CAD companies (I built the pc and rendering farm the coke polar bear adverts were created on) spent a few years there working my way up from build to tech support, network engineer, field engineer and even gave sales a shot which I didnt enjoy and the company went bust.

I then got a job installing travel agency systems learnt loads more including novel the company was sold and we merged with a larger company in Glasgow and became the Manchester office the sale was canceled and I became a field enginner working from home for the Scotish company. I was put through my MCSE which was pretty tough and that companys IT team was sold to another comapny wh made me redundant after 8 months.

I then went self employed I dont think I could work in an office again after so many years working from home installing travel systems, networks, system repairs anything that my customers want even selling hardware and software. i love it. I left college in 97 so have been working properly for about 9 years almost. I would never do a job I didnt enjoy especially as I am in the position I could get away without earning for a while. but I enjoy doing it. driving 1000 miles a week especially in the summer is good.

The PC sales side now is none existant send them to Dell I cant buy the parts for the prices they sell them at. the unusuall items I can get and dont go stupid making profit on them, sometime I sell at cost I do it as an sweatner for them to use my services and it works well they dont feel ripped off. I also point companies in the direction of where to buy peripherals they see I make nothing on them its a great confidence booster for them and they dont mind when I charge them £120 to install a PC and transfer their data and install their software.

Lol blobby cd's not hear those mentioned for a while!

How long did it take you to complete the MCSE? How many exams do you have to take?

pault123

scheming_gypsy wrote:

i've worked in IT since i left school 14 years ago.
My dad bought a second hand laptop (lunchbox) and asked if they had any part time jobs going. After about 3 weeks i was building PC's to order.
I moved on to be the main techie and then moved into sales. I left there and worked at BT doing desktop support for 18 months before getting my current job.
Senior IT support Engineer & Telecoms Engineer for a 1000+ call centre, team of 3 IT bods and a manager, only me doing telecoms. Been there 5 years and had no official It training and P60's for the past 3 years have been around 30k.


MCSE's aren't that important these days.
experience over qualifications i've found
if you want a qualification then it's CISCO. People may outsource to India but that's usually call centre support, MCSEs are too easy to get, like the adverts say, you can go from being a bin man to IT manager so you need to specialise and CISCO is the way forward. You can't get CISCO certified by books, you need to go hands on, buy routers and learn what you're doing.

Thats seems the problem you cant become CISCO certified by books, I can't get hands on experience as I would need to be CISCO qualified to be doing a job everyday which would expand my knowledge. So would you suggest buying some parts, paying for an online course and practice building servers etc?

pault123

albertross wrote:

In 20 years time, you may wonder what you did with your life, stuck in an office all day, surfing the internet all night, working stupid hours to please customers who are never happy, to timescales that are impossible, with managers whipping you to meet a meaningless SLA, which was agreed without your input or any comprehension of what is possible with the (constantly reducing) staff numbers available.
.

The thing is in 20 years you could look back on any job and think what have I done with my life, at least with IT I enjoy it, I certainly don't want to look back in 20 years time and see ive wasted it away in sales - stuck in an office with the constant pressure i'm under and targets.

I think the pressure i'd find with IT would be far far less than what I go through at the moment. Working to deadlines, travelling around to fix problems would suit me down to the ground

albertross_2

I don't know what pressures you are under at the moment, and don't want to dissuade you from going into IT. IT isn't an easy life, but I imagine it is far more interesting and rewarding than sales.

Unless you are very lucky, you will experience continuous and conflicting pressures from customers and management. PC support in particular can get very repetitive, especially in large organisations.

Oh dear, I'm missing Grumpy old men..

pault123

albertross wrote:

I don't know what pressures you are under at the moment, and don't want to dissuade you from going into IT. IT isn't an easy life, but I imagine it is far more interesting and rewarding than sales.

Unless you are very lucky, you will experience continous and conflicting pressures from customers and management. PC support in particular can get very repetitive, especially in large organisations.

Oh dear, I'm missing Grumpy old men..

Thanks albert.

and thanks everyone for the earlier replies. Heres an insight into my situation>>>


My perfect job would be a field engineer, on call to repair pc's, network, fault find, troubleshoot and setup/install pc’s. I love technology and can easily spends hours tweaking pc's, benchmarking, stress testing and faultfinding. I actually enjoy it.

Most of my knowledge unfortunately is based around consumer platforms, as in Dos, Windows 3.1, Windows 98, Me, Home and XP.

My knowledge of hardware, building pc’s, repairing pc’s, and software is excellent, again all consumer stuff. I build a couple of pc's a month for friends and work colleagues. I get a real sense of job satisfaction completing a project or solving a problem I’m almost in my element around technology.

I worked as an instore technician for 3 years at a well known high street computer company (which has now gone bump) and a year before that built pc's at a small local shop. My goal was always to stay in IT but after I left the instore technician job I got a little sidetracked.

For the last 5 years I’ve been in sales. Field sales, telesales and now account management. The money was amazing when I first started and it gradually got less and less (due to new commission structures) But the money was good enough to keep me there and make a living out of it.

That brings me to my current situation, i'm really unhappy at the moment with sales, VERY unhappy. Completely lost the passion and motivation and get more and more down everyday I stay in this industry I don’t regret the last 5 years but wish I would have stuck with IT gone through training, obtained qualifications. I now have a mortgage and lots of commitments, so I need a job which pays at least £18k a year. (which I don't think is too much to ask) Its not like I’m looking into IT and expecting to find easy money and want to earn £35k a year straight away. I’m being realistic I want to start low and work my way up.

So I was thinking helpdesks would be the best place to start just to use it as experience and try and progress. Then there’s studying for a MCP or MCSE or CISCO which are the 3 everyone seems to advise?

Where I’m lacking is network/server knowledge and any qualifications on my CV to prove I know a lot about hardware/software.

So the question is where do I start?

Would helpdesk be a good career move to try and obtain some knowledge and perhaps study at nights? On the job training field engineer if these exist? Or what ive considered and am really thinking about this, a fast track course with Cerco, Skilltrain, Learndirect etc, although it would leave me approx £5000 in debt and on top of that having to borrow money for a month of mortgage and expenses? and then the chance of being out of work until someone would take me on with the new qualifications. Everyone says experience is preferred to exam marks but without a job in the industry i'll never get that experience.

Thanks for the input and advice! :beer:

scheming_gypsy

pault123 wrote:

Thats seems the problem you cant become CISCO certified by books, I can't get hands on experience as I would need to be CISCO qualified to be doing a job everyday which would expand my knowledge. So would you suggest buying some parts, paying for an online course and practice building servers etc?

My boss is doing / done some of the CISCO exams and is certified. We have CISCO switches and routers but they practically rum themselves and we never need to touch them unless we're changing VLANS etc etc so he got very little hands on practice either.
He bought himself 6 switches, routers etc and has a couple of PCs. I think he downloaded / bought course material and just played about teaching himself hands on at home. I'd love to do it myself but just don't have the patience to do it.