Today 10 years ago was a major turning point in my career.
I had just graduated from University aged 25, had a 10 month old child and a second about to drop in the next couple of months.
I was up to my eyeballs in debt, living with my heavily pregnant girlfriend and baby in a tiny one bedroomed flat in a rough part of town.
In the summer of 1998, things looked rosy; I had just finished my degree and looked forward to a life wealth and gravy as an IT systems analyst. I thought with my degree in hand, I could walk into a job and will rise very quickly into a good position with relative ease and I can finally jack in my job as a doorman before I got shot or stabbed.
After about 3 months of job hunting, I realised that my degree meant sh*t. At the beginning of September, I got my first job, £14k a year as a Visual basic programmer in Andover.
However, this involved a 2 hour journey to work from North London and a fair bit of expense too, but I was desperate and I stuck at it for a month or two.
Then at the beginning of November, I got another job as a trainee systems Analyst for a company called financial management Consultants who were a kind of IT ambulance chaser type company who had a great scam.
They would contact companies who had IT systems installed that were not working properly and offer to represent them in litigation against the IT supplier.
So we will come in, do a thorough examination of their systems and write a report showing where the system contravened the Sale of goods act (not of merchantable quality, not fit for purpose). Then we will sue the supplier whilst racking up numerous charges and fee's in the process.
We boasted that we never lost a case, but that was because nothing ever went to court because our clients would see the charges piling up and then give up.
Anyway, after a week, I say I was being used. I seem to be doing all the legwork whilst the senior consultants (all on 50K and big company cars) spent half the day in the pub or sitting around chatting.
Whenever I asked my manager for training or a career path (yeah, stupid me, I was just out of University and didn't know better) he would fob me off with the old "do this for a year or so, then we will see".
At this time, I decided to take things into my own hands so I purchased a bunch of books and 10 years ago today I sat my first Microsoft exam.
I can still remember it; I had been studying every day on the train to and from work and every evening until 1AM. The morning of the exam I kissed my daughter and got her to tap my head 3 times (a superstition I have always used since) and I went to the testing centre as nervous as hell.
It was the hardest exam I had done in my life, about 70 multiple choice questions on a PC and you get the results straight away.
As I clicked on my last question and then "end exam" I could hear my heart beating for those 10 seconds that felt like an eternity until on my screen flashed
"CONGRATULATIONS, YOU HAVE PASSED 70-064 Implementing and Supporting Windows®95"
I completed the rest of my MCSE in the next 6 weeks and jacked in my job, I have not worked as a permanent member of staff since. My manager tried to talk me out of it claiming that I lacked experience to be a contractor, that I needed at least 5 years experience in IT first and I was trying to run before I could walk. He then went into the usual "MCSE is just a paper qualification, means little, does not beat experience".
10 years and 27 more Microsoft exams later, I sit here at my desk, wondering what and where I would be if I had listened to my manager all those years ago, and got my "experience".
If I could go back to 1996, knowing what I knew now, I would not have bothered staying on another of couple of years to do my degree, I was happy enough with my HND but the Degree was for my parents, to make them happy and get them off my back.
It never got me a job, and it never opened any doors for me.
Sorry if I bored you, but I am eternally grateful to Bill Gates and M$ His product and qualifications transformed my life.
That's my story
I had just graduated from University aged 25, had a 10 month old child and a second about to drop in the next couple of months.
I was up to my eyeballs in debt, living with my heavily pregnant girlfriend and baby in a tiny one bedroomed flat in a rough part of town.
In the summer of 1998, things looked rosy; I had just finished my degree and looked forward to a life wealth and gravy as an IT systems analyst. I thought with my degree in hand, I could walk into a job and will rise very quickly into a good position with relative ease and I can finally jack in my job as a doorman before I got shot or stabbed.
After about 3 months of job hunting, I realised that my degree meant sh*t. At the beginning of September, I got my first job, £14k a year as a Visual basic programmer in Andover.
However, this involved a 2 hour journey to work from North London and a fair bit of expense too, but I was desperate and I stuck at it for a month or two.
Then at the beginning of November, I got another job as a trainee systems Analyst for a company called financial management Consultants who were a kind of IT ambulance chaser type company who had a great scam.
They would contact companies who had IT systems installed that were not working properly and offer to represent them in litigation against the IT supplier.
So we will come in, do a thorough examination of their systems and write a report showing where the system contravened the Sale of goods act (not of merchantable quality, not fit for purpose). Then we will sue the supplier whilst racking up numerous charges and fee's in the process.
We boasted that we never lost a case, but that was because nothing ever went to court because our clients would see the charges piling up and then give up.
Anyway, after a week, I say I was being used. I seem to be doing all the legwork whilst the senior consultants (all on 50K and big company cars) spent half the day in the pub or sitting around chatting.
Whenever I asked my manager for training or a career path (yeah, stupid me, I was just out of University and didn't know better) he would fob me off with the old "do this for a year or so, then we will see".
At this time, I decided to take things into my own hands so I purchased a bunch of books and 10 years ago today I sat my first Microsoft exam.
I can still remember it; I had been studying every day on the train to and from work and every evening until 1AM. The morning of the exam I kissed my daughter and got her to tap my head 3 times (a superstition I have always used since) and I went to the testing centre as nervous as hell.
It was the hardest exam I had done in my life, about 70 multiple choice questions on a PC and you get the results straight away.
As I clicked on my last question and then "end exam" I could hear my heart beating for those 10 seconds that felt like an eternity until on my screen flashed
"CONGRATULATIONS, YOU HAVE PASSED 70-064 Implementing and Supporting Windows®95"
I completed the rest of my MCSE in the next 6 weeks and jacked in my job, I have not worked as a permanent member of staff since. My manager tried to talk me out of it claiming that I lacked experience to be a contractor, that I needed at least 5 years experience in IT first and I was trying to run before I could walk. He then went into the usual "MCSE is just a paper qualification, means little, does not beat experience".
10 years and 27 more Microsoft exams later, I sit here at my desk, wondering what and where I would be if I had listened to my manager all those years ago, and got my "experience".
If I could go back to 1996, knowing what I knew now, I would not have bothered staying on another of couple of years to do my degree, I was happy enough with my HND but the Degree was for my parents, to make them happy and get them off my back.
It never got me a job, and it never opened any doors for me.
Sorry if I bored you, but I am eternally grateful to Bill Gates and M$ His product and qualifications transformed my life.
That's my story
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