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View Full Version : What was your 1st job in IT?



saphil
May 17th, 2007, 04:26 AM
My first job using a computer was in 1985 as assistant editor at a small magazine called Belgian Shepherd Dogs in America Magazine. I wrote stories, edited other writers, typed the paste-up copy and pasted it to pre-formatted paper with hot wax. The IT part of my job was setting up the computer and maintaining it. Our first computer printer was a royal daisy-wheel typewriter that was serially attached to the Commodore64. 2 years of magazines I put together on that rig. This doesn't really count as an IT job as I was really a computer user there. That was back when programming in Basic was just how we got the thing to format and print text.

My first real IT job was phone tech for Infoave.com in 2000.

aysiu
May 17th, 2007, 04:31 AM
I've never had a job in IT.

Ateo
May 17th, 2007, 06:19 AM
I worked at large call center in oregon. Started in 1998. I did support for dial-up (earthlink), dsl (uswest) and router/switching (3com devices). 3 different teams outsourced by 3 different companies. I barely passed the entrance test for the first team (earthlink) but I squeeked by and go in. This is pretty much where I started learning about modern computers even though I studied computers in high school in the 80s.

My first computer was a Vic20. I remember playing Miner49 from tape. =P

jariku
May 17th, 2007, 08:16 AM
I worked as a web designer while still in college back in 2000 or so. So far I've done my best not to land on an office job again.

OffHand
May 17th, 2007, 08:45 AM
I started my first IT job May 2006 as a Tier 2 support engineer at an internet provider. Now I am working as a (junior) sys admin/tech support guy in a mixed mac/pc environment. I also support/fix printers, our digital phone system and Palm devices. I had a blasting career in IT as I do not have any certificates and/or have done any IT related studies.

DoctorMO
May 17th, 2007, 09:47 AM
I started my first job at age 16 as a programmer.

afljafa
May 17th, 2007, 10:19 AM
I run my own Voice and Data company - started in 94. Mainly do carrier class VOIP nowadays.

adza
May 17th, 2007, 10:23 AM
my first job in IT was on a installation team for an Oracle rollout accross the county in 95 locations! (talk about deep end!).. I walked on the my first site, the project had been running for 8 months, never having even seen an oracle screen, let alone coding pl/sql etc... hehe.. looking back, it was quite an experience... i got grilled by a regional manager on my 1st morning because i was 'the expert' the business had sent down to help them out.. haha... still working for that same company, running the business systems development program now...


p.s. so if anyone is having trouble with sql stuff... pm me (or post thread) and i'll try and help...

Znupi
May 17th, 2007, 10:31 AM
Does freelancer count? If yes, I made my first site when I was 15 (I'm 16 now, lol). The site had about 150 users and I was really proud about it.... Since then, I've been coding non-stop and learning a whole lot of interesting things. I can really say I love programming. I just hope I don't get bored of it :-s...

mips
May 17th, 2007, 10:57 AM
LAN/WAN design, drawing up network diagrams on a CAD system running on hp-ux, allocating IP, IPX & OSI addresses.

Kinda got dropped in the deep end and it was my very first job as well, actually I was an intern first finishing my studies before they appointed me.

ThinkBuntu
May 17th, 2007, 02:01 PM
This is my first job in IT (19-yr young'n). I've been at this company as the web designer for about...11 months. It is, unfortunately, a .NET environment; I imagine if it were PHP or based on some other language, I could really glean some development skills. But I do know VStudio pretty well now, and I can make sense of a little bit of C#.

Dragonbite
May 17th, 2007, 02:13 PM
In 2000 I was hired to be a Project Manager, Data Warehouse even though they never seemed to have a clear idea of what it was I was supposed to do.

I didn't know anything about SQL Server (used MS Access) or the mainframe system (PICK) and I spent most of the time working on a website for distributing the data to the sales force.

No training, no guidance. So I spent most of my time learning how to do what I needed to do (programming ASP, T-SQL, internet, etc.). I did a lot of reading, and seeing what they had set up and how to modify (improve) it. Since then I've taken classes and realize 80-90% of what the company had done (that I was using to learn from) belongs under the heading "You should not do ..."