IT BS thread

I use a knife for the pb and a spoon for the jelly. It doesn't matter which order.

Some weird people use a knife to smear the pb and then immediately stick that knife into the jelly jar and tip the jar over such that they can scrape some jelly on top of the pb.

I personally prefer jam instead of jelly. It spreads easier.

 

Some men just want to watch the world burn....

 

I make my own peanut butter. Once you learn how, you can't eat that slime that Peter pan and jif make.

 

Haha, they still make this stuff?

 

My ex did this, drove me nuts.

 

Ex... Enough said

 

"Hey teacher Jerkoff, check out this cool link in class!"

Hope they're stupid enough to play it before prescreening.

 

Already tried that. Didn't work

 

OH cool, an IT thread. I like it. So since I'm here, I want to hear each of your stories about how you first became interested in computers. I'll start.

During one of my semester breaks from college I worked at Panera Bread during the day and played WOW during the night and weekends...pretty much non stop. I Somehow heard that adding more RAM would make my computer faster so I went online and bought myself a whopping 2G pair of sticks that would fit and not understanding static electricity quickly and impatiently tried swapping them out on my carpet without grounding myself which in turn fried my motherboard. oops! Being addicted to the game I had to have a computer again quickly and after much discussion on computer hope chat I decided to rebuild my own gaming computer. So that happened and the machine is still running strong and posting this post too. Fast forward 8 years later and now I'm a contracted network engineer for the Navy. So how about you?

 

How SadMrHappy got into computers.

In the 3rd grade (mid 80's) for career day we had to choose our top three professions/activities and we would get put into one of the classes. I put Karate for all three, as I had intended to grow up to be the Karate Kid (ralph macchio, not those later crap remakes). Anyway, guess who didn't get into Karate... They stuck me in journalism, which thrilled me, so they stuck me in the computer lab to type up stories (hunt and peck I should say)... My mind was blown. I'd never really used a computer before that. It was a green screen Apple IIe. What I found so amazing was that I could type on the screen, edit, and then print multiple copies, I dunno but I just knew then that whatever I had to do in my life I wanted to do it with these computers... Fast forward a couple of years and my went to night school to get her GED and then took some computer classes at the local community college so my dad bought a computer for her. It was a Cumulus 386sx with 3mb ram, 20mb hard disk, 5 1/4 floppy (no 3 1/2, we added that later), and 16 color graphics. Anyway, first things first my mom broke the shit out of it, she ran del *.* on the root of C: instead of in the directory the tutorial instructed her, so on the next reboot it was a brick. Me and my Dad spent a few days reading manuals and re-installing DOS 4.0 from scratch. After that I started reading every computer user book I could get my hands on. Lots of the for dummies, since the library had them all, even ones for software I didn't have.
By the 7th grade we'd upgraded to a Packard Bell 486sx with 4mb ram, running Windows 3.11. I bought a teach yourself C in 90 days book, it came with a copy of Borland Turbo C compiler, and I wrote hello world. Never got much past that, had a hard time wrapping my head around programming until I got to college. But I kept up on latest hardware and software. One summer day while I was home alone I got brave (stupid) and decided to dismantle the computer and put it back together. I bent a pin on the CPU and almost had a heart-attack, when the computer didn't boot up. I took it back apart and found the bent pin, I carefully straightened it out and put it back and it worked.... Come to think of it I don't think I've told that story to my parents to this day. I mowed yards all summer to save up $400 dollars to buy another 4mb of ram.
By the time we were ready for our next computer I was in high school and I convinced my dad I could build it cheaper than we could buy one so he gave me a budget and I built the computer. This would have been 1995 because windows 95 was just out. I also got a color dot matrix printer with and we got dial-up internet. I ran a side business in high school printing color porn and selling it for $5 a page. All though high school I fixed computers for the school, helped teachers enter their grades into the system (which had advantages) and did a lot of side work fixing computers for people in my small hometown and a couple of businesses. During my Senior year I saved my money from working at a grocery store and built myself a computer for college (community college). I also ran some cable under the house and bought a 10baseT hub to network my computer with my parents so we could share the dial-up internet connection between the two and be online at the same time. That's when I really got interested in networking.
I went to a community college and got an associates degree in computer network and one in programming. I decided programming wasn't for me and I kept pursuing networking. I got the A+ and Network+ just before graduation. While I was going to school I got a job as a student worker for the IT department and that's really what made the difference. I got hands on with real hardware. I transferred to a 4 year and caught a lucky break when they hired full time in their help desk before my first semester was over, so my BS in Computer Science ended up being free. Worked there for 12 years moving up from help desk to network technician and eventually to network admin. I came in there at just the right time and got to upgrade the network from hubs to switches, vlans, install the first wireless, kind do a ground up design. Just before I decided to leave I got an MBA for free. About a year ago I left that college and I'm working at a community college as network admin.

I really like working in Academia. I like to try and hire student workers and give them the same opportunities I had for learning, and I think that long-term I'm going to get into teaching networking if I can.

 

Tons of computer builds, maintenance, etc. etc. I've never, ever, grounded myself.

Nor have I had any issues.

I used to run some video game server and I didn't know two halves of hell past anything. Somehow once I broke the GPU drivers on my old nVIDIA (nVIDIA Geforce MX400 later upgraded to a 440) and was totally taken aback. Well some how my mom fixed it and I was rolling in Soldier of Fortune 2 again.

Fast forward: I've done software engineering, database administration, network engineering, VOIP, systems administration, the oh-so-toxic helpdesk.

yeah

 

I heard there was porn on the internet... Just like everyone else.

 

My Dad worked for Univac back in the day. When the old mainframe computers broke his job was to analyze the part that fried and figure out why. I grew up in a home full of interesting bits of technology. I literally don't remember a time when I wasn't interested in technology.

In college I figured computers might be a thing. One of my first computer jobs was as a mainframe operator. That job doesn't exist anymore, but it was the bottom rung of computer jobs. When I asked the computer gods, for more access to the mainframe they said "be gone pond slime. You may play with the toy in the corner." That toy was the an IBM PC. It had a 4.77 MHz processor, 128 K of ram and 2 floppy drives. The department secretary had one on her desk and nobody really knew what to do with it. So, I used Lotus 123 to write a simple spread sheet to add up all the time sheets and write a report of hours by project. Stupid simple stuff today, but when you are doing things on a 10 key adding machine a massive improvement. The huge positive response I got from the secretary and her boss totally change my career. I told the mainframe assholes to fuck themselves put my energy into the PC world. Given the number of PC's vs the number of mainframes today, I think I made the right choice.

My first upgrade was replacing the 4.77 MHz crystal with a 6 MHz version.

Oh, and I invented internet porn. . . . you're welcome

 

You really want to read all this? My other option for college was to be a writer of some sort and I'm bored, so this is going to be long.


Mom was always a big proponent of learning for my brother and I. She's the reason we had a color TV growing up ("the kids need to learn their colors on Sesame Street, and they can't do it on this 13" black and white"), and probably the reason we had an Apple IIe. This is exactly the setup we had, but we weren't fancy enough to own a second drive - lots of taking the disk out and flipping it over. I have no idea how my parents afforded it, because dad was working for the state highway crew as an electrician at the time, and mom was at home taking care of me and my brother, who were probably about 7 and 5 years old at the time, or something around that. Back in that day, software piracy wasn't a word, so we would take trips over to my uncle. He had the same setup but with TWO drives and multiple cases of computer games, so we were able to make a few copies whenever we would visit with whatever spare floppies we could bring. My favorites were Conan: Hall of Volta and Moon Runner, but I absolutely loved The Last Gladiator - probably because the source disk had corrupt sectors and it was rare that it would boot, so when it DID boot, it felt like uncovering secret treasure. My cousin had games like Wizardry and Ultima, which looked mysterious and amazing with their associated books and cloth maps, but I was never allowed to play them because they either required you to type in a phrase from the book (which we couldn't really pirate - no access to a copier), or my cousin had password-encrypted the disks. Jerkface. Nonetheless, I have experienced green screen paradise.



My neighbors started getting Nintendos for Christmas, so gaming became a big addiction. I was angry with my parents for the restrictions they put on my gaming hours, but I thank them for it now, since I balanced things out with a lot of outdoor time. As time progressed, we eventually migrated to a 486dx2 (I think we skipped the 386, I don't remember) based on my uncle's insistence that it was the way the future was headed. He was still the master of computers at that time, and created fantastical things like custom boot menus in DOS, so we knew there was only one choice. I continued my gaming, now in amazing 4 color graphics: black, white, lavender, and teal.
Time again progressed, and we spent an entire day loading Windows 3.1 from floppies onto our 486. It was a crazy new frontier, and I had to click on every icon to see what it did. This included the confusing PIF Editor icon, which to this day I can't really tell you what it did, but I managed to nuke the OS and get in big trouble. My uncle spent time reinstalling, me watching over his shoulder, and I learned a few bits about how to fix my mistakes. This was probably my first catalyst into becoming a 'computer guy'.
In 1994, Dad landed his dream job with Intel at their Aloha facility. It was amazing times, with Intel riding the height of their glory. My peon family was getting free tickets to places and company-paid dinners. Intel is the reason I've been to Disneyland. Another benefit was that Intel offered special Christmas pricing on computers. We bought a new computer through this, and I was able to brag that I was the first kid in school to own a Pentium, and not only that - it was the fastest, with a 90MHz processor. I was also one of the first on AOL with a blazing 14.4k baud modem. It was my first introduction to sound cards and CD-ROMs, and I was blown away when I loaded Putt-Putt Goes to the Moon and the little car spoke ACTUAL WORDS. It didn't take me too long to break Windows 95, though, and I got in trouble again. I remember that it was big enough trouble that I can remember the price tag of the computer - $2,699. Dad wanted to murder me. However, I was able to learn more as I watched one of Dad's coworkers reinstall Windows and partition drives. This happened several times, continuing into the Windows 98SE days. We were hard enough on the computer that we fried out the hard drive. My parents didn't realize that the expense of replacing the drive was actually a good thing, because I was able to watch someone crack open a computer case for the first time and see the innards. Not long after, I was fixing my mistakes AND everyone else's. I had dethroned my uncle as the computer wizard, and even had a short-lived summer job teaching computer basics to senior citizens.
The Pentium 90 was the little computer that could, and lasted me through the end of high school. By that time I was going over to friend's houses for LAN parties, where I spent more time watching than really playing: I had to swap my modem out for an Intel PRO100+ card since I didn't have enough free IRQs to run more than the sound card and one other expansion card, and I didn't have the cash or ability to run a 3D video card . Since I didn't have cash to build up the family computer, I helped with my friend's builds. I was addicted enough that I memorized the specs of all the mainstream motherboards and video cards of the time. In summer of '99 I landed a dream temp job with Intel to help test and set up demos for their AnyPoint device. Besides giving me access to a mad amount of hardware (I was responsible for constructing the demo boxes and cleaning up my own private lab - not sure how I landed that), it also financed my blazing Pentium III 450, with a Diamond Stealth II video card that my boss gifted to me. I was the king poop on LAN parties that summer until everyone tromped me with their freshly bought gear once college started.
I was completely addicted to assembling new computers and fixing software issues. I couldn't imagine not working with them for a job, and was seduced by the numbers I was hearing for salaries that college graduates were getting. I naively thought that my current experience was a natural foundation to get me ahead of the game, and I signed up with a major in computer engineering (I wanted to be in R&D). I spent a lot of time fixing up friend's computers in the dorms and netted a coveted job with campus networking, which was more like tier 1 computer support - helping people get on the student network and install the basic software the college required you to have. Computer Engineering was kicking my ass, with long nights and most weekends spent in the library with desperate classmates attempting to finish even HALF the assigned homework on topics that felt like the first NASA mission to put a man on the moon. I admitted defeat and switched to the software major (in Java), which was marginally easier.
Our school had a weird "pre" and a "pro" level of classes to separate the 200-level and below classes from the higher-up stuff. After taking enough classes, a review board would approve or deny your ability to move on to the higher classes. My adviser told me that my grades "weren't fantastic, and there were a lot of students this year," leaving me in doubt: If I didn't pass, I didn't have any more classes to take, and would either have to retake stuff or be idling for a full year until I could reapply, OR I would get a confirmation letter late in the year saying I'd passed, yet run the risk of not being able to get into any classes because they had filled up - and again being idle until the class was offered again. A buddy convinced me to bail and join his college, and by May I had transferred. Funny enough, I received a letter in June saying I had been accepted to the pro school, but it was too late.
In the new college, I continued with software because I felt that I was already stuck on my path and couldn't change. I really wish someone would have talked to me, because all my friends were in hardware and I probably would have had more fun. Instead, I was out of sequence with everyone else at school, and being the shy kid that had an easy time of getting high marks all the way through high school, I took everything on my shoulders alone and grunted the entire degree. We were learning C++ on the first releases of Visual Studio, coupled with an odd class of VT100, PHP, HTML, and Perl. The only time I saw C# was when it came out as version 1.0 as an elective my senior year. Towards the end of college I was saddled with the most brutal junior project, where I was in a group of 3 that had to invent a geothermal thermostat for the college's renewable energy house. We were given a project board that ran a home-brew version of C with the instructions that we had to create the OS and interface. The device had to run parallel processes to utilize a thermostat, and operate a series of electrically-controlled valves by providing the right voltage for the correct amount of time. The local device interface had to provide a Windows GUI for input and visual output, which the networked interface had to do the same as a HTML website. Both interfaces had to support a 7-day schedule. The board didn't have built-in networking, so it was necessary to build your own network stack, and we had to make the traffic encrypted. None of us knew anything about electronics or much about hardware engineering, and this was about a decade before the nest thermostat was invented. My first teammate was a slacker and did nothing, while my other teammate was the class idiot and kept trying to code the web interface deliverables in languages the teacher expressly forbade, on a domain that used a swear word in the address. The teammates left the project at the end of spring term, while I was instructed to continue with some help from the department's star pupil. Since I was asked to work through summer on it, they made it my summer job (with a surprisingly high pay). Once fall started, the star pupil's commitment was done, and I was again instructed that this would continue as my senior project (which is a solo venture). Although the department's darling had single-handedly created the network stack, the encrypted traffic for sending data from the unit, and a skeleton for the Windows GUI interface, I found that adding anything to it caused everything to go haywire. Although this guy could code in his sleep and got straight A's, his methodology was pure stream of consciousness. None of the code was compartmentalized or reusable like a good OOP language program should be, nothing was documented, nothing was standard practice (it took me forever to reverse-engineer his MD5 encryption logic), and instead of using variables, everything was hard-wired to produce the results he desired. It makes him look like a superstar and he finishes ahead of schedule, but I had a humongous turd. It even fried one of the add-on riser boards. I re-wrote everything, spending 8 hours a day, each weekday, just like a full-time job. I had to teach myself TCP/IP networking and encryption. I even paid $200 for replacement parts, because the professor gave me the finger when I asked the college to reimburse me. In fact, the professor didn't want to hear anything from me about my issues, and actually stole the board from me for a few months, delaying some of my work. Despite this, I finally got to point where I had the multithreaded OS working, the Windows interface working, the encrypted network traffic sending and receiving, a single-day schedule, and the board putting out the electrical signals to open the valves. Since the project had again lasted into the summer and I had walked with a fake diploma, I had moved back home, several miles away. In order to get a grade to complete the class and get my real diploma, I had to present my work. In fear that the class professor would steal the hardware from me again, I set up a secret meeting with the department chair and drove 4 hours to hold the presentation during a time that I knew the professor was busy teaching a class. At the end of presenting all the work, the department chair told me, "since your work is late, I have to knock your grade down. You didn't complete the HTML interface or the 7-day scheduler, so I can only give you a C+. If you complete the rest, I can bring you to a B+." I didn't even hesitate to take the C+. I left the board where it was, waved goodbye, and drove away. This hurt my GPA enough that I was just shy of qualifying for any place like Google, but I had no intention of battling any more while I lived with depression. I hated that I was in my twenties living off my parents and never moving forward in life. It was dark times when it should have been rewarding, amazing times.
I spent about another year hammering for jobs. I already had the work ethic to endure depressing work, so I again spent 8 hour days looking for my career. Again, really depressing, and I wish I had spent some time just living among other people more. I might have been married by now.
I eventually landed a cheesy contract job with a onion packing facility to work on something to do with 'ERP software'. Since this was paying less than my summer job that I had back at Intel 6 years beforehand, I was lucky that it was close enough that I could live in my parent's house. Everything sucked. I was in a shared office directly above the processing floor, so I wore earplugs and cried every Monday until I had built up enough resistance to the onions for the week. My desk fell apart during the first week and I had to prop it up to keep it from collapsing further, because work wasn't going to give me another. I ended up bringing my laptop from home to use as a work computer, because the laptop I was supplied with couldn't run the software and the computers I built from the spare parts that were lying around were often slower than what I had back in sophomore year of college. But, I put in my dues, and the consultant that was helping us with our ERP migration noticed me. I went in for an interview, and landed a job as an ERP business analyst. I told my current boss that I was quitting, which he was completely shocked and hurt by, which surprised me. My contract had already expired, and this new job was paying mad money.
I thought I had gone to the heaven I had dreamed about back when I was a young freshman. I had my pick of which private office I wanted. I traveled on company money (domestic, but still amazing to me). We had a break room with a stocked fridge. I was getting paid so much that I bought my Tacoma new and paid it off in 3 years, and nearly paid off my tuition. To give perspective, it's only been this year that I'm again starting to make near that level of pay. Unfortunately, an employee that was hired after me as some sort of performance manager decided they had to prove something, and started gutting all the employees from the company. I made it through a few rounds, but was axed as well.
I spent a brief stint on an Intel contract doing virtualization testing, then got swept up by one of my old clients to work for them. Feeling vulnerable, I took a pretty good hit in pay compared to the competitive market for my title, but I had some good times with a good crew, and I honed a lot of my skills, while adding others, such as MS SQL, which I love. I eventually came to a point where I wasn't getting any more classes, and the pay wasn't going to move up any time soon (no one was getting any raises), so I moved on and I'm now with my current job as a technical business analyst for a bank. I work for a very supporting boss among knowledgeable, hard working people. I can't say cubicle life with a dress suit and slacks is great, but I have some sweet benefits and great access to improving my career.

 

man, what a great post. brought so many memories. someone posted a question on reddit yesterday asking people when was the first time they felt they were a real "IT guy". My answer was "20 years ago"


next week i am interviewing for a new job. i had no plans to leave my current job, but that one fell onto my lap and it's a new frontier. next level toys and potential to make it real big. the only odd thing is that i am going to be interviewed by 5 software engineers. i am not worried, but i can see this being a strange one.

 

I used to always practice for interviews by cramming as much logic and personal facts into my head as I could as if it were final exam week.
I ended up telling rambling explanations, or would talk myself into a corner, or talk about technical skills like I was quizzed, which came off as me being nervous and unsure.

My interview mantras are now:

• Before the interview, concentrate on how awesome you are. Think about the times you kicked wicked butt.
• Less is more, just give concrete facts. People that know what you are talking about realize your achievements; people that don't know what you are talking about often don't want to look stupid and will think you've done something important rather than show weakness by asking for more.
• Provide metrics on how you saved money, time, or discovered something new. "I increased search times by 20%." "I improved data quality 70%." "I advocated for a $10,000 software system and two $40,000 servers. Through this effort, we are able to perform real-time analysis, we added a net profit of $200,000, and we have a failover environment with a 10 minute disaster recovery time." "I wrote documentation that now serves as part of the packet that all new employees receive." I didn't have to explain how I did it, but I just gave you everything you needed to know.
• Technology can be taught. Tenacity can't.

The only time I can see this working against you is if you are going after a state job. State job interviews always involve a bunch of people who have no idea what you do or why they want you, so they grabbed some questions out of a college textbook and push them in front of you as a 'test of aptitude.' From my experience, those are guaranteed to fail because they want a decorated MIT graduate who will work for minimum wage, and you either can't win or could make more mowing lawns. Sorry if you are a state worker, no disrespect - it's just been my experience at every turn
The other instance may be if you have some guy who is actively trying to crush you, or a guy who honestly needs to know your thought processes under stress.


We recently interviewed someone and asked him, "do you have knowledge in data analytics?" They said no (which at least showed honesty). Over the course of the interview, we did some guided nudging and found that the person was a warehouse manager for the military, improved inventory spec sheets, and oversaw several subordinates. My coworker asked, "Did you manage inventory? Did you have to find items? Did you categorize things? Did you write things down on those inventory sheets?" They said yes, of course. "All those tasks you did are physical examples of data analytics. You even have managerial skills in working in that field." As you can see, there's a lot in how you present yourself. If my coworker hadn't had taken the time to act as a mentor during the interview, that individual would have completely shot themselves in the foot.

 

From the other side of the table, I've interviewed and hired more techs than I can remember. Lord only knows what you're going to get with 5 software guys doing the interview. They may know how to interview, or not. Personally I use a peeling the onion technique. I'll start with a question and keep pealing back the layers with followup questions until I get to a place where the person has proven their knowledge or lack thereof. It has the advantage of cutting through BS, canned answers and gives me a pretty good insight into the individuals capabilities. For example if I got this answer to a question "I advocated for a $10,000 software system and two $40,000 servers." My next question would be "how did you decide on that $10,000 software?" By the time I get to the bottom of that rabbit hole I will know if the candidate was a member of a team or works alone, what analytical processes they use, if they are complete in their analysis, their understanding of the underlying business process and more.

You'll know you're dealing with amateurs if they ask "what is your greatest weakness?" Any interviewee worth their salt will have a canned answer ready for that one. And, any interviewer worth their salt will already know the candidates weaknesses because they've pealed back the layers to their answers.

Relax, be yourself, listen to the questions, answer them as best you can, ask for clarification if needed, don't ramble on, and you will do fine.

 

28% of people with a career in IT hide it from their friends and family in fear of becoming free tech support for them.

https://www.teksystems.com/en/resou...and-stress?goback=.gde_46343_member_243195892

 

This pretty much sums it up for me:


My uncle is a professional musician and taught me an important lesson early in my career. He has played with the biggest names in the business, TV, movies, commercials, you name it, and he will not play for free. At family gatherings his sister, my mom, would all but beg him to play, but he was good for a tune or two and he was done. His opinion is I make my living doing this and I deserve to be paid. Why should he or the techy nephew spend their evening with friends and family at work?

Ass, gas or grass nobody's tech is fixed for free.

 

I give them my hourly rate and tell them it's a minimum of 1hr. I've also been known to ask them if I can ghost their machine or reinstall windows. In corporate desktop support, you are paid to get the user working again, not to waste hours fixing something that you could fix in 30 minutes by reimaging their machine. Their files should be on the network and their apps should be in citrix or in the image