I think
@RJM62 will get a laugh out of the above.
You're too quiet lately Rich.
It's summertime, Nate. I try to spend as little time staring at screens as possible.
But yeah, I guffawed a bit at that ad. My old want ads took up about a column inch, or more likely a handwritten 3x5 index card posted in a college jobs office. I'd also create a disposable email address for the replies and include strict instructions not to bore me when replying.
I also learned pretty early on to avoid CS / IT majors. They were only slightly less useless than CS / IT graduates. I mean, seriously, how can someone have a degree in IT and not know how to install a NIC or crimp an Ethernet cable? One would think that somewhere along the line they'd have picked up those menial but essential skills.
As an aside, I once was asked to stop by a client's home to fix his 14-year-old daughter's computer. This was back in Win98 days. All she wanted was for it to be stable so she could do her school work. The kid was quite bright and had a mild case of Asperger Syndrome (mild as in I never would have noticed had her parents not told me). She would get very upset when Windows **** the bed in the middle of a school project.
It didn't take me long to determine that her Win98 system was hosed, so I slaved the HDD to my Fedora laptop to recover the data. She seemed fascinated by it; and to make a long story short, I wound up installing both Win98 and Fedora on her PC to see if she liked Fedora better than Windows. I figured I could always go back, repartition, and remove Fedora if she didn't.
It turns out she loved Fedora. In fact, she peppered me with Linux questions via email for about a year after that until she got to the point that she knew more about it than I did. By the time she was 17, she had earned more Linux certifications than I knew existed (along with some CompTIA ones just for good measure). She'd become a bona-fide guru.
My client never stopped thanking me for giving his daughter something to focus on. All I did was install Linux on her PC, but apparently it was a life-changing event for her. She made a career out of it. Last I heard, she was running a datacenter out west somewhere.
She also earned her BSIT without ever actually setting foot in a college. The combination of the AP courses she'd taken in high school, the credits for all her certifications, and testing out of a few odd courses, were enough to fulfill her degree requirements. Her dad told me it took about three months from her enrollment to her graduation, and most of that was waiting for transcripts.
What it really comes down to is that some people just think in a way that makes them suitable for IT. Those people can learn whatever they need to that falls under that broad umbrella. It's a peculiar combination of being a bit scatterbrained, but also intensely focused. I think it's why all the best IT people I know are either complete slobs or are OCD-worthy organized. In reality, they're both. One just dominates outwardly while the other churns away inwardly.
I think it's the same way of thinking that allows some people to be great pilots, air-traffic controllers, race car drivers, and debaters. It's the ability to focus intensely on one thing while still keeping track of all these other things buzzing around in your head. It's the essence of situational awareness, as well as things like coding and scripting. That, more so than the specific skills a person already has mastered, is what determines that person's ability to master new skills.
At least that's my opinion.
Rich
