In a way I did the job for 32 years but 13 of it with that company. I started out at age 14 fixing grey area poker machines, pinball, and arcade games. My first

In a way I did the job for 32 years but 13 of it with that company. I started out at age 14 fixing grey area poker machines, pinball, and arcade games. My first day I drove a manual transmission truck at age 14 to a bootlegger's to empty an illegal slot machine and I was handed a beer. I was self-taught in computers but mostly Windows and Linux but never took the leap in the mid 1990s in my 20s. It was a no-win situation if I refused to not do what was really not my job I'm sure they would have found a way to fire me. I was being paid an OK wage it was double minimum wage. I did enjoy the technical work I saw it as experience in IT not just playing with simulators, or reading books but actual running systems. It's hard to say what should have done differently but certainly I should have taken night classes or part time classes in IT. After being laid off I ended up doing that at a technical college which was only 500 yards away. I got $13K severance, and government paid for one year of my classes and unemployment. I pretty much had a two-year vacation to study computers. After I was gone I heard the place emptied of many long-term staff I'd like to think I was the spark that did that.