I showed up at Sun Microsystems when an opening arose. I had no experience with sales but a lot of experience with the hardware and admin. One job had me suppor

I showed up at Sun Microsystems when an opening arose. I had no experience with sales but a lot of experience with the hardware and admin. One job had me supporting hundreds of university users. Another put me on enterprise servers for an investment company. I also worked in aerospace, so writing proposals was old hat, and surprised my boss that I could work one up quickly. I thought it was helpful and appreciated that I WAS a customer for so long and could relate strongly to other customers. Especially at previous employers. It was great working with a super sales rep. My first day on the job, we flew to Chico to meet customers. But ( you saw this coming ) she was so damn good that she left after a while, and I filled in briefly, helped by two young reps from SoCal. Her replacement had no Sun experience or knowledge. I left a while later but it was a blast configuring systems and talking with customers and internal folks. Business fell off badly after I left ( not because I left! ) so staying might have been a rough ride. I am grateful that the rep and the district manager had the confidence in me that I could expand from straight engineering to being part of a sales team. I still have the awesome Java jacket.