Who remembers their dog years?

Is that even a thing anymore?

I remember the day when I decided I wanted to go into IT.

It’s not noted in my LinkedIn profile because you only list the current work history that is relevant to your industry but before IT, I was a sales person for a then new age company that competed with Monster.com. Remember that site? Talk about throwback. Yeah, I’m that old.

I worked with tech recruiters and they were the ones that could afford our services. I remember why they paid for our services. They needed technologists that had the skills they could sell to their clients. It was through this job that I learned what technologists were in demand and what their salaries were. And it blew my mind. After a year on the job, I knew I wanted to get in on this IT action. It was so dynamic and it paid well. I was 22 and had an office that overlooked the nearby mountain and valleys. I gave it all up to draw up tickets for consultants. I even took a pay cut. And I asked my parents if it was cool if I downgraded my pay for it. Yeah, I was that kid. My parents shrugged their shoulders and they didn’t look like they cared much. I still have no idea what my parents thought of me changing careers and jobs again and again. I hope I have the patience with my kids like my parents did with me.

I started out drawing up tickets for consultants for a IT reseller in Oakland. I asked the owner of the company every 3 months for a chance to work “on the bench” and I wouldn’t stop until he gave it to me. He gave it to me after almost a year on the desk job. Once I was on the bench, I was so fortunate that all the crew gave me advice, helped me, taught me, and was there to show me how to troubleshoot. I even joined in on the pranks we played on each other. I once took a screenshot on a coworkers laptop, hid all his icons, and then put the screenshot as his background. Then the rest of the crew and I waited until the victim showed up and tried some of his icons. Ever watch a competent IT person lose his sh.t trying to get his own laptop to work? That was everyone’s first lesson to lock their screens before walking away! I was ahead of the time! Now a days, I put scratch and sniff stickers on the underside of my favorite coworker’s mice around the office. That’s right. 20 years later and I still like cheap pranks.

Once on the bench, I then asked every 3 months to go “into the field.” And shortly afterwards, they started sending me out. Note to all the women – do not stop asking for the chance to prove yourself. You will get a yes from someone some time. Remember that not asking is an automatic no so what do you have to lose? ASK. If you don’t ask, it’s an automatic no. I felt lucky that the company was taking chances on me but I had shown the willingness to learn and work. It might have been a mistake but I didn’t ask for a pay raise. I asked for the opportunities. I knew the opportunity to learn was going to be worth the experience in future earnings. The owner of the company gave me raises in time to match the work value I was bringing back, especially once I started billing by the hour in the field. I was making him real money then. I studied at night and was a hired gun during the day.

Between my first consultant gig and the first few corporate IT jobs I took, those were what we used to call the dog years. Those are the years you spend earning the skills and experience to truly establish yourself in your craft. It’s true for many fields. Many of my counterparts will recognize the following stories in their past. It’s what I share with many IT people in the field and industry. I’m your sister in this business.

A few of the things that make up an IT person’s experience will likely include the following:

1. Knowing what a grounding strap is for and how to use it.
2. Been fried by a live wire. (Fax machine kicked me up in the air 3 feet before landing me like a yelping chihuahua 4 feet back.)
3. Jacked a CAT5 and know which wires to cross to make a crossover cable.
4. The list goes on but these are examples of the (not)fun things that use to make up an IT person’s experience.

Delivering a 300 pound HP printer

As a consultant, I had to do all the jobs that got printed up. I once drew the short straw and had to deliver and configure a printer. Not some small desktop printer. The big one. You know the ones. It was an expensive and enterprise grade HP printer. The thing weighed 300 pounds before all the surrounding packaging. And god, there was a lot of packaging. To cap it off, I had to drive the company mini van. Wow, talk about killing my image as a cool person. Nothing kills a buzz faster than driving your owner’s old dad mini van that got converted to the company van. When I went to pick up the printer from the back, I looked up from my ticket to see the printer and I looked at the guy that brought it out and cocked an eyebrow. He took one look at me and raised both his eyebrows. We both made a face. I knew instantly at that moment that it was one of those moments where people say ”Well, if you wanted the job, this is part of the job and you have to be able to do it.” The IT job descriptions back in those days specified that you had to lift 50 pounds. This thing was 3x my weight and size. Time to suck it up. So I drove that giant printer (you couldn’t even SEE me when that printer was in front of me!) to the site, unloaded it, installed it and configured it all by 5’4” self. Not a single finger from another man, woman, or child helped me do that thing. I did it all with a single dolly. I rightfully earned some respect from my company when I came back from that job with zero issues. I was also a right sweaty mess. Some parts of IT are simply not sexy.

Jacking the entire data center

Some years later, I was hired at a midsize public company and the IT crew had to move the data center. The work was all split up. I ended up having to build a brand new KVM network. I ran every cable, cut and jacked every cable end with a crimper. My fingers got so tired. I jacked every TOR, every server, and every storage controller in this midsize data center. Every cable and every jack had to be good or we would not be able to reach the device. Again, IT is simply not always glamorous. That “dial tone” IT requires significant work. But boy, did I learn about cabling (and how fluorescent tube lights will f with your connections!). Now, I can simply look at a jack end and instantly know whether it will work and why it won’t.

I hope you have enjoyed hearing about my dog years and I hope yours has as many memorable moments as mine. If you are wondering about what old schoolers like myself did, this should give you some idea what some of us have been through. Feel free to try my pranks out – they still work!