Firefighters
I worked for a large international IT consultancy for many years. I joined out of college and was hired because my requested salary was under their minimum. It got me through the door, and hard work got me a 100% pay rise in my first year!
I was always the odd-one-out. I was never put on one project, I was pushed from pillar to post and spent the first 10 years constantly learning new languages and sent in to projects that were overrunning, whether as a scapegoat or a firefighter at first, I'm not sure. But the reputation of "getting things done" stuck for a long time and I went from one disaster to the next. Interesting work, but stressful. Learn a new language, go to the next customer and "fix" the project, learn a new language, go to the next customer and "fix" the project...
One month, I'd be doing a COBOL based personnel system on a VAX, the next, I'd have learnt 4D and be working on a publisher's database on the Mac, after that, MS-BASIC on DOS and CP/M, dBase on CP/M86, Lightning Pascal on the Mac, Excel on Windows 2...
Once, I came back from an assignment and there was a 300 page request to tender, an old IBM PS/2 386 and a shrink-wrapped copy of VisualBasic 3. I had a 2 weeks to learn VB, read the RTT and submit a tender for the project! Somehow, I managed to achieve all 3, we won the contract and I actually delivered it on time!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
