Posts by TekGuruPA

Rejoice! System Administrator Appreciation Day (SAAD) is nigh

A new LART, of course!

Which qualifications are worthwhile?

Don't

Unless the UK IT industry is completely different from here in the U.S., my advice is don't go into IT. There are countless people who are "good with computers" always trying to get into the industry, resulting in entry-level, non-degreed employees being treated as disposable, cheap labor. Sorry, labour.

On the personal, non-economic side of things, I would say the same as respondents would if you posted this on slashdot. "My advice, after over a decade of experience in the industry: Run. As fast as you can. And don't look back." Making an enjoyable hobby into your career often doesn't work out the way people anticipate it will. E.g., I have a Core i7, 16GB RAM beast of a PC at home. I haven't fired it up in six months. The LAST thing I want to do when I get home is touch a computer.

Also, on the more personal side, you have to understand the visceral loathing that many IT pros have for n00bs. And that loathing is rarely pure arrogance. Many IT pros do NOT hate working with n00bs because of all the things that they don't know. IT people hate it because n00bs don't even know how much they don't know, which makes n00bs incredibly dangerous and indescribably irritating.

Not what you want to hear, I'm sure, but that's how I see it.