What was your first job in IT?

Posted by HoosierLarry@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 283 comments

What was your first job in IT? Were you in the help desk? System admin? Multi-role?

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283 Comments

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Last_Dragonfruit_709@reddit

Student worker at my college help desk. Paid less than two digits an hour (in 2021) but it opened many doors for finding the right people to ask for help in where to apply and what to learn.

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Usual_Process_8814@reddit

IT Infrastructure Engineer, 1 month in.. pretty much handling NIST compliance for my company since I got everything else running (that was not already running). I write policy all day every day. Pays well just brain dead work sometimes.

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Ok-Carpenter-8455@reddit

Tech Support for a Web Hosting company.

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realgone2@reddit

Hired by Sitel in 2002 to do help desk support for AOL. After 6 months they ended the contract. I was then moved to do business sales for Gateway. That lasted 3 weeks and I quit. Awful.

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GW_RDSOFA@reddit

Dell tech support, when Win98SE was new. We got to see and play with some really early versions of XP.

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Ordinary-Dish-2302@reddit

Trainee Notebook Technician aka helpdesk for a school

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eastsydebiggs@reddit

field technician

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dukandricka@reddit

Customer-facing technical support (phone), but also junior sysadmin.

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LostStatistician5723@reddit

I was 16 and worked at a local computer shop, but they also sold via the Computer Shopper. Got to touch hardware from practically every vendor (Acer, Brother, Leading Edge, Leading Tech, Grid, Dell, IBM, Samsung, Toshiba, Zenith/Data General), as well as building from scratch - got to learn a lot about standards (especially who followed them, who did not). Learned a lot about troubleshooting from some really good guys. I also got to provide phone-based tech support for people around the country - long before the days of commonplace screen sharing. *

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bucdotcom@reddit

Marketing firm. Internship needed to finish college. $20k annual salary. 2004ish.

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Obvious-Water569@reddit

Junior IT Support Engineer. I knew nothing so it chucked me in at the deep end.

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landob@reddit

Technically is was contracted work to some MSP. They would just call me to certain job sites essentially to assist a lead tech. Things like measure distances so that later someone could run cabling, or help install cash registers, nothing too crazy. After that I was "as needed" the on-site technical assistant for a school. I essentially was the eyes and ears for the real tech on the phone. My first real 40hours a week job was help-desk for a casino

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Skyysims@reddit

Help desk, first task, physically scan 300 individual fishing lures for a customer that we were building a website for. My fingers never been the same 😂

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NotYetReadyToRetire@reddit

My very first job was I/O clerk at the university’s computer center, in charge of feeding the 1403 printers and clearing card jams on the 029 keypunch machines. After that it was 2nd shift computer operator for a System/3; my first job after graduation was programming in COBOL on a minicomputer, Fortran on a different mini, and both on IBM MVS systems. My last job (47 years later) was C on Linux and VB.Net on Windows; since I retired, I’m learning HTML, CSS, JavaScript and Java, with Python up next semester. Some people just don’t know when to quit!

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dartdoug@reddit

Started on System/32 while working an after school job coding in RPGII.

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Pupper_bark@reddit

Carrying wire and supplies for a local shop installing a new network in the 90s. Not a bad job for a teen learning how things work.

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Powerful-Ad3374@reddit

My dad was a sysadmin and had a small client he looked after outside of his main job. Did a couple of weekends upgrading their desktops. But first proper job was help desk at the company I’m now a senior sysadmin at 20 years later. My opinion is you shouldn’t be allowed to be a sysadmin without cutting your teeth on helpdesk

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namocaw@reddit

One person IT dept for a law firm of 100 people. I upgraded them all from Dos to windows 3.1 and taught them how to use a mouse. Upgraded the network from arcnet to ethernet and set up their first website and first email server

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britechmusicsocal@reddit

I did tech support for a Silicon Valley ISP as the dot com boom was happening, before I even finished college at San Jose State.

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itmgr2024@reddit

helpdesk for 10 months.

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ultimatebob@reddit

Desktop support at my local college. Fixing Mac desktops kinda sucked in particular, because even back then everything was integrated on the motherboard. It doesn't matter what broke... motherboard replacement time!

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Vivek_2004_m@reddit

Currently working as Va assessment in Linux/windows servers 💀

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Break2FixIT@reddit

Assistant computer tech, I did everything the computer tech didn't want to do. Printers and projectors

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marklein@reddit

Phone tech support. Back in my day there weren't IT degrees as much as there are today so they actually gave us a month of paid training. My second tech support job paid 6 weeks of training. Played Doom for 5 weeks while the instructor talked basically.

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too_fat_to_wipe@reddit

Geek Squad at Best Buy circa 2004-2005

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Sekhen@reddit

Computer assembly at a store. I was 19. Second real job.

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weeemrcb@reddit

Data entry.

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Thehitman1234@reddit

PC/help desk was my first job at it

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roboto404@reddit

HelpDesk

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Divemaster-2007@reddit

Unpaid tech support for a small charity while I was looking for paid work. Learned a lot and had complete autonomy so felt a big responsibility which is a good thing

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secret_configuration@reddit

Tech at a tiny 4 person MSP. Learned a ton and bounced after 2 years. Joining that MSP right after college was a great move, bouncing after 2 years...an even better move.

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jzaczyk@reddit

Does the Genius Bar count?

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Any_Particular_Day@reddit

First tech job was setting up computers to orders at a computer dealer. Or, at least that’s how I was hired. Spent most of the first month at the bench with spools of cable and plug ends making all the special cables to connect different PC to printers, because the other guy they hired with me couldn’t solder for anything. Then I got into DOS and CP/M stuff, apps, hardware, etc. building computers to the customers specifications.

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SHITMADEMEWANNADIE@reddit

Hell Desk @ Sky UK lmao

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GrumpyOldTech@reddit

General IT support/jack of all trade in an accounting firm supporting a Novel 3.11 network (arcnet network if I recall correctly and even made my own cables terminated with BNC connectors) and a PDP-11/73 mainframe with VT220 terminals (yes OK that makes me old and I accept that!)

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Coldwarjarhead@reddit

Dude.. Token ring was where it was at!

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iamvinen@reddit

Novel ❤️

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Quirky_London@reddit

You might as well say Lotus Notes

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Coldwarjarhead@reddit

Been there, done that... Notes running on OS/2 servers.

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iamvinen@reddit

Hell, yeah 😄 I was actually using it till 2018 and still have old db of my mails somewhere 😄

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Coldwarjarhead@reddit

Hardware tech at an independent IBM dealer back in the late 80's. Transitioned into installing and supporting networks for the education market, got certs in AT&T StarLan/StarGroup, IBM Lan Server, MS Lan Manager, Netware 2 and Netware 3. When the dealer channel collapsed, got a job doing internal network admin stuff for one of the big 5 consultancies (remember them?). Been through multiple companies/industries. Still plugging along as a sysadmin for a non-profit. Counting down till I can file for Social Security, assuming it still exists.

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Buzzbait_PocketKnife@reddit

Worked in a print shop in the early 1990’s, maintaining computers on the production floor. Windows for Workgroups 3.11 on a Novell 3.12 network, strung with BNC cables if I remember correctly. Hardware was all Compaq.

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DarthtacoX@reddit

Inventory management in a freezing Freightliner plant middle of winter.

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naviboy007@reddit

I did a data entry work on a website for 200$. My brother was developer and his client needed data entry person.

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r4wrgirly@reddit

geek squad consultation work. arguing with old people that insisted their 1GB of RAM would hold up 8.1

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Significant_Mine_261@reddit

Folsom Prison, working with central office staff and Inmates working on computers in the paint shop, laundry, brail factory etc. It was terrifying, exciting, underpaid and dangerous. Day 1 i signed a form stating that they will not negotiate with inmates in case of a hostage situation and they gave me a whistle in case I ever felt like i was in danger lmao. oh and it was $14 per hour. Stayed there for 2 years

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themisfit610@reddit

Malware cleanup in college for our residential IT support team. This was in the blaster / sasser days so lots of patching and clean installs for students. Was fun actually

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ConfidentlyLearning@reddit

Feeding hollerith cards into a card-reader hopper, and sawing them out when they jammed.

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butter_lover@reddit

when i was in the army back in the early 90s there were a ton of small computer maintenance guys but they were focused on systems of record like big army systems from big contractors that were purpose built. we also had a shit load of just general purpose pcs all over the place but no management of them. they were used like a lot of early office pcs to print banners and run an assortment of spreadsheets. there was no networking and no internet as you can imagine. my first real it 'job' was using my enthusiast skills to order a bunch of standard NICs and one for the big laser printer and connect everything together wtih BNC and load network drivers so everyone could print to the printer. it was simple job but seemed like magic to the luddites runhing things at the time. i got some special treatment and some extra time off by my company sending me around to all the unit rooms in the battalion and trading my services for favors. it was a moment that can never be repeated because not long after that things got standardized and people had to start having standards to connect to official networks and whatnot but it was a moment.

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ultraspacedad@reddit

Student worker Help Desk. Fixing teachers computers. Got the job because got caught with the domain admin password when they busted our underground 8 computer counterstrike Lan Party. We tapped into the school's network by passing a switch through a school computer with and extra Nic card

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rkrause45@reddit

I was a student worker as well. I'm incredibly grateful for that experience! It significantly helped jumpstart my career, and put me in a much better position for future advancements.

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equityconnectwitme@reddit

You all had DA access? That's SCARY dude.

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ultraspacedad@reddit

I got it by social engineering the admin. He loves riding bikes and had a thing for Cannondale. The password was Cannondale1. Like how stupid

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equityconnectwitme@reddit

I'm sure he appreciates you not destroying his job like you could have.

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ultraspacedad@reddit

Lol he just kept riding bikes and retired

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equityconnectwitme@reddit

Respect haha

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Xibby@reddit

Similar, student worker. Most common issue was proper application of the “Mac tool,” AKA the straightened paper clip to eject a floppy from a frozen Mac.

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ultraspacedad@reddit

The paper clip of destiny!

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SenTedStevens@reddit

Or to force restart those old iMacs. Those stupid computers constantly froze up. Using a paperclip to push the restart button at the back of the machine was SOP.

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Xibby@reddit

Similar, student worker. Most common issue was proper application of the “Mac tool,” AKA the straightened paper clip to eject a floppy from a frozen Mac.

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slparker09@reddit

Writing LSP UI components for AutoCad for a local manufacturing company while I was a JR in high school. Also worked as support for the ISP managing cobalt cube Unix boxes with a dialup modem pool the same year. The following year I built the manufacturing companies intranet before leaving for college where I worked in the library web development office. I went to school for Architectural Design and Art/Art History and unfortunately just continued my downward slide into the IT industry. Now I am the Director for a public school district working on his postgrad curriculum and technology design and Admin cert.

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NetoLozano@reddit

HelpDesk in an Hotel

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Peep-CEO@reddit

it was for the 2020 election where I ran a precinct by myself ensuring voting equipment was running normally, and setting up equipment at other precincts, only lasted 2 weeks but was fun

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Mango-Fuel@reddit

we didn't have an IT person so I grew into the position from working in a more accounting-related position

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Humble-Plankton2217@reddit

They hired me as an Admin Assistant with zero experience in IT. 2 days after I got hired they dropped a broken old-timey ZTerm on my desk and asked me to fix it. That was in '99. It worked out pretty good for me.

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rosseloh@reddit

Multi-role. It was for the housing department at the college I was attending. It was *mostly* helpdesk, I guess, but I learned AD and some networking there as well (got a lot more about networking once I transferred schools and actually went into a networking-focused program).

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antimidas_84@reddit

Internal IT for a copier servicing company. Was a very strange environment with IT adjacent people. I just ended up sweating and upgrading PCs to Win 7 and other misc issues. Oh, and I had to have paper logs of everything I did, no digital ticketing system.

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drawnbutter@reddit

Phone support for a major hotel chain's reservation system. The software was pure shit, but it ran on QNX, which later became the OS for Blackberries and gave me a nice introduction to Unix, serial port wiring for dumb terminals and Novell Netware, along with getting me interested in learning C.

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NautilusStrikes@reddit

Worked the Computer Repair desk at Fry's before they went belly up. Then took a contract position at a corp help desk before pandemic screwed the whole pooch, but that got me on track into corporate IT. I miss being a degenerate behind the repair desk, though. Simpler times.

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samspopguy@reddit

software support for respironics

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Deifler@reddit

Helpdesk for a company of outpatient clinics. CEO was a jerk who would watch cameras all day and fire nurses for being on their phones. CIO was a great programmer, but clueless about IT. We can a janky infra that always broke, no standardized anything, AD was never fleshed out, all in computer and user OUs. The O365 for email was the only thing working and that was managed by an MSP. I lasted 7 months before finding my next job as jr sysadmin at a school. I do miss the first 2 months there as it was still COVID and I was alone in an empty office, lights off, just watching youtube and imaging PCs with a usb bootable like a caveman.

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m5daystrom@reddit

Writing custom code for a glass company using IBM Basic language on what I remember to be an IBM 5150 (first microcomputer IBM made) at the time, monitor was 9" inches and green! Circa 1980,1981 if I remember correctly.

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IndoorsWithoutGeoff@reddit

First job was hell desk

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TheLastRaysFan@reddit

Contractor on a help desk for a restaurant chain Tuesday - Saturday 11am - 8pm $15/hr, no PTO, no benefits Might as well have been a call center, 100+ tickets a shift.

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Zoltur@reddit

I might just be too European and misunderstanding. Are you saying you got 0 days of annual leave? And that’s legal???????

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TheLastRaysFan@reddit

That is correct Greatest country on earth, hell yeah 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🦅🦅🦅🦅🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

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DavWanna@reddit

Of course if they're a contractor. I've been a contractor effectively all my life, never had annual leave.

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tch2349987@reddit

I worked at a startup for $8/hr as an intern. Got exposure of all the equipment possible, those were the good times.

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Nxo@reddit

The purgatory of IT. Once you a done, paradise awaits.

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Numerous-Change-6954@reddit

Programming on my TI-99 4a and selling games to Compute magazine. I was in high school

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Oolon42@reddit

Help desk at my college after school and weekends. I occasionally helped people with their C, C++, VisualBasic, or UNIX homework too.

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spuckthew@reddit

My first IT job was technically a 3 month stint I did for a small MSP who solely worked with veterinary practices and also produced management software for them. Obviously I wasn't there long and spent most of my time just learning the ropes, but it was a mix of help desk and field tech work. I quickly knew it wasn't where I wanted to kickstart my IT journey, so I started looking elsewhere after about a month. My second job, which I consider my first proper role in IT, was an IT technician job at a large secondary school. Was there almost 4 years and learnt a lot.

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Logical_Number6675@reddit

Student Lab Aid. Mostly imaging, configuring, and updating computers and software at my college media department lab. Ensured they used the appropriate versions of the Adobe Master Suite w/plugins, along with various other software. Also manually kept the storage servers file structure clean and accurate for proxy video editing. Was also the equipment check out person. Not officially helpdesk or even in the IT dept, but I helped students with the computers and equipment as needed.

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joshghz@reddit

Working in a computer shop. I learned a lot of tricks and skills, but I'd have to be offered 7 figures before I'd willingly go back.

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Quirky_London@reddit

In Turkey you will be given 8 figures for that role as standard

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smoothvibe@reddit

Same here. Was nice to learn many basics there, but never want to go back to that.

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SydneyTechno2024@reddit

Same. Learnt the hardware basics there, then moved onto corporate helpdesk support later. I’ve stuck in support most of the time and now I do customer support for a software company. Thankfully most of my users these days are system administrators and know the basics of using a computer.

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abs0lut_zer0@reddit

I feel you

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Churn@reddit

Sysop for the dialup BBS I ran out of my college apartment. Then as a lab assistant in the college computer lab. IT was called computer services back then.

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Azarion@reddit

Information security consultant. I was very lucky one of current colleagues argued that the department should hire younger people. 😁

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fraghead5@reddit

2001, weekend overnights in a Data center. Now director of IT 24 years later for the same bosses.

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Terriblyboard@reddit

internship to full time as a "computer/network technician"

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Jwatts1113@reddit

Converting daily reports from Quatro Pro into Excel 4.0. Then getting everyone on board with getting them sent by this new thing called CC Mail. Yes, I'm old.

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SpecialSheepherder@reddit

Very first IT job as a teenager was testing old computers in a warehouse. Just booting them up and making sure they still work, writing down how much RAM and disk size they had. But that was nothing permanent, just on-demand when needed. First more permanent job (on the side while still going to school) was at an ISP, helping users to configure their dial up modem or email client on a paid premium number. Everyone was always very rushed because the number was so expensive, but I sort of liked that, because everyone kept all the bla bla to a minimum and we went straight to fixing. Miss that place, got bankrupt when they tried to grow aggressively and the 2000 dot com bubble popped.

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natefrogg1@reddit

Hired as a data entry person, I learned excel and access and got a bump as they had me combining tons of data sets and reporting etc. it was a branch office 3 hours away from the main office where they had on site IT, the IT guy did not like the drive and started using me to be remote hands and eyes for him, eventually that office closed and I was brought to the main office to continue data wrangling and be a help desk type of person. This was also my first time having a production Linux system available on site, it was an oracle database host and nobody else had any Linux experience there so it landed on me, I had an old pentium box at home running red hat 4 or something that I was learning on. That Linux system access was how I would get around their firewall btw, I would go to a rave website regularly to look up events for the weekend and the head IT decided to be an asshole and block those sites from all the workstations, ravelinks.com and so cal raves list serv were the main ones for my area back then. Looking back, those sites were the Wild West and there were wars with people image spamming goatse and other worse stuff so I sort of understand why he may have added them to the block lists Pretty boring but I am thankful for the head IT guy giving me a chance, thank you Kevin, hope you are alive and well. After 9/11 happened I found myself relocating then getting work as the TSA started up, lots of airport sites then later lots of navy marine corps intranet work. The pay was low but I got a ton of experience that helped catapult my career. Fast forward to now and it has been IT for apparel companies for the last 20 years, Director of IT for the last 16. I get along with the fashion people just fine and some of the systems are interesting so I’ll probably stay in this niche for another decade or so

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FreeQuQ@reddit

Junior SysAdmin at H 💜 Pretty luck from my side

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KirkArg@reddit

Started my own business as IT support for small businesses and individuals. I was leaving flyers on some small shops that where also clients, and I knew that they had a good volume of customers. Ofc those shops had a small discount.

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More-Bison-3852@reddit

How'd the business end up doing?

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KirkArg@reddit

It was my main source of income for 4 years, after that I end up working as the IT guy for one of my clients and kept a few of the good ones for 6 years or so until I moved to Spain . It helped a lot, in many ways, currently I'm the director of the IT department (although small company of 150 users ) and still learning a lot

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anonpf@reddit

If you’re in the military, you know the letters. NMCI.

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BokudenT@reddit

Help desk

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khag24@reddit

Help desk. Learned so much and had such a great foundation that I look to hire only people with that experience at some point. We’ve let go of like 4 people in the last few years that were seasoned devs, replaced all of them with help desk people that left an impact on me in my calls. They have been the best hires

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AcanthisittaHuge8579@reddit

2009-I.T. Help Desk technician at a Navy Base Station

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ChrisZJ97@reddit

First IT job I got back last September, IT Support Tech II, my IT director left in October and I am now the only IT guy here, going to be asking for a new title soon!

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caa_admin@reddit

1990, breakfix. PCs, printers, monitors, installs.

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Klutzleo@reddit

First official job, Geek Squad checking in

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therealwxmanmike@reddit

i did help desk in a computer lab when i was in college or better said, i was paid to do my homework

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Yomba_Yamp@reddit

It assistant

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linniex@reddit

Started doing troubleshooting on the side for friends and family in the 90’s, then went on to be a Cold Fusion programmer for about 10 minutes before I went into Tech Support.

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200kWJ@reddit

Independent, upgrading and repairing PC's and making modems work so users could connect to CompuServe and AOL.

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Desperate-Hat-7399@reddit

does Foxpro/dBase III programmer count? I was a programmer for 7 years, then solo IT for a non-profit, then sysadmin for corporate

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daweinah@reddit

Crawling under desks to plug in Windows 7 USBs, or retrieving the towers to stack them in my office by the 8-port KVM so I could upgrade departments overnight.

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blockcitywins@reddit

Worked on a helpdesk right out of high school. While in HS I would build and sell PC’s. Pops got me a gig working in the IT department he worked in. He was an AS400 programmer, so as a kid I spent a lot of weekends in server rooms sleeping on the floor while he would run backups overnight. Made a career out of it and haven’t looked back.

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ITRetired@reddit

RPG III Computer programmer (as it was called back in 1982).

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Anonymo123@reddit

Help desk at Iomega, bankruptcy meeting my first week. Few weeks later help desk for a large US company for a year. Was bored there and found help desk at a local software company. Was there 9 years and went up the ladder to Director of IT.. got my BS and MBA and moved to a larger city as a Sr Eng and jumped around every 3-4 yeas for the raises until I was an Architect. Used my MBA to teach evening IT\\Business classes until covid came around, that was a fun way to make extra cash and spread IT knowledge. Currently Architect for on prem\\cloud for my main employer and contract work for some micro businesses I've started and sold over the years as a side hustle. I love IT, ain't going anywhere for a while.

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Brees504@reddit

Helpdesk intern

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Bird_SysAdmin@reddit

"Projects and infrastructure Intern" = Imaging monkey

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jpnd123@reddit

Worked in the computer lab of college I was attending

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Thecp015@reddit

Me too! It was a lot of clearing paper jams and telling people they can’t watch porn on school computers. But I got paid minimum wage to do my homework, largely, so it wasn’t all bad.

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jpnd123@reddit

Yes! The best part was doing maybe 15 mins of work and 45 mins of homework an hour

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Thecp015@reddit

In the ultimate twist, that school is my current employer. I get to do sysadmin stuff for a school I attended, I get spring break off paid, I have December 22-Jan 2 off (roughly) for the holidays paid, 8-5 M-F, can flex schedule, can opt to work from home occasionally.. It’s a great gig considering I have young kids.

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Cheomesh@reddit

Multi-role. Came in as an intern for a project's more or less sole "IT Guy". Help desk, application support, Domain Admin, cybersec stuff - all me.

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sasiki_@reddit

My first IT job was at a local computer shop 23 years ago. I was a junior in high school and genuinely interested in PC repair. I worked there \~2.5 years, worked at Walmart for a year, then a cable company for a bit. I have been at my current employer for 19 years next month and am the head of IT, managing a team of 4.

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ChabotJ@reddit

Part time help desk contractor working remotely.

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Dry_Inspection_4583@reddit

Rebuilding and refurbishing old office machines while I was in school.

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DadtheITguy@reddit

Data entry when I was 15. Now systems administrator specialist in higher Ed.

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BPTPB2020@reddit

Field tech. $18/hr in 2011. Bit of a pay cut, I was an LPN prior, making $25/hr, but then I found a SysAdmin job that paid salary, but worked out to about $30/hr. A few years later, my salary increased overall by 50% by the time I left. I got a degree in Cybersecurity, so now I make another 50% of what I made when I left. If I could do it all over, I would have gotten my master's degree much earlier, and not stayed at that SysAdmin job for so long. I could've been making more. Then again, I look at what I spend, and I really don't need THAT much money. But it's nice to have the peace of mind. I grew up with poverty and homelessness, so I've always lived modestly, even when I became successful.

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CoryKellis@reddit

Part-time gig at a local PC shop, mostly malware cleanup.

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Askyl@reddit

Helpdesk (1st and 2nd line mixed a bit) with a lot of variety with both phone, in person and on site help.

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SaintEyegor@reddit

System operator for an IBM 4341 mainframe and running an APS-5 Photocomposer.

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ReadWriteFriday@reddit

Geek Squad, while going to college for a completely unrelated major. Next semester I switched to an IT degree.

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Different-Hyena-8724@reddit

Dell tech support from Stream Technologies. Then went to Verizon DSL. The rest is history.

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WittyWampus@reddit

"Software Specialist" which was code for SysAdmin but we'll pay you less and you'll still also have to help students when they come down because we only have one "help desk" person at each school. Glad to be out of Edu now.

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ObiLAN-@reddit

Did electronics repair, mainly phones and laptops/desktops, the odd tv. Was always more interested in sysadmin style roles. So next step was a deskside corporate position, transitioned from there to a sysadmin role.

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Responsible-Shake112@reddit

Helpdesk for hospitality resetting passwords..

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hungrykitteh57@reddit

Sys Admin. Back in 2000 when big companies would still hire noobs straight out of college and train us up.

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Impossible_IT@reddit

Computer assistant back in 1998. I’m now and IT specialist sysadmin.

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Parking-Asparagus625@reddit

Pushing a tape cart in an IBM datacenter. Dummy terminals would beep and tell me to either remove a tape from a certain drive or insert one.

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girldickluv@reddit

In my first role now. Tier 1 help desk for a large hospital with multiple campuses. You've heard of them

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Site-Staff@reddit

Running a BBS system in 1993 as a home based business. It was dialup with two lines on Wildcat BBS.

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da_apz@reddit

Building clone PCs in a computer store. They sold like hotcakes when Win95 came out, I built 3-5 a day for a year.

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Bright_Arm8782@reddit

Desktop support for a medium sized tax consultancy. I got my hands on almost everything. It was a good place to learn the trade and the reason why I sometimes miss desktop support.

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countryinfotech@reddit

Remote Tech Support for Plumchoice in 2013-2015. It was consumer tech support also, so nothing constant about it. Lots of older folks who didn't know how to work the computers their kids got for them. Also lots of people who had no idea how a comupter that wasn't in their hand worked.

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yeahdj@reddit

My first job was mobile PC repair going to peoples houses and removing viruses, reinstalling windows, replacing hardware and occasionally building PCs.

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PixelSpy@reddit

Help desk, but I sorta did a little bit of everything. I worked directly with the high level system admin guys, so I started learning the heavier stuff pretty quick. Got very lucky and ended up in a company that was expanding. So after a few years got promoted to full system admin. I was also very eager to get out of HD as I'm sorta anti social. So I worked my ass off to learn the complex stuff as fast as possible.

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Angy_Fox13@reddit

ISP helpdesk. So long ago I had to learn dial up modem initialization strings.

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Spectremax@reddit

System admin - the only full time IT person for a small business. So, everything.

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jkalchik99@reddit

Immediately after college....... program maintenance & development for a year & a half, then multi-role for the next 20+ years. And that still doesn't cover the last 20.

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SciFiGuy72@reddit

Does website coding count? This was back during the "wild west" of the early 90s before internet exploder. If not, then Lotus Notes Admin/Desktop support (Filling toner and paper trays and listening to users' complain about how slow "their" systems were.)

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spaceman_sloth@reddit

help desk at pizza hut

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Connir@reddit

Lab assistant in college. Fill the printers, minor assistance to students, lock up at night.

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darkstabley@reddit

Worked third shift building PC's and Servers for corporate customers. Building, imaging, asset tagging. 1997 $11.50/hr

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thesecondguy22@reddit

I'm a Mainframe operator & this is my first job. I want to switch to development or administrator role. I have skills in Both. I don't know how people begin their career from operator and end up in better roles. Some one please help (guide) me😭😭

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taker25-2@reddit

Helpdesk which ranged from password resets to new computer deployment, to now manager of the said helpdesk. Private government work going 9 years strong

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blanczak@reddit

Worked at the vocational school that I did my last two years of high school in. It was kind of cool to get paid to be at school while all my friends weren’t

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herolost92@reddit

Paid internship doing helpdesk

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kenrichardson@reddit

"Operator I" Primarily, I ran a few GIANT printers that would print continuous feed paper reports for a multi-national pharmaceutical company. Then I learned during down time between prepping the printers or breaking down the reports for delivery how to monitor the various jobs and such that were running on mainframes and servers.

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ZipTheZipper@reddit

Fixing stuff for family and friends.

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SAL10000@reddit

Pulling copper spaghetti 🍝

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PurpleFlerpy@reddit

ADSL support helldesk when I was just a sprog. Went, had a different career or two, came back, desk for a tiny MSP.

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buckaroonie@reddit

fixing vt100

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Farking_Bastage@reddit

Helldesk in a call center

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redyellowblue5031@reddit

I had an unofficial business of fixing computers from middle school through college. Mostly just some spare cash, but it was a steady stream of people. My first “real” IT position was an internship where I traveled to assist in upgrading corporate machines from XP to 7.

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Lord_Dreadlow@reddit

Well, I began as a PBX/CBX/voicemail system administrator/installer/maintainer. Yeah, we used to run data over the voice (TDM) network. Now we run voice over the data network. And so I had to learn data networking and server administration/installing/maintaining.

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en-rob-deraj@reddit

IT Helpdesk for an oilfield company. Just me and a manager. Funny story is I was let go because the manager was stealing (ordering online and forging receipts). To this day, I still don't understand why I was the one let go. Assumed he said it was me doing it. I was young, inexperienced, and didn't fight for the job. He is still there, but in safety working for his brother. It's been over 20 years. I should send him a message and ask what really happened.

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stedun@reddit

3rd shift overnight computer operator. Monitoring mainframe and answering the help desk phone that never rang.

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knightofargh@reddit

Got hired for inside sales. Wound up doing IT because they were bad at it for no extra pay.

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user975A3G@reddit

A 2 man IT company, small local ISP, kinda MSP, electrician, all in one I would be setting up AD in the morning and wiring a circuit breaker for industrial production line in the afternoon and cutting holes in the wall to wire up lights the next day I had no license or any education to be electrician or anything, neither did the boss, at least I had it in writing that I only work IT and don't do any electricity stuff- in case something went wrong It was pretty sketchy, the some weeks I worked 80 hours, some weeks I worked 8, but you never knew which it's gonna be

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greendookie69@reddit

Working at one of those scam companies in Florida where they got sales leads from those "you have a virus" 800 number popups. The sales pitch was they'd open the Event Viewer and describe the errors as "trace damage". They would proceed to sell the customer a repair service and Webroot SecureAnywhere for as much as they could get away with. Once they passed the computer over to us, we would actually do legitimate work to fix the computer. We actually had a ton of happy customers with a recurring support plan. $14/hr full time with benefits, 18 years old splitting $1200 rent 3 ways - felt like I was a king. That said, eventually they started getting sales leads from those "fix my PC pro" programs, which we were forced to install on the customers' computers. They got greedy. These programs usually fucked the computers up. It was (luckily) around that time I got laid off, and eventually they laid off the entire tech staff and outsourced. Sales was kept onshore. The FBI moved in a little after that, and the company disappeared.

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Away-Ad-2473@reddit

Staples Easytech department.

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f0gax@reddit

I was on an internal helpdesk at IBM. Supporting the NA sales and services team.

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Icy-Maintenance7041@reddit

AS400 operator and query writer. I used to deliver whatever listings with data the company needed and kept tables up to date by inputting data and uploading files. Most relaxed job i ever had.

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ILikeTewdles@reddit

Walk up PC repair, $10.50 an hour.

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tylewelt12@reddit

My first IT job was during my senior year of high school, I was a student worker for the district’s IT department. They’d have me servicing Chromebooks and providing general IT support to the high school and a couple elementary schools within the district. I was in COOP so half the day was spent working and the other was spent taking classes.

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ohyeahwell@reddit

Help desk, then I was tech at a local fixit shop then I moved to a different fixit shop and ran the place, then hired as a netadmin by a local Unix colo/isp, then sysadmin at a corp and I’ve been there for 26 years. Now I’m an IT Director.

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Otherwise-Ad-8111@reddit

NOC Tech in a small msp whose largest contract was with a regional ISP doing their hosted services. It's where I cut my chops and had lots of really smart mentors.

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tamagotchiparent@reddit

Jr. sysadmin. Learned a lot and met a lot of great people :)

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StarSlayerX@reddit

Desktop Support/Hell Desk

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rhino3081@reddit

CompUSA Tech desk. 😁

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Unable-Entrance3110@reddit

I was working in warehouse jobs in my early 20s when my mom, working as an CS rep in a small startup asked me to apply to a role just opened within the company to build out new servers that would be going out to colocations around the country. I got the job and eventually became the "sysadmin" there, though I was completely making things up and made some horrific mistakes. The company eventually went under during the dotcom bust and I was forced to actually go to school to learn the trade. I didn't work in IT again until 2004 or so, but have been in the field ever since.

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DeadStockWalking@reddit

Help Desk

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Enxer@reddit

I worked as a local ISP Helpdesk during the dotcom boom. It was an amazing time filled with discovery, hands on learning, people skill growth, and teaching an older drunk generation where to find porn safely late on a Friday night.

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x_scion_x@reddit

Help desk foot cox Comcast back when that was thier name. Would have been Best Buy Geek Squad but they wouldn't hire me because I don't upsell shit people don't need.

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The_Sad_In_Sysadmin@reddit

Bench Tech - Service Desk - Desktop -Telecom (shit happens) - Sysadmin.

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OmenVi@reddit

ISP help desk.

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Fresh_Ad4765@reddit

31U in the US Army

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SayNoToStim@reddit

25B here.

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iamvinen@reddit

Yes, sir!

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maxis2bored@reddit

"Thanks for calling Comcast my name is Max, can I please get the number on your account, starting with the area code." That was 23 years ago.

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GreenWoodDragon@reddit

Volunteer IT support at a a charity. I built them a server to filter spam and viruses out of the email. It was so successful they took me on permanently.

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iwasimshb@reddit

IT Support at @burgerking through 3rd party contractor.

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LeTrolleur@reddit

Helpdesk apprentice. Loved it at the time, now I'd never go back unless it was for a FAT salary. After than became: -full time helpdesk -performance/projects/data analyst role in another department -then moved back to IT to become an Infrastructure Analyst.

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Lad_From_Lancs@reddit

My first job in IT was a home user help desk for a company that sold computers primarily via catalogs and , towards the end, BrightHouse..... it was both horrific and excellent at the same time. I lasted 3 years there! I then switched to a small MSP, which was helpful in quickly gaining extensive knowledge in a broad set of areas before switching to supporting a single company.

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gringgo@reddit

COBOL/IDMS programmer, as we were called back then. Got a job at TRW right out of college.

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hosalabad@reddit

Tech support for Usefulware. They made a ISP setup CDs for dialup internet in the 90s. Their little CD would install dial up networking, browser, mail client, and configure it for each ISP, and put a little app launcher. Shout out to the user Y.L. Turkey on Interstar, I hope you're well, brother. Your rambling and incoherent calls were a treasure. We had some great clients. IntegrityOnline, a franchised Christian proxy-filtered ISP. Every franchise had a different domain name and wildly different settings. Interstar in Eastern NC, which was recovering form a hurricane, so everyone and their brother had terrible dialup issues.

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DStandsForCake@reddit

Internal IT for a major clothing company. The job was first line, but also went out to the stores to set up wifi, switches, cabling and so on. It was actually quite fun, and all the store employees always wanted to be friends with you to get faster support (and you also got a big discount on their clothes in all the stores). But it was a pretty awful employer, misogynistic management and poor pay. Al tough it at least gave me a foot in to the IT. I think you can better evaluate your IT job by seeing how the end users actually work, and how a disruption affects them. Otherwise it's easy to sit behind the screen and get a little tunnel vision for other things.

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DasaniFresh@reddit

Help desk for a big MSP type organization making $12/hr. Lead my team in every metric for almost two years. When I told them I was leaving, they “brought out all the stops to keep me” by offering me a $2/hr raise and giving me more responsibilities. I still give that building the finger when I drive past it to this day.

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SevaraB@reddit

In tech, mom and pop shop where I wore *so many hats*… solutions architect, network admin, PC repair tech, you name it, I did it. In *enterprise* tech? Combined service desk and desktop support for a biggish CCR discount store chain. I was moving up quick because I was quickly helping burn down massive tech debt, but lost that job due to a board-level power struggle with the IT team as collateral damage when they chose to replace almost all of us with an MSP (looking back, I don’t entirely blame them- they were paying a lot of people a lot of money for *shockingly* bad results).

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Sneakycyber@reddit

Home PC repair 🤢

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Leeflet@reddit

Cable monkey / sysadmin / help desk for my high school right after I graduated. I ended up working full-time and studying full-time all the way through college.

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omgitskae@reddit

Student operator in a disaster recovery department of a major corporation. It was technically part of IT, but not really what most people think about with IT. It taught me a lot of things I still use today.

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Smiles_OBrien@reddit

MSP jack-of-all-trades. Did Helpdesk, project management and implementation, sysadmin, netadmin. I spent time as the primary on-site tech for two of our clients. Best learning experience there is. Couldn't pay me enough to go back.

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pertexted@reddit

Workstudy techsupport

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FriendlyITGuy@reddit

Service tech at a local break/fix/resale shop. I got the job by saying I could install Windows and drivers. I have to give that job a lot of credit because it is how I learned all my hardware troubleshooting skills, followed by Mark Russ and his "Mysteries of the Unexplained" keynotes for my software troubleshooting.

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UncleToyBox@reddit

Evening shift phone support for a local ISP back in the dial up days of the internet. Bulk of the time was walking retirees through first time set up of their computers. My favorites were the little old ladies that asked how to use the foot pedal that came with the computer. At first, my team made fun of these people but then we realized they probably had experience with dictaphones and sewing machines that both operated with foot pedals. In that context, thinking of a mouse as a foot pedal actually makes a bit of sense. In then end they were the easiest people to teach because they wanted to learn and were fast to adopt.

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Aware-Owl4346@reddit

Digitizing nautical charts in 1991. I recall we were running out of storage space, so our manager bought a $5,000 hard drive. I think it was 200 MB

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MacMemo81@reddit

Hard and software inventory to prepare for migration to XP -> helpdesk -> onsite support -> sysadmin -> management. It helps my current role that I've been through hell myself.

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bigloser42@reddit

Phone tech support for an ISP.

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Booshur@reddit

Geek Squad - I joined in their first year. It was a great time.

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First_Code_404@reddit

UNIX administration

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d3adc3II@reddit

Helpdesk of course, climb to IT manager after 20 years in the field, haiz

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QPC414@reddit

Computer shop building 386s with MS-DOS and WIn 3.11.

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ChampOfTheUniverse@reddit

NOC Command Center doing Incident Management. Pretty much setting up bridge calls and engaging the real tech people.

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bitslammer@reddit

Desktop support tech. This was 1994 and there were 3 of us for a hospital. There was no "help desk" as that fell to us. PCs were so new and at first lightly used that we didn't need a help desk and it was just as easy for us to go to the PC in person as we were kind of learning too. Along with assisting users with both DOS and early windows issues we also did some basic Novell admin with creating users, printers and printer queues and such. The PCs really only had 3-4 programs that were ever used: a terminal program for the medical record system which ran on a VAX, Word Perfect and Lotus 1-2-3. Email didn't come until a year or 2 later and we actually had to install an IP stack from floppy disk. All in all that was a really great way to start because we were forced into leaning how things worked at a really low level.

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Helpdesk512@reddit

Helpdesk at my old high school + retro video game repair guy. Also built PCs on the side. studied history in undergrad before dropping out my last semester. now IT manager for a major entertainment venue

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Substantial-Motor-21@reddit

First job was working for an AOL Like company (Infonie Europe) helping people to install "The Internet" with a CDRom with a Windows WITHOUT TCP/IP and macOS without a decent PPP application. My favorite memory was this woman ordering her 6th CD to install the App. So I worried and asked her why 6 CD's. The answer was : I put CD in my PC and nothing comes up. She was putting the CDs in a gape in between drives in her PC Tower. I can only imagine the CDs dropping inside forever. Oh also ! That old lady that was doing everything with the keyboard, moving the mouse with arrows. So I asked her why she was not using a mouse… A mouse ? You mean the pedal ? Thats not very convinient to use. Those years were wild

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anderson01832@reddit

My first job was "do whatever it is you do" ![gif](giphy|d89Q8oADMlvAB2iWv4)

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No-Percentage6474@reddit

Scripted help desk at a call center troubleshooting dial up connections.

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Mentallyadvantaged@reddit

Don’t know if this counts but I’m an electrician that started doing data cabling then fell into fiber installs at exchanges then installing servers at data centres to doing all of these things for a client at one site were they hired me as an IT consultant. All I do now is replace faulty switches, find faults on data cabling, and patch cabling to the switches and relay that information to the networks team to configure the ports for what ever device is being used and patch the analogue lines from the old pabx.

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D00shene@reddit

"geek squad" - aka dress like MiB and sell bullshit services to customers.

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Tmoncmm@reddit

I got my first job as a computer tech at Best Buy in ‘98 back when they had in house techs before the Geek Squad.

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Working_Astronaut864@reddit

Sysadmin for a small property and asset management company in 1997. Novell NetWare and asynchronous updates from satellite offices for our DOS based ERP. Fun times.

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Techy-Stiggy@reddit

First job is current job. Sysadmin mostly Linux based

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Fitz_2112b@reddit

Building PCs for my dad's company. He wrote a software package for financial planners back in 95ish and his clients eventually started asking him where was a good place to buy computers from

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Surrogard@reddit

I started as a software dev in the last company. C# mostly and after three to four years my boss then (RnD head and sole IT guy) said: "Hey Surrogard, I will be in vacation the next two weeks, and if someone has a problem you help them." My answer:"Gladly, but I can only do so much, I'm not a domain admin". He countered with "Now you are". To be fair, it wasn't completely out of the blue, I already helped where I could and he used me as a bouncing board in all things IT at that point. After that I migrated to internal IT. Funny enough in the next company I started as a dev again(this time perl) and migrated to devops after four years... But once a sysadmin always a sysadmin

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michaelpaoli@reddit

>What was your first job in IT? Were you in the help desk? System admin? Multi-role? From [my earlier comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/ITCareerQuestions/comments/1jnjl02/comment/mkqlur4/): >First IT bits were lowly entry-ish level work, e.g. first IT employment was as (W-2) contractor, filling in on QA for someone vacationing - it was a place that made computer cables and related accessories (notably also some switch boxes), mostly operating cabelizer to check cables, plus other relevant inspection bits, and any flaws/failures, flagging and isolating to assembly error or component fault, and sending it back to assembler to be corrected. >Were you in the help desk? Certainly not for that first work in IT. It was essentially my 5th role, 4th employer, 3rd company (one was via contract through another employer, so 2 different employers for first company) that I first did anything that significantly included "help desk". >System admin? First of that was about 4th role along the IT career. >Multi-role? Varied by role/position. I'd say it was the 5th before it was quite significantly mutli-role, though the 4th was also relatively multi-role, but not so heavily so.

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freedoomed@reddit

Dial up ISP phone support.

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awetsasquatch@reddit

I was an AV tech for a university, fixing projectors mostly, now a cyber forensics investigator.

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SenTedStevens@reddit

I did side hustles all throughout high school and college. But my first "real" IT job was working the help desk at my college's residence department. We'd help students in the dorms connect their machines to the university network and also assist employees in our small department.

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BadMoodinTheMorning@reddit

During high school (university) you had to pass 1-2 months of an internship/practice in IT in a real company. I ended up in a local bank, and after 1 month of internship they offered me a job - i was lucky that 1 guy from the IT team left and they needed someone and i think they were very fond of my work. 15 years later, and 3 jobs later, i'm Head of IT and making 30x+ more than my first salary at that bank (i was paid peanuts back then) and no, i still don't have that high school diploma. I still keep in touch with my first Manager, he taught me everything back then (i didn't know how to change an IP address on Windows XP then). I wouldn't be where i am now without him.

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redwolfxd1@reddit

Sole IT guy for a school with more than 700 students, it was hell.

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freethought-60@reddit

I, who am now old, can say that my first job in the IT world properly speaking dates back to the times of DEC with its systems of the PDP 11/xx family (even if previously I had had an unhappy past with the Data General systems of the NOVA4 family).

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ParoxysmAttack@reddit

I did on-site support at an inner-city “community” high school (the alternative high school, as in the one kids are sent to when they get kicked out of their area’s city high school). That was certainly an experience. I didn’t do much most… since the students were so poorly behaved the staff didn’t allow them to interact much with technology. If you looked at Meraki it was actually comical to see how much was stolen. I was still in college at the time so that’s when I got most of my work done.

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dav3n@reddit

Sales builds and support at a horribly dodgy computer shop for $50 a day can in hand

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Baxmoke@reddit

tiny little pc repair shop owned and managed by this elderly Pakistani guy. Did everything including working the counter. He wanted to open a second location and offered me to be manager there but i was already looking for admin jobs by that point. fun times

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phobug@reddit

Junior UNIX admin.

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lasteducation1@reddit

I was hired as IT support, but as I was the only IT'er I got to choose my own role, so SysAdmin it is 😁

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WasabiMadman@reddit

A small MSP in a rural UK village. Used to send a volunteer to go and get lunch at the only convenience store reachable within our 30 minute lunch break. It was unglamorous and basically minimum wage but I got so much exposure to various business applications and server-side computing, it set me on a great path to advance in the field. 13 years later, I'm the IT Director of a global technology company earning about 10 times what I did back then, and have much better lunch options.

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MagicBoyUK@reddit

Part time job in a computer superstore while at Uni, then went to IBM Global Services and worked on a helpdesk after graduating while looking for a proper job. Quite enjoyed it so stayed... 25 years later... I'm more back to my Computer Science roots.

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Cheesqueak@reddit

COBOL programming patching for Y2K Underage I did unofficially work doing TV repair and repairing broken arcade cabinets in the late 80s. Cool neighbor kind of mentored me but it was all cash

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andyr354@reddit

I worked at a dial up isp in the middle 90s. I later got a job converting Novell networks to NT4.

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Sciby@reddit

Computer tech for a reseller. Learnt a lot and was fit as hell from slinging hundreds of CRT boxes around all day long.

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Dublade@reddit

slave desk here

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Megafiend@reddit

Desktop Support Apprentice, was glorious.

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anus_pear@reddit

Desktop support intern at a gambling company

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Downtown_Pool_7096@reddit

My first job in IT was basically 2nd Line from the start. I started as an apprentice in PM for an organisation in the NHS. But after showcasing my skills on a device. I was almost moved to our only IT guy onsite within a month. During that I got to do larger scale projects and shadowed at the nearby hospitals. It's quite surprising to some people when I tell them I haven't exactly done helpdesk. Sure the Apprentice salary wasn't ideal for the work I was doing. But I came out of it with a qualification in project management alongside a couple certs and technician experience. Currently now an IT manager for a much larger org (Still in the NHS) with multiple sites (Still the only onsite lol)

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selfishjean5@reddit

Not even sure what that role would be named. But was in charge of finding solutions to x problem. Do the POC , demonstrate and get it approved and then deploy at client’s. It was very fun, and learnt a lot.

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BitRunner64@reddit

Level 1 tech support at a large energy technology company. It wasn't too bad to be honest. The workload was manageable and most users were fairly computer literate. You quickly learnt the little quirks and issues people would most frequently encounter with the internal systems and how to fix them. I even managed to study CCNA between the calls which was part of what helped me move up and away from there.

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ikothsowe@reddit

Systems engineer (combined installer, support monkey & general tech resource) for a local IBM PC reseller; about 200 years ago (or so my knees would suggest). Actually I blame the state of my knees on having to carry countless HP Laserjet II’s and PS/2’s up multiple flights of stairs.

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pertymoose@reddit

Everything, basically. From unboxing stuff and filling the printers with paper, to installing and configuring network equipment, building and maintaining servers and PCs, creating policies, supporting off-site locations, building the company website, etc. And trashing everyone in Call of Duty after hours. The entire IT department was just me and the IT director, so there was enough to do.

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Kohoutec@reddit

Helpdesk for an ISP here in the UK (BT Internet), back in the dial up days It was awful, especially if you were on the late shift on Friday or Saturday night. Blokes coming home from the pub pissed, angry as they couldn't get online for a porn fix It didn't help that the calls cost the customers something like 50p a minute, just to help their anger

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drzaiusdr@reddit

Built PCs, beige boxes. Must have put together close to 1000 over 3 years.

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6-Daweed-9@reddit

As a voluntary worker in a hospital. Did alot of onsite support for staff and other things like assisting the other IT Staff with their Projects(e.g. win10 Migration, upgrading server and network hardware, expanding their TI, ...). Was fun during covid ... Did it for a year, 40hr week, 300€/month (its not a salary but a compensation). Was 15/16 at the time and it was my confirmation that this is what i want to do. With that done i got a place in a big corp to start my formal education while working.

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BugsKanji@reddit

Help desk for a construction company, man looks like a homeless person.

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Chill_Squirrel@reddit

Help desk (phone) for an ISP. Yes, customers suck, but some stories will stay with me forever. One of my highlights was a guy asking for help because his gf blocked access to WoW on their (3rd party) router.

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soccerbeast55@reddit

HelpDesk for my University. Providing support to faculty, staff, and the 30k+ students on campus. I absolutely loved it though.

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BoRedSox@reddit

Sys admin, boss asked wanna be in IT? It's been a good 3 years.

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Rossco1874@reddit

1st level support on a government account. Became a sme on one of the applications which put me in the firing line for IT illiterate farmers as they couldn't use the application that sent information to government on land use. I had one guy ask my name tell me he was going to the papers about me (not the company, not the government requiring this information to be submitted this way) all because he wasn't good with computers. Was so glad to move to 2nd line user admin.

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TelephoneKitchen0420@reddit

It was a car dealership with several locations, over 200 users. Started helping the “it guys”. After a few weeks they were fired and suddenly I “was” the whole IT. While being 19 years old. It was a nice start I would say

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BigPete224@reddit

Did 2 weeks work experience in an IT department for a multinational through school when I was 17, they invited me back to work through summer.

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Brazilator@reddit

Small MSP. I’d rather live in the deepest circle of hell than go back

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aprimeproblem@reddit

My first job was putting Windows 95 on laptops…. Well more portable desktops really.

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Hieronymus_Flex_@reddit

It support for a non-profit nursing company. Pretty much Helpdesk with a bit of everything. Small IT team of 3 including me. Learnt most of my skills from the other two guys. Had a good time with that crew.

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marcus_lepricus@reddit

Part-time black box QA while completing last year of my degree. Basicly, manual regression testing by filling out forms on a system for handling government fines and infringements. I think i fell asleep a few times sitting up and clunked my head against the CRT. It paid well though.

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kyle6477@reddit

Replacing several thousand Optiplex GX270 and GX280 motherboards for the capacitor plague back in 2005.

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nmonsey@reddit

Doctors office. It was a small office, so I did everything. When I started working there, it was one floor of one building, but after a few years the office had grown have employees in different buildings. * Purchased computers * Setup computers * Purchased software * Oracle database application development * Oracle database administration * Unix administration * Migrated data from a dbase database running on MSDOS to Oracle version 5 running on SCO Unix. * Created Oracle Forms application to manage scheduling, billing, collections * When the owner retired, I recreated the application using Microsoft Access version 1 which allowed access to the billing data from a computer running Windows. * Migrated all of the computers from MSDOS to Windows 3 or WYSE terminals connected to the SCO Unix server. My first real Enterprise IT job was as an Oracle Application developer and Oracle DBA doing a migration from a mainframe to an Oracle 6 database running on a Sun server for a nuclear power plant work management system. The mainframe that we were migrating from was not Y2k compliant and the Oracle application we migrated to was Y2K complaint and certified for use at a nuclear power plant. The new Oracle Forms application was running Oracle Forms, similar to what I had used for the previous application for the doctor's office. By the time I was working for a power company at a nuclear power plant, I was mostly working as an Oracle application developer or as an oracle database administrator.

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tbrumleve@reddit

Internal Helpdesk for a former Fortune 500 networking company. Lots of perks. This was around 2000 right before the dot com bust.

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tbrumleve@reddit

Internal Helpdesk for a former Fortune 500 networking company. Lots of perks. This was around 2000 right before the dot com bust.

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tbrumleve@reddit

Internal Helpdesk for a former Fortune 500 networking company. Lots of perks. This was around 2000 right before the dot-com bust.

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tbrumleve@reddit

Internal Helpdesk for a former Fortune 500 networking company. Lots of perks. This was around 2000 right before the dot-com bust.

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rimtaph@reddit

If intern counts, then it was IT-technician/Network Technician. Was offered job after

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marco7532@reddit

10 years ago working in a local computer shop as a Saturday boy, boss was an absolute ass but learnt a lot Then went on as an apprentice to full time in a secondary school for 3 years where I learnt about a business environment Moved on to an MSP where I’m one of the Engineers now, working offsite at different clients working on projects, new device setups or cloud migrations. I also manage my own clients on a regular basis. Just coming up to 6 years here!

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Schrojo18@reddit

Mine was sort of junior network engineer but also supporting OT. The rest of our networking was outsourced, though that slowly came in house as I learnt more.

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mckinnon81@reddit

I started early 2000's on the production line building computers for Acer Computers when they were in Homebush Olympic Park (Sydney, Australia).

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iamvinen@reddit

Sysadmin. I came to be a just technician to build LANs for our customers. But boss randomly asked - can you take care of our IT stuff in the office. Of course I said "yes I can". While I actually couldn't 😄 So right after interview I ran for some books and to learn from some friends 😄 It was 24 years ago. Now I am in cybersecurity.

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neoslashnet@reddit

I was a computer tech for Dell warranty repairs. Basically replaced hardware components on laptops and desktops.

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nrm94@reddit

1st Line MSP. Learned so much in that job, the 3 year computer network degree feels like a complete waste of time and money now, but who knows that potentially got me the job in the first place

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Maro1947@reddit

Engineering Scheduler and Ticket Expediter Best title and I moved straight from there to Desktop support. No helpdesk

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nerobro@reddit

"hey do you wanna make good money showing teachers how to get online?" So I was doing tech support for a small isp that focused on gettting teachers online. And... 27 years later here I am, a system admin.

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CodeXploit1978@reddit

2000 ish. Computer repair and assembly.

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peteybombay@reddit

In the late 90s, I worked for a 3rd party contracted to do Dell hardware support over the phone. They (Dell) provides like 4 weeks of paid training, starting at the ground level to show how PC hardware, DOS and Windows worked and how to fix Dell PCs...they spent almost a month training me, then fired me after I was sick (without pay) for 2 days without a doctors note. But, I knew how PCs worked every job has been a step up since then, so thanks I guess!!!

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vantasmer@reddit

Fixing printers for hunting and fishing license POS systems

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RichTech80@reddit

First line windows support in a very small MSP that serviced a pretty major uk client at the time (a large sub company of a major petroleum company) and some small businesses, already had some knowledge from college and repairing PCs for a lot of people which helped. Was there for just over 2 years.

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