On Sat, 22 Jan 2005, Terry Collins wrote:
> Adelle Hartley wrote:
When I was on the dole, I was teaching myself C++ and systems admin.
This was back in 1992-1993.
I was offered several "computer" courses, most of which were Microsoft
Office based, or simple desktop support type training schemes.
When interviewing for these courses at the CES, they would ask me if I
had any IT experience and then I would pull out a few floppies with
my projects on them and start talking about C++ and so on.
I never got to one of those training schemes as the officer/counsellor
was convinced I was overskilled for them - they thought I'd get bored.
I graciously gave up my slot for a less fortunate pleb, so I could go
back to sleeping in till 1pm and sitting up all night hacking on
various ideas.
Finally I was able to swing a role with the Uni, in the library, ostensibly
doing filing, faxing, foning and fotocopying. I got an interview for
the 6 month scheme and happened to mention the Internet. This boggled
the person who eventually hired me, as he was actually putting together
a team of specialist librarians to use the net for their teaching.
In any case I only did one day of filing &c and ended up in this team
and quickly became their tech support and so on. This lead directly
to my current career as a UNIX admin.....
Thank Simon Crean (at the time) for his wonderful well targeted
Labour Market Programs!
If a cheme that involved Linux/OSS/programming &c had been there
when I was on the dole, my career would probably have been accelerated
even more than it was at the time, when no one had a clue about
computers, let alone *nix.
However much I despise the Howard Govt and it's evil WFTD schemes,
OSS is better than painting rocks and cleaning dead animals out of sewers
or whatever other useless dead end tasks the unemployed have to
do to keep the govt's employment statistics appearing to be
better than they actually are...
rachel
--
Rachel Polanskis Systems Admin, University of Western Sydney
ADD Werrington North Campus (+61 2) 9678 7291 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
"No one in my electorate goes to uni" - Jackie Kelly, member for Lindsay
"Who do you trust?" - John W Howard
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