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Jolt · 11-29-2004, 06:33 PM

<- Computer Engineer.

Formerly...
Process Technician
Assembler
Integrator
"Service Associate" (yuck!)
Repair Technician
"Upgrade Consultant" (gah!)
Service Clerk
etc

My first "real" (full-time) job was standing behind the service counter in a local clonebuilder/repair shop...I installed umpteen terabytes of memory while-U-wait and explained to people why they couldn't put a new PCI video card in their 486 VLB system...I moved into a repair bench in the shop for a while, then moved into assembly & QA in our modest production process (our daily build quota moved from 10 to 20 boxen a day). Then I moved over to our pre-owned wing and chopshopped all sorts of machines so we could try to sell them...

The store closed after the owner made some poor decisions and ran us out of business...

...and I hooked on at a larger place which was making the transition from Distributor to Manufacturer. We have become one of the premier white-box OEMs in NA, now shipping over 3000 desktops and ~200 each laptops and servers each month. I don't know how many hundred servers I have assembled...or how many more hundred I've loaded Windows, SCO Unix, Linux, whatever on...

a few years later...I now own most of the behind-the-scenes work that contributes to the quality of our server products. I'm partly an SE, partly a lab monkey, partly an awful lot of things. I'm 2nd-level support to our tech staff. I work with our salesdroids and customers to help them understand why a level-10 RAID solution is a better choice for running Exchange...then do a lot of evaluation work on new components, run compatibility tests...contribute to process improvement...and then I train our junior line techs how to load Loonix, and how to set up RAID arrays, and how to troubleshoot Stuff That Don't Work.

Most Common Question...hmm.

going back some years it would have been the combination of "How much is Meg?" "The Meg that's in this computer is 8, and I need a bigger one." "Can you put some more Meg in this?" etc...

Then it became "Do you have the driver for..." For some reason I became the drivers librarian in both shops.

More recently it's "Do you have a minute?" or "Hey, can you look at this?"

11-29-2004, 06:33 PM	#12 (permalink)
Jolt Insane Location: Over here	<- Computer Engineer. Formerly... Process Technician Assembler Integrator "Service Associate" (yuck!) Repair Technician "Upgrade Consultant" (gah!) Service Clerk etc My first "real" (full-time) job was standing behind the service counter in a local clonebuilder/repair shop...I installed umpteen terabytes of memory while-U-wait and explained to people why they couldn't put a new PCI video card in their 486 VLB system...I moved into a repair bench in the shop for a while, then moved into assembly & QA in our modest production process (our daily build quota moved from 10 to 20 boxen a day). Then I moved over to our pre-owned wing and chopshopped all sorts of machines so we could try to sell them... The store closed after the owner made some poor decisions and ran us out of business... ...and I hooked on at a larger place which was making the transition from Distributor to Manufacturer. We have become one of the premier white-box OEMs in NA, now shipping over 3000 desktops and ~200 each laptops and servers each month. I don't know how many hundred servers I have assembled...or how many more hundred I've loaded Windows, SCO Unix, Linux, whatever on... a few years later...I now own most of the behind-the-scenes work that contributes to the quality of our server products. I'm partly an SE, partly a lab monkey, partly an awful lot of things. I'm 2nd-level support to our tech staff. I work with our salesdroids and customers to help them understand why a level-10 RAID solution is a better choice for running Exchange...then do a lot of evaluation work on new components, run compatibility tests...contribute to process improvement...and then I train our junior line techs how to load Loonix, and how to set up RAID arrays, and how to troubleshoot Stuff That Don't Work. Most Common Question...hmm. going back some years it would have been the combination of "How much is Meg?" "The Meg that's in this computer is 8, and I need a bigger one." "Can you put some more Meg in this?" etc... Then it became "Do you have the driver for..." For some reason I became the drivers librarian in both shops. More recently it's "Do you have a minute?" or "Hey, can you look at this?"