Posted on 08/08/2012 7:39:19 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
I retired from sand can driver ... too many close calls , bad eyes, and the hours were just plain nuts ... but the money was great.
They left off POTUS. You don’t have to have any qualifications or meet any requirements for that position.
Yea I understand. I haven’t seen CAD systems for some time but I do talk with designers from time to time. We designed the 486 mother board for Intel, way back when and we used a CAD system to do most of it and the rest by hand. When Sun Mico Systems was around, they still designed the big boards, 14 layer, etc, by hand. I still think that most CAD systems can’t do the complete job. I have used Cadnetix CAD systems and they were the best around. Then Daisey Systems did an unfriendly take over, used all the money that Cadetix had and closed down the company.
When I was at Data Products, we had our own job shop. If I needed designers on a temporary basis, we had access to the best around. I don’t know of any job shops around today. It’s been a while but I’ve always said....”A circuit board is a circuit board is a circuit board.”
My oldest son, now 25 has had the technology gift since he was 13 years old and got his first professional IT designation at age 14, started working IT jobs when he was 16.
He really P.O’d me when he decided to major in political science. His perspective was that a degree was just a pedigree and his “gift” and experience were his ticket to a job.
Thankfully for him he was right and is now working deep within the IT bowels of mega corp. in a specialized field at the enterprise level reporting to the C-level officers.
He was initally hired at the lowest rung and could have gotten the job just based on having prof. certifications. It was his knowledge and experience that have advanced him.
“Hilton Hotel is the happiest place to work.....hmmmmm.”
Makes me wonder what Paris is doing to help improve that work place satisfaction survey....
I’ll second that. I’m a network geek (routing/switching, firewall, wireless), and while I’ve had training classes, I’ve also never attended college. I’m not at 6 figures, yet, but will be within 5 years (pending the end of the Obama administration)
To get advancement and good pay, there is nothing like producing positive results to your employer’s bottom line.
I started work on a offshore oil and gas platform as a maintenance mechanic. Once got a grasp of equipment and operations, I went looking for the overlooked aspects to be applied in the streamlining of maintenance procedures. I submitted ideas which were put into effect, resulting in less downtime and increased runtimes. In two years I was maintenance foreman, then transferred to another division and put into engineering department. The company then sent me to numerous schools for highly technical classes. Later was put into surface and downhole operations, there I came up with mechanical inventions for which I was granted US patents, to include one for a well blowout preventer.
After 20 years with the company, found myself making a higher salary than many engineers with more years of service. Finding I was just burned out, in 1991 I took early retirement at age 52 with full benefits.
As an aside, my formal education stopped at 8th grade and later getting a GED.
“Seems like the war on drugs is a failure.”
Probably not a good idea to bring up that up here. Either you want drugged-out truck drivers (as mentioned before), or you pushing to increase the failure rate from 80% to 90%, or more...due to all the free drugs that would be around.
In Paris????
;-/
Oh wow and I know some of the engineering stuff as well. What happened was I play electric guitar and found this book one day that showed you how to make your own effects boxes like distortion, flange, chorus, delay...you would plug the guitar into these effect boxes then plug the output into an amplifier. It had detailed instructions how to make these things, what to buy at Radio shack like the circuit board, resistors, capacitors, pots, etc etc, and I got so into it, putting almost all of them together with a soldering iron. And from that I bought an electrical engineering book that showed how to get a specific result, output using math, I even went so far as to buy a scientific calculator and made all these experimental things in my basement.
Then I dont know, what happened, I got bored with it or my girlfriend complained. “Oh you never take me out! Kevin like me more than you! Maybe I should go out with him!” lol
That is wild though, it never occurred to a person could make money from it. Of course though, circuit boards are everywhere like you said, dishwashers, cars, I guess it was the hobby aspect of it, it never occurred to me. If you don’t mind me asking, how did you get started? Is it just word of mouth or you started with a company?
I got started by applying at a company as a trainee draftsman. My boss asked me if I wanted to try circuit board design. I said “Sure” and there I went. I loved it. I was 21 years old back then.....a long time ago. If you can find an electronics company that is willing to train you, you can start there. It’s difficult for some of them to find anyone that is willing to learn and stick with it. Show them you have a big interest and they might take you on.
Excellent! I’ll do it for nothing as an intern. Seriously, I am completely fascinated by stuff like this. I’m 50 y/o now but I have enough money were I can work for nothing. I just want to learn.
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