I don’t have any fancy letters next to my name. I don’t have the years learning a craft with a fancy sheet of paper to show for my work. I went to college and I got a degree because that is what was expected. Out of high school you go to college, you get your degree then.
That’s where the story ends. What happens after that?
At every job I’ve ever held people have always asked me how I got to be so good at what I do. Where did I go to school? What did I study? The root of their questions always seem to be who taught me all of this wonderful knowledge I have now?
The answer always surprises them. The wonderful teacher who handed down their knowledge to me, was me.
I did not go to school for a technical degree. I was not a computer scientist. No math or science major. I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Creative Advertising. (My degree reads a BS in Communications.)
I went to school for Advertising because I wanted to be a designer in either print or web. I wanted to make things and communicate with people.
I went to college to learn all I could about the craft of advertising and some marketing. I spent my four years in school learning I didn’t want to work in Advertising.
All those long hours of brainstorming sessions over baskets of friends (I used to literally sit with my creative partner(s) in a local eatery where we’re hash out our ideas over a basket of friends and soda for me, beer for them.) All of the selling of junk people didn’t really want or need. I couldn’t work in that industry in good faith. It felt like I was lying to people. I was causing stress in their minds so they’d buy things to make them feel better.
Since I needed something to put food on the table. I started down a career path in Tech Support. My first job out of college was a 6 month contract working for the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality on a PC deployment (moving from Windows NT to XP). As fate would have it, those 6 months turned into 12 months and I had a blast on the job. We traveled to all the DEQ sites around the state and setup hundreds of computers. That first year made me realize I really enjoyed working in tech support. I had found my calling.
I learned tech support was what I was really interested in. I wanted to bring the same sense of communication about something to customer support and service. I don’t want to make people buy things they don’t really need. I want to make people love and use the things they already have and learn to use them better.