Always another skill

I work in the computer industry. It happened somewhat by default, because I have had an aptitude for computers since I was in sixth grade (and if you can’t calculate when that was, I’m not going to blow my image by telling you how ancient I am). Anyway, though I could probably dwarf my other blog entries combined by talking about my career (wow can I blab) it just happened because nobody else in the building at my first long-term job was good with computers. Ten years later I was starting an IT department for a dot-com startup in NYC.
 
Along the way I learned one important, somewhat ironic thing: there is always another skill you need. At first it was simply how to handle a PC – the cables and plugs, where they went, how to do some easy console commands. Then you needed to know how to take it apart and put pieces in it or take them out. Then you needed to learn how to mess with the configuration files at boot-up, especially how to manage memory – then that some programs wanted one type of memory and others wanted a different type (yikes! a computer has more than one type of memory?) then you needed to be able to explain to a person the difference between active memory and a hard drive or other storage device.
 
Then came networks, and a whole host of new skills. Networking required knowing not only what a server is, but the various levels of cabling (needing a hub or not, network cards in the machines, drivers to make the cards function, a server or not, software to run the server, how information is parceled up and shared, etc.) Skip several steps and learning requirements to get to the Internet (succinct, be succinct).
 
After I learned all these various hardware issues, and the amazing politics of being a middle manager, I left the computer “support” world to become a programmer. WOW are there levels here. It sure helped to have a background in support, because every project required something new. Because I had skill in Access, I was suddenly billed as a “visual basic” expert. Because I’d actually held the boxes in which both Novell and Windows NT had come in, I was the only one with experience in “both”. So I needed to learn both, and Visual Basic, but they were really only useful for one project. The next project was in Cold Fusion (a server-side product for the Internet). The next was in ASP (a competing project). One used IBM’s database. The next MySQL. Most of them used HTML, but some crequired C++, some Java, and some Visual Basic Scripting. Then I got into Neverwinter Nights and needed to learn a proprietary version of C++.
 
Now, because of what I want to accomplish, I have actually had to teach myself 3D modeling. But because I learned my first 3D moves in “Maya”, and the Neverwinter Nights files only translate into 3D Studio Max, I had to learn 3DS Max too.
 
But don’t worry, the fact that I am rated by a recruiter as an “expert” in HTML, SQL Syntax, WindowsNT, Novell, Cold Fusion, Visual Basic, C++, Java, VB Scripting, MySQL, Microsoft support (like Office), hardware support, networking (physical and digital), Maya, 3D Studio Max, DOS, Clairvoyance, Basket Weaving, and Management Relations, none of that will actually apply to my next computer need. Which will doubtless require me to learn the intricacies of IP packets or vacuum tube construction.
 
My frustration isn’t so much that there’s always something new to learn, but that after you spend three months beating your head against the latest new thing, not only does whoever write the paycheck complain that it took you so damned long, your knowledge is immediately obsolete because you will never use it again. You need to learn something new next time.
 
So. Here’s to all that coffee that keeps us going. I’m headed back into 3DS to keep making these cool graphics.