Classic computer job/work offer (UK)

On Tue, 31 Aug 2004, Teo Zenios wrote: This goes for any work in a niche market. The good news is, that once you "get in" on a retro-based support job, and do it well, chances are above average they will also grant you more of the regular support work available, assuming "if he can do the VAX this well, he probably will do a decent job on our other stuff too". And, quite often, this is not a bad assumption. The difference between a consultant with a retro background and one without is, that the retro person usually has actual hands-on experience with many aspects of what lies at the base of modern IT issues. Most newly-grown consultants have their base knowledge from books and/or hear-say from collegues and teachers, but that's it. They have never seen an Ethernet bridge, so would not know how to spot collision-domain problems, for example. The retro-guy *spots* the problems, based on experience and recognition of symptoms, where the new-guy has to perform several rounds of analysis to figure it out. Or not. In my personal experience, I have gotten "in to" companies based on reputation (muhahaha !) and to help out with a retro system issue, and then gradually more and more of their total IT "business". Since I am far from cheap, and customers still attack me with requests, I must therefore assume they are pleased with my work, since they kicked out others (from the new-guy arena) in favor of moi... Cheers, Fred -- Fred N. van Kempen, DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) Collector/Archivist Visit the VAXlab Project at http://VAXlab.pdp11.nl/ Visit the Archives at http://www.pdp11.nl/ Email: waltje(a)pdp11.nl BUSSUM, THE NETHERLANDS / Mountain View, CA, USA