I’d rather be telling filthy stories but i’m kind of fighting with an (unusual for me) anxiety issue.
This is a long story and I would rather not tell it all right this moment, but we’ll see, these things grow as I go one sometimes.
I’ve worked in high tech for an absurd number of years. I had an aptitude with computers from the time I first encountered them in the late 70’s; I learn things hands on, and pick them up quickly. So when, for example, the poster/plant department of Tower Records needed a person to take over ticket sales when we first got a terminal, my boss tapped me because he knew i’d be all over it.
It’s always been that way. I don’t have patience with manuals and instructions, but things I can learn by getting hands on and problem solving, I launch at. My first high tech job was as a shipping clerk, but I quickly found my way into a test department (at Seagate in Scotts Valley), moving into engineering on hard work and fast learning.
This got me every job since, going through most of the top tech companies of the 80’s and 90’s. I won’t mention my current employer by name, but Sun and Cisco were both great for me, allowing me to keep learning and growing as an engineer as well as a technical expert in non-engineering teams.
It’s the same story throughout; aptitude, work ethic, intelligence, and extremely good communication skills.
The fact that I didn’t always excel at deep focus tasks was balanced by all the rest; if I could not solve a deep technical problem, I knew how to diagnose the issue, and collaborate to get it solved quickly by people who had the specific skill I did not have. I compensated for certain difficulties, by multi-tasking exceptionally well. Yes, I have had phone sex while programming perl code, and did both well, thank you.