Thankyou helpful bloke with beard
Don't know your name, sorry.

I put down on my jobseeker form that I was interested in accounting and computer programming roles even though I'd never had any sort of job since saturdays at Tesco when I was in the Sixth Form.

I enrolled on a book-keeping evening course at the local college but those few weeks convinced me that accounting wasn't for me so IT it was then.

When I went to sign on, I asked woman with an attitude whether there were any computer programming courses I could go on. "We don't do anything like that" she said in her condescending tone.

A few weeks later I signed on at helpful bloke with beard's desk. He looked at my notes and said "I see you're interested in computer programming, we offer a course in C++, would you like to go on it?".

So for 16 weeks I travelled to Cambridge most days. Couldn't afford every day as £35 per week Income Support plus the extra £10 they gave me for attending the course didn't leave much change after the £7 per day rail fair. I did complete the course though and thoroughly deserved my NVQ4 in C++ programming.

This enabled me to get my first proper job as a Junior Developer and has put me on a path of ever increasing salaries and eventually contracting. I now find myself sat at home for a few weeks between contracts with a pile of dosh in my business account, playing games and reading B3ta.

So, helpful bloke with beard, thanks for helping me and thanks for giving me a career.

And, woman with an attitude, I can but hope that you are as miserable on the inside as you are on the outside and that you are no longer employed in a role that allows you to fuck up young people's chances of getting the help and encouragemnent that they need.
( stopmeandslapme Cometh the hour, cometh your mum, Fri 3 Apr 2009, 14:54, 5 replies)

Applauds
It's so strange that a single person or moment can change ones life so dramatically.

Having said that, you have done all the work yourself. A lot of people wouldn't have done or been able to do that course. Now you're in the obscenely lucrative world of contracting, purely from a lot of graft and a little help from a beard. Kudos.

Clickety click!
(jackhiggs no longer a v!rgin as of..., Fri 3 Apr 2009, 15:04, closed)

This is EXACTLY the type of story I hoped would come from this QotW...

Sometimes, a click just isn't enough.
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Fri 3 Apr 2009, 15:54, closed)

I like this.

( Noeli overtheshoulderboulderholderthingstraplatchboobs, Fri 3 Apr 2009, 16:07, closed)

Me too!
I didn't do C++, I did AutoCAD, but the post is largely the same! Contracting, yum!

That miserable cow, or maybe her sister, told me, when I went to sign back on, that I'd only been on the course to get off the stats for 3 months! Bitch!

She then told me that 16,000 pa wasn't realistic (in 1997). Within 2 years, I wouldn't have got out of bed for 16k!

It was great fun filling in the DSS 'feedback' form that arrived a few months after I'd started my new career.
(CADmonkey rollllllllled another one, just like the other one, Fri 3 Apr 2009, 20:46, closed)

I'd get out of bed for £16k
We are talking per week right? ;-)
( stopmeandslapme Cometh the hour, cometh your mum, Fri 3 Apr 2009, 20:53, closed)