Neva

 

Hi... at PD, Ms Davidson started me on a path. Let me tell you about my career path and my professional life after PD.

Not long after graduation I worked for a law firm that sent me to a PC Tech school.  Upon completion, I was given a PC toolkit (that I still have). I was now skilled to work on PC’s.  I loved being able to work on them.  I’d whip out my little toolkit and went to work.  Back then there was no plug and play, you had to roll up your sleeves and configure each part that you added to a machine. Through the years I worked on 286s, 386s, 486s, 486 with the Pentium chip, then Pentium I, Pentium II, and so on. I became quite a PC mechanic (now I don’t even know what the latest chip names are). Along with physically repairing machines, I even learned to code in DOS which was my first experience with programming language.

I switched jobs a couple of times and on one job I began database programming and report development.  I became a Microsoft Engineer.  I no longer physically worked on PCs but specialized in building applications with Visual Studio, Access, Excel and SQL Server. I found my niche in data development. Of course, doing all this while typing on a keyboard!

I am still plugging away with technology. I recently came out of retirement and went to work for an insurance company as a Senior SQL Developer. I love my job! I’m employed fulltime, have a full benefit package and work 100% from home... what a deal.

I’m continuing my love of typing and technology. It all started on a path during a class at PD with a great teacher- Ms Davidson.

PS - for the avid friends of mine, I've got a couple more (they're not as techy as the ones above)...

One of my fondest memories is when I quit a job one time and as a going away gift my boss gave me my old ergonomic keyboard and said "I know how much you liked this keyboard so you can have it." Well, I got home with it and decided to clean it up a bit. I got out my little old toolkit and popped off every key on that keyboard and soaked them in bleach water overnight. When they were dry, I tried putting the keys back on but could not for the life of me remember where they all went! LOL! I can type 88 wpm with my eyes closed without errors but I could not figure out how to put those keys back on that keyboard! Some PC machinic I turned out to be… huh.

And then I MUST include in a Granma story...

I have a picture of my granddaughter, Lily, when she was a baby...maybe 2 yrs old...and she had crawled up into my chair at the computer and sat like she was typing and she proceeded to pound the keys on the keyboard like a very fast typist might, and if you asked her what she was doing, she would say "I'm working...like Grandma." So I like to think that Ms Davidson even had an impact down to my Grandkids :)