Ask HN: Tell me about your non-traditional entry into IT?
For me, it all started the day my brother purchased a computer for my mom. My family didn&#x27;t have much money, and as a result, I would help my mother clean bathrooms at a fruit and produce junction for $40 on Thursdays.<p>At the time, my brother had received money from an accident he had as a child. A dog tore off his eyelid, and the money was supposed to be for plastic surgery.  Instead of incurring any more pain, he opted not to have the operation.<p>I discovered AOL and immediately was chatting with strangers, one who sent me a virus that would delete my hard drive. I spent days befriending him by first re-installing my operating system and rerunning the virus. Why? The virus would put me in a private chatroom in which I could speak with him.<p>After spending days talking to him, he finally agreed to share what happened. All I had to do was find this piece of software called Visual Studio. It took me 7 straight days to download it over a dialup.<p>I started to play with Visual Studio, but I wasn&#x27;t good. Since my trial account on AOL was running out, I had to find a way to stay online. This is where I uncovered the power of Hex Editors. All I had to do was locate a password stealer, use the hex editor and change the password embedded in the program. That&#x27;s exactly what I did!<p>I was able to stay on AOL for a year by &quot;borrowing&quot; the accounts of other people using this password stealer. That wasn&#x27;t enough for me, and I had to write my own. This leads me down the path of reading source code of others, DosFx, and eventually attending trade school to make my software better.<p>At this time, I had no clue that people get paid to write software. During my time attending a trade school, I graduated with a 4.0 and my teachers told me I should write software for a living.<p>Six months after trade school I was still working at Home Depot. One day a customer came in running their mouth about the color of the paint they ordered. This experience made me very upset, and I wanted to snap, but I kept my composure in front of the customer. I went down the aisle to find another base to remake their paint. In a moment of rage, I punched a hole through a box and expressed how I felt out loud. That&#x27;s when I heard someone from a distance say my name followed by &quot;Why are you working here?&quot; It was the teacher at trade school who told to get a job in IT.<p>Words can&#x27;t express how disgusted and frustrated I felt with myself. He and I talked for a few minutes about what I was doing. It calmed me down enough and encouraged me to make a change.<p>There are a lot of small details I left out which are equally important in my journey, but I don&#x27;t want to make this post too long.