Not your typical post for seeking career advice.

guht

First let me apologize for the length and scope of this post. I know this is definitely not one of the standard posts on here, and perhaps this is not even the appropriate place for this post. However, I am hoping some people can relate, and offer some compassionate insight into my situation. I feel kind of lost and I have a lot of background information to share that I feel is critical in understanding my current situation and what kind of advice I am seeking and will benefit from.

I am currently 37, male, and have basically worked with computers my entire life in some capacity or another. I have no formal education other than high school.

My father started working for a nationally recognized government agency as a computer programmer in the early 1970's, and I was exposed to PC computers at a very early age. My earliest memories were of playing text based PC computer games like Zork, and I would attribute video games in general as initially being what sparked my interest in computers. I use to frequent the arcades, and I am still a huge video game lover to this day.

In high school I took a couple semesters of computer programming in the Pascal programming language, which was what was offered at the time. I did quite well in my computer classes, but I was not very strong in math, as it did not peak my interest like computers did.

In the early 90's I made several attempts at going to community college and pursuing a degree in computer sciences, but at the time, and mostly unknowing to myself, I struggled with depression, ADD, lack of identity, lack of self-confidence, and alcohol abuse.

Also at the time BBS and Warez was popular among the computer literate. I met another person at college that was running a local BBS, and wanted a co-sysop. This is when I started to learn about the linux operating system, hacking, and building my own computers. I started out using the linux OS slackware 1.0, and would perform simple brute force attacks on local colleges and universities to gain access to their systems. I never did anything malicious like delete data, sell data, or create viruses, but I can see how this sort of activity is frowned upon. I only mention it because it was in the past, and at the time this was exciting and fueled my learning. I would later lay down the foundation for a Internet Service Provider business with this person. They ended up starting the business, which was profitable after only 8 months, and was sold. Even though I was not involved in the actual business, it was based on a lot of the work and planning we did together.

I continued to flounder and struggle with my own personal issues, and I worked manual labor jobs at night to support my lifestyle.

I got my first real job through a friends dad starting as a data entry clerk. I find this ironic because I barely passed my high school typing class, and to this day I still only type with 2 fingers. However, I do type remarkably fast with my two middle fingers, and can literally type in the dark. Within a couple months of doing data entry work I was already finding ways to improve on the company's existing system and make my life easier with bash scripts. My company recognized my natural talent with computers and sent me to a week long class to teach me all about the Informix database system. I also took on networking and admin responsibilities and over the course of a year I was doing more computer work than data entry work. I asked my boss to give me a title change and a pay raise, and my request was denied. I was still struggling with own inner demons and was looking to do a geographical.

I ended up moving from California to the Phoenix area in 2000 and found a job with a small company as a general network support guy. I was in charge of troubleshooting anything hardware and software related, and dealing with end users. I also taught myself VB6 and TSQL, and I began creating front end and back end applications to retrieve and display customized data. After about 4 years of doing double duty I found someone else to take over my networking responsibilities and convinced my boss to allow me to program full time. I also started to negotiate the ability to work from home part time. The small company I worked for ended up being bought out by an investment company, and our company was merged with a much larger company. The investment company then ended up purchasing another large company and we merged again becoming the largest company of our kind in North America. By this time I was working from home full time, and bounced around from several different groups as the company reorganized itself. At this point I had a lot of experience in VB6, some experience in VB.NET, a lot of experience working with SQL queries, and some experience creating customized Crystal Reports. In 2011 we hired a new CIO from outside the company and one of the first things he did was let our well tenured and highly respected IT director go, and shortly after that he reduced our IT force by 10% requiring lay offs in each individual IT group. At the time I was in a specialized group with my boss, and one other person, and I was let go in July of 2011 after surviving several merges, previous layoffs, and being with the company for 11 years.

In the 11 years that I worked for the company I was mostly miserable at my job. I didn't feel challenged, and I didn't see a lot of growth potential in the company itself. However, I got along really well with all my bosses, and always had good performance reviews. One notable from my reviews is that the quality of work that I produced was always exemplary, but it was also always noted that my managers would like to see more of it. At the time I did not know this, but this is where my ADD shined through as I was perfectionist but also a procrastinator. I needed very strict guidelines and deadlines to follow in order to get work done, and left to my own devices, as I often was, I did not do a lot of work. I felt like I did myself a huge dis-service by staying at this job for as long as I did as the technologies they were using were out dated, and the industry itself was highly specialized.

I have been sober now for 5 years, but have still struggled with major depression, and went undiagnosed with ADD until just recently.

I recently went back to community college last semester and took just one course to test the waters. I took a placement test and qualified for Honors ENG 101. I really enjoyed the class, but as with work and my previous attempts at school I procrastinated until the last minute with my assignments. During the time that I was taking this class a 5 year relationship and engagement dissolved, and I did not finish the class. Despite procrastinating and not finishing I still ended up with a B in the class.

So basically my struggle is this. I am almost 38, and have no idea what the hell I want to do with life. I still love computers and find programming to be interesting and challenging, and feel like with the knowledge and awareness that I have now that I suffer from ADD and depression, that perhaps me being miserable at my last job had less to do with the job, and more to do with me. I would like to go back to school, but have no idea for what. I have thought about just getting my BS in Business Information Technology with the hopes of being a manager in the IT industry. I feel like with my life experiences, work experiences, and examples provided to me by some managers that I respected, that I would make a good manager down the road.

However, I need a job in the meantime, as I have been without work for almost a year, and have depleted most of my cash reserves.

The negative: I have no degrees, or notable college education. I have no certifications. I feel like I am a jack of all trades with no expertise in one area, my biggest expertise is in VB6, which is an extremely outdated technology, and only yields a handful of results in job searches across the entire country, which still often times require newer programming languages as they are converting from their legacy applications. While struggling with my inner demons I obtained 2 DUIs, and dinged up my credit, which in today's competitive market are also considered when applying for a job.

The positive: I have taught myself everything I know and feel confident that I can learn any technology. I am able to think outside of the box and often times come up with creative solutions to problems. I have a lot of experience with data, retrieving data, producing customized reports and data deliverables. I worked for 11 years with a large company and am familiar with the corporate world and demands of a larger company. I am also use to the demands of large clients as several of our clients were ranked the 10 biggest companies in the world.

Like I stated at the beginning of this post it probably doesnt qualify as your typical 'career advice' post, and you may be wondering what the hell kind of advice I am looking for here, well that makes two of us, and I guess that is the point I have no idea what I am looking for or where to even begin!

Plantwiz

Welcome!

First, I would not call no degree, no college, and no certifications a negative, per se. It may be a problem if when you work, your results are poor, but if you can get yourself some shadow work, volunteer work, you may quickly put any question of your ability to rest. Likewise, you can easily pick up a degree (with some work) and certifications (simply sign up for the exam and take it).

Second, you will want to find out what you enjoy the most about IT and what will pay the bills (not always the same, but you may be able to make the two work in your favor), so see if you can gain some experience by volunteering at churches, schools, businesses (some may be will to take on a prospective new employee), and try as many things as possible to see what you enjoy.

And no worries, many of us change our path or have changed a path a time or two during our careers.