It’s fun to look back and remember that first tech job. The entry-level position with little pay and little respect, but a necessary rite of passage in every IT professional’s career. Mine came at an opportune time, January 1999. This was a once-in-a-millennium opportunity to cash in on the unlimited funding that was thrown at squashing the ubiquitous Y2K bug. So there I was, after three semesters of college and no experience, ready to start my first full-time tech gig.

I worked for a subcontractor of a contractor for Allina Health. I was one of 100 low-grade techs, who were commissioned to be the foot soldiers in their massive campaign to wipe out the Y2K bug before New Year’s Eve. All of the real technical stuff was done by specialists. Our assignment was more straightforward: Rip and replace 16,000 PCs across all of Allina Hospitals and Clinics with brand new shiny ones that would run Windows NT 4.0 Workstation, the Cadillac of enterprise desktop operating systems of the time, and certifiably Y2K-compliant.

The first day on the job was training. I remember being overwhelmed, and wondering if anyone would find out that I didn’t actually know what I was doing. I remember feeling like a kid that didn’t belong in the world of adult professionals. After a few days, I realized that I had nothing to fear. Even though I knew “nothing,” I was as well-qualified as my 99 co-workers, and a faster learner than most. I mastered the process quickly and soon became a go-to person on the team and was assigned one-off jobs and hard-to-solve problems. My Team Lead told me that one day I would be a leader like him. He saw my potential his encouragement gave me confidence.

Our crew of 100 techs got the privilege of wearing Hawaiian shirts and flair buttons that read “Count the Days to Y2K.” That was supposed to make Y2K compliance seem like a tropical vacation for the poor, unsuspecting end-users of Allina Health. Fittingly, Office Space was released in 1999. For us, every day was Hawaiian Shirt Day.

Most of the PCs that I replaced were in normal office locations, but I have a few stories that are worth retelling:

Whenever we got a ticket to replace a PC that was behind those special doors in hospitals, we had to ditch the Hawaiian shirts for full surgical scrubs. I remember replacing a PC in the Operating Room one day in the middle of some guy’s open-heart surgery. I was no more than 10 feet away from this poor guy who had his ribs spread. Before I started my work, I was careful to check with the nursing staff that there was nothing on that PC that was keeping this fella alive. I was also a little worried that my Junior Mints might end up in the patient’s body cavity:

Next story, I wasn’t so smart. I headed to Triage, where there was a desk with three PCs. I thought to myself, if I do these one at a time, I’ll be here all day. I’ll just send the whole department on a coffee break and knock these out all at once. Awesome idea. So, there I was installing Windows NT, Novell Clients, and cc:Mail, when a woman bursts through the front door of the hospital with her arms burning from fry oil. She was screaming and looking for me to help her. My Hawaiian shirt and mad-PC skillz didn’t interest her one bit. I just started screaming right along with her, and within a few seconds, some guys with a wheelchair whisked her away. I caught my breath and went back to work. Then some guy walked up to the desk and said he was there to check in for his detox appointment. I told him to sit tight and the staff would be back momentarily. Well, that was too long because he passed out and started puking on the floor right at my feet. Good time to start screaming for help again. Seriously.

As far as I know, Allina ticked over to January 1, 2000 without a hitch, but I wasn’t there to see it. I did that job for about 9 months before I got a full-time employee placement at GMAC-RFC. You always remember that first tech job. There is a world of difference between zero job experience and some job experience. That was enough to get me my start. I learned that I didn’t really enjoy being an expendable contractor, so I wanted to join a permanent team. I learned that I can step into the unknown and unfamiliar and perform pretty well as long as I keep my wits about me the first few days. I learned that opportunities to grow are born out of mastering the basics first. No one would have trusted me with more interesting work, had I not first mastered the mundane.

That was my first tech job. What was yours? Please share your funny stories or formative learnings from your first tech job in the comments below.