What I have found out there as a woman trying to make her way in the late 70's and 80's is that women were still lower level workers. I had enough skills developed in gradeschool and highschool, and theocratic ministry school, that made a very good secretary and customer support rep. Heck, that's an awesome job for a JW woman! But I wasn't a JW anymore. The 90's were better with less gender discrimination.
I found it difficult to bust into the computer world and the sailboat racing world (another story). But as Ginger Rogers, I was capable and willing to do everything Fred did only backwards and on highheels! And with only a sophomore HS education.
I did things with computers, IBM PC 8088's (8086?), complete with 10 meg harddrives, and their periphrels that my corporate MIS said couldn't be done. I networked the printers with hardwiring and switches. I was a secretary. Hey, I had no education and didn't know I wasn't supposed to be able to do this.
I found my lack of formal education allowed me to think and work outside of the box. (Although I had 3 programming and program design classes, and 2 business classes in community college).
I finally busted into computer MIS when I got offered a novell network admin from Arthur Anderson acctg firm, and my current employer, a cpa firm, countered that offer with a raise to be their sys-admin of a unix system. I took the unix job. I learned the basics from the prior employee before she left, then I learned the more advanced from our system maintenance people. Then I took it further by developing a systems handbook complete with wiring diagram. I performed periodic hardware and systems maintenance on a regular schedule. When we had a printer problem and had to call out the printer guy (after I made sure I couldn't repair it), the guy said the printers were the cleanest he had seen since new!
I moved on to software support and working closely with R&D as a user advocate.
My ultimate job was when I started client training both in house and in the field at client sites. When this position was in it's infancy, I created training schedule that could be broken out into half-day modules, so the modules could be mixed and matched to the customer needs. This allowed us to certify field-trained employees, which had not been done before.
My mom was going on-and-on over how my nephew worked for IBM and traveled all over the country working on peoples computers. I asked my mom if she knew what I did. She answered some kind of secretary? I told her I traveled all over the country teaching people how to use our software, and working on their system problems (that was VAX/VMS). She was dumfounded!
I never made more than $40,000. I was mostly stuck in the 30's. That was due #1 to a lack of college education and #2 being a woman and having to fight for everything I did. THIS I felt was because of JWism and busting my butt to prove I wasn't a 2nd class citizen and only a woman!
Technology has passed me by. I don't own a cellphone, we use dialup internet, and we don't have cable. We're saving money for retirement AND the 2 vacations a year we take which are far more important to us than technology.
I can no longer work due to chronic illness. I've stopped fighting to convince other's I'm not a 2nd class citizen as it's no longer important to me. I love what I did, and I'm glad I'm not in it anymore.
