Rocky posted this on his blog and I wanted to chime in.  I had originally started this as a comment to his post, but it got too big, so I copied it over here:

Here is my path of computer work and employment in becoming the Lotus Geek I am today:

• Got my first game console, Atari 2600, in the late 70s and as hooked completely
• Played around with BASIC on my Commodore 64, but didn't do enough to even call it programming
• Got sent to a computer camp at a local community college in middle school, wrote some FORTRAN, and went back to playing sports when I got home
• Mowed a few lawns in the neighborhood, just enough to keep me in candy all summer long
• Electrician's apprentice at 14, my first introduction to the real Manuel Labor.  He and I didn't hit it off very well especially considering I was wasting my summer vacation getting shocked.
• Kitchen prep and line cook for Jaspers in Greenbelt.  Another 40 hr a week job for the under-aged.  Got my first taste of "real" money when I got my raise from $3.40 to $3.90/hour.  There has got to be a better way!  At least I got to learn a lot about making food.
• Instead of going back to work at Jaspers the next summer, I decided instead to take a pay cut and work at a new local deli/restaurant called Yogurt Jungle in College Park.  Little did I know that I would call this place work for the next 7 years.  I did everything except manage the place, from serving up food and frozen yogurt, to making the secret Caesar salad dressing, waxing the floor, and delivering food to hungry college kids.  The pay was less, but the atmosphere was much better and I actually got to interact with the customers first hand.
• Took the one computer class offered, Computer Math, where we wrote programs in Basic and Fortran on the green screen terminals.
• Next door to the Jungle was Wings Over College Park.  I spent some time working at both places.  It was hear I learned how to make a variety of chicken wings, including classic buffalo.
• Spent my first few years at University of Maryland trying to avoid the computer curriculum.  Started in Electrical Engineering (too nerdy for me) then went to Architecture (can't draw a straight line) and then to Biology and Zoology (no money in it).  Finally wizened up and took some real computer classes and thought about a career doing truly geeky stuff.
• Spent 2 stints around Valentines Days and 1 just prior to Mothers Day boxing roses at RoseExpress on K St in DC.  I answered an ad in the Diamondback and worked over 40 hours in 3 days.  I went from knowing nothing to being one of the people to check the boxes of roses before being sent out for delivery.  I still remember driving a large truck to National Airport to pick up flowers being shipped in.  I lost track of the person I was following, but was still able to find my way to the right place in the airport, get onto the grounds, get the flowers, and get back without any help.  I still don't know how I did that in the days without a cell phone.
• Retail Clerk at Aeropostale.  Still have a Paddington Bear coat I bought while working there.
• Desk Manager at Marland Athletic Club.  My dad had this idea that he would be good at running a gym, but figured out that you can't really make money at it unless you do some of the unscrupulous things that the major gyms do.  Ran the computers there and also wrote a newsletter surrounding nutrition and fitness.
• Intern at Marriott International working on the IT Helpdesk.  My first corporate position, I  worked with about 5 or 6 other guys installing hardware and software on Windows desktops.  At the time, Marriott was a Novell Netware 3.x, Lotus SmartSuite, cc:Mail, and Notes shop.  This is where I learned the difference between playing with computers and doing it for a living.  It is also where I gained over 25 pounds in 6 months of sitting behind a desk and eating Dunkin Donuts every morning.  Got pulled off the Helpdesk by the Notes Administrator to help with the roll-out of Notes v3.0c to a number of the larger hotel properties.  Notes came on 28 3.5" 1.44 MB HD floppy disks
• Left the DC area for a consulting gig at Chiron in Emeryville, CA.  Downloaded something called Domino 1.0 for Notes 4.5. Blew away my manager by showing him his Notes databases accessible via a web browser without any additional programming.  Sort of!
• After a sting at HP in Palo Alto, I moved to Atlanta to take a contract at Coca-Cola supporting their implementation of SAP.
• Back home to the DC area to continue working with Notes/Domino for a number of large companies in the Baltimore-DC area.

Well, that's about it.  Hope I didn't bore all of you.