Question Answered

steven asked how I got into telecom. Well Steven, like most things in my life it took tons of planning, going way back to when I was in college in the late seventies. The quick answer? I majored in Fine Arts and minored in Anthropology. Bam, telecom---cause what else can you do with an art degree if you don't want to starve.

Also, I married into it; my husband at the time was offered and accepted a job up here in the Pacific Northwest by a west coast based CLEC. That was in the BOOM days of 1998, when you could easily get hired with a telecom co. providing you could tie your shoes OR walk and chew gum at the same time. Considering I possessed both skills necessary for a job in telecom, I was hired on the spot.

Now staying in telecom during the "depression years" just after the bubble burst and 9-11 took some doing. Layoffs everywhere, Enron and the crash of dotcoms put a lot of my coworkers on in the unemployment line or on to more lucrative careers in other areas. Me, I missed the bullet every time layoffs darkened our door. Whenever I consider looking at a career in another field I think of all this fabulous knowledge that will go to waste (like "how many DS1s in a DS3") and we just can't have that. Waste not, want not, so I guess I'm wasting away again in telecomville.

Thanks for the question, Steven, hope I answered it sufficiently.