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Hello To The Tech Spot Forums:
My Name Is Ken
I Live In Central Florida
I Had Been A heavy Equipment Mechanis In The Mining Industry For 20+ Years
And Was Injured On The Job Now Having To Change Careers In My Late 40's
I Have Been Building And Repairing Computers For Numerous Years
Started Out As A Hobby Now I Am Trying To Convert Into A buisness Building Custom Computers And Doing Custom Paint Work On Cases
I Just Completed A 1650 Hr Course In Computer Service Technologies
I am Currently Persuing My A+ Software, Hardware & Net+ ceretifications
I'm A Member Of The National Technical Honor Society
I Enjoy Fishing,Nascar Racing,And Tinkering With Anything Electronic
Just Finished Building A Home Server With A Tera Byte Of Storage With A 3200 Amd Processor With A Gigabyte Of Ram The Server Is Running Server 2003
Have A Home Network Setup With 3 Desktops Wired And 2 Laptops Wireless All Running Windows Xp Pro
I Am Looking Forward To Being Apart Of This Community.

Hi, welcome to TechSpot. Be sure to read all the posts for new members. There is superb information there, and some of the regular moderators are apparently on vacation.

We hope to learn a lot from you, including more information on what is the
"National Technical Honor Society?" as I have been in the business as an Repair service chain owner, a government tech executive, and a repair guy... but this society is a new one on me... again... I see to learn something new every hour on this forum.

It Is A Society You Are Submitted To Join By Your School Instructor For Outstanding Achievement In Technical Education The School You Are Attending Must Be Associated With The Society And Recomended You For Membership Then You Are Either Accepted Or Not by Your Achievements In Academics At Least A 3.75gpa And Leadership Skills Such As Helpdesk And Diagnosis And Repair Abilities I HAd Been Appointed Lead Helpdesk Tech By My Instructor Responsible for Over 1000 Computers And Periphials In The School

I Forgot To Put The Web Address In If You Would Like To Check Out There Site It Is: WWW.NTHS.Org

Hi Ken, welcome aboard and we have a lot in common!

My name is Andy and like yourself, I'm making a career change later in life. I was a high tech engineer for 15 years but that field collapsedin 2001 and after 3.5 years mostly out of work, I gave up at the start of this year about getting back into it. High tech just isn't coming back so I was faced with the reality of making a career switch.

As strange as this sounds at first, it's not. My 15 years in high tech as little to do with my PC troubleshooting skills. As an engineer, if I had a problem with my PC, I just got the IT department to fix it! I knew a lot about USING a computer but not much about FIXING one! After the tech collapse caught up with me in 2003, I kicked around and eventually in 2005 I took a job at a Dell call centre supporting their PCs. THAT'S where I learned all this!! I did get a brief contract back in high tech but it didn't get renewed. The call centre management changed and they didn't want me back. Kicked around some more and by January 2007 I realized my future in high tech was too dim to prusue any longer. So I decided to make use of the valuable training and experience at Dell and start my own in-home PC servicing business!

I have 2 important points of advice for you. First, th computer business, whether it's sales or service, is a very competitive, low margin business. Don't expect to make a killing at it. Second, just as I admitted that being an engineer doesn't make me an ace computer tech, the same also goes for a long time computer hobbyist. I see that you have taken and are still taking training and that's excellent. But the biggest factor in being successful in PC servicing is experience.

When I worked at Dell, I can't tell you how much I learned. We had to average 37 minutes call handle time. The 7 minutes was for admin dtuff (verifying order code, writing up notes in the database, ... ) So 30 minutes to fix a problem and move on to the next call. It was ROUGH!! At first I was averaging 60+ mins per call!! I was told that was "unacceptable!!" But I worked on it and my handle times started to drop. It went under 60 mins, then 55 mins, then 50, then 45, then 40, then 35, then 32. Meanwhile, all my quality scores were in the 90s. It's because I worked on it!! My managers were stunned! Here's a guy who's in his late 30s, engineering degree and 15 years experience, yet, NO ATTITUDE!! Meanwhile, there were scores of younger persons who complained at lot, didn't care about quality, tried to get away with the minimum, ... I even came in on my day off to self-train. You should have seen the looks on the managers faces!! Some laughed it was so odd to them! But that's how you do it! I was keeping notes on all my calls and on my day off, I would review them, try to learn something from them It's hard to review when you're under pressure to get to the next call, so I did it on my day off!

Anyhow, my big point is that despite being a computer hobbyist for years and having taken a number of tech courses, that not even 50% of what it takes to be a successful tech. It's mostly experience plus learning from others and talking to others. Joining here is an excellent move. That's why I did it too, to learn from others.

Message me if you want some candid feedback