How To Be A Tech Guru Or A Tech Geek

Do you want to break into the tech industry and become a tech guru? Well, I will first give you my story of how I became a tech guru myself. I always had a love for computers and technology but never devoted myself to it.  One day, fed up, sick and tired of dead end warehouse jobs, an opportunity presented itself.

There was a pharmaceutical company I worked for called Pharmedium, and there was some new technology for labeling drugs. There new engineering mechanical arm with the pinching metal clips that we called “The Robot”.  I know how creative, right? Working around the robot and the labeling machine, much intrigue sparked in me. This was a far cry from downloading tunes from Napster and Limewire among other tech geek stuff like Xbox Connect-where there was a way to trick the original Xbox to connect to the modem and use the link to connect to actually play Halo 1 online around the world. I remember how it was slow as dirt at times. However, when we played with friends and tournaments, the lag training made the aim game oh so sweet. 

"The Robot"

Anyway, the robot was real tech geek stuff, this was real mechanical engineering. There was an Asian-American gentleman that wind up taking a liken into me—was it the goofy glasses and look on my face? Well then, long live the geeks. He showed me how to troubleshoot "Robot" when the x and y axis trajectory was off in the way the pitchers would grab the syringes to label them. It was the way you loaded the labels along with setting the settings—what the hell, what do you want from me in those times I didn’t know jack.

Every day, I became more intrigued by working with printers and “robot”. Suddenly, a geek guru passed by me wearing a giant harness. At first glance, given his lumberjack style flannel shirt, worn boots, and denim jeans, IT seemed like he was doing some type of construction in the building. I watched him as he rode up on a boom lift. As the beeping was very loud as the boom went up I saw a ton of green and yellow looking lights flashing all over the place. My geek spider senses were going crazy. What the heck was I looking at? After hearing the beeping and the boom lowering, I had to ask my questions.

The Moment I Decided To Be A Geek

“Hey, excuse me!” What were you doing up there? I left the syringes, bags, and boxes on the lab table. He was startled when I approached him and he asked what was going on. I explained that I had come looking for him but wasn't sure where he was. He apologized and explained that the boom was from a test he was doing.

He said “Oh, I was checking the network and patching cables into the switch ports.”

In my mind, I said what the heck are you talking about? All these cables and all those lights were more than meets the eye. I asked the lumberjack dude to show me more, not realizing he was the geek of all geeks. He replied, “Sure dude, no problem.”

We came out of the warehouse and he took his badge and swiped it across a fob with a blinking light on it. He opened the door, and I saw a little city in my eyes. It felt like I was on the Empire State Building at night looking at all the lights with traffic flowing in and out of the streets. The lights are blinking like crazy green, yellow, and orange lights. I was instantly hooked. I felt my inner geek surging through my body. I didn’t understand this feeling at the time.

To The Next Phase

I noticed at that time the warehouse gig looked like a dead end road. And for good reason, I found out just a few short years later that the company went out of business. Anyway, I came home that night in February 2017, seeing lights in the ceiling in bed as I slowly breathed heavy until I was knocked out cold.

It hit me, I said I am going to be the next geek tech guru! Okay, maybe I didn’t say that exactly. However, I knew it was time for a career change. I said to myself, self, I am going to do computers. I had no clue what that fully meant. However, driven with ambition I headed to the local Somerset county library and took out a bunch of books on PC repair and networking.

As I was doing my research I discovered an industry standard certification known as the Comptia A+(which I currently have update to date). I will share my experience with that another time. So, I started to read and ran into other geek techs like: Mike Meyers, Wes Bryan from ITtv Pro, and Noel Vallejo. All of these resources played a valuable role in my education to become the geek guru I am today. The more I learned the more I felt learning Information Technology (IT) was like playing a video game and figuring things out for a salary.

The decision to start a new career path was an easy one. I was ready to make a serious decision about improving my career path. I needed some guidance on what to focus on. Thus, I found it, Lincoln Technical Institute’s Computer Network Support Technician (CNST) program.

This thing was no joke. But I enrolled into the program and got financial aid from Sallie Mae. In February 2017, I was right on time when the program began. I already worked the afternoon to night shift, so I had the plan figured out. I would go to class from 8am to 4pm (Lincoln Technology) then drive to the warehouse be to work by 5pm and then leave around 1 or 2 in the morning. Rush home, and try to do whatever homework and reading I could, and then I'm back in the classroom at 8am. The grind was for one year. One year of commitment was all you needed, I told myself. Some people in the program were mentally weak: blaming the program, making excuses, and just down right disrespectful to the teachers. I didn’t care about any of that I knew I was sick of the warehouse and ready to be the geeky geek tech guru I was born to be. Now, was it easy? Hell no! At times I felt like I was tempted to quit, but I had to keep reminding myself that it was all going to pay off once I was done.

Finally, It Was Done

After the grind of a whole year and many sleepless nights and hard work I graduated with a 3.5 average. Now I was ready to be a tech guru, but I ended up being an Audio Visual Technician. Yea, go figure that one out. I studied for Information Technology and obtained my Certified Technical Specialist Certification from Avixa.

Want to hear more about the story? Stay tuned for more about the road from IT professional to Audio Visual Technician to an Search Engine Optimization geek nerd. I guess you could say I am an geek guru mutt. Share your geek story and the road you took in the comment section. I would love to hear your story and share it with other geeks. We rule the world, tech rules—long live the geeks!