Four months of full-time study and the Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) credential did not wow a lot of hiring managers when I began looking for a full-time job. For example, I applied for a position as a network engineer at Chick-Fil-A. They offered me a job as a support technician and told me I would have to work up to network engineer over a period of years. I said no and kept looking.
The City of Alpharetta needed a new Network Analyst. The IT department was housed in the basement of City Hall, within walking distance of my house. A longer walk than I ever cared to make before and after work, but walkable. I got the job. The city network was big enough to give me lots of opportunities to learn and small enough for me to recover quickly when I made mistakes. It was a great starter job and would have been a great retirement job, but I wanted more.
One of my former teachers asked me to come to work for CGI Information Systems and Management Consultants. CGI was the IBM of Canada with headquarters in Montreal. They had a big contract to upgrade payroll and human resource management systems across the United States. Later, CGI became somewhat infamous as the creators of the original Affordable Care Act website that frustrated millions of Americans when they tried to sign up for health insurance.
I am a confident guy, but thought it was crazy to think I was ready with my seven months of experience to work as a consultant. My teacher said to trust her and send my resume. I got the job. I worked on projects from Boston to Kansas City, from Mobile to Greenville. My favorite was troubleshooting problems at the headquarters of Bass Pro Shops in Springfield, Missouri. CGI bought a large IT company based in India and let me go in 2001 as part of a right-sizing initiative.
I had 2.5 years of experience and headhunters were interested in my resume. One lied and told me that Gainesville, Georgia was only a 20-minute drive from Alpharetta, so I accepted an interview with Elliott Wave International (EWI), a financial forecasting company that was looking for a network administrator. I would never have agreed to look at the company if I had known in advance it was really a 45-minute drive, but once I got there, I liked what I found. I had always been interested in the stock market and had been trading actively for more than a year. My new boss told me I could trade at work as long as I got my work done.
EWI thought they were offering me a full-time job. I soon discovered that it took me about 2 hours a day to get my work done, so I had lots of free time. The company offered $1000 per day classes on how to forecast financial markets with the Elliott Wave Principle. Classes were free for employees. After my third time through the classes, the man in charge of the education program raised the idea of me beginning to teach them. I taught my first class about 6 months later in Gainesville, Georgia. I taught my second class in London, England. I continued as network administrator while teaching classes about once per month for a while, and then I transferred to the analysis department.
I’ve now been with Elliott Wave International 15 years. I publish forecasts of precious and base metals as the Senior Metals Analyst. On an average day I publish 20 intraday updates, 12 end-of-day comments, 60 price charts, and one video review of market developments. I aspire to keep this job.
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