DTSMAN Retiring

[DTSMAN]

After 13 years and some change, I am retiring from POS. After starting out working on obsolete DTS500's for the ABC liquor stores in VA 1994, DTS2100s, Panasonics, Casio, NCR, TEC, IBM, Positouch, Aloha, Keystroke, Catapult, and just a god-awful amount of different peripherals, I am done. Had a 40th b-day this year and graduating with a BSIT, I am looking for a change. I will be going to a company that will expose me to servers, routers, and other industry standard equipment that hopefully will help me to advance over the next few years.
It has been great sharing info here with everybody, whether we argued or agreed. I am sure I will still check in every now and then, but my main focus from this point forward is going to be industry certifications for MS and Cisco and others.
Peace to you all my friends without faces.
And remember, If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.

Bo

Remember,
If the women don't find you handsome,
they should at least find you handy.
(Red Green)

http://www.redgreen.com

 

[posknowitall]

I haven't been around very long but I think these people will miss your knowledge. Good luck to you.

 

[alohaakamai3]

Bo- I am very sorry to see you go, and I hope you will continue to be a participating member on this forum. I have been a member on this forum on and off for-I dunno, 4 years now?-and I lost track of the number of times you've helped me with a problem. I hope the other users on the forum-particularly the end users who tend to pop in occassionally for quick solutions-appreciate the help you've provided them with. I have noticed the lack of the same forum all-stars lately that used to come on here all the time-alohapos1, Adam, and a few others who's handles I cant think of right now that helped regularly (I more or less speaking of Aloha-based users here), so it is sad news indeed.

Hopefully you'll make appearances, and guys like Bigblok will continue to come on to offer their assistance and solutions.

On a side note (and slightly argumentative one ), I don't blame you for wanting to get out of the POS area. It's a tough gig-it typically doesn't pay technicians any where near what their worth, it's 24-7, and the clients are often panicky and angry when issues arise. I have thought about retiring from this area many times.

The part I will disagree with you on, is that when I originally got into POS, like you- I felt that it wasn't taking full advantage of my knowledge, certifications, and ambitions, so for the first couple years, I looked at is a temporary stop (yeah, right-that was 11 years ago, lol).

However, it's evolved radically over the last 10 years. It's no longer just about applying basic networking and PC skills. Todays POS systems now incorporate every technology out there-now, in addition to those skills, you need to know about routers, firewalls, dns/tcpip, network security (PCI compliance, ugh), wireless technologies, encryption, webhosting, batch files, databases, programming, and on and on.

In fact, I'd be hard pressed to think of another field that incorporates so many technologies under a single business. So, the irony is-I have thought about moving into another field BECAUSE of the vast amount of knowledge require to implement these systems, whereas you are leaving to seek it elsewhere.

It doesn't seem like there is much "easy money" in this business anymore. Profit on hardware is minimal, competition is abundant, overall margins are down, and the customers are demanding more. I am not complaining about it-this kind of thing happens are markets mature. But the money the average tech makes in POS, the amount they have to know, the demands put on them-all versus their compensation-seems woefully out of whack.

Can I get a witness up in here??? lol

Hope to see you around the forum, and good luck in your new ventures!

 

[bigblok403]

Good luck on everything, we'll try and make you proud!!!

 

[DotComPOS]

Good Luck BO. You are very knowledgable.

I agree that the POS field is 24/7 droopy eyes and low pay. Plus tons of companies now want some type of custom intergration.