Rudolf Knoetzen

M.C.S.E.

I have been in the IT industry since 1998 and have been part of this fascinating industry since coding websites with HTML one line at a time. Fast forward to a decade later when Content Management Systems really started to pick up having to code less and less. Then came the page builders and drag and drop stuff and now we are into the Artificial Intelligence era. It keeps being interesting and even though things got easier, you still have to keep learning on a daily basis.

I started off as qualified Microsoft Systems Engineer at Langeberg and quickly learned that book knowledge is good, with it’s nothing compared to real life experience. One day I was called to the CFO personal assistant that was unable to print. I used all my book knowledge to reinstall drives, and in those days it was not plug and play, you sort of had to know what you were doing, and did all sorts of tricks that I have learned in my engineering course.

After about 2 hours of suffering with this problem, oom Sarel came looking for me. He was on the main frame side of things and only had experience, no qualification or book smarts. He just leaned over and asked me if I have switched off the printer already which I did and after I switched it back on, everything started working. He fixed it in 10 seconds.

I like to think now with 26 years of experience behind me, I am now oom Sarel, not that I think of myself of a oom, but I have been there and I probably have done what you are looking to be done for you. So yes, I have real life experience in networking and internet and everything in between, from firewalls to backups to social media to Google ads to whatever.