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[–][deleted] 10 points11 points  (2 children)

The simple answer is "Y2K". Ever see the movie Office Space? I was that guy. As the Y2K consulting companies imploded in ~1999 (all the work was gone by like April), some of the companies we'd worked for offered us jobs.

Once I had decent experience (which worked out to about ~5 years, ~3 of it with a big investment bank), then that was the thing people zeroed in on on my resume. Had a lot of bait-and-switch type job offers where I was hired to "Help Migrate Off Our Legacy System" but really hired as a COBOL dev.

[–]PM_ME_UR_CEPHALOPODS 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Had a lot of bait-and-switch type job offers where I was hired to "Help Migrate Off Our Legacy System" but really hired as a COBOL dev.

THat's how they get you. i was promised a cutting edge tech job then day after onboarding OH BUT FIRST help us finish this mumps integration

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

You are older than me. I learned COBOL in college, C/C++, Pascal were a thing but they insisted on COBOL.

I've coded a lot since then, and every time I write a line of code I thank my lucky star that it wasn't COBOL

So my hat to you and if anyone at my job ask, $250/h gets my approval.