How lucky am I???I fell into IT by accident; in 1985, I was a lowly temp at American Express, only there for 6 months to pay some bills, saw an invite for their mainframe trainee course, only applied because it was more money, was accepted, and discovered that I enjoyed it so much that I didn't leave until 13 years later! I spent those years mastering COBOL, CICS, DB2, JCL and DLI on the mainframe, in development and support roles, followed by a few long-redundant languages on client-server platforms, before being tempted back to the mainframe as a contractor. Since then, my roles have been a mix between analysis and development, contract and permanent, all providing solutions for major financial institutions, at my happiest when I have full end-to-end responsibility for a project, from requirements solicitation through to implementation and warranty support.I can honestly say that I have mastered most of the essential soft-skills you find in job descriptions applicable to my role : very strong verbal and written communication, including design documentation at every level from conceptual design through to program specification, practiced at converting complex technical issues into plain English, very strong problem-solving, analytical, and creative-thinking skills, an enthusiastic team-player who is more than happy to work independently, detail-oriented, proficient in data handling (extraction, analysis, transformation and load), competent at managing stakeholder expectations at every level, and adept at multi-tasking. All of this driven by taking personal pride in the quality of my work, a predilection for designing and creating maintainable, easily understandable systems and code, and a genuine passion for learning new ways of doing things (even on the mainframe - yes, it's still possible!).And I still love my job, to the point of obsession sometimes, waking up at stupid o'clock to a lightbulb moment, compelled to fire up the laptop. And probably because I love my job so much, I'M BLOODY GOOD AT IT!!!