Alan Webb – Writer • Builder • Retired IT Technician
Retired. The ticket queue and the screwdriver case are not the work I want. My time goes to self-care and to writing — essays and fiction on worldofwebb.net, a decade of it and 400+ pieces. I still own Baugh Holding Company and Arts Fire RVA, and I still know how a network, a domain, and a broken laptop actually work. I am not looking for a support job.
What I will take is paid work that builds something. I am a transactional schema designer — tables, keys, validation, the shape of a record before anyone writes a screen. JavaScript and JSON are a different paradigm, and that shift has been a learning curve, not a finished credential. The proof is live at pantry.artsfirerva.com: a pantry and inventory app, vibe-coded with an AI pair, with orders, vendors, running-low logic, and exception review. Building that was more interesting than whack-a-puter. More of that work, by hand or with an AI pair, is the work I want.
Break/fix, field service, and desk-side support are not off the table. They are priced like work I do not want, and the certifications are stale. Bringing that trade current would mean retraining, not dusting off a badge. Ordinary money for ordinary tickets is a no. Stupid-high money, and time to get current, is a conversation.
Fifteen-plus years of hands-on support: hardware repair, deployment, field service, enterprise desks. At one time certified by Lenovo, HP, CompTIA, and Lexmark. Those badges have gone stale. I would need retraining to bring break/fix current. I can still see what is wrong. I am not current, and I retired from wanting the work.
Not available for ordinary support work. Writing, schema design, and paid build work — by hand or vibe-coded — are the jobs worth offering. Break/fix only if the rate is high enough to cover retraining and the writing day I would miss.