Did we all just f-f-fade away?
Summary Description The Internet has resulted in a new breed of careers, says Simon Vandore.

Introduction
My generation is not about Ansett Airlines.

Body
The gluggy pasta and textured vegetable protein served on my last flight to Melbourne was not food. The Who's 'My Generation' is not our song, and it is a shame to see it applied to airport yuppies.
Generation X became the Internet generation. Kurt Cobain shot himself and we learnt HTML. Douglas Coupland, who wrote the novel Generation X before the term was misconstrued, also wrote Postcards from the Dead about the difference between early 1990s generation X, and the wired version which followed.
Who are all these jetsetting techno generation Xers in suits anyway? Six years ago I sat around a computer screen with three underemployed friends, showing them Internet Relay Chat. Each had tertiary qualifications, but one was producing leaflet graphics, one was answering phones in a government department, and the other was in a clerical job. Today they are all highly paid Web designers living in various Australian cities.
A couple I knew at the time sold bricks and pavers for a living. Six months later they were running an ISP.
I have another friend with a degree in geology. He took a job in tech support to pay the rent, and now runs the IT department of a well-known software company. His wife is a talented artist, but earns her living by teaching Internet skills. Their flatmate studies philosophy, but works as a programmer three days a week.
When my cousin from England visited in 1998, she was proud of knowing nothing about the Web. Inevitably, she now works for an online news site in Brussels. Another cousin grew up teasing her brother about his computer, and today she sells antivirus software.
Last week I interviewed the managing director of an online payments system distributor. The PR folks sent me a bio, and he had graduated in psychology, moved to a neuroscience company, headed a dental equipment manufacturer, and ran a social welfare department in local government. Naturally, he's now an ecommerce expert.
The Internet and the IT boom have had an amazing impact on the career paths of a generation. I see it all around me in journalism, as the best of each year's communications graduates end up writing about Microsoft and ecommerce instead of Beazley and Saddam. Opportunity knocks often in this industry and you can check out any time you like, but it's very hard to leave. The money is good and jobs are easy to find.
Some love being in IT, but for others it is quite frustrating. When I go bushwalking with my geology graduate friend, he will still pick up rocks to examine their composition. At home he pores over survey maps of western NSW and stares thoughtfully at the scientific jobs in the paper. Then he goes back to work, designing Lotus Notes databases and running networks. Nobody wants his knowledge of limestone and granite, they just want silicon.
SOUNDING BOARD: What impact did the Internet boom have on your career? Have your say!
Vandore is an occasional Newswire column. You can contact Simon Vandore at svandore@acptech.net.