My first 'proper' job (after a six month tour of duty on the delicatessen counter in Asda) was at Stapleford-based housing association Erewash Housing. I began as a part-time IT intern while I finished off the last few modules of my HND off.

As the college work became less towards the end of the course, I was able to spend more and more time in the office. My duties included first line IT support, troubleshooting and office-based hardware and software installations. I also mucked in with out-of-hours jobs, wrote knowledge base articles and made a number of suggestions for improving the self-developed helpdesk.