I end up applying for about 5 different sorts of jobs out here:
Software Engineer: Nope, sorry. No CS degree, no formal experience. Doing hobbyist stuff for 6 years is largely irrelevant.
QA Engineer: Oh, good. 3 years experience. What? Didn't use WinRunner? Guess you must not have been doing any real QA work then. (no, wrote test automation in perl...) Sorry.
Windows Admin: Oh, good. 3 years experience, built a company's IT from scratch, managed to get promoted twice, and has tons of skills besides. Oh, but that was 4 years ago! (god knows I didn't admin windows machines doing QA...) OR oh, but what about [obscure industry specific app]? No, sorry.
Unix Admin: Oh, good. 3 years IT experience, 3 years doing certification for QA. Oh, but that IT was just until a unix admin showed, and helping after. And certification isn't real admin work...
Help Desk: Oh, these are all great skills, but we think you're over qualified...
In other words, it's largely sucky to be a generalist in a job market which adores specialists. It doesn't exactly help that almost all of the jobs are for consultantcies. Half of those recruiters barely can use their email, and the other half are MCSEs who can't actually do work. Not exactly the best judges of technical qualification...
Fubar'd.
When I went down to the office, I noticed that the Windows XP machine and the SGI were plugged into a KVM, with the Windows XP side active. Apparently he must've figured that both computers under the desk were the same thing.
Anyway, we no longer hired MCSEs after that little stunt.