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How true this is. And it applies to everything.
A person that claims to know everything, obviously knows nothing, because if he truly knew anything at all he would know that the computer industry is very vast and each person in the industry may have his or her own niche or may actually know a great deal of the industry overall, but it is impossible to know every facet of the PC world and anyone that claims to know everything will be stubborn when faced with a challenge and will end up falling flat on his face taking everyone down with him when three to four hours are spent to troubleshoot something as simple as a bad sound card, for example. This will make you difficult to work with and will inevitably cost the company money, and your career may end up cut short as soon as you are "found out". You can have put twenty PCs together in a two week period of time in your previous job as a clone jockey at the local mom and pop shop, and you may not have had encountered any problems at all, but this doesn't mean that down the road, as the industry changes so quickly, that you'll be prepared for the next thing that comes along, or even be prepared for what one of your superiors or customers may plop down on your lap. When faced with dilemmas, be open-minded to suggestions. Ask questions. Hit the Internet. Look for answers to your problem instead of making stuff up that just "sounds good” just in an attempt to save face.
The "anything is possible" part of the motto is more recent. Of course, I've actually always believed that, in life, anything really is possible, but only applied it to my work motto after speaking to so many people that wouldn't believe what I was saying to them, simply because they had never heard it before. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't everything in your life happen at least once?
Like I said before, we are ALL ignorant about EVERYTHING at one point. If we weren’t, the universe would likely cave in on itself.
A more applicable example of this is a story of a guy that called me insisting that the motherboard he had was defective. Based on his symptoms, I told him that it was more likely that his problem was the CPU. He refused to believe this. Why? Because he had never had a defective CPU before, so why would he now? Of course it turned out that his motherboard was fine, but even if it wasn't, both parties must be open to all possibilities. He wasted BOTH of our times by shipping the motherboard back only to find out that nothing was wrong with it when proper troubleshooting measures were taken.
Another way to become a better tech is to never stop learning. Not to say that you will never come into work one day and say, "gee. I don't think I could learn anything today", because if you did, that would mean you were not following the previous "I have not seen everything" rule. I also don't mean to imply that you can't take a week off and not completely get lost in the industry. But any given opportunity you have to learn needs to be taken. If you are approached with a project to tackle, "I don't know how" is not always a proper answer. Of course, it's not fair to your immediate supervisor that you "fake it", but assuming you know your own limitations, don't be afraid to push the envelope a little and attempt to take on something you have never taken on before.
Also remember that the industry is always changing. You can be in this industry like 15 years, like I have, but if you miss four or six months, that doesn’t mean you’re going to be able to jump right in and take over as the next guru tech support guy when platforms have changed to socket processors instead of slots and RAM is no longer SDRAM, but is now DDR and RDR! THINGS WILL CHANGE. Be on the ball.
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