Oh and believe me I do.
I've worked for one of the largest dealerships in north texas (classic chevrolet) doing rich media design (flash applications, email ad's)
I've worked for NeoSpire Managed Hosting as support rep, promoted to jr sys admin, promoted to sys admin (they do hosting for quite a few large companies, check their site,
NeoSpire Managed Hosting - Application Hosting - Database Hosting).
I've worked for HRsmart (think they provide HR systems for more than 100 fortune 500 customers) as a Systems admin.
And now i work for rackspace as a systems admin for the cloud.
Basically what that means is I am a programmer that can service very high level customers, and I'm an admin for some of the largest names in their field.
I do Flash, PHP, Perl, Java, Ruby, and C#. I can build servers. Design network architectures, Configure Routers, Firewalls and Switches. Do ground up linux system configurations (RHEL, Debian and SuSE), ground up windows system configurations (Server 2000-2008) and Im an experienced MSSQL and MySQL DBA.
Most of this people on this forum can vouch for.
Some of it you'll just have to take my word for, and when you need help, just ask.
And finally, school is important, but in the tech world experience really helps you more than any degree will.