This was also my first Linux distro after having used Sun's Solaris while at uni. I think I tried out Slack and Suse at around the same time, but stuck with RedHat and related distros for about 6 years.
There are conspiracies after all, but they're just the usual 'capitalist assholes screw the rest of us over' kind rather than the 'three-assed aliens kidnapped me and forced me to watch naked while they fed pineapple on a pizza to my dog' kind.
Upskill. I'm not 'upskilling' someone, I'm training them.