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Posted: 4/1/2006 11:20:04 AM EDT

[#1]

IT is the computer science equivalent of the guy who walks behind the elephants during parades with a snow shovel and a cart. In other words, a real shitty job. Suckers. I guess you love those 0300 calls that go something like "You threw this program together 10 months ago on a whim and then we decided to make it the lynchpin for our entire network and it stopped working! Fix it right now!".

It takes a real masochist to submit themselves to that. It is better to work in other areas of computer science that don't require you to work hours that make a vampire cringe.

Posted: 4/1/2006 11:20:54 AM EDT

[#2]

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i'm glad i switch my major from computer science to geology

Reminds me of an out of work cartographer I know. Poor bastard.

i know someone who's majoring in geography. interesting major, but i have no idea what kind of job that translate into.

www.nga.mil

Posted: 4/1/2006 11:22:58 AM EDT

[#3]

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all of that stuff describes me except the travelling. i hate to travel. would not take any amount of money to travel as part of my job.

This is quite common. My company is DESPARATE for Voice Network Engineers (Cisco voice stuff), and people have turned down high paying jobs over the travel requirements. Somehow I never imagined that the travel requirements would be so much of a deal breaker.

It's kind of funny. Normally, when you think of the hiring process, you imagine a potential employee sitting at home waiting for that phone call: "You're hired!" In reality, the anxiety is at the other end. "Are we offering him enough money? Are the bonuses big enough? Will he like the benefits? Jesus, I hope he doesn't mind the travel..." And I shit you not, people turn down REALLY high paying jobs because they can't handle travel or relocating.

It's kind of nice as a voice guy, though. We're treated like kings!

Voice, eh, What are you paying?? Jeff

Low end (i.e. we trained you), maybe 50k. High end (CCIE Voice, lots of experience) probably 120k, plus bonuses.

ok, go back and read your first post in this thread, then come back and re-answer his question

Posted: 4/1/2006 11:25:46 AM EDT

[#4]

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ok, go back and read your first post in this thread, then come back and re-answer his question

I answered his question. Getting the gig is another matter entirely.

Posted: 4/1/2006 11:37:27 AM EDT

[#5]

Quoted:
Please think about it a little more carefully.

I'm getting a little tired of working around people who are "in it for the money". These people astound me. Without a love for the job, they're terrible at it and not paid well at all. I'm getting sick and tired of running into routing and switching guys who can't fix a simple PC problem. I'm getting sick and tired of running into desktop support guys who can't think past a troubleshooting flowchart. I'm getting sick and tired of people who only do the bare minimum required to avoid being fired. These people aren't affecting me negatively (I work with the cream of the crop), but I'm starting to feel really sorry for them.

If you are thinking of getting into computers because the money is good, think again. You're not the first guy who's had this thought. You're going to be competing against ALOT of people who picked up CS degrees because that's "where the money is". You're going to end up fighting others like you for shit jobs, and you're going to get smacked down by people who are REALLY good at what they do. You're going to head into an interview with your newly aquired CCNP or MCSE cert, and you're job is going to be taken by somebody who eats, sleeps and breathes technology every waking moment. As a matter of fact, he's awake more often than you are.

Here is who you will be competing against for that lucrative 80k/yr job you want so bad:

1. He's been a geek since he was 10. The only thing he's good at is information technology, and that's all he cares about.
2. You know those certifications you want to spend $9000 to get at a school? He has every one of them, he studied the books on his own (in his limited free time) and loved every minute of it. He picked up 3 of them while you were paying $9000 to have an instructor teach you.
3. He's comfortable with the idea of working 24 hours straight, and is proud of these marathons.
4. He will travel anywhere, at any time, for any reason. Family and friends can't hold him back.
5. He loves technology so much, that he does things other employees call "work" for fun. Even though he's a network engineer, he's learned three programming languages "just because". The Beowulf cluster in his basement makes his dick hard. "Well rounded" is an understatement.
6. He will always be better than you, and will always make more money than you. Get used to it.
7. There are hundereds of thousands of him.

Still want to get into it? What did you do this week? If the answer is anything other than "I learned <insert geeky topic here>" you're fucked. Have you ever made any of these statements?

1. I can't afford the classes.
2. I don't have enough time to sit in front of my computer or reading books learning shit for hours on end.
3. I can't afford to pay my bills on less than 30k a year for a few years.
4. Having my job outsourced would kill me.

Sound familiar? If you've said any of that, you are so screwed. There are people out there looking at those 4 statements saying "And?". If their job gets outsourced, they'll have another one next week. They don't need to take classes. A reasonable person would say they don't have enough time in the day to "play" with computers as much as they do, but they do it anyway (at the expense of everybody and everything around them). They will gladly take low paying jobs, because they get to do what they love. When the ecomomy picks back up, they'll be loaded again and they know it.

You know what the worst part is? These guys you're competing against for lucrative jobs don't consider it "work". They are amazed that they actually get paid to do things they would just as soon do for free. How about you?

Amen, brother. Incompetence is fucking rampant in IT anymore, because of these types of fuckwits.

Posted: 4/1/2006 12:39:01 PM EDT

[#6]

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Shit, don't tell me that! I'm finishing up a CS degree in a little over a year.

I just hope you love to code. A lot of people go into CS because they want to go into some generic IT business area, when they should really be getting a BCIS degree. CS degree can lead to things besides coding, but that's mostly what it's for.

Huge +1. You better love to code. For those that don't, a CS degree is crazy! It's extremely difficult to obtain (compared to most others) and isn't of much use to a non programmer. If you don't want to code, get a CIS degree. It's waaaaay easier (ask a CS student ).

The problem with me is, I'm not near as smart as some of the other CS guys (I'm smarter than a few) but I'm miles ahead of any of the CIS guys. So I'm sorta in a middle ground. I already have a line on a consulting job when I graduate.

Best job to have is to consult IT managers. You tell them what to do or fix their fuckups for them and make them look bad and charge their company out the ass for it.

Don't I know it. Back when I was an IT monkey my old boss and I were laid off. He went into consulting I continued with school. One of the great things about consulting is that you tell them what to do, but if they are all stupid about it you can tell them to get fucked and walk. It's great.

Posted: 4/1/2006 12:57:37 PM EDT

[#7]

You could burn out at anytime in IT more then any other job.
You figure you'll have to work at least 20-30 years to retire this day and age is having a job in IT really sustainable over that period of time?

Think of all the change you face in IT. In 5 years most good IT guys will deal with more change then most people will experince their whole lives. Is that healthy? Is always working or when you're not working having to learn the next "latest and greatest" thing healthy?

Take it, you can have it. As I age I'm starting to think about other things in my life and having an IT job during those times is not going to be sustainable over the long haul, cause life to me now is starting to be more and more about the "long haul".

IT IMO just doesn't fit in that picture for me I've realized over the last year or two.

One more thing. I almost feel like a clown sometimes when people explain their job to me and how much they make. Alot of these people make almost or near what I make and they don't have to think nearly as hard as I do. It's almost a joke.

Posted: 4/1/2006 1:10:34 PM EDT

[#8]

Preach it brotha...

Here’s some advice for those of you still in school. Become a medical doctor.

Electronics and engineering is all about long hours, mediocre wages and no job security. Even people at the top of the field often find themselves unemployed. (And that certification/ tech school degree is not going to put you at the top of your field)

Posted: 4/1/2006 1:24:12 PM EDT

[#9]

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I sometimes get up early to debug/write some code, go to work to debug/write code for 8 hours, then come home and rebuild the whole thing for free just because I figured out a better way to write it.

I've been known to do this.

But then again, I don't LOVE it enough to want to do it the rest of my life. I am really, really good at writing software, but being forced to cut corners and make half-assed design descisions in order to meet bullshit deadlines has really started to turn me off to the discipline. I'm thinking of a career change, not because I dislike writing software, but because I dislike banging my head against the wall of dumbassitude all day.

Posted: 4/1/2006 2:15:23 PM EDT

[#10]

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all of that stuff describes me except the travelling. i hate to travel. would not take any amount of money to travel as part of my job.

This is quite common. My company is DESPARATE for Voice Network Engineers (Cisco voice stuff), and people have turned down high paying jobs over the travel requirements. Somehow I never imagined that the travel requirements would be so much of a deal breaker.

It's kind of funny. Normally, when you think of the hiring process, you imagine a potential employee sitting at home waiting for that phone call: "You're hired!" In reality, the anxiety is at the other end. "Are we offering him enough money? Are the bonuses big enough? Will he like the benefits? Jesus, I hope he doesn't mind the travel..." And I shit you not, people turn down REALLY high paying jobs because they can't handle travel or relocating.

It's kind of nice as a voice guy, though. We're treated like kings!

Voice, eh, What are you paying?? Jeff

Low end (i.e. we trained you), maybe 50k. High end (CCIE Voice, lots of experience) probably 120k, plus bonuses.

I'd be somewhere in the middle, where in OH are you guys?? Jeff

Posted: 4/1/2006 3:56:26 PM EDT

[#11]

Quoted:
I guess you love those 0300 calls that go something like "You threw this program together 10 months ago on a whim and then we decided to make it the lynchpin for our entire network and it stopped working! Fix it right now!".

...and what makes you think all (or even a majority of) IT work is like that? Sure, I'm on call 24/7, but I can count on one finger the number of times I've been called in to work outside of normal operating hours. I think that's an acceptable sacrifice for a decent job, don't you?

-James

Posted: 4/1/2006 5:01:46 PM EDT

[#12]

.

Posted: 4/1/2006 5:05:13 PM EDT

[#13]

Reading this post was too much work. I want a raise.

Posted: 4/1/2006 5:06:31 PM EDT

[#14]

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I guess you love those 0300 calls that go something like "You threw this program together 10 months ago on a whim and then we decided to make it the lynchpin for our entire network and it stopped working! Fix it right now!".

...and what makes you think all (or even a majority of) IT work is like that? Sure, I'm on call 24/7, but I can count on one finger the number of times I've been called in to work outside of normal operating hours. I think that's an acceptable sacrifice for a decent job, don't you?

-James

Yep.. If you write good code the first time, catching every little 'it-will-never-happen' stuff, you can and do get a good night sleep...

The only time I get a 3:00am call now is when the Unix admins screw-up and let a file-system get to 100%... Grrr.... They screw-up, and I get 4 hours cleaning-up the mess...

Posted: 4/1/2006 5:06:51 PM EDT

[#15]

How do you get a CCNA off your porch?
Pay for your Pizza.

=)

Posted: 4/1/2006 5:11:45 PM EDT

[#16]

Ha, you just described Pro Basketball players, most musicians, and con-men, in general. They all have talent and drive and love of what they do.

Posted: 4/1/2006 5:17:21 PM EDT

[#17]

I have an owners perspective. Been in IT now 30 years. I started and have owned the company for 12 years. We are computer networking specialists. Lans/wans - mostly small stuff 5-50 nodes, 1-6 sites.

I need good people, I'm looking for 2 more networking techs now, starting between 40K-55K.

Monster.com is a landfill of liars, including some of my own past employees who must think previous employers never see the pile of lies they put in thier resume. They all believe their worth 100K-200K, but thier just not.

We're in south western Florida.

The problem with most IT people, in my view, is they think thier worth more than they are, and they think that if they keep moving they'll make more and more. Sorry - stay put and gain value. I have guys/gals who have left, soared for a month or two - and fizzled. Greener grass everywhere. Meanwhile Mr. Slow and Steady here has way passed thier income by staying put. That's just my view - from the bosses seat.

Posted: 4/1/2006 5:21:49 PM EDT

[#18]

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I have an owners perspective. Been in IT now 30 years. I started and have owned the company for 12 years. We are computer networking specialists. Lans/wans - mostly small stuff 5-50 nodes, 1-6 sites.

I need good people, I'm looking for 2 more networking techs now, starting between 40K-55K.

Monster.com is a landfill of liars, including some of my own past employees who must think previous employers never see the pile of lies they put in thier resume. They all believe their worth 100K-200K, but thier just not.

We're in south western Florida.

The problem with most IT people, in my view, is they think thier worth more than they are, and they think that if they keep moving they'll make more and more. Sorry - stay put and gain value. I have guys/gals who have left, soared for a month or two - and fizzled. Greener grass everywhere. Meanwhile Mr. Slow and Steady here has way passed thier income by staying put. That's just my view - from the bosses seat.

Yep, admins (be it unix, dba, websphere, etc) are some of the most arrogant (and no talent) folks I have encountered in IT.

Posted: 4/1/2006 5:27:34 PM EDT

[#19]

I manage IT folks so it's actually against the rules to have any technical skill whatsoever.

Posted: 4/1/2006 5:41:13 PM EDT

[#20]

For what it's worth, I am a Novell Master CNE, and a few other minor unmentionables. That was a cert that took effort to get, and had value. Now everyone is an MCSE and or CCNA and thinks thier gods gift. I still run circles around them. Now there is a flood of "IT Professionals" trying to live well in a saturated job market. Something has to give. Actually they need to go get Real Estate Licenses and get out of my face.

Haven't used that Novell cert for 5 years now, but as owner, I don't have to. I have staff that works for me, and a good one at that. I busted my ass for many years, and survived the transition from being the entire company - to owning and managing the company. I now work maybe 8-15 hours a week. I mainly monitor operations, and can do so from my office or home. that's why I waste so much time online here. However, I also watch what is going on in my office with webcams, monitor my email, monitor our accounting/invoicing/sales/deposits/etc, track techs via GPS to make sure thier not fucking me, look at numbers, look at numbers, and did I mention that I look at numbers too? When number and customer satisfaction falls, so does the tech. Just canned one 2 weeks ago, a really nice guy, but these people fail to realize thier revenue generators - not artists or rocket scientists.

I had a staff of employees about 4 years ago that would stab anyone. Fixed that, and my staff now is dedicated, appreciative, hard working, ethical, and well paid.

Posted: 4/1/2006 5:46:28 PM EDT

[#21]

Quoted:
Please think about it a little more carefully.

I'm getting a little tired of working around people who are "in it for the money". These people astound me. Without a love for the job, they're terrible at it and not paid well at all. I'm getting sick and tired of running into routing and switching guys who can't fix a simple PC problem. I'm getting sick and tired of running into desktop support guys who can't think past a troubleshooting flowchart. I'm getting sick and tired of people who only do the bare minimum required to avoid being fired. These people aren't affecting me negatively (I work with the cream of the crop), but I'm starting to feel really sorry for them.

If you are thinking of getting into computers because the money is good, think again. You're not the first guy who's had this thought. You're going to be competing against ALOT of people who picked up CS degrees because that's "where the money is". You're going to end up fighting others like you for shit jobs, and you're going to get smacked down by people who are REALLY good at what they do. You're going to head into an interview with your newly aquired CCNP or MCSE cert, and you're job is going to be taken by somebody who eats, sleeps and breathes technology every waking moment. As a matter of fact, he's awake more often than you are.

Here is who you will be competing against for that lucrative 80k/yr job you want so bad:

1. He's been a geek since he was 10. The only thing he's good at is information technology, and that's all he cares about.
2. You know those certifications you want to spend $9000 to get at a school? He has every one of them, he studied the books on his own (in his limited free time) and loved every minute of it. He picked up 3 of them while you were paying $9000 to have an instructor teach you.
3. He's comfortable with the idea of working 24 hours straight, and is proud of these marathons.
4. He will travel anywhere, at any time, for any reason. Family and friends can't hold him back.
5. He loves technology so much, that he does things other employees call "work" for fun. Even though he's a network engineer, he's learned three programming languages "just because". The Beowulf cluster in his basement makes his dick hard. "Well rounded" is an understatement.
6. He will always be better than you, and will always make more money than you. Get used to it.
7. There are hundereds of thousands of him.

Still want to get into it? What did you do this week? If the answer is anything other than "I learned <insert geeky topic here>" you're fucked. Have you ever made any of these statements?

1. I can't afford the classes.
2. I don't have enough time to sit in front of my computer or reading books learning shit for hours on end.
3. I can't afford to pay my bills on less than 30k a year for a few years.
4. Having my job outsourced would kill me.

Sound familiar? If you've said any of that, you are so screwed. There are people out there looking at those 4 statements saying "And?". If their job gets outsourced, they'll have another one next week. They don't need to take classes. A reasonable person would say they don't have enough time in the day to "play" with computers as much as they do, but they do it anyway (at the expense of everybody and everything around them). They will gladly take low paying jobs, because they get to do what they love. When the ecomomy picks back up, they'll be loaded again and they know it.

You know what the worst part is? These guys you're competing against for lucrative jobs don't consider it "work". They are amazed that they actually get paid to do things they would just as soon do for free. How about you?

+1...

Former self-taught self employed/contract IT guy...

I got bored with it, but got my degree in it just because I knew I was good enough to make a living there...

However, when it came time to pick a career, I went Army, and am out of the computer biz for good...

4 years geting my degree with a bunch of people who all wanted to be 'the boss' and 'never work with this stuff again' plus a lack of a challenge convinced me that I'd be better off elsewhere....

Posted: 4/1/2006 5:48:00 PM EDT

[#22]

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I manage IT folks so it's actually against the rules to have any technical skill whatsoever.

That is so true. I do better being dumb and not micro-managing than being everywhere doing everything.

God bless you - stay IT stupid - just deal with numbers and satisfaction levels. Pay the right people to execute.

The business is too large for anyone to know everything anymore. When I was an on the road Novell Master CNE, I really did know everything - but the industry has changed so much in the last 10 years a single guy can't survive without a staff/team with various specialties. I made it out just in time to management and ownership. I wasn't about to learn my 20th OS, or try to keep up on an ever expanding technology. There would be no time left to bill for services.

Posted: 4/1/2006 5:48:26 PM EDT

[#23]

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Preach it brotha...

Here’s some advice for those of you still in school. Become a medical doctor.

Electronics and engineering is all about long hours, mediocre wages and no job security. Even people at the top of the field often find themselves unemployed. (And that certification/ tech school degree is not going to put you at the top of your field)

i STRONGLY disagree with you. long hours, being on-call during weekends and holidays and having idiot patents call at 3am asking for a refill of their prescription, having to fight with insurance companies to get paid and being under-reimbursed by medicaire, having to deal with idiots who smoke, weigh 500 pounds, and don't take their prescriptions and then get mad at you because they're not getting better, and having to comply with the new gov't regulations which require all prescriptions and records be electronic, which will cost doctors thousands and thousands of dollars to setup and troubleshoot. not to mention the looming medicaire crisis as baby boomers age. now is NOT the time to become an MD.

there are a few exceptions to this, most notably if you want to become an anesthesiologist and work for a hospital, where you can make tons of money, work reasonable hours and not have to worry about administrative bullshit like fighting with the insurance companies for reimbursement or dealing with the government's new "electronic recordkeeping" requirement nonsense.

Posted: 4/1/2006 5:49:05 PM EDT

[#24]

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Preach it brotha...

Here’s some advice for those of you still in school. Become a medical doctor.

Electronics and engineering is all about long hours, mediocre wages and no job security. Even people at the top of the field often find themselves unemployed. (And that certification/ tech school degree is not going to put you at the top of your field)

One advantage to IT over medicine. You'll never kill someone over a mistake.

BUT, people take crashed hard drives just as bad as loss of a family member, so you do learn how to console others, and at the same time, not really care much about them and their loved one (the hard drive)

Posted: 4/1/2006 5:51:06 PM EDT

[#25]

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I guess you love those 0300 calls that go something like "You threw this program together 10 months ago on a whim and then we decided to make it the lynchpin for our entire network and it stopped working! Fix it right now!".

...and what makes you think all (or even a majority of) IT work is like that? Sure, I'm on call 24/7, but I can count on one finger the number of times I've been called in to work outside of normal operating hours. I think that's an acceptable sacrifice for a decent job, don't you?

-James

Yep.. If you write good code the first time, catching every little 'it-will-never-happen' stuff, you can and do get a good night sleep...

The only time I get a 3:00am call now is when the Unix admins screw-up and let a file-system get to 100%... Grrr.... They screw-up, and I get 4 hours cleaning-up the mess...

Personal experience. CapnRob, that first sentence is the finest peice of sarcasm I've seen in my life. I'm going to print it out and frame it.

Posted: 4/1/2006 6:02:49 PM EDT

[#26]

Yeah but.

It ain't all about DNS, UDP, and DDoS ... the hardest part of technology is management. The kids are still kids and through all their bad langage, poor social skills, weird looks, and inablity to write they're not that bad. If you're working a mom and pop place then your nose, eye brow, nipple, and 12 year rings might not get noticed but at the corporate shops you're not going to fit in. The ability to communicate in English vice geek doesn't come easy for these kids in my experence. I have the ability to speak management to the suits and geek to the nerds.

I do spend about 5-10 hours a week researching new technology to keep my designs fresh but I gave up the administration of root a long time ago ... and I do miss it some times.

Posted: 4/1/2006 6:02:53 PM EDT

[#27]

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I guess you love those 0300 calls that go something like "You threw this program together 10 months ago on a whim and then we decided to make it the lynchpin for our entire network and it stopped working! Fix it right now!".

...and what makes you think all (or even a majority of) IT work is like that? Sure, I'm on call 24/7, but I can count on one finger the number of times I've been called in to work outside of normal operating hours. I think that's an acceptable sacrifice for a decent job, don't you?

-James

Yep.. If you write good code the first time, catching every little 'it-will-never-happen' stuff, you can and do get a good night sleep...

The only time I get a 3:00am call now is when the Unix admins screw-up and let a file-system get to 100%... Grrr.... They screw-up, and I get 4 hours cleaning-up the mess...

Personal experience. CapnRob, that first sentence is the finest peice of sarcasm I've seen in my life. I'm going to print it out and frame it.

Damn, I forgot to trademark it

Posted: 4/1/2006 6:02:55 PM EDT

[#28]

Where does PIE fit into this whacked-out sub-culture that is "IT"?

Y'all install pocket-pussies into your servers or something?

Posted: 4/1/2006 6:05:23 PM EDT

[#29]

I used to love coding. Then I got a job were everything had to be run through committees, checked in/out, documented in political terms, etc etc. I got burned out. This was the type of place that people bitched because you compiled, causing the version number 4 digits to the right of the decimal to rev.

I used to code at work, then come home and do it until late at night just for fun. But working for a big, politicized company burnt me to the point where I didn't even want to code for fun.

Posted: 4/1/2006 6:07:18 PM EDT

[#30]

Quoted:
I used to love coding. Then I got a job were everything had to be run through committees, checked in/out, documented in political terms, etc etc. I got burned out. This was the type of place that people bitched because you compiled, causing the version number 4 digits to the left of the decimal to rev.

I used to code at work, then come home and do it until late at night just for fun. But working for a big, politicized company burnt me to the point where I didn't even want to code for fun.

We are going RUP at work, what a nightmare that is.

Posted: 4/1/2006 6:16:13 PM EDT

[#31]

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I used to love coding. Then I got a job were everything had to be run through committees, checked in/out, documented in political terms, etc etc. I got burned out. This was the type of place that people bitched because you compiled, causing the version number 4 digits to the left of the decimal to rev.

I used to code at work, then come home and do it until late at night just for fun. But working for a big, politicized company burnt me to the point where I didn't even want to code for fun.

We are going RUP at work, what a nightmare that is.

We had this black guy come through the company and tell us how we had to act and dress like the level of management 2 above us if we wanted to be successful. A pure snake oil salesman who was typical of the BS we were constantly subjected to.

That place was just a free-for-all of people trying to pave their way up over your dead body.

I'm finally getting set up to where I'll hopefully never have to program professionally again.

Posted: 4/1/2006 6:27:12 PM EDT

[#32]

Quoted:
I used to love coding. Then I got a job were everything had to be run through committees, checked in/out, documented in political terms, etc etc. I got burned out. This was the type of place that people bitched because you compiled, causing the version number 4 digits to the right of the decimal to rev.

I used to code at work, then come home and do it until late at night just for fun. But working for a big, politicized company burnt me to the point where I didn't even want to code for fun.

Yeah but the inverse of that his when source control/version is like the wild west and you have all sorts of test code floating around. And some folks are using revision numbers and others are going by build dates. And FPGA and microcontroller code doesn't fit into rev control software like CVS. So it is worse than the PC code. Then some folks don't back up the source code and you are stuck with a compiled .exe with no source and they forgot to put any rev data in the code.

And then you have hardware revs getting all hosed because there is no engineering review for electronics. All sorts of crappy shit gets build, multiple spins of PCB's. You go to put a design into a small production run and the bill of materials is all fucked up. One engineeer has one schematic on his PC and another on the groups servers. There are no engineering change orders just notes on schematics.

Now I like it a little loose, but things can get out of hand.

I read an article in an online embedded software journal about NASA's program for writing firmware for the Space Shuttle. They have insane code reviews and they spec the code so thight that the coders are just translating pseudocode/design requirements into code. No room to play or code for codes sake. It makes for ultra reliable code. I can see that in there aplication, I can't see that for most other SW that is being written.

Posted: 4/1/2006 7:17:49 PM EDT

[#33]

Quoted:

You'll never kill someone over a mistake.

You are mistaken on that little supposition...

Quite a few people have been killed with software bugs and engineering mistakes. I would venture to say that sloppy hardware/software design kills more people than that drunk, distracted, incompetent MD.

The only difference is that the engineer never sees the blood on his hands.

Posted: 4/1/2006 7:44:14 PM EDT

[#34]

I have a IT cross over job. This is the type of Job that you can get if you are not a full noise geek, but you can understand and communicate with them. The Start of this thread is 100% correct if you only bring your IT skills to the job. Have skills in other areas, and this can prove the difference.

I got my first PC in 1982 and my first email address in 1986. Have always enjoyed computers. But I am not of the whole life given over to IT type geek.
I studied Management and Hospitality, I went in the Hotel management game. My interest in computer never abated, it became a hobby, althought I studied it too.

Fast forward to now, I am a Hospitality Software Product manager.
For me the perfect job, I am not locked in a small office like a programmer (alothough I speak DBA, which is close but not the same dialect) . I get to dabble in new techonolgy and assess it, change it, complete specifications, order changes, But I also get to meet real people, ie. Customers etc. Also I get to pass my knowledge on in training sessions, almost the perfect job.

There is always a need to translate Programmer into end user and vice versa. Since they don't speak the same language.

[ARCHIVED THREAD] - To those of you considering a career in IT (Page 2 of 2)

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