From reading the thread: "Unemployed folks sound off!!!", I can't help but noticed most were from IT related positions.  I'm just curious as how many of you IT folks plan on doing something different given the sector is still hemorrhaging.

I saw the smae thing.  Deep down , yes fuck IT, but when it come downs to getting paid, I have no choice.  The truth...  If I got laid off tomorrow, I would leave and never look back.

IT is being shipped overseas just like the manufacturing sector. Before long the only jobs for us slobs will be in the service sector.

Perhaps it's time to go for an MBA instead of the paper certs.  After all, where else can one robb a country and shareholders blind without any legal repercussion.  And we must not forget a little greasing of the ol' politicans can also go a long long way.

I can't see myself going back, at least not as a wage slave working for some Marketing driven company with a typical luddite PHB doing his best to fuck things up.

I had a small PC shop in the south for a bit over a year.  It was stressful, but a much different type of stress than working for "the man".  I could see doing that again or working freelance/consulting for small businesses/individuals.

We're looking to leave this Kaliforna hell-hole and move somewhere rural so something like that would probably be the only choice, as well as doing something else to fill in the financial gaps (maybe go back to Flight Instructing when the economy picks up).

I’d rather live in my van and eat Ramen noodles for the rest of my life than have to suck corporate dick again to survive.

I hear a lot of people complaining about jobs being shipped overseas, and I agree, that [i]is[/i] a problem for some.

Isn't that one of the main reasons that the Democrats critisize Republicans? Don't get me wrong, I'm not calling anyone here a Democrat, I'm just pointed out something that I think is a similarity between us (predominantly concservative) and them.

I guess the main difference between a conservative and liberal is that liberals want the government to do something about it and conservatives recognize the need for self sufficiency.

I don't know what I'd do if I had to leave the IT market.  Maybe I'd get into the machine/ tool industry.  I can't see myself as a salesman, and I'd never work for a mom/ pop computer store again.

I know many people say they work because it pays the bills, but I don't think I could keep doing something unless I felt I was getting something other than money out of it.

I was laid off for the first time in my life (I'm 32) last year.  After three days I was bored to tears, didn't know what to do.

I lucked out by someone else's misfortune and have been working contract for the state.  It's going to go perm soon and then it will take an act of God to remove the position so I feel pretty safe.  However, gone are the days of $3K bonuses and a good raise every year.

I have no idea what I would do if I didn't fall into this job.  I worked retail for 13 years (hated it!) and have a degree in Marketing (the field was promptly flooded a year before I graduated), so not much to fall back on except I am above average in smarts and work ethic.  I did work for an engineering company for a short time, maybe I'd try to get some financial help/grants and go back to school for some sort of engineering degree.

The IT job market is so slow right now, I decided to get back in school and finish my degree. Im working 40 per week at my IT job and taking classes for my psychology degree. If I lost my job tomorrow I would just go ahead and take classes full time and get a job at Home Depot (already thought about it).  Besides..computers are boring...computer geeks are boring..working in a cube is boring...I just feel lucky to have a job right now.
Joel.

I guess I will have to become a emt again, I don't know what I will do. I am afraid im going find out in a month the way things are looking at work. I do not like the id of being unemployed. I had a interview for another programming job last week, I will find out about it in another week. if that doesn't pan out I will keep my job I have now for another month then try to find something. so yes I guess im looking for things other than IT. Ronald

I was laid off from FOCAL Communications in last October.   I had my MCSE, A+, when I started there and they sent me for training and certs on Nortel ATM swtiches, Juniper routers, cisco routers, tiara routers, redback sms, Telcordia ATM professional, voice gateways, etc etc etc.   The kick in the balls here is that even with all my experiences, companies wanted those skills + programmer + UNIX...etc.   so that killed it for me.    I was about ready to go back to teaching special education again, when I was hired by the local school district as a computer/network tech.    Very laid back, low stress, close to home,...glad to be here now.   Hang in there and dont be afraid to be a little downwardly mobile in your IT career, it can be rewarding.

I graduated in 2000 with my MIS (and 1997 BS Business Admin)and so far barely clear 40K.  I work with guys with no college, the same amount of experience, and they make as much as I do...and I get the highest marks possible on all of my reviews.  I thought college was suppose to increase your ability to get a good paying job.  This is BS...I travel like hell, work 50-60+ hours a week, customers always bitch at me when things do not work as expected, and am bored outa my mind.  I install and support document management/workflow systems.  I have several applications in with local law enforcement and as soon as they make an offer....I am outa here.  The technology market is flooded and you need an MBA with enterprise system experience (Oracle, SAP, PeopleSoft, etc.) to go anywhere right now.  I have always wanted to get into law enforcement...and the benefits are much better than I get now...especially the 25 year retirement at 80%+, overtime pay, and off duty pay.  My other two brothers are both in law enforcement and love their jobs.  Sometimes you gotta do what you love instead of doing what you think will get you rich.  If you are good at what you love, even if it does not pay much, your skill and efforts will eventually get recognized and the money will come.

Your best bet is to spend your remaining savings on cosmetic surgery.  Either have a big, ugly mole created on the middle of your forehead or have the corners of your eyes pulled back tightly.  Then head out overseas for a guaranteed job that pays peanuts. [rolleyes]

There's a major problem with the media and public misperception that all IT is the same. Information Systems is such a niche-oriented field, you have to look at the areas of specialization instead of the field as a whole.

Step one, move out of major metro tech centers where the impact has been much greater. Become a bigger fish in a much smaller pond.

When you examine the backgrounds of a lot of the unemployed IT workers, you will find the lion's share are hardware, network, switching, wiring, sys admin types. This market is indeed dead - but it's not the death of the .com bubble that caused it. There was a huge geographic turf war underway at the same time between ISPs & telcos to put IP services in place. Once the geography was pretty saturated, the consolidations started. Now, in 2003, the ISP/bandwidth wars are over and the related companies will never need the same level of excess staff to keep up.

The problem with a lot of engineering types is that many of them shun anything related to marketing (actually, they believe marketing is the enemy). This clouded their ability to forsee the endgame and plan accordingly. Consequently, you have a glut of network folks in the gutter who will continue to struggle.

However, there have been and are many niches of Information Services that have remained stable and continued to grow in demand.

Software architecture/product engineering - that's mostly what I do. This is sort of the pinnacle of all IT functions from an operational view because it requires competency in all IT areas: network, hardware, software, OS, database, code, etc... I spend most of my development time using development tools like Rational Rose, to churn out Unified Modeling use case scenarios. Then I take those models and break down the code object development requirements and slot them into a project management Gantt Chart/calendar for the dungeonmasters to use to make the trench coder's lives miserable.

Risk Management/Quality Control - with budgets being constricted, there isn't enough money to complete projects, let alone screw them up. Risk Management/QC has continued to be in high demand.

Security - high-end security has continued to be a hotbed of business. Biometrics, encryption/decryption, etc... have all been on the table - particularly in relation to the war on terrorism and homeland defense initiatives.

Wireless - migration from the copper & fiber that was just put in a couple of years ago is an area of interest to a lot of companies. Public sector will start to be driven more and more by the 800MHz standard.

Database Architecture/Admin - Technologies like XML and web services have created new opportunities to re-engineer many legacy data environments. The demand is very high for stron DBAs, particularly Oracle certified. Additionally, open source DB engines are getting very hot as companies seek out ways to reduce their internal operating costs. mySQL, postgre, SAPDB, etc... will all be very important technology camps in the near future.

J2EE & .NET - Java developers have remained in high demand. More wireless devices, PDAs, etc... have all kept the market hot. When you follow and understand the iteration of platform version releases, you can forecast the need for developers as companies migrate their code. ASP has been a Microsoft camp staple since 1997, but companies are starting to finally accept and explore .NET and web services (now that SP1 is out).

Public Sector - over 1/2 of all public sector IT workers are slated to retire within the next 10 years. In the meantime, outsourcing is hot and will continue to be strong in the public sector as they realize they cannot attract and retain the people and skills they need to continue to just get current, let alone advance.

In summary, IT people who are out of work need to think through their experiences and try to define tertiery paths relating to their industry exposure in the past. Maybe you won't find a network admin or engineering spot for a healthcare company, but you can take your healthcare experience and start learning to program or learn HIPAA security issues, etc... to find work.

As a side note, I read Peter Coffee's article last week about the rebirth of COBOL in the next 5 years. Apparently, 13% (up from 8% 3 years ago) of all new software being developed today is written in COBOL (WHO'DA THUNK IT?!?!?!?!?!), however, COBOL programmers are retiring and dying at a rate of 15% annually. This means there will be a shortage of internet savvy developers who know COBOL to maintain and write new code for these platforms in the next 5 years. There's hope for some of you dinosaurs yet... [;)]

Keep up the fight and don't quit.

don't get me wrong...  i cannot picture myself voting for any current democrat but this is one are that the republican's are letting us down.  "Big Business" will do what is right for it's CEO's and stockholders but it will not do what is right for the country as a whole without "a little" government regulation.  the computer industry has been in a downward deflationary spiral for several years now and it is hurting the economy and american workers.  

Will talented american's study and contribute to america's lead in IT when corporate executives are selling off "our" jobs overseas so they can live like kings?

Something needs to be done about this vicious price war that is hurting everyone.

If you are thinking about LE career do it now, while there is a lot of interest, i.e. people scarced of terrorists etc. If IT evers comes back maybe you can work as a IT/LE liasion or something like that. I worked for L.A. County years ago, and they had a deputy and all his job was to run interface between LASO(L.A. Sheriffs Office) and the DPD(Data Processing Dept).

BenDover - damn good post.

Having said that, I'm out for good. Screw it. In all honesty, I entered the technical field for the money. It was a good choice at the time and I made a bundle in the 14 years I was in it. But after the last company folded around 9/11, I was actually *relieved* to be out. Since then, I've been playing with everything - skydiving, piloting, martial arts, learning languages, frigging doggy daycare, now I'm enrolling in a local massage therapy school. Of course, I'm also getting alot of reloading in, too. The downside is no money, of course, which tends to put a damper on things.

I don't know what I'm going to do "for good" but, so long as I can pay the bills, I'm going to do things I enjoy and makes me feel like I'm contributing something instead of just mentally masturbating for too much damned money. Considering jockeying the massage thing into physical therapy... maybe even look into EMT at some point. One day at a time, right?

Been working for the phone co. for 22 years as a tech making $75K + . Going to retire from the assholes in 8 more. I made sure that my son WILL NEVER go into the IT or phone industry.

He's going into LEO instead. Working on his degree as we speak.