[Today’s run:\u00a0 nothing yet]<\/p>\n
Here are some conclusions I draw from my “Jobs” series:<\/p>\n
I like some stability. Working for a company where the paychecks are in doubt or where the structure is in constant flux is not fun.\u00a0 It can be compensated for by higher pay or more power.\u00a0 But being a powerless flunky in that kind of environment is not where I want to be.<\/p>\n
I also like some variety.\u00a0 I see that I’ve worked on a lot of different projects and in a lot of different environments.\u00a0 It’s nice to not be working a factory floor putting tab A into slot B.<\/p>\n
I’m capable of some self direction, on the other hand, I’ve been in situations where some training or mentoring would have really helped.\u00a0 For example, I don’t think anyone really did much to help me develop any kind of salesmanship in the NCR days.\u00a0 I guess they thought “go sell your time” was enough.<\/p>\n
I am too happy to spend too much time doing nothing.\u00a0 I look back now and see that there are gaps in my productivity.\u00a0 So, while I can be “self directed”, it is good to have someone to work with to lay out a plan of activity and some goals.<\/p>\n
The computer business is very cyclical.\u00a0 It seems like the same ideas come around again and again, usually with a new name and maybe some added features each time.\u00a0 And that’s good news for someone in middle-age.\u00a0 I may not know how to program in Ruby, but I’m confident I could figure it out.\u00a0 And maybe I’m not up on SOA, but I was trained on CORBA at one time and RPC before that.\u00a0 So maybe I know something about something sort of like what we’re talking about.<\/p>\n
In the first 1\/3rd of my career I picked the “technical expert” track.\u00a0 Frankly, I don’t know if I have the brain power to stick with that, particularly in light of the google hoards and other youthful armies of very smart people.<\/p>\n
The way to increase salary in the technical side of the computer business is to change employers.\u00a0 You can’t really ask for more in your current position.\u00a0 I’ve been in my current position for 15 years, with just COL adjustments every year, so I’m basically making the same amount that I was when I started.\u00a0 I’m not complaining; I traded take-home pay for increased stability and other benefits like medical and retirement.\u00a0 And maybe it works that way in every business after you get through an initial ramp-up in experience.<\/p>\n
I’ve been very fortunate to not have any extended period of unemployment, for which I am thankful.\u00a0 Computer work has been good to me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[Today’s run:\u00a0 nothing yet] Here are some conclusions I draw from my “Jobs” series: I like some stability. Working for a company where the paychecks are in doubt or where the structure is in constant flux is not fun.\u00a0 It can be compensated for by higher pay or more power.\u00a0 But being a powerless flunky […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4285"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4286,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4285\/revisions\/4286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}