Slashdot Mirror
Dream Jobs of 2004
prostoalex writes "We've read about the worst jobs out there, the most overpaid ones, the worst job postings and the outsourcing tendencies. Can an article on employment in scientific and engineering fields can have a positive outlook? February issue of IEEE Spectrum talks about the dream ('coolest, baddest, hippest, grooviest') jobs, where people have fun and enjoy what they're doing. IEEE publication covered the dream jobs for Electrical Engineering majors only. The linked article is actually a story about 9 different people with 9 different jobs, each leading to a separate article."
I don't want a dream job...
Dream jobs eliminate the one good thing about life. Vacation. Whether that be on the weekends, your random days off in the middle of the week, or the two weeks you spend lounging in Jamaica.
They don't call work "work" for nothing. If it was fun they would call it Vacation. Work gives me something to look forward to when I don't have to do it. It shouldn't be an escape from your family, it shouldn't be fun, and it certainly be something you overly enjoy...
My enjoyment everyday comes in the form of looking forward to the weekend when I spend my free time geocaching with my friends or myself. If I enjoyed work I would probably be sitting in my office working. What good does that do me?
We are a sad society when we put work in front of our "real lives".
Remember that before you go off in search of the job that you just can't wait to get to everyday. Family, fun, and vacation > work.
BTW - I don't mind my job in the least. I don't complain about it and I don't hate coming to work everyday. I just think it's better to enjoy yourself outside of your job.
Dear Anonymous Coward,
After further revision your skillset and experience does not appear to match our First Poster job position requirements. In fact, you miserably failed.
We at Slashdot value professionals like you and would like to keep your resume in our database for future positions open.
Best regards,
HR
LEGO master builder. Getting paid to play with LEGOs - bliss.
Lawyer for SCO?
CMDRTACO CHECK YOUR EMAIL!
If I wanted a list of what's hip & cool, I wouldn't look in IEEE magazine to find it.
As a UI designer, I once saw somebody have my dream job: he was creating an application for JPL to visualize the data and state of a deep-space probe. It would reflect the health of the probe at-a-glance and give access to further data. So it had NASA, space, complex data, and cool visualization all rolled into one. It would be for Depp Space One.
He was not enjoying the work and the circumstances (like the pay). I would have given my left arm (i.e. learned to program on OpenVMS from nothing) for that gig. We all have different dreams.
Here's my question:
If YOU won the lotto, what would you do? Would you still work in IT?
Would you get bored or would you seek to challenge your self with a "dream job"?
I am such a workaholic, I am convinced that I would create my own company AND I would hire some of those IT people that were layed off!
There was a show on the History Channel this week about the autobahn. They did a short piece on some lucky bastard who works for a Porche tuner. His job? Take each new, handbuilt car onto the autobahn late at night, and certify just how fast it can go.
Let me tell you something: if you think you have the worst job, there's always a more dire one.
I had a job where I was supposed to engineer "smart" plumbing fixtures - keeping water temperature right, measuring turd/bowl ratio, etc. It paid the bills, but it was boring as hell - and always got blank looks at the local SCA meets.
When the tech boom subsided, I lost the job. I wasn't too worked up about it. I found another job quickly, but little did I know it would turn out to be even worse. It was similar to the above position (experience always helps when applying), but, as I found out upon showing up on day one, I was to be engineering urinals. I fear parties, for people inevitably ask me what I do. Ten years of higher education for this, and people piss on my designs!
So, don't complain about your job. At least your products aren't full of piss.
period.
I also reply below your current threshold.
...is a job period, doing what my degree is in. The woes of a recent grad trying to find a Computer Science position.
"Hard work never killed anyone." -- Some Dead Guy
i get no training and no chance for advancement, monitarily or otherwise. no raise in the 5 years i have been there...
so my dream job is any job where i get training once in a while on things i am expected to support, and where i might get a raise if i do a solid job. its not just me, nobody else at the company gets raises either. still looking for another job, but the market isnt so good, at least in my area.
on the other hand, i know people (at other places) that are far more qualified than I am, and they have been looking for a job for quite some time more... so i cant complain too much, i guess.
to summarize, my dream job would be one where i could potentially advance for doing good work. oh, that and i want to be surrounded by hot chicks.
No, I'm not bitter...
Sure, astronaut, deep sea submersibles, yeah, yeah. But they left out bikini team oiler.
My dream job is to pursue my passions, which are currently issues of website usability and accessibilty. Sorta in a 'geek eye for the internet guy'
... I learn so much from my exchange of experience with the younger turks' savvy (and energy)
I also like the team/technical/mentoring thing
I'd like it to pay enough where I could do the same work for the variety of charities of my choice
I'd like it to last for more than 2 years
Bottom line, I want to work, work hard, work productively at what I love to do.
Doesn't everyone?
--- have you healed your church website?
Oh, they are talking about dream jobs for Electrical Engineers only?
In that case: A great dream job would be a trophy husband to a beautiful, weathly, fun-loving supermodel.
What? You think having EE degrees means they would rather stare at oscilliscopes all day!?
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
After being unemployed for several months, almost any job became my dream job.
Being paid to work on Linux device drivers makes it even dreamier. Or at least geekier.
Where law ends, tyranny begins -- William Pitt
I don't know, I would guess CowboyNeal has pretty close to the ubergeek paradise job. I mean, come on, he's got unlimited mod points for God's sake!
I have discovered a truly marvelous
Stress tester for Playboy website development team. 'nuff said
Free XBox, PS2
I can say that my job is NOT a dream job...
http://github.com/gbook/nidb
Currently my day is split into thirds: Working, Sleeping, and Other. If I could find a job that involved sleeping for 8 hours, man, I'd be set.
How many here simply dream of a job? Wont be long until there are no more employed westerners outside of wally worlds, fast food and politicians. Can we outsource our politicians and ceo's to India too?
You are the first whiny person posting about his unemployment. Please tell us we care so much.
You could have gotten extra bonus points if you mentioned outsourcing to India.
I work for IBM. A nice person from that company trained me how to do the job. He was nice but he seemed very sad. Anyway ,I now have a job and I can feed my family.
It's not just about "pursuing" that dream job, it's also as much, if not more, about creating that job. I've found it amazing to what latitude employer's will go when presented with unique job ideas. Most often one has to envision and then sell (to one's boss) that dream position before one can have it.
"First, I would invest half of it in low risk mutual funds, and give the other half to my friend Asadulah who works in securities..."
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
"It would be for Depp Space One."
Man, Lance Bass is going to be upset when he finds out Johnny beat him to it.
It would be for Depp Space One.
I too vote for shooting Johnny Depp into space.
One with a paycheck and no layoffs until we figure out how to use the phone.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
Naysayer that I am, I think a "dream job" is impossibly subjective.
Some people may be thought to have dream jobs because it pays well in general(professional sports stars). Some people because it is something you wish you were paid for (professional gamers or err.. movie critics, if you like). Some may have dream jobs because you wish you were doing that job (it's description, at any rate.. some people entertain fantasies about being a photographer for a magazine like Playboy :p). Some people may wish for cutting edge technology jobs.. Hey, when Marcelo Toscatti was interviewed, I remember a comment saying "he's 20 years old, kernel maintainer and married".. :)
So what is it that we like about these jobs ? The fact that the grass always looks greener on someone else's pasture ? or the fact that we wish we were doing something else ? :)
For me, the job I landed immediately after I graduated was my "dream job". Hey, I was paid to code. I loved writing code, I liked finding tricky solutions to problems, I just liked my job. The fact that they paid me (obscenely well by the standards of an undergraduate who had been paid nothing before for doing mostly the same thing) didn't even enter the equation. For about 6 months or so, I was one happy puppy. Churning out code, design specs..researching things I wanted to do, learning new stuff.
Then the rest of my life kicked in. You figure out the 12 hour days are ok, but you didn't want to stay in office and miss the rest of your life pass you by. A progamer interview I saw recently (ShowTime, a War3 player) said he plays almost continuously for 15 hours a day. I may like gaming, but I couldn't take that continously for too long. Even people with dream jobs need to find a balance somewhere. If a dream job demands all your energy, your time.. leaves you with no energy for anything else.. then it won't be your dream job forever.
A true dream job (definitely not something you can be paid for, so I wonder if you can call it a "job" anymore) would allow you balance. If you're earning a wage for it, then sooner or later, you will find yourself wishing for something else.
My $0.02
"two chicks at the same time"
"two chicks at the same time... that's what you'd do if you had a million dollars?"
"damn straight, always wanted to do that. i think if i had a million dollars i could hook that up."
The linked article is actually a story about 9 different people with 9 different jobs, each leading to a separate article.
Actually, like the article says, they really do talk about 10 jobs. They just don't link to the last one in that summary page. Here's the index page:
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/contents/index.html
You probably shouldn't click this.
Playboy photographer
OR
Hugh Hefner's "job".
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
My idol. He has the dream job my friends. IT dream job? Setting up the Playboy mason's network. Number 2 : Any job in Amsterdam.
Mod +5 Drunk
how many times have you heard people say that they loved computers until they started working with them professionally?
There is no dream job. The fact that it's a job takes all the enjoyment out of it.
I am the Systems Admin at, what our marketing dept. likes to call, a world class ski resort.
In fact right now, after finishing a quick lunch, I am lacing up my snowboard boots and will be spending some quality time on the snow... and I get paid for this!!
For Americans life is work.
Work is life.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
PNL is hiring a Senior System Administrator for the world's largest Linux cluster and 5th fastest supercomputer.
I do qt coding on Linux for an air traffic systems simulator. It is all c++ and some shell-scripting: autoconf, bash, perl, etc. It fun, and I don't feel like I'd be gipped out of vacation because work is fun. When i worked at lockheed, I felt the same way. Other than being tired in the morning, I felt like jumping out of bed and racing to work, I couldnt wait to get there. I was doing more radar stuff back then. I guess I like coding.
I understand the original poster's comments about anticipating the weekend, but for me, 8 hours of coding a day is fun, not much more, and definitely not less. I still anticipate the weekends and Geocaching, kayaking, fishing, working with my machine tools, etc, but I also have fun at work. I don't think that having fun at work lessens the fun I have at other tasks/passtimes. It is just another thing to do.
i am so very tired....
$345 a week and all I have to do is send out three resumes during that week.
That Master's degree sure is serving me well now!
that if you find a job that you like, you'll never have to work a day in your life.
Friend, if the best thing about your job is the time you spend away from it, you're in the wrong job.
I'm not saying it should be the centerpiece of your life. (Indeed, my mother tells me that we are a nation that worships our work, works at our play, and plays at our worship. *grin*) I think I have my dream job, but I'm not going to pass up spending time with good friends to get in a few more hours just for fun. But if you dread your job to the point where the only enjoyment is looking to leave, you need to find new employment.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
virginity tester
"sorry boss, haven't found one yet today. I'll look harder"
It was kind of secret. Everyone walking by must have thought I was the worst robot programmer on Earth. But I still had that big grin on my face...
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
In stark contrast to my real life, I'd love to be born rich and live off the interest. The hardest part of life would be deciding what to invest in for the best return. Mmm.... I could buy gadgets whenever I felt like it, work on projects whenever I wanted (with no deadline pressure). I'd still be a geek, don't get me wrong - I'd just have more stuff. :)
biopowered.co.uk - catalytically cracking triglycerides for home automotive use since 2008. Just say no to big oil!
Now I'm doing pure research and some teaching, in Boulder, CO. This turns out to be closer to my dream job -- more flexible hours and lots of self-directed variety to the tasks. It's certainly not for everyone -- I basically sit around staring at equations, or images, or image-processing software, most of the time -- but every once in a while I get to figure out something nobody's ever known before, and that keeps me going the rest of the year.
Of course, the problem with a self-directed job is that you're always with your boss... :-)
Dreams jobs *sound* great, but they are typically always glamorous from the outside. When I look down that list of IEEE dream jobs I think "The Hawaiian Elec guy has to sit inside, in Hawaii, all the time". "Gage, Science chief of Sun, has to spend countless hours on planes, never gets to rest or spend time at the same place" etc. Jobs like these sound great, because you only here the good things. You don't hear the beauracracy, duldrum, tedium of much of the job as well. I would say I have my dream job, or close enough. I develop and integrate virtual reality simulations for vehicles (like cars, etc.) I get to buy and play with the newest and greatest of commercial hardware (we just got in 6 Radeon 9800XT's), I have lunch every day with the President who I can also call my friend. All this and I am still just out of school. But I still have to write documentation, commute to work, have stupid meetings with clients, and deal with other mundane tasks. So, I enjoy my job, but also realize that a job can be whatever you make of it.
I'll hype my position: Instructional technologist
Yeah, the pay's not great, but here at least are a few of the perks, at least at my school.
It's not perfect by any means. Pay and benefits lag industry, there's some scut work, and I'd really like to get back to teaching students instead of faculty, but it's got some pretty nice bennies.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
Until the benefits ran out
i am so very tired....
I don't care what kind of job I have.
I care about what kind of compensation I get!
Being underemployed sucks. But being undercompensated sucks much worse! If someone were to offer me a job shovelling horse dung 50 hours a week for $120k, you'd better believe I'd jump on it.
Computers are great and all, but at the end of the day I have bills to pay. I think a lot of people have this false idea that "oh well I'll get a job with computers, I like those, so I will be working but it won't feel like work!" Maybe that trick works for some people, but not most. At the end of the day, work is work. If you can trick yourself into enjoying it, that's just super for you. All the rest of us can hope for is decent compensation for our sacrafices.
Test subject in a sleep study laboratory.
But, people keep telling me I take things too literally.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Worst job:
"Assistant crack whore"
A: Because it feels so good when I stop!
...and I don't think it qualifies as a 'job' if you have to pay the other parties to let you do it.
G
"Once you get through to them, engineers are too nice to hang up," says Fruehling.
:)
Do you really want us to supply counterexamples?
The coolest voice ever.
- International Courier - Movie Producer - Astronaut - Virtual Reality Engineer - Rock Star - Vertebral Paleontologist - Chaostician - Professional Skydiver / SCUBA Diver - SWAT Team Member - Pyrotechnician - Demolition Expert - Entrepreneur - Emergency Room Doctor - Supreme Court Judge - Shaman / Rainmaker - Ranch Hand / Wrangler / Cowboy - CIA Agent - Striper - Detective / Private Investigator - Security Systems Auditor / Hacker - Catburgler - Magician / Illusionist - Black Hat etc. etc.
Aside from bed comfort tester, I would like to experiment with artificial intelligence. Just play with it without having to write progress reports or chase current fads just because the CEO saw an article in an airline magazine, etc.
Of course I would not want to do it 8 hours strait. I would like to take breaks and troll around on slashdot for a little while to refresh myself.
Aside from just liking to play with AI, it has one other benefit: I might be able to automate away the job of the bastard in another country who took my IT job. I could then say, "see how it feels!". And then replace Carly at HP with a robot, and say to her, "There is no God-given right to not be replaced by a robot" (a twist on her labor speech), and then make a sinister evil-scientist kind of cackle as I walk out.
Table-ized A.I.
Unfortuantely, I do not believe this list is complete and is missing a few job titles. Most importantly, missing from the worst list, is the job title of Crack Whore.
This position would only be followed by the worst job... Assistant Crack Whore.
Thank you, I'm here all night. Jane, you miserable slut.
$370 a week and all I have to do is check a box that says "Did you look for work?".
Hollow words will burn and hollow men will burn.
Now I must kill everyone on the list. As if I didn't have enough damn chores to do this weekend.
--- Ban humanity.
The budget deficit and unemployment due to an unsustainable socialist economy find YOU!
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Tech guru at the Playboy mansion.
No sig.
But the stuff that is really cool about my job......
...I'm not at liberty to discuss. :)
You're not supposed to like work... that's why it's called 'work'.
Besides, if everyone liked what they do, there would be noone posting on Slashdot.
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
Rich, loving, sexy wife: Honey, I'm home. I made another million dollars today. And I stopped at Fredrick's Of Hollywood today, but that's a suprise.
Lucky husband: Great. Oh, the 25" mirror for my new telescope arrived today along with the racks of G5 XServes. I'll mount the mirror out in the Large Array tomorrow morning.
--- Ban humanity.
Vacation is the distance between jobs.
Location Based WiFi
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
I'm involved with a lawsuit where a partnership is attempting to kick out one of its partners. For the last 2 1/2 years the partner has been locked out of his office, but he still collects a salary of over $90,000 a year while he sits at home. Sure it's a drop from his normal $250,000 salary, but I could certainly live on it!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Mate a los bastardos!
--- Ban humanity.
Lau Kofoed Kierstein may be sitting on the floor with a few six-year-old boys, playing with action figures. That sounds more like Michael Jackson's dream job!
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Lau Kofoed Kierstein may be sitting on the floor with a few six-year-old boys, playing with action figures.
Ummm, I think that job is already taken by Michael Jackson...
Business \Busi"ness\, n.;
A scam in which all people involved perceive as beneficial...
This appears to be the only stable job as the US decides to ecconomically hermorage itself into the third world. In this job, you would facilitate large coorporations to move employment over seas. Of course, someday you would lose your job once there is nothing left to outsource, but, hey, atleast you would be last.
"He who laughs last, didn't get the joke."-Cap
You are never punished if you fuck up
Table-ized A.I.
Do i have to draw at my job? Yes. Do i draw at school? Yes. Do i still draw for personal enjoyment? All the time.
Choose something that you enjoy doing and persue it as a career, BUT, know the pitfalls and how to avoid them, and you can still have it as a hobby.
I just dont understand how you could do something you hate for the rest of your life, and be content with it.
Maybe its naive of me to say all of this, but it enfuriates me when people complain about their career choice.
I want 2D games back.
Smithers: Uh, hello. You got a Help Wanted sign in the window?
Moe: Yeah, I need someone to help me with the midnight beer delivery. Your job is to distract Barney until it's safely off the truck.
Smithers: I'll just wait out back until then.
Barney: I look forward to working with you!
Manwhore.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
If you've ever seen the show, then you know what I'm talking about.
To be able to work semi-full time on an open source system and not worry about how I'm going to buy the groceries this week. To have a bunch of people (also paid) to help.. and incredibly generous clients who often need to fly me out to their Bermudan data center for a couple of weeks to do a bit of on-site work.
Jeez, almost sounds like a job at MySQL AB.
Actually, working at almost any technology company in the early 80's would also be up there. Tight deadlines, pushing the boundaries of technology, community atmosphere, modest salaries, and lots of pizza fuelled coding binges. Perhaps the early days of Apple.
Yes, I'm a geek.
Then your job becomes finding someone else to pay you for doing it.
Since there weren't any openings for professional beer drinkers (I'm not good enough at darts) I became a programmer instead. 18 years later I'm a programmer with a much more impressive job title!
--
E_NOSIG
mod parent down for saying 'mod parent up'. Holy shit, how often does someone have to tell you this ... if you find it funny, chances are 500 other people do, too.
Next time I get mod points, I'm going looking for mod-kibbitzers like you.
I recently saw my dream job (well, at least for this point in my career) and applied to it.
It is a PC/Mac/Unix admin job at Pixar. Too bad I'm sure my resume got lost in the noise. I think it would be so awesome to work there.
Mewyn Dy'ner
I'd try and do something to break the tech poverty link, like create a training centre in my town. Initially, I'd fund it and start it up and then get either corporate or govt. sponsorship to keep it going (pref. the former as they wouldn't interfere as much!).
... since he referred to "a less enlightened country" as one that makes you work more than Germany, presumably the two of you are in violent agreement.
Sean
Whether you have a "dream job", whether you love what you do, or whether your job is fun, is really all a matter of perspective.
Sure - there are environments and bosses that make it very difficult to enjoy - but job enjoyment is really all about attitude. A simple, lowly factory worker can really love his or her job, if they buy into the company propaganda line, or the nationalist pride angle, that they're a small part of the machine that dominates. Part of it is brainwashing, and part of it is just having a positive outlook.
I like making lots of money. I very much like not having to worry as much about meeting financial obligations, or providing for my kids. But more than that, I really, really enjoy doing good work, and solving problems.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I worried too much about money (and to a secondary extent, the "prestige" of the job) with predictable results. Now, I make a good salary, I have a fancy title & I have days that are merely a tick on the calendar en route to my pension.
Of course, if you happen to absolutely love doing something lucrative (and legal), more power to you!
"Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)
I wouldn't say that either of my jobs is a "dream", but I could certainly do much worse, and have.
:) I work via a standard browser from anywhere, and have co-workers in other countries.
Half of my job for UMBC is regular ol' sysadmin. The Physical Plant wanted a bit more support than the on-campus IT staff could give them. My users tend to run more interesting software than in a typical office (which probably means a lot of them will be using Windows for quite some time, but I'm learning to manage.) I like being a sysadmin, though, so this is just the "less cool" part, not bad.
The other part is more interesting. We're collecting a lot of geospatial data about the university and building a really accurate map (the goal is an error margin of a few inches). I get to learn about a whole new field (GIS), and now I have an excuse to learn LISP because we're trying to integrate AutoCAD and PostgreSQL.
My other job, freshmeat.net, is pretty cool. Some of you may be familiar with the site
In both cases, I feel like I'm contributing to a good cause (education and OSS/*nix). University jobs aren't without their own set of...challenges, and freshmeat makes tax time less fun (self-employment taxes are annoying), but I'd rather be here than helping someone write reports about MegaWidget3000.
Besides, I know it could be worse. I've done janitorial type stuff (not for long at all, but that was enough), fast food, and T-shirt printing (which might not sound bad unless you realize that the ink is heat-dried, making it hotter inside than outside even in the summer, and people were getting robbed at gunpoint across the street.).
I read the comments on the "bad jobs" article a short while ago, and I'm glad I managed to dodge a lot of those. Am I happier when I'm at home playing music or doing martial arts? Of course. I have things in perspective; I'm reading financial books and trying to figure out ways to retire early (or maybe just become a nomad). But it could be a lot worse.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
Sorry, I thought you said "NASA middle manager".
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Ahh, a topic that truly makes me feel like a pendulum....
I go back and forth on this issue all the time. I am not my job. But what if everyone was like that? We wouldn't get very far. I like what I do, but what I do is not me. But what if I did do something that I absolutely loved? Would it lose its magic because it was then my job? At what point does work become no fun anymore? My wife is a teacher. She loves it and hates it at the same time. She obviously isn't doing it for the money. But she gets rewards at her job that I will never ever get at mine. She has touched kids lives, and when it happens I am a little jealous. She has actually made a difference because she truly cares about teaching. Teachers are always teachers.
What if cops weren't their jobs? What about doctors? Hey man, you have to lie there and bleed because I am off today. Not make sense? What if Linus wasn't the embodiment of the Linux kernel? What if he didn't make his love his work? What about Van Gogh, or Mozart? They were their art. Of course, there is no guarantee that if you live your job you will love it, but can you really love it without living it?
People always complain about the crappy service they get from the wait staff at restaurants. How do you expect people to love their job if you make it miserable for them? What about chefs? They work a LOT, they live their jobs. They are always a chef. That is how they get to be that good. Same with professional athletes, they have to always be doing their job, or at least considering it.
Man, I really waver on this one. What if I loved my job? Would I need to long for the weekends like I do now? How much time do you spend wishing you were somewhere else while at work? What if you loved every minute of it? I still feel that I am not my job, but I kind of secretly wish that I was. Because that would mean that I was doing what I loved, and maybe I wouldn't be looking for a "way out". I still think that you have to be something outside of your work to be healthy. But part of me wants to take the classic approach of "do everything to the best of your ability". The elusive pursuit of perfection.
In the end I think it has to be about balance. Balance your work and non-work time, whether you are your job or not. You have to have balance in everything to make the universe happy.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
http://www.internalmemos.com/memos/memodetails.php ?memo_id=2095
... and has decided to outsource these service offerings.
As previously communicated in the State of the Firm letter, the Company has chosen to reassess and restructure its internal IT development capabilities
Carlos was asked to provide the direction and a plan to make this happen. His strategy and action plan will save the Company significant dollars on an annual basis.
His plan included his departure as CIO, as the position would no longer be required to manage the reduced IT budget and staff. Recognizing this outcome, it took great courage, commitment and dedication on his part to support the Company in this, his last assignment.
Carlos' decision to leave the Company on January 31, 2004 was on very amicable terms and we are pleased he will remain available to us for consultation in the near term.
We appreciate and recognize Carlos' many valuable contributions over the years...especially his...visionary plans that regrettably include the elimination of his own job as CIO. We wish Carlos well in his new endeavors.
Table-ized A.I.
Or THOU.
Not TOU.
That would be stupid.
--
E_NOSIG
ah, another graduate of Bob Flanagan University
Anybody looking for an excellent, GPL'd replacement for Blackboard/WebCT should check out LON-CAPA. Excellent system with a networked content-sharing model that is very exciting.
Having had a similar experience I can relate to yours. I worked for Walt Disney World as intern (I was in IT, not working the parks) and had a lot of the same thoughts. I was supporting the Sales and Marketing staff so it was no different then working in any other office building (except for the enormous amount of Disney stuff everywhere but that is here nor there). However, when I wanted to go see the big picture it was easy. I drove to the parks (Epcot at night was a fave) and got to see exactly what it was all about. I have never had a better job because unlike most businesses you get to see the tangible benefit of your work and say 'Hey I was a part of making that kids smiling face happen.' The ultimate in job satisfaction.
Just when I thought things couldn't possibly get worse at my place of work, they do. We are no longer going to have assigned seats. We'll have a new cubicle to sit in everyday. They have chosen to call it 'festival seating'. I call it crap. I did ask my manager does that mean I might be going to a new floor everyday looking for a place to sit? She said no. And then I asked does that mean if I go to lunch my spot won't be occupied? She also said no to that one as well.
Now this insult is in addition to the staggered schedules, the required overtime (since Thanksgiving of 2003 and thru March of 2004), and the required sales goals (it doesn't matter how good a tech you are. no sales. no job. nor does it matter that your original job description did not require sales). I forgot to mention we talk to angry, pissed-off customers whose problems we can't fix. This is after they had been on hold a minimum of ten minutes. My favorites are the ones who've been on hold for twenty minutes and transferred to the wrong department. Mine.
For example: Customer says "I can't place or receive any calls." Do you say A) "I"m sorry you've been transferred to the wrong department. They should have transferred you to a trouble specialist. I do data support. and then transfer them after arguing with them for several more minutes. Or do you say B) I'm sorry you can't place or receive any calls. Let me check a few things for you (while you twiddle your thumbs for a few seconds.). and say Hmm... well everything looks good here. OK power cycle the phone. Try placing a call. Hmmm.. still no go? It looks like I need to escalate this call to one of my trouble specialists. They have access to more tools than I do and can check into this more thoroughly to fix this problem. Let me transfer you. but before I do would you like to add X service to your plan."
As one of my co-workers put it "There is no bottom to this place." Theoretically the outsourced call center employees could unionize, but cell phone carrier would just pull their contract. We were ostensibly told that we are simply not making the most efficient use of computers and space. The real reason is that my company is expanding and they are cheap bastards who don't want to rent more floors in our building because they plan on expanding to other facilities later.
Whenever I hear the word festival I am reminded of the Star Trek episode "Return of the Archons" with everyone yelling 'Festival! Festival!" and "Are you of the body?"
The floggings will continue until moral improves!"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
To be a self-employed criminal defense attorney with some civil litigation work...hey...wait a minute... That's my job!
w00t!
GF.
Lots of petrified grits
The two key elements of any dream job are comradery and a physically active work day. Most people suffer through horrible jobs in overly air conditioned cubicle farms surrounded by people the don't know or only know enough to know that they despise them. These poor saps are constantly being bombarded by commands from managers who aimlessly trying to keep a sinking ship from catching fire. Now, imagine a job where everyone worked together, in unison, for a single purpose. A job where management was clear in their direction and purpose. A job which allowed you to move about and be physically active. You'll feel as if you accomplished something at the end of the day, even if the task seemed like moving a mountain, because you and your teammates were doing it together. You'll save money and time on trips to the gym because you'll be active each and every day. If this sounds like a job for you, and you have the will to succeed, please call.
Stan Dardevil
Alaskan Salt Mines, Inc.
555-NOW-TOIL
-Lennon
Subjective? I think we can all agree that the best job is Cheif Hammock Tester, in charge of long-term reliability studies. With an emphasis on finding out how those hammocks handle the Costa Rica beach environment.
I worked in a morgue. It was a wonderful job
Think about it for a moment. The co-workers were (dead) quiet, I could play all the loud music I wanted and none of my co-workers ever complained.
I could read on the job, sleep on the job (overnight stay was part of the job) and no one cared.
Granted, it was a little cool at the place, but Management realized it was a dead-end job, so they allowed you free reign. We ordered pizzas, had friends over, watched movies, even got paid pretty well!
Only problem with the job was, as I said earlier, it was pretty much dead-end, though if I died on the job, they had full benefits.
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
No, they don't call it "work" for nothing, but if you're going to be somewhere 8 hours a day, 5 days a week minimum, you might as well find something to do that you find interesting and enjoyable. Nobody said we're only talking about jobs you'll like more than vacation, family and sex.
My job isn't cool, hip or sexy, but it's my dream job. Why? Because it pays well and comes with excellent benefits. It's 10 minutes from my house. I like the people I work with. Most of my work is the kind of stuff I do best. My projects are of short duration so I have a feeling of accomplishment almost every day. Stress levels aren't high, I can telecommute if I need to (did this morning in fact), I get 4 weeks of vacation, and best of all, I work a 37.5 hour week and when I go home, I don't think about work until I get up the next morning.
Why wouldn't I love this job? I'm not working on the Mars rover and living on Mars time, but my situation is better than almost anyone I know.
"Can I finish? Can I finish?
"It is not doing the thing that we like to do, but liking the thing that we have to do, that makes life blessed." -Goethe (but it appeared on /. this morning so it is relevant).
I like the things I have to do -- criminal and civil litigation. I like it enough to enjoy doing it as much as I need to in order to keep my bills paid. I think that I'd do it even if I got paid $10.00/hour instead of $125/hr. (with maybe 20 billables a week, which is extremely low in my business -- I'm basically part-time). Basically, after expenses, I make about $70,000/yr.
I think that given a choice between more time at home and more time at work, I would actually work more. I like helping people with their problems, and I get home at night (most of the time, unless I have a trial) at 6. My commute is 15 minutes. I rarely work on weekends, except to do billing and accounting and taxes.
I think the issue with work is less how much people work or how much they'e paid than it is people finding work environments that they will be happy with. I hated my last job, so I quit and I opened my own firm. Hours worked were never a consideration -- primarly I wanted discretion to do things my way and to do what I wanted to do. Not having a pointy-haired boss is huge.
For me, I think the dream job is ultimately about being able to decide what you want to do and being able to do it your own way, no matter the field. It doesn't matter whether you're pounding out code, building circuits, or filing legal memoranda. Freedom is, IMHO, the necessary ingredient in any job that makes it enjoyable.
A significant element in me figuring things out for my life was dealing with my finances. I have some student debt left and a small mortgage (less than most new cars). That was huge in getting me off of the corporate treadmill o'debt. There's nothing like creditors chasing you to keep you under yoke and on the treadmill. Living like a church mouse and grinding the debt was a big part of what I had to do in order to be able to open my own office. I basically bought my freedom, and it feels good.
GF.
Lots of petrified grits
talks about the dream ('coolest, baddest, hippest, grooviest') jobs,
;-)
Evey hipster knows the new word is "deck".
C'mon, get with the program.
www.hipsterhandbook.com
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
....is cleaning the lobsters out of Jayne Mansfield's arse. I don't know what Derek (or was it Clive) was complaining about
No but, yeah but, no but...
Fluffee.
This is not my sandwich.
-Benjamin Meyer
Do you changes clothes while making the "chee-chee-cha-cha-choh" transformation sound?
Well my professor has his dream job, but it wasn't what he dreamed about as a child. He's an academic, but not one of your ivory-tower types, he treks around lawless parts of Africa interviewing warlords. Read all about what he told me about finding your dream job. Names removed for his privacy and mine, but you can figure out who he is if you really care and poke around the net a bit.
"Working 50 and 60 hour weeks with no vacation is very 1890s. Slaving away like a serf for a king is very 1300s."
.sig for another website I'm subscribed to :)
I'm putting that in my
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
...only he's running for President in his spare time.
Lucky husband: Great. Oh, I mortgaged my "half" of the house so I can run for President, so I'll be in and out over the next few months.
Another possibility is Stanford's CourseWork
WebCT and Blackboard should be very, very scared
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
This shouldn't be a troll, this is a valid and witty opinion. Damn slashdot mods looking out for themselves by always marking down Anonymous Cowards as -1.
Why the hell not? Most kids programming is made only to sell toys. About time some toys were made to sell programming...or to just play with, but I'm realistic.
You know what?
Personally, I suspect that in a few hundred years, people will look at wage labor with the same horror that we currently look on slavery. Personally, I think the center of the economic world is people pursuing their own values. The free market gives people that chance.
The wage labor market, however, traps the majority of the population into these absolutely horrid 9-5 jobs. To break the tension, we become highly destructive during our vacations and our personal consumption.
Hopefully, some day in the future we will break form the prison of big business and get back to a free market centered on people.
I can't believe that out of all of these geeks, no one has listed pr0n--scuse me, adult entertainer--as their dream job.
DISCLAIMER: Use of this advanced computing technology does not imply an endorsement of Western industrial civilization.
I work for the university in Boulder as a research associate as well - and I have to agree that it is pretty close to dream status. Great environment, I can take a couple of classes a year for free during work hours, decent pay, and 22 days of vacation + federal holidays!
nuke the moon
My personal dream jobs:
1. Anything at or affiliated with the Mises Institute. Supporting personal and economic freedom, along with economic sanity.
2. Mutual fund manager. I don't care what they say about mutual fund managers being over-paid. Who make that arbitrary decision? Anyways, finding really great companies is a fun challenge.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
... I have a friend who tells women at the bar that he's a Hostage Negotiator. ... it works. Sometimes.
Being a lawyer for SCO.
Either that or one of those guys that makes up stories for the Weekly World News. Pretty much the same thing, actually.
Wanted: witty unique signature. Must be willing to relocate.
I had one of those little moments of satori recently--I realized that I don't really want to be a software developer any more. I'd much rather pursue the acting I've been doing in my off hours. It's a hell of a lot more fulfilling to me than coding now.
(Of course, there's the pesky detail that acting doesn't pay anywhere near as well...bleah.)
A: Because it feels so good when I stop!
This perfectly describes the rush I get after spending days grinding away at some dense system problem. The joy of solution nearly always motivates me to dive right back under the hammer in search of the next rush. I don't claim this is healthy or sane but it seems to be common.
In the present economy I have been dreaming of just finding a decent job, much less a dream job. It's been a couple rough years in the networking/telecommunications industry.
Those lists are very suggestive and really depend on the point of view and interest of the writer. Just take a look and you will see that astronaut is both part of the Worst and Best!
Who knows maybe there is some folk out there who really enjoy is job as "Flatus Odor Judge"?
Yahh, hiii haaaaa! -Major Kong, from Dr. Strangelove
OK, I've been a coder (asm, c, c++, perl) since 1976 and now I write software for NASA. I've worked on every bleeding edge trend for the last 20 years, have degrees in physics and math, and now am working on returning Man (and machine) to the Moon. Oh, and did I mention I wrote computer games for 5 years? And that I've been using Linux since 1994 and am root on 5 servers? Can you get any geekier than that? And oh yeah, I'm married. AND I'm a member of IEEE! How much karma do I get for all that? Because obviously I'm too damn busy to moderate... Bottom line kiddies... this is exactly what I wanted to do in the 4th grade. So this is my dream job.
Man, that's sad. Don't you folks have parental leave? Here, you can take 35 weeks off when your child is born, and draw Employment Insurance. It's great.
Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges.
I have met and heard of people who say they love their jobs, but they generally break down into two categories:
1. People who strangely love their weekends more.
2. People who have really awful problems in their personal lives.
Your job cannot be the funnest thing in your life for two reasons:
1. No one will demand to be paid to do the one thing in life that makes them happiest. Eventually employers will refuse to to pay for something if they know their employees will do it for free.
2. If you have to do it at a particular time at a particular place then it loses a lot of the fun factor. Writing emails at home after a couple of beers can be fun; writing emails at 9am after an hour long commute usually isn't.
http://www.ericharshbarger.org/lego/desk.html
then look here --it's at Sun..
http://tinyurl.com/23l5l
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
In the process I outfitted the boat with 7+ PCs, a VGA matrix switch system, a 42" plasma, a wireless LAN, ran 1000' of cat-5 and 500' of VGA cable in the boat, installed a $30K microscope with built-in webserver, configured several satcom systems and learned the rudiements of sailing and knot tying, all while being filmed by the Discovery Channel.
In two weeks I will be headed to the Galapagos Islands for a week to make sure everything is working before the boat heads across the Pacific.
As much as this has been a dream job, it has (on repeated occasions) nearly cost me my 3-year relationship with the most wonderful woman in the world. I think the hardest thing about a dream job (just as others have noted) is finding a balance with the rest of your life.
Let's get together and make SCO urine cakes!
Time to put our piss where our mouth is...
uh..something like that...you know what I'm saying..
I have no logical reason to hate this guy, but that doesn't stop me.
I object to that article, and to the next reply.
Shore patrol at old Subic Navy Base in PI. Money payoffs, free drugs, whores and booze for looking the other way at vice crimes. Lived like a king and hated to leave.
In GOD we trust, all others we monitor.
Skip a few years.
Worked on a team with some of the coolest people on the planet in, Santa Cruz CA. Living in a place that has trees, beaches, geeks. (trees are a big plus) This fun and successful team designed a product so good, the owners of the company decided they would never need another one.(or design team)
1995: Followed the lead guy to a cable modem startup. (this is before the Web was a household term) Being an internet junky, I jumped at the chance. WhooHooo! what a ride. Being an engineer for a tiny startup which actually survived the bubble. 16 hour days, 7 days a week, working with a close team of geniuses, feining the "startup life", people with sleeping bags under the desk. watching it grow. watching the product of your work revolutionize communications. countless people addicted to your pet. becoming a paper-multimillionaire. driving the curviest, most leathal mountain road in the country 18 times per week in a sports car. All the while, married to an understanding mail-order bride, "Go make money".
Just when I think life can get no better, I get surprised.
By the way, we are hiring.
What? You think having EE degrees means they would rather stare at oscilliscopes all day!?
I'm not sure I see a benefit, either way you're staring at curves all day...
I guess the fun lies in the frequency of oscillation.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The standard deviation is much higher on the US figure than the Sweden figure. So whilst you might have 10 Swedes with 26K, you are likey to have one american with 100K, two with 35K and 7 with about 12.5K. A very small % of the US population generate most of the money. Swedish and German economies might earn less, but the outcome is more balanced.
I too take inspiration from the bigger picture, but I'm lucky enough to love even the "unglamorous" part of my job!
I work here - CDSCC
I get to turn up here each day, a fantastic spot just out of the city, look after a network of Linux computers and the impressive hardware they control, and look at stars as well as spacecraft!
Jobs involve doing work that other people don't want to do themselves. So, you get payed to do "work". If you are doing work and love it, then generally it's regarded as a hobby. But of course, there is an exception to everything in life. So if your lucky, you can do your hobby AND get paid for it.
Life is not for the lazy.
any deadlines?
The people i know that are happiest are those who help others - doctors, physios, ...
it must be great to see your work have a positive affect on other peoples lives. i mean ok there are computer jobs that you can do this in but normally we are so far away from the coal face that we dont see the impact technology has
i sometimes think i should retrain as in this area. maybe i will
And is it the US work culture that is making him "poor?" I'd say no, it's his own decisions. Sure the 250k house is great and all, but a 100k house is just as good.
Canada has lower per capita health costs than the US. Their tax rate is not because of their health care program.
The United States citizen, on average, works more hours than people of any other industrialized nation, even Japan. We work 137 more hours per year than the Japanese. We also experience more job stress and stress-related illnesses and accidents, than these other countries.
So what this boils down to, is a trade off between a pay cut and a health hazard.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
I have a dream job. I make Viruses ...
... really, thats the only part of my job that sucks.
...
Heh heh, the synthesizer kind, of course.
Well, the only problem with my dream job (it really is the job I've been dreaming of since I was a child) is that a) its too dream-like, and b) people get soooo jealous, very easily, and the 'hes got a good life' prejudice kicks in super fast
Still, its not forever, I know that. Nothing lasts forever
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
"Electroejaculation generally requires anesthetizing the animal and is typically used on zoo dwellers." That's the last time i go to the zoo!