Slashdot Mirror
A Pay Cut for Personal Growth?
As as follow-up to an Ask Slashdot from earlier this week hatch815 asks: "I have recently been extended an offer to come work as an engineer for one of the internet search companies. In responsibility, this will be a step back, as I am currently in a management role, but as a career direction, it will provide me with unlimited exposure, learning, and advancement. The place where I work now is a small non-IT centric shop. Although I am management, I am at the top of the ladder. The tough decision is the pay decrease I would take if I did take this new position. Is the prestige and exposure worth giving up responsibility? I am too stuck in the big fish small pond mentality? Is going back to the forefront better than the psuedo-management I do now?"
If you are happy with your current position, I'd say stay. If you are yearning to be more hands-on and less managementy, and your lifestyle won't take a major hit by the move, then totally go for it. If you have family to consider, make sure you talk to them about it first, especially if you will have to move / make major spending changes (depending on the difference in pay).
You say you got a real solution
Well, you know
We'd all love to see the plan
(The Beatles)
I thought I was getting some excellent experience, and I was, but I could have achieved the same result if I'd spent my extra income on some targetted certification. The pay cut just wears at you. I'd recommend confirming this by making an accurate cash flow for yourself. Once you've got your bottom line "I must make this much to operate my household" dollar figure, see if the offer covers that. Then think about how much excess cash is left over for "fun". If there isn't any, it's unlikely to work out.
In responsibility, this will be a step back, as I am currently in a management role
That is a stunning statement from my perspective, stunning in the worst possible way. It presupposes that a technical role carries less responsibility than a managerial one, which is a terrible indictment of how you perceive relationships in the workplace. It certainly doesn't reflect my approach to responsibility in software and systems engineering in any place where I have worked professionally.
Perhaps it reflects the outlook of some hypothetical 9-5 techie who couldn't care less what he does in the office, but it's not an outlook that is at all common. Quite the opposite: it is usually the middle management that is 9-5, and the technical people slug their guts out around the clock. While hours beyond the call of duty do not mean everything, nevertheless they do imply dedication and responsibility.
Of course, management always thinks that it is at the top of the pyramid of responsibility and authority, even in a company whose business is entirely technical and where the actual wealth creators are the technical people. Well, it's up to every professional technical person to disabuse them of that. It can be tough and confrontational, but it is also rewarding in the long run to be recognized for carrying out a key and indispensible engineering role.
My answer to your question is simple: do the job that you find most rewarding and fulfilling. If you were a bum-on-seat tech laborer with zero authority and no responsibility in a company run by managers who treat their techies as menial labor, then not only should you flee the technical positions, but abandon the company in its entirety.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Asks help from strangers,
For answers allready there,
Look into one's soul
Why do people stay at jobs, or choose to switch to another job? I asked a colleague, Doug Lang, this question in 1994 when he chose to quit rather than start commuting 20 miles instead of 1 mile despite being the second highest paid employee (after the company president). He said "There are three things you get from working: money, learning and fun. Everyone decides for themselves what ratio between those three variables they want to have at any given time by either staying or leaving. If you're making a lot of money but not having fun or learning anything, maybe it's time to make less money and learn something."
Ever since, I've applied those three variables to every job I've had, and it's helped me leave boring, plateaued jobs that paid well.
In theory, theory is better than practice, but in practice, it isn't.
It doesn't matter. Eventually, whichever one you pick will have her flaws exposed. At that point, you will find yourself thinking wistfully back to the one you didn't pick, and the ideal, if totally fictional, life you and she would be leading.
As such, which one you pick makes no difference whatsoever.
ceci n'est pas un sig.
What happens if everyone in America suddenly decided to follows this advice?
/.'ers the pool of available talent for pornography would likely get a great deal smaller. Because, every woman I've met *really* wants to be in porn for the artistic value rather than the money.
Some of the more immediate impacts would be:
-Would anyone work at a retail chain?
-How may garbage collectors find driving a truck around the city their eternal source of happiness?
-Do you think postal workers get their happiness needs met at work? I believe the term "go postal" pretty much makes my point.
-What about air traffic controllers? Managing airspace would have to be another eternal spring of happiness.
-In a serious blow to most
The vast majority of jobs are just that, jobs. Do your work, get your pay and go home. Now, if you have the financial resources to wait until your perfect job comes, then you are indeed part of a small group of luxury workers.
I'm not saying don't seek happines and fulfillment. But just casually throwing out feel-good statements in this context is potentially damaging.
Please STOP spreading this myth.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
What happens if everyone in America suddenly decided to follows this advice?
Nothing. Many people enjoy money more than doing a specific task. They will still carry out the jobs that most would not enjoy doing.
I've read comments like this twice this week. Am I as an IT person unfulfilled because I'm not a concert pianist? No, I don't have the desire or ability.
A lot of people just don't have the IQ to do anything more than sling burgers. They do what they can. Maybe they think their job sucks and want to do something else, but that kind of thinking isn't limited to just janitors. Frankly a job I don't ever need to think about unless I'm punched in doesn't sound so bad.
Garbage collector - decent pay, paid overtime, drive to/from work not during rush-hour, no on-call pager, no hair-thinning level of responsibilty. I wear gloves and take a shower end of the day. It's just trash, it won't kill me.
To each their own.
What if your source of happiness was playing the piano? According to the original post, it's recommended you quit your IT job and immediately try to find work playing the piano because as he states, "do what you enjoy and the rest will follow."
Based on my experience living in Los Angeles and working with countless musicians/actors that did and didn't make it in entertainment, The most likely turnout of "The rest" in this case would be debt, hunger and homelessness because you'll be in a very long line of unemployed musicians.
Therefore, the "do what you enjoy" is more greeting card platitude that gets one into dire straits than anything else.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html