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Tech's 10 Worst Entry-Level Jobs
Nicholas Carlson writes "These employers (Amazon, Google, Yahoo, etc), and the others hiring for tech's 10 worst entry-level jobs will look good on a resume someday, but for now the only good these jobs promise the world is the pleasant feeling you and I can share knowing we're not the ones stuck in them." The story is really obnoxiously laid out, requiring many many clicks to read very little actual content. Perhaps Valleywag could afford to hire another of tech's worst jobs: the web designer.
Buncha pussies. This is the worst they've got? I had a tech job once cleaning up database applications for a "Department of Family and Childrens Services"...State social workers, basically.
First, the apps were a nightmare. Kludgy vb, massive sourcecode duplication...If the guy needed new functionality he'd make an edit to his solitary library (more than a meg of code including huge chunks of hardcoded html) save it under a slightly different name, and include it in the application. Effectively the same code linked in a dozen times, but each piece very slightly different.
Second, all the data was child abuse, spousal abuse, etc. Imagine working with that data for weeks on end, wallowing in that hell, and you really had to dig in the data because there were tons of inconsistencies.
Third, the "server room" was a closet with one tiny window, and a floor air conditioner/dehumidifier that had to be emptied by hand. The only tech job I've ever had where toting a 5 gallon bucket of scummy water out of a server room was a daily job. The real icing was the location; the server closet was right off the "visitation room"...The only way into the rest of the building was to walk through a room where child abusers got to visit their abused kids. Yee haw! I could go on about the work environment, but you get the point.
Fourth, the pay. Yea. I could have made more waiting tables. No benefits, and I was a subcontractor, and the contractor was so crooked he kept trying to pay me under the table, basically so he could pocket the chunk of my check that was supposed to go to the government.
That is a shit job. Doing sales customer service for fucking Google does not compare.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
quality is not a stated requirement for a story to be accepted.
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All of these jobs are cush compared to the 7th level of hell that was my first IT job. I worked for a local school district doing "PC Tech" type work. This doesn't sound all that bad right? Wrong, the majority of my time was spent fixing problems that students purposly created. Rich little snobby bastards had nothing better to do then stick gum in floppy drives or shove pencils into power supply fans. Of course the students never had to pay for the damage they created, it came out of MY budget. And then there was the politics. I've never met a bigger group of scumbags then those who called themselves Principal. They always want the latest and greatest, but never want to fork over a dime. Additionaly for some reason it was always MY fault that the worthless software that they lobbied the Superintendent doesn't work right (of course they never consulted me on it before they began lobbying). Of course they had no problem what so ever throwing me under the bus for this. On top of all that the pay was horrid...$10 an hour. I could go on and on, but I tihnk you get the point.
Sky TV told my Mum to turn the coax cable around that went between the wall and the sky box when she had problems a while back (it was a faulty box though, as we thought). I guess Sky's tech support ask people to do this otherwise pointless act to actually force the user to check the cable is connected OK, and as the cable will get reseated any crud causing a poor connection will probably be wiped out too.
I bet Sky get quite a few "oops, its OK now" too when they ask people to turn a wire around.).
Car analogies break down.