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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.
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This is a no-brainer around here (literally.) First, there are no tech companies in Ohio, so tech jobs are quite scarce. Second, if you get stuck in computer operations, it's a dead end, no matter what the corporations will tell you. They give you the run around telling you that operations is a "launch pad" into other areas, but in the end, you just get pigeon-holed and never get noticed, regardless of how many programming languages and platforms you are certified in. A B.S. degree around here is, well, B.S.
Bottom line:
If you live in Ohio (or in most areas of the surrounding states), get out of IT or get out of the Midwest (or both.) Take it from someone who routinely gets laid off and knows numerous others in the same boat.
Back in the 70's I was a student operator working on a campus mainframe. One time all the other operators happened to be on vacation at the same time, so I wound up working for 19 hours straight. Most of this time was spent changing paper on a printer every 15 minutes. Halfway through the night, the printer cover stuck open, so I spent the next eight hours listening to it clack away at 110 decibels. At least it kept me awake. I got $1.95 an hour for this job.
My sympathy for somebody doing phone support for Google is therefore quite limited. Boy, what a weak article...
Have you read my blog lately?
At no point do they explicitly state that they're limiting their sample to big, fancy companies. They're saying their "10 worst jobs" are "Tech's 10 worst entry-level jobs."
Now either I don't work in tech, or they're full of shit. And since their "tech" jobs include administrative assistants, and salespeople, I'm calling the whole article a thinly veiled blowjob for VWs advertisers.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Entry level DBA for google? you've got to be sh*tting me, thats a stellar job out of univ. stop whining and get back to work.
My first job was working as a C# programmer for a large Canadian freight company (Arrow Transportation), my boss had zero idea how to develop software, consequently it was basically all up in his head what he wanted to see, the program didn't follow any particular development model, and subsequently failed. What did I learn? Only work for people who do not suffer from the Peter Principle.
Ref:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle
Hi, I Boris. Hear fix bear, yes?
Large parts of the network had been strung in the production area - where nightly, a gaggle of folks would hose the entire place down with hot water and caustic cleaners, all delivered at 1500 psi. Troubleshooting a busted wire or device in a non-beaconing token-ring network got to be real fun, especially when half the automated weigh-stations' operators knew maybe 5 words in English. At one point, I drilled holes in the NEMA 4x-rated junction boxes to let the water drain out faster than it got in - just to keep things from corroding as quickly.
You had to fend off (and sometimes referee) 'manager wars', where area managers would slip into the control room and try to literally steal chickens from other managers off the pneumatic shackle lines (by twiddling the priorities and weights when they thought no one was looking).
It was an interesting sysadmin slot though... one which taught me some (since forgotten) Spanish, how to weld stainless steel, how to deal with USDA inspectors who walked about with permanent anal cramps, how to remove chicken fat from a keyboard, and how to endure some brain-melting odors every time one of the pH meters at the water treatment building went down. It was the only computer job where the combination of rubber boots and a hair net were required.
I think it was something like three years after I left before I would bring myself to eat chicken again...
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Because even a terrible article can engender an intelligent discussion.
having also worked tech support, i would insist upon doing that as a lot of the time (60%+), the person is lying through their teeth and that one step (usually restarting the modem/computer/etc.) is what solves the problem.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
You've got to be kidding me. This is the cushiest job in the world. You get paid to read stuff on the internet all day and moderate a forum that hundreds or more people discuss interesting things on. It would get repetitive, but still better than almost any other job I could think of.
The hardest part would be making the kdawson posts, where you have to purposely misconstrue the linked story and make inflammatory remarks for no apparently reason other than to create controversy. Those rumors that kdawson is a real person? As false as Zonk being a real person, the truth is that nobody could have their heads so far up the anuses that they could be so wrong so consistently.
There is the widespread attitude that no matter how bad graduate work is, you've got to grin and bear it. Old IT hands will tell you every time "Thats where I started, and now I'm successful rich and happy." regardless of it thats true or not. It usually isn't because conditions in the IT industry change rapidly and most of that change is negative for people entering the industry.
It is fine explaining to young people they have to work their way up, but this bottom rung is getting fucking ridiculous. McDonalds workers have been known to get more money, respect and job satisfaction than recent IT graduates. I was advised by a career centre that it I was better off claiming benefits (reasonably generous in the UK; you won't be homeless but you won't be partying either) than taking most entry level jobs.
It is fine making people work for respect, but entry-level work these days feels more like unusually vindictive hazing rather than a job. The upper echelons seem to take a delight in torturing the fresh-faced graduates, and then moan and whinge when they can't get good people with experience. Its because most of the good people fuck off and find a more rewarding career before they get experience you idiots!
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
I saw a job posting for some local company that was simply titled "We need a computer guy" - $8 an hour, job description matching what you just said. You're exactly right, a shitty job with a heavy emphasis on "other duties as assigned".
Users would, of course, assume you were patronising them when you asked 'is the cable plugged in' (be it network, of power, or whatever) and say 'yes' despite not knowing.
So we included a standard check of 'what kind of connector is it?' in the call resolution process. Not because we think it's likely that anyone has anything other than the standard IEC connector, and RJ45 network plug, but because that basically guarantees they'll look at the back of their machine, and probably spot unplugged cables, isolator switches toggled, or just 'stolen' gang sockets.
We have had a fairly substantial number of calls end with 'oops, nevermind' at that point.
If someone talks to a "technical support" help line, they should just shut up and do what support say, if they know it all then the why the heck did they call in the first place?
The other time my cable connection stopped working for no reason. I did several troubleshooting to make shure it was not my cable modem, wireless router or computer. After that I was certain it was something with the cable company service.
I called the help line and was guided to perform several things which I have done. I do not get angry for doing that. After all, the help desk girl* has to fill a specific check list before escalating the issue to another matter. While we checked togheter that everything was ok from my side, she made an enquiry to the cable system. At the end, the problem was indeed that they were making some work in my area.
It may be that my girlfriend used to work in a call service center (for insurance policies at Unisys), but I am never rude to the guys in the call lines. After all, if you are rude, you will only make the guy/girl have a bad day and your problem will not be more or less solved.
* with the middle-east english accent, which I usually find more pleasant to talk with as a non-native english speaker because native british help desk people get annoyed when/if I do not understand them, whereas non-native speakers are more patient and cordial.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
That's why I utter the words "If you work with me, I can get you off this call faster. I don't need much help, just a little info.". If they aren't complete retards purely reading from a script with absolutely no understanding of what they're saying, it usually works pretty well for me. That, and just being nice but firm.
It's amazing what being nice will get you in general, actually.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
The other frustrating thing I've found is, especially with ISPs, if you call on nights and weekends, you get an outsourced L1 tech, which is even worse. Best bet is to call someone you know who works there, if possible, because the tech support pyramid, in general, won't get you where you need.
Example: We have to DHCP Release on the old router before switching to a new one (or, really, a new MAC address) -- one thing I've occasionally called in for is simply asking someone to nuke my lease. When we call the guy we know, he calls a guy he knows, and in maybe two minutes, we're back online. When we call tech support, especially on a weekend, if I'm lucky, I can explain the situation in less than five minutes and the tech is actually competent enough to understand me -- but I'll get no real help until it expires on its own, or until I can call the guy on Monday.
Maybe I'm naive, but it just surprises me that tech support has never been tried with quality over quantity.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
While I agree with the first part of that, and I do realize you are probably being rhetorical and not necessarily commentating on every conceivable situation, I would say the typical caller you are talking about assumes that the problem is something beyond their control such as malfunctioning hardware or something upstream somewhere at the service or good provider which even if they did know it all, they would still need to call.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
The biggest frustration I have is when a company does not seem to keep a ticket record of my previous problems and their attempts to fix it.
Once my ISP had a switch or router or some of their equipment down the street go bad to where it started dropping packets - but only at peak load.
So every time I called, by the time I had gone through level 1, level 2, and all the waiting on hold - by the time I got to level 3 (*if* I ever got there) the problem (which at this point, all I knew on my end was that I was losing packets, somehow) had stopped.
The most frustrating thing is that every time I called to continue to resolve the issue - they started me at step one again. They actually sent a tech out to my house three times to say "huh, I don't know why they sent me out here" and for some time refused to escalate me to level 3 without sending the tech out again.
If they would have just kept some record that I had already gone through all of their earlier steps, I could have talked to a level 3, explained the problem, and worked out a solution. Eventually I figured out the problem myself and called up to tell *them* what it was - their equipment, and exactly where even. I wanted to charge them a consulting fee.
I have no problem having to go through the standard "unplug/replug" rigmarole once - sometimes it's even fixed it as I forgot one step. But when I call back, let me go straight to where I left off, please!
I have mod points, but I have to reply here. Worst jobs my ARSE. What do people expect, a corner office, pajama dress code and regular sexual favors?
My first tech job was in the backroom of a grimy computer repair shop. I was working up to four computers at once. One or two would be some home user who had covered their system in spyware and expected it to be fixed for $100. ("Fix! Fix in two hours or we lose money! Or format system and say couldn't save it!") One or two would be testing and writing up specs for some abandoned/old system the owner has kicking around so she could try to resell them. (p2/233, with 32 megs ram. price: $200. in 2003.) The rest would be warm-bodying Windows installs and updates. For $8.00 an hour. When they expected me to get all excited about a raise to $8.25, I quit.
The second, working for an "IT Consultant" company that still showed all the signs of the garage it started in crossed with the worst of Dilbert: clueless management, sales promising the world for pocket change, and techs required to travel all over the place in their own cars, using their own cell phones, without travel compensation. We were being billed out at $100/hr while being paid $10/hr. The managers kept ranting at the techs for not doing the amount of work required to keep the doors open, while the techs ranted at the managers for not assigning it, and the whole place was owned by a completely clueless martinet. I left after six months when they fired the best tech they had and announced intentions to continue operations with a mix of unpaid college interns and foreign outsourcing. ("Indians?" "... Actually, cheaper than.")
In that light, let's go over this article:
1. Online sales and operations account manager, Google
$45k - $60k a year plus google on your resume? sign me up!
2. Support engineer, Amazon.com
$80k/yr plus amazon on your resume? SEE ABOVE.
3. Content acquisition intern, IODA
Unpaid sucks, true, but there's many more unpleasant/dangerous things to do than rip CDs all day.
4. Customer support specialist, Fox Interactive, MySpace division
Customer support sucks, no matter where you do it. 33k/year is better than $16k.
5. Database administrator (temporary), Google
70k/year. See item 1.
6. Support professional, product: Windows, Microsoft
Listening to people's Windows problems for $40k a year, plus actually having access to resources that might help you fix them? Beats the shit out of spyware fixing for 16k. Plus: Microsoft on the resume.
7. Executive admin to Mashable CEO Pete Cashmore
This isn't even a tech job, this is personal assistant territory. With commensurate pay.
8. Analyst, user operations, Facebook
Support again. Decent pay again. (Well, maybe not for Palo Alto.)
9. Operations finance, analyst intern, Yahoo
Okay, this one *might* be bad. Intern, company possibly going down in flames, $12/hr.
10. Part-time guide, Mahalo
They admit this one themselves. "Why so bad? It's not, really."
Article rated (-1, Sensational)
if the answer isn't violence, neither is your silence / freedom of expression doesn't make it alright
you are most correct... i'll never forget the time i found myself with a box from Bell Atlantic containing a DSL modem, filters, and a CD... of course, i only ran Linux in the house... and of course, the CD only contained Software For Satan(TM)...
in fact, it readily became apparent that the only way to establish service (get a username and password) was through some sort of Windows extensions/js stuff for Internet Exploder...
so i called Bell Atlantic and social-engineered my way past the first tier folks, and then got a good tech... i explained that i was using Linux... he understood, got a customer service (billing) rep on the line at the same time, who then gave me a username and password right over the phone - no going through any software install or Windoze browser crapola!
i was pretty stoked when i got my first ping from an xterm on my new DSL connection...
so whoever you are and wherever you are, thank you tech rep from the now-defunct Bell Atlantic DSL support line!
Have you ever asked for a support ticket? If the company isn't using some sort of system like SugarCRM which allows them to create and manage tickets, they should be.
Where I work, I'm Level 0. I'm pretty much the secretary for the tech support department ( a position that is great for destroying sanity ). Basically all I do is get a rough description of the problem the customer is having before transfering them over to Level 1.
For the most part, having a system setup to handle cases has been a great help, and not just because it lets me transfer people quicker. It lets us know what has been tried in the past, and what other techs may have done. It's also helpful when a customer has twenty tickets with the same problem, and they call up once more needing help with something they should really be able to figure out on their own.
This isn't directed at you, personally. This little mini-rant is directed at all of the people with little to no network administration education trying to setup and run a wireless ISP ( or worse, people who think they understand wireless ).
As a side note, the company I work for manufactures wireless radio equipment, AP's and CPE's and such. What bothers me ( and all the other techs ) is when someone calls in and we could fix their problem in about two minutes... if they did what we told them to do. If you're not going to listen to what tech support is trying to get you to do, don't call. Yes, sometimes we'll ask you to do things that seem stupid or inane ( ie, power cycling ), but we're doing it for the benefit of both of us. If this is a brand new problem that you're working on, does it really matter if doing something simple like that fixes it? We're not trying to demean or make you feel stupid. We are trying to help you fix your problem. That is what we are paid to do, and why you're calling us. Where I work, we don't follow or read from scripts ( although I do, because all I do is answer the call and transfer it to level 1). Basically: if you're not going to work with us to help us solve your problem, don't call. There are other people who are willing and happy to work with us to solve their problems, and we'd rather talk to them anyways.
And no, asking for a network diagram isn't a stupid thing to ask for. If you don't have your entire network sketched out somewhere, you shouldn't be running a wireless ISP. You wouldn't believe how often having someone sketch out their network makes them realize the reason they're having a problem is because they have two or three loops going.
God is dead -- Nietzsche
Nietzsche is dead -- God
Zombie Nietzsche lives! -- Zombie Nietzsche
is the condom analyser intern position as described by ars technica: http://arstechnica.com/journals/science.ars/2008/05/21/robo-gigolo-discloses-the-nature-of-condom-failure
"In the latest study, researchers examined condoms that had been returned by users after they failed - can you picture the unlucky intern's face?-to pinpoint the cause of failure. "
You're welcome.
I worked for Bell Atlantic DSL support, later renamed Verizon DSL support. It was the worst job I've ever had, or ever will have. I wasn't even all that upset when they fired us all to move our jobs to Canada.
And I did help a lot of Linux users, since I was one of the few people there who used it at home.
--saint
Yeah right.
As a veteran of the Amazon SE circuit I can tell you that it's a fine job. You get exposed to interesting tech, work with really smart people, and get a nice stamp on your resume.
It's a blue-collar gig as far as tech jobs go, as you find yourself doing the graveyard monkey work that the developers/DBA's don't have time to automate. That lack of glamor inspires much bitching and moaning from green CSE's who think they should come in out of undergrad, get a straight 9-5, wear no pager, and be left alone to work on projects that they think are cool between foosball matches.
They're called dues, boys. Just shut up and pay them.