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Moving Away From the IT Field?
irving47 writes 'With the economy the way it is, it's a little iffy to even think about switching careers completely, but lately, I've gotten more and more fed up with trying to keep up with the technical demands of companies and customers that are financially and even verbally unappreciative. While I might be good at it, and the money is adequate, I'm curious to hear from Slashdotters who have gone cold-turkey from their IT/Networking careers to something once foreign to them. How did you deal with the income difference, if any? Do you find yourself dealing with people more, and if so, how did that work out?'
I hadn't thought of that. I just LOVE to clean up poop. In fact, I'll sit there waiting, watching, anticipating, ready to catch it before it can fall onto the mattress. I'm perfect for that job, and I'll even do it for free.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Actually man, I make more money selling magazine subscriptions, than I ever did at Intertrode!
Only bad thing is I have to pretend I'm a recovering crackhead.
-Steve
Spelling and morals are both still optional?
While you're at it, why not sell raman noodle trees? With the economy the way it is there's bound to be people who would fall for that sort of scam on craigslist or feebay.
Or you can sell them baggies full of cheerios - just tell them they're donut seeds.
I'll take your job!
I get respect because I dropped the attitude you currently are showing.
IT doesn't generate any revenue. We are infrastructure. We are rent but we have souls, and feelings and personalities.
I make conversations. I make friends. No one should know command lines or registry hacks or why their Internet is slow. That's my job and it is up to me to explain it well to them.
As for people getting paid more - that's because they are more valuable to the company's viability.
Having known 6, 7 and 8 figure salary folks I can assure you that you can't do their jobs. I'm sorry if you don't think that's fair. You and your job are replaceable but those highly paid folks require high levels of experience, intelligence and competence (and connections).
I just started lighting Altadis Behike cigars with $1,000 bills. As long as I smoked at least a couple a week, my income stayed about the same.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
I'm not trying to talk nasty about you, but uh, how hard did you have to hit your head?
Both before you picked up Objectivism, and then when you left it?
I know several IT companies that will only hire Gitmo alumni as managers. Or at least that's the best explanation I can think of.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
How did it come to this?
We let them take away our over voltage cattle prods. Plain and simple.
Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
It's hard work. I spent two weeks working on a sheep farm. 12 hour days, very physical work. Not to mention living in a state of constant sexual exhaustion.
Off Topic but... "I'm an ex-Navy guy. My military career field was journalism and public affairs. When I got out of the service I went directly into IT." :)
This is also me - 9.5 years Navy Journalist (NMC and AFRTS - Diego Garcia, Adak,AK, Naval Base Seattle Public Affairs, Gitmo) and now 10 years network engineer.... Small world isn't it.
Maybe you're the same guy! Have you checked?
Halliburton
When my ship pulled into Hawaii, I spent my liberty installing Slackware on my personal laptop.
You must be great fun at parties.
Sexual exhaustion? . . . . Were you pitching or catching?
Not quite the same, but...
I work for part of a University that has a name that sounds like a telemarketing firm.
Frequently, one of my high level clients will call me in a panic and leave a message. I call back, but 50% of the time I get screened by a receptionist who just assumes I am trying to sell something.
If the client is a jerk, I don't even bother to explain. I'll wait until they call back and then tell them I got screened.
This happened to one client 5 or 6 times. Finally I explained to the secretary who I was, so the call would go through. The secretary said, "Oh, I know who you are...but she gave me a list of words to use to screen calls with. And your unit has two of those words in the name. Besides, it's fun to watch her get mad when she doesn't get the call."
I don't blame the secretary at all. But then again, you could only get away with that in the public sector.
No reason to lie.
Maybe you're the same guy! Have you checked?
Doubtful. Journalists stopped most of their fact checking decades ago.
I work for a large engineering firm, and at least 75% of our employees are engineers of one kind or another. Sure there are some dim bulbs in the bunch, even amongst the engineers, but for the most part we're talking about people who are very tech-savvy, and security-conscious. The nature of our work (especially those of us who are software engineers) REQUIRES us to have admin access to our own computers. Ever tried to do any serious software development on a machine you don't have admin access to? It sucks.
Yet, our IT people act as if they're the intellectual elite within the company, and they insist that we should not have admin access to our own machines. Every 2-3 years they make a big push to revoke admin access, and all of the various engineering departments have to plead their case to upper management. The IT guys have not won that fight as of yet, but I DREAD the day that they do.
What do you mean you need to install the latest Platform SDK? What's wrong with the old one? No, you cannot install . It's not on our approved software list. Why can't you just use Notepad? You want to put a Linux box on the company network so you can test out your client/server application? No can do. It's against company policy. What? You want to disconnect your computer from the company network and hook it up to an isolated LAN to test your client/server app, and you need admin access to change the IP address? Nope. Can't do that either. It's against company policy. No, you cannot install . It's not on our approved software list. You'll have to submit a request for approval. The request will have to be submitted to our change board, which meets every other Tuesday. How long does the approval process take? I'm not sure. I've never actually heard of such a request being approved. It's not our fault that your delivery deadline is in 6 weeks. You should have put in the request 6 months ago. What? Your customer just changed the requirements on you last week and there's no way you could have anticipated this 6 months ago? Sorry, that's not our problem.
In HS and college, I loved participating in programming competitions. Sales engineering is the first time that I've really duplicated that kind of experience, and gotten paid big bucks for it. The work inherently involves working with people. You are introduced to a constant stream of new businesses and problems to solve. And as far as verbal appreciation goes, sales reps can totally dish that out. If you're able to hack it and your deals are closing, your deeds will be widely acclaimed. There is a downside that if you're deals aren't closing, you'll be out of a job.