Slashdot Mirror
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 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 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.
You should just let them revoke admin access. Then you'll run into a wall before long, and won't be able to work any more, and you can just surf all day. Your manager can then point out that your group did nothing for a whole month and it's all IT's fault. During that month of surfing, you can look online for a job at a company that has a clue.
This is all stuff your manager is supposed to be dealing with, not individual engineers. If he's trying, but he's still not getting anywhere because of dumb company policy or whatever, it's time to look for a new job because your department is probably going to be cut pretty soon for not meeting revenue goals. There's simply no way to get around a company having piss-poor upper management; I learned that at my last job, a company in that was in freefall and made every dumb decision possible which resulted in simply giving up on the product our department worked on (and was the industry leader in at first, before management bungled that lead away by laying off the RTL design team to save money before finding out there were bugs in the chip) and finally laying off our department, leaving our customers in a lurch.
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.