That isn't the logical conclusion.. we aren't talking about every industry, we're talking about the CBC, a federally funded radio/tv network.
And this particular network is already mostly funded by the government, and I think they're very unbiased - they trash everyone equally in satire and in the news.
This is a similar line with gun control (god, another flame war)
As with all things, don't blame the technology itself for the use to which some people put it
Don't blame the guns, they don't kill people.
Thats like saying 'don't blame the nukes, they don't kill people, it's the people that push the button'
not that I'm against the use of RFID in some cases, i mean, they're handy on my work pass so I don't have to swipe a card, but when it comes to tracking people, I draw the line.
I mean, they may be less evil NOW, but if you think back to when they were given their charter, they did some pretty horrible things to the indians they traded with.
That may have been a couple hundred years ago, but I don't know how fast evil diminishes.
I'm the office weirdguy. I have toys all over my desk ("Why do you have teenage mutant ninja turtles at your desk?" "because, they make my code better by defeating evil bugs for me"), postit notes with odd sayings stuck everywhere, the outside wall to my cube is the 'wall of dissent' with politcal comics all over it, and my while board has been turned into a piece of art when I decided to connect all the vowels in my todo list with a line then colour in the resulting shapes.
I bring a beer pitcher full of ice water to meetings, and drink out of a scooby doo cup. When I'm stuck on a problem, I'll unplug my headphones and play bagpipe music until someone tells me to shut it off (bagpipe music is very inspirational!). I have a Jesus action figure (now, with real blessing action!) which sits on top of my monitor, despite the fact I'm a staunch athiest.
Oh... and I've got the only seamonkey farm in the building.
I frequently yell at the printer behind me.. it's some surplus that us techs use and it jams all the time and beeps constantly, all day.
it's fun being the office weirdo.. people come visit me when they're having a bad day cuz they know I can cheer them up. My toys are all over the floor in other peoples desk now.. I have a lending library really (just sign out a toy on the white board).
don't knock the office weirdo... we have an important role to play in office dynamics.
ditto here... my accounts from back in the HoTMaiL days... 1996 or so... holy crap, I've had that account since grade 9. that'd be 1994/95 then I think.
I can attest to RT being great... worked for an ISP that used it. emails would automatically open tickets and assign them to queues based on keywords. when tickets were updated (either through the web interface or by email on our blackberrys) it could (at our choice) email the user back to let them know.
In fact, I spent a week at the beginning of July trying to get some in Northern Ontario, but gave up. I never realized how swampy and densely tree'd the north is. It was really great to get out and see part of my country, as well as giving us a great appreciation for the people who first settled up there and the hardships they faced.
I highly reccomend everyone pick a confluence and go for it, even if it's done. It's a great excuse to get out and see your country and meet people. All you need is a GPS and some boots. For even more fun, pick somewhere where you get to canoe or kayak, or ski or mountain bike. It's great exercise and can mesh nicely with Geocaching.
Go, get some, and stop being so negative people... people are saying it's a waste of time, that this isn't a good project. Whos to say that programming whatever application you're working on isn't the same waste because who cares, theres already 15 other mail clients out there, or 27 other people who have already ported X to Y system.. thats not the point. Stop being so narrow minded.
I'm glad to see someone else enjoys douglas coupland as much as I do... since I read Microserfs in 10th grade I've been addicted to his writing, rushing out to pickup his new books the day they come out.
the one that most touched me was Life After God.. I've got a couple well worn copies of it around my apartment that I re-read frequently. Especially notable is the discussion of the drugs he's taking to 'feel normal'... as someone who was forced to take drugs for my ADD for years and years, that part of the book really connected with me.
He has a display on in Toronto right now of a bunch of the pieces for his next book, Souvenir of Canada 2. The first one was amazing, so I hope the 2nd one is as good.
I agree... there could be some great movies/shows/books about that whole backstory... I think it's the most interesting part of star trek. the rest is so cut and dried, but the borg really are a 'different' element.. they don't fit the rest of the mold. they are the black to the rest of the shows white.
How is it you get out of bed every morning mr. cynical?:)
I know about the 100's of applications because I have friends in recruiting, and I have been on many an interview where they say 'we've gotten hundreds of resumes for this position'. I'd say thats a dead give away. Trust me, I'm plenty bitter.
quickly running down your other points
a) could be, I have reviews and references that say otherwise, but at the end of the day, who knows
b) yeah, it does suck. helpdesk corrupts your soul and makes you hate people. I understand alcoholics much better now.
c) when your friends are out of work, who do you network with?
d) I don't lie at all... perhaps I should, but what happens when they check?
e) this is probably quite true. However, paper does not a good sys admin make.
f) this is probably also true. it goes in waves, it's hard to job hunt when you're working during the day and don't want to go near computers at night. horrible memories... oh, the nighmares.
In short, I realize you're being cynical and trolling. Your points are valid, as are mine - the poster of the story was going on about the glory of IT, and I assure you, looking for a sys admin job is not glorious. I apologize for interupting you caffine intake.
There will always be jobs for persons in IT that are willing to learn new technology as it changes daily.
Is that so? I've been looking for over a year now.. I have the requisite experience, I have the ability to learn well, I'm good with people (working on a helpdesk is GREAT for developing patience and service skills), but I'm still stuffed at any Admin job I look for.
As someone who has been trying to be an admin for 10 years now, it's getting tiring. I don't think there is always going to be a job for IT people, unless you count helpdesk as IT, and I do not. Due to the dot com crash, and the glut of people going to the 1 year IT schools, the market is saturated with people with one year of school and maybe a little experience. then there are the old timers who got shafted when their job got cut.. they want a job and will take $45k/year instead of the $65k/year they should be making just to get the money.
I still see that times are tight for the IT professional, and they don't look to be getting any better. Working in an IT dept where every man hour has to be justified to the business shows you that IT is a necessary evil; one that is tolerated but definately not revered. If they could, they'd get rid of IT in a flash. Instead, they do with the lowest head count they can to get by.
As a systems admin with 5 years experience currently working on a helpdesk to make ends meet, I'd like to ask, where is this glut of jobs that the poster implies is out there? I know in the Toronto area, there are quite a few out of work sys admins and any job I find gets 100's of applications.
Things aren't so peachy keen here in sys admin land...
Also, remember to listen to faster-than-light drum-n-bass music to enrich the experience.
I can attest to this. Drunk at 4am, on the helpdesk at 8am. Only way I make it is listening to some stupid fast/hard D+B between calls. That, and my trusty Nalgene bottle full of ice water and a tim hortons bagel..
my TL thinks I'm nuts as I sit here bouncing away to the music. people just don't understand the junglist nature.
great site... wish I could stream music through the stupid http only firewall/proxy here @work..
as someone who works with people from across the country on a daily basis, a quick overview:
- people from BC are a lot like people from ontario, only more impatient and snobby. probably due to the crappy string of provincial governments they've elected. occasionally you get a very happy person. it's probably the good weed.
- people from alberta are pretty laid back due to the lack of provincial sales tax or income tax, and the fact that they're the only province that can safely wear cowboy boots/hat and not get laughed at
- people from sask are cool. they'll complain that their system is down, 3 hours after it goes down. their reasoning - 'we figured you were doing somethig, and didn't want to bother yuo. if you can fix it today, cool'
- people from manitoba are happy when it's not snowing or buggy. they aren't happy very often
- people from northern ontario/southern ontario are fine, friendly upstanding people that are mildly impatient.
- people from toronto or ottawa are bitchy and pushy and demand that you fix their problem NOW, despite that fact that the machine has beendown for 2 weeks and they wre too lazy to fix it themselves. avoid them at all costs. probably infected with sars anyways.
- people from quebec are french. 'nuff said
- people from NB and NS (new brunswick and nova scotia) are friendlly, polite, outgoing and generally the best people on earth. unless you take their booze away. most of the woman are named betty.
- people from pei.. well, they don't call much. I wouldn't worry about em.
- newfies are the funniest people alive
I think it's clear where you should look for work. having said that, STAY IN THE US and don't take our sysadmin jobs:)
welcome to Canada eh, the land of good beer, hot wymmin in parkas and hockey night in canada.
something I've learned from working in IT for a retail company... small amounts of time, multiplied by mall iterations multiplied by a lot of stores can cost a LOT of money...
so, I did a quick check.
I found this
"By the end of 2003, VISA had 283.7 million credit cards versus MasterCard's 272.6 million credit cards"
so we have 556300000 cards nationally. say it takes 15 seconds to complete a credit card transaction (generous!) and each person only uses their card once a year (yeah right)
8,344,500,000... 8.3 billion seconds.
139,075,000 minutes
2317916.66 Hours
96579.86 Days
So we see that a small number of seconds multiplied by a huge number is suddenly a big consideration.
that means we can put through more customers, pay less hours for cashiers and, hopefully, make shopping more enjoyable and build a better relationship with out customers to make them come back and get more of their money.
"When a film canister was full, it was jettisoned back to earth over Hawaii in a ceramic container that deployed a parachute. These were retrieved in mid-air by Air Force C-119 airplanes (the so-called "Flying Boxcars") that were outfitted with long snag lines strung between twin tails. If the planes missed, the canisters would splash down and float in the Pacific Ocean for up to two days so the Navy could get to them. After two days, salt plugs would dissolve and the canisters would sink into the ocean depths to avoid unfriendly retrieval. Even so, at least one canister is known to have gotten into enemy hands."
I moved to Toronto 6 years ago now to get some IT experience and get off the helpdesk circuit. That has since failed and I'm not back to the helpdesk circuit. I'm making just over $30k a year and paying $700/mnt for a small apt on the edge of town, driving a beat up car and living from paycheck to paycheck.
And I've just given up. Toronto, while full of companies, just isn't hiring. I can't find an IT job.. there is ALWAYS someone else applying that knows more than me. I apply for a junior admin job, and theres an out of work senior guru that applies just because the job market sucks. so who gets it? not me.
I've started looking around, trying to figure out what I'm going to do with life. I've debated giving up IT and moving to a small town. I've debated doing as some suggest, opening a small shop and dealing with residents. I've debated doing the telecommute thing or the long drive into a city. But anyway you look at it - life is going to change unless you have a golden horse shoe wedged up your arse. Moving into the boonies is going to change your career for good... you aren't going to advance like you would in a city. You aren't going to make as much (or spend as much).
Perhaps it's time to consider a new line of work. Someone suggested telecom... try hitting up one of the *Bells around and see if they need techs. Perhaps it's time to go back to school.. put your technical experience towards an electricians degree or something logical but different.
I understand what you're going through.. best of luck. I'm really hoping to find something and get away from the city, but in doing so I may have to give up my career for something else. I hope not, but in the end, I think it's worth it to get away from the city and live around trees again.
Slashdot Mirror
That isn't the logical conclusion .. we aren't talking about every industry, we're talking about the CBC, a federally funded radio/tv network.
And this particular network is already mostly funded by the government, and I think they're very unbiased - they trash everyone equally in satire and in the news.
But then, I'm a CBC fanboy. So I'm biased.
I put ultraVNC on every computer I work on .. if I was there once, I'll be there again.
:)
I don't install it as a service, so people are secure knowing I can't just connect, but at least that way if I want to connect, it's available.
it's a real time saver, and it has enough 'wow' effect that people are in awe of my god like control over computers, which is also nice
This is a similar line with gun control (god, another flame war)
As with all things, don't blame the technology itself for the use to which some people put it
Don't blame the guns, they don't kill people.
Thats like saying 'don't blame the nukes, they don't kill people, it's the people that push the button'
not that I'm against the use of RFID in some cases, i mean, they're handy on my work pass so I don't have to swipe a card, but when it comes to tracking people, I draw the line.
I'm with you, but your argument isn't great.
I have to wonder if HBC is REALLY the least evil.
I mean, they may be less evil NOW, but if you think back to when they were given their charter, they did some pretty horrible things to the indians they traded with.
That may have been a couple hundred years ago, but I don't know how fast evil diminishes.
Someone should call Cliff Stoll .. he's done this before.
... berkely doesn't learn so well from it's own past mistakes so much, eh?
sheesh
I'm the office weirdguy. I have toys all over my desk ("Why do you have teenage mutant ninja turtles at your desk?" "because, they make my code better by defeating evil bugs for me"), postit notes with odd sayings stuck everywhere, the outside wall to my cube is the 'wall of dissent' with politcal comics all over it, and my while board has been turned into a piece of art when I decided to connect all the vowels in my todo list with a line then colour in the resulting shapes.
... and I've got the only seamonkey farm in the building.
.. it's some surplus that us techs use and it jams all the time and beeps constantly, all day.
.. people come visit me when they're having a bad day cuz they know I can cheer them up. My toys are all over the floor in other peoples desk now .. I have a lending library really (just sign out a toy on the white board).
... we have an important role to play in office dynamics.
I bring a beer pitcher full of ice water to meetings, and drink out of a scooby doo cup. When I'm stuck on a problem, I'll unplug my headphones and play bagpipe music until someone tells me to shut it off (bagpipe music is very inspirational!). I have a Jesus action figure (now, with real blessing action!) which sits on top of my monitor, despite the fact I'm a staunch athiest.
Oh
I frequently yell at the printer behind me
it's fun being the office weirdo
don't knock the office weirdo
ditto here ... my accounts from back in the HoTMaiL days ... 1996 or so ... holy crap, I've had that account since grade 9. that'd be 1994/95 then I think.
man, I'm old.
I can attest to RT being great ... worked for an ISP that used it. emails would automatically open tickets and assign them to queues based on keywords. when tickets were updated (either through the web interface or by email on our blackberrys) it could (at our choice) email the user back to let them know.
best of all, it's free.
I'm a 10%'er ...
... gestures kick ass.
brand new laptop (toshiba) running xp home. only been running about a week. installed sp2, rebooted, try to run IE, crash.
reboot, ie, crash
using FTP, got firefox, now run it 100% of the time. IE crashes as soon as you load it now.
it's nice to see microsoft promoting their competitors products. I love firefox
thanks SP2!
looks to me like the sun.
.. good find.
kind of cool actually
I've done one confluence (http://www.confluence.org/confluence.php?lat=46&l on=-79) in Ontario now, and attempted a few more. My brother-in-law and I like them because they give us somewhere to go and a reason to go there.
... people are saying it's a waste of time, that this isn't a good project. Whos to say that programming whatever application you're working on isn't the same waste because who cares, theres already 15 other mail clients out there, or 27 other people who have already ported X to Y system .. thats not the point. Stop being so narrow minded.
In fact, I spent a week at the beginning of July trying to get some in Northern Ontario, but gave up. I never realized how swampy and densely tree'd the north is. It was really great to get out and see part of my country, as well as giving us a great appreciation for the people who first settled up there and the hardships they faced.
I highly reccomend everyone pick a confluence and go for it, even if it's done. It's a great excuse to get out and see your country and meet people. All you need is a GPS and some boots. For even more fun, pick somewhere where you get to canoe or kayak, or ski or mountain bike. It's great exercise and can mesh nicely with Geocaching.
Go, get some, and stop being so negative people
I'm glad to see someone else enjoys douglas coupland as much as I do ... since I read Microserfs in 10th grade I've been addicted to his writing, rushing out to pickup his new books the day they come out.
.. I've got a couple well worn copies of it around my apartment that I re-read frequently. Especially notable is the discussion of the drugs he's taking to 'feel normal' ... as someone who was forced to take drugs for my ADD for years and years, that part of the book really connected with me.
the one that most touched me was Life After God
He has a display on in Toronto right now of a bunch of the pieces for his next book, Souvenir of Canada 2. The first one was amazing, so I hope the 2nd one is as good.
cheers.
I agree ... there could be some great movies/shows/books about that whole backstory ... I think it's the most interesting part of star trek. the rest is so cut and dried, but the borg really are a 'different' element .. they don't fit the rest of the mold. they are the black to the rest of the shows white.
lame replying to self, I know, but this was interesting
+ lo w,+study+says/2100-1022_3-5229367.html?part=rss&ta g=feed&subj=news
http://news.com.com/IT+morale+drops+to+all-time
How is it you get out of bed every morning mr. cynical? :)
... perhaps I should, but what happens when they check?
... oh, the nighmares.
I know about the 100's of applications because I have friends in recruiting, and I have been on many an interview where they say 'we've gotten hundreds of resumes for this position'. I'd say thats a dead give away. Trust me, I'm plenty bitter.
quickly running down your other points
a) could be, I have reviews and references that say otherwise, but at the end of the day, who knows
b) yeah, it does suck. helpdesk corrupts your soul and makes you hate people. I understand alcoholics much better now.
c) when your friends are out of work, who do you network with?
d) I don't lie at all
e) this is probably quite true. However, paper does not a good sys admin make.
f) this is probably also true. it goes in waves, it's hard to job hunt when you're working during the day and don't want to go near computers at night. horrible memories
In short, I realize you're being cynical and trolling. Your points are valid, as are mine - the poster of the story was going on about the glory of IT, and I assure you, looking for a sys admin job is not glorious. I apologize for interupting you caffine intake.
now sod off.
There will always be jobs for persons in IT that are willing to learn new technology as it changes daily.
.. I have the requisite experience, I have the ability to learn well, I'm good with people (working on a helpdesk is GREAT for developing patience and service skills), but I'm still stuffed at any Admin job I look for.
.. they want a job and will take $45k/year instead of the $65k/year they should be making just to get the money.
Is that so? I've been looking for over a year now
As someone who has been trying to be an admin for 10 years now, it's getting tiring. I don't think there is always going to be a job for IT people, unless you count helpdesk as IT, and I do not. Due to the dot com crash, and the glut of people going to the 1 year IT schools, the market is saturated with people with one year of school and maybe a little experience. then there are the old timers who got shafted when their job got cut
I still see that times are tight for the IT professional, and they don't look to be getting any better. Working in an IT dept where every man hour has to be justified to the business shows you that IT is a necessary evil; one that is tolerated but definately not revered. If they could, they'd get rid of IT in a flash. Instead, they do with the lowest head count they can to get by.
IT is not a booming industry.
As a systems admin with 5 years experience currently working on a helpdesk to make ends meet, I'd like to ask, where is this glut of jobs that the poster implies is out there? I know in the Toronto area, there are quite a few out of work sys admins and any job I find gets 100's of applications.
...
Things aren't so peachy keen here in sys admin land
Also, remember to listen to faster-than-light drum-n-bass music to enrich the experience.
..
... wish I could stream music through the stupid http only firewall/proxy here @work ..
I can attest to this. Drunk at 4am, on the helpdesk at 8am. Only way I make it is listening to some stupid fast/hard D+B between calls. That, and my trusty Nalgene bottle full of ice water and a tim hortons bagel
my TL thinks I'm nuts as I sit here bouncing away to the music. people just don't understand the junglist nature.
great site
sigh.
buzzzzzzzzz....
wow .. who knew there was a slashdot.jp
since I can't read any of it, is it a knockoff or actually run by OSDN?
as someone who works with people from across the country on a daily basis, a quick overview:
.. well, they don't call much. I wouldn't worry about em.
:)
- people from BC are a lot like people from ontario, only more impatient and snobby. probably due to the crappy string of provincial governments they've elected. occasionally you get a very happy person. it's probably the good weed.
- people from alberta are pretty laid back due to the lack of provincial sales tax or income tax, and the fact that they're the only province that can safely wear cowboy boots/hat and not get laughed at
- people from sask are cool. they'll complain that their system is down, 3 hours after it goes down. their reasoning - 'we figured you were doing somethig, and didn't want to bother yuo. if you can fix it today, cool'
- people from manitoba are happy when it's not snowing or buggy. they aren't happy very often
- people from northern ontario/southern ontario are fine, friendly upstanding people that are mildly impatient.
- people from toronto or ottawa are bitchy and pushy and demand that you fix their problem NOW, despite that fact that the machine has beendown for 2 weeks and they wre too lazy to fix it themselves. avoid them at all costs. probably infected with sars anyways.
- people from quebec are french. 'nuff said
- people from NB and NS (new brunswick and nova scotia) are friendlly, polite, outgoing and generally the best people on earth. unless you take their booze away. most of the woman are named betty.
- people from pei
- newfies are the funniest people alive
I think it's clear where you should look for work. having said that, STAY IN THE US and don't take our sysadmin jobs
welcome to Canada eh, the land of good beer, hot wymmin in parkas and hockey night in canada.
cheers.
t.
something I've learned from working in IT for a retail company... small amounts of time, multiplied by mall iterations multiplied by a lot of stores can cost a LOT of money...
4 .html)
... 8.3 billion seconds.
so, I did a quick check.
I found this
"By the end of 2003, VISA had 283.7 million credit cards versus MasterCard's 272.6 million credit cards"
(source: http://www.cardweb.com/cardtrak/pastissues/march0
so we have 556300000 cards nationally. say it takes 15 seconds to complete a credit card transaction (generous!) and each person only uses their card once a year (yeah right)
8,344,500,000
139,075,000 minutes
2317916.66 Hours
96579.86 Days
So we see that a small number of seconds multiplied by a huge number is suddenly a big consideration.
that means we can put through more customers, pay less hours for cashiers and, hopefully, make shopping more enjoyable and build a better relationship with out customers to make them come back and get more of their money.
retail is fun like that.
sounds like a fun place to work .. you hiring? :)
a good description:
m ay/m15-016.shtml
"When a film canister was full, it was jettisoned back to earth
over Hawaii in a ceramic container that deployed a parachute.
These were retrieved in mid-air by Air Force C-119 airplanes
(the so-called "Flying Boxcars") that were outfitted with long
snag lines strung between twin tails. If the planes missed, the
canisters would splash down and float in the Pacific Ocean for
up to two days so the Navy could get to them. After two days,
salt plugs would dissolve and the canisters would sink into the
ocean depths to avoid unfriendly retrieval. Even so, at least
one canister is known to have gotten into enemy hands."
from http://www.virtuallystrange.net/ufo/updates/2002/
looks good ... wonder if Canadians can apply ... I haven't been able to find anything that says US citizen only ....
I moved to Toronto 6 years ago now to get some IT experience and get off the helpdesk circuit. That has since failed and I'm not back to the helpdesk circuit. I'm making just over $30k a year and paying $700/mnt for a small apt on the edge of town, driving a beat up car and living from paycheck to paycheck.
.. there is ALWAYS someone else applying that knows more than me. I apply for a junior admin job, and theres an out of work senior guru that applies just because the job market sucks. so who gets it? not me.
... you aren't going to advance like you would in a city. You aren't going to make as much (or spend as much).
... try hitting up one of the *Bells around and see if they need techs. Perhaps it's time to go back to school .. put your technical experience towards an electricians degree or something logical but different.
.. best of luck. I'm really hoping to find something and get away from the city, but in doing so I may have to give up my career for something else. I hope not, but in the end, I think it's worth it to get away from the city and live around trees again.
And I've just given up. Toronto, while full of companies, just isn't hiring. I can't find an IT job
I've started looking around, trying to figure out what I'm going to do with life. I've debated giving up IT and moving to a small town. I've debated doing as some suggest, opening a small shop and dealing with residents. I've debated doing the telecommute thing or the long drive into a city. But anyway you look at it - life is going to change unless you have a golden horse shoe wedged up your arse. Moving into the boonies is going to change your career for good
Perhaps it's time to consider a new line of work. Someone suggested telecom
I understand what you're going through
good luck!