Except for creimer our very own resident troll billionaire who earns $55B+ despite being a stupid lazy fat American slob. So you see it's not true there are no tech jobs for Americans. There is one token tech job for one token American and that job is filled by the big fat ass of creimer.
I got finished reading "Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley" by Antonio Garcia Martinez. This book about Internet advertising took place after Biz Stone took off from Twitter. The author made a three-way trade to sell his company and engineers to Twitter while going off to Facebook. Surprisingly, Twitter and the engineers got the better part of the deal.
When the CEO has trouble, you never consider that at all.
Most Fortune 500 companies have a separate executive IT staff to service their needs. The only time I ever interact with executives is when they're praising me for getting the job done — and then letting me go because I completed the contract three months ahead of schedule.
You don't GROVEL for a job. Have some self-respect.
Were you out of work for two years because of the Great Recession?
Did you take a job with a moving company to work 20 hours per month for six months while hiring managers told you were overqualified for minimum wage jobs and recruiters told you were unemployable for everything else?
Did you file for Chapter Seven bankruptcy and end up with only $25 in your checking account?
Did you spend two years working seven days a week, taking whatever job that came along to support yourself?
I'm trying to negotiate moving to a low cost area but my employer is reluctant to let me go from Silicon Valley. They have an extremely hard time finding people to fill the positions here. They don't want to pay the average $108K per year salary because workers in New York City, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere will want a pay increase. I'm not moving anywhere unless I have a job to go to.
Because Silicon Valley offers perks that might make it worth living in poverty.
I was born and raised here. My parents were born in the middle of the Great Depression, knew what poverty was, and lived a modest lifestyle (not that mother didn't try to spend every dime). I live a modest lifestyle in Silicon Valley, save 20% of my income, and I'm content with what I have. Just because I have no desire to own two Tesla cars at the same time doesn't mean I'm living in poverty.
Sometimes getting what you are worth is simply a matter of ASKING for it.
If you'll note, I'm a contractor. Negotiation is a luxury. The choice is to take a job at the specified rate or find a job somewhere else. Since this is a five-year contract, I'm in a much better position to negotiate for a $100K+ per year job. But I do expect recruiters and hiring managers to low-ball since the last 30+ positions I had prior to the five-year contract were short-term contracts (i.e., four hours to one year).
No wonder why you are making shit for pay with a level of professionalism like that.
I think you misunderstand the nature of IT Support. I'm not paid to be nice to the users. I'm paid to get the job done. If a user wants to make my job difficult, I can return the favor and suffer no consequences. Why? Because the user got in the way of getting the job done. At the end of the day, that's the only thing management cares about.
That's a mighty big "IF," friend. It also assumes that the market for it will remain for the next 30 years, which is another big "IF".
There's no "IF" about it. I make more money from ebook sales than I do from first serial right sales to anthologies. The virtual shelves have no expiration date. If I maintain this side business while working a regular job for 30 years , I'll have significant royalty income in retirement
Which piece of yours would you consider your best? Which are you proudest of?
The $0.99 price model is dead. I'm in the process of revamping my catalog by consolidating titles, getting new cover art commissioned, and raising the prices to $1.99. I'll be releasing new titles next year.
Why do I need to call IBM for help with my HP printer?
Call the number and find out.
I hope this is not the advice you give to your lusers.
When I worked the IBM Help Desk, we gave out that phone number to annoying users. They called back shocked — SHOCKED! — to find out that IBM operated a sex phone line (IBM stopped using the phone number in the 1980's). We would apologized and give them the current help desk number.
You are officially the lowest paid senior system admin in the country. I'm calling Guinness.
Yes and no. "Senior" is in reference to my 20+ years technical career. I've been system admin for nearly three years. When I go for my next job, I expect recruiters and hiring managers to low ball me on salary.
Back when I was in IT support I made more while being responsible for a couple hundred machines at most.
The local site techs are responsible for ~1,500 systems each.
If anything you say is true not only are you seriously underpaid but you're also in serious denial about it.
This is my first job as a system administrator. All my fellow system administrators also make $50K+ (the national average for family of four). I just happened to live in a more expensive region.
Then why haven't you already gotten a better one instead of reminding Slashdot daily about your low salary?
Because I'm on a five year mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.
(Let's see which pre-written excuse he uses this time.)
That's what the side business is for. Once it's generating significant cash flow, I can pay myself a salary, contribute 100% pre-tax to a qualified retirement plan, and, with corporate matching, put in $54K per year. That's a lot more than you can do with a 401K ($18K per year) and IRA ($5K per year).
I made ~$55K last year with an extra month of pay as a Christmas bonus in IT Support. I'm not surprised. Fortune 500 companies don't want to pay top dollar for talent anymore.
Slashdot Mirror
Except for creimer our very own resident troll billionaire who earns $55B+ despite being a stupid lazy fat American slob. So you see it's not true there are no tech jobs for Americans. There is one token tech job for one token American and that job is filled by the big fat ass of creimer.
My ebooks are available at Amazon and Smashwords. You can also visit me at my author website, personal blog, YouTube and Twitter.
I have money. But, of course, I work in government IT. :P
I got finished reading "Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley" by Antonio Garcia Martinez. This book about Internet advertising took place after Biz Stone took off from Twitter. The author made a three-way trade to sell his company and engineers to Twitter while going off to Facebook. Surprisingly, Twitter and the engineers got the better part of the deal.
When the CEO has trouble, you never consider that at all.
Most Fortune 500 companies have a separate executive IT staff to service their needs. The only time I ever interact with executives is when they're praising me for getting the job done — and then letting me go because I completed the contract three months ahead of schedule.
The talk about poverty was in response to the previous post, in no way asserting that everyone who lives in Silicon Valley is poor.
But this is Slashdot. If you can't afford x number of whatever, than you're a poor schmuck.
How do I get the phone sex? All I got offered was a Caribbean cruise. :(
May have changed in the last ten years. I've never personally tried it. Not my thing.
You don't GROVEL for a job. Have some self-respect.
Were you out of work for two years because of the Great Recession?
Did you take a job with a moving company to work 20 hours per month for six months while hiring managers told you were overqualified for minimum wage jobs and recruiters told you were unemployable for everything else?
Did you file for Chapter Seven bankruptcy and end up with only $25 in your checking account?
Did you spend two years working seven days a week, taking whatever job that came along to support yourself?
Then why not move to that rural area?
I'm trying to negotiate moving to a low cost area but my employer is reluctant to let me go from Silicon Valley. They have an extremely hard time finding people to fill the positions here. They don't want to pay the average $108K per year salary because workers in New York City, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere will want a pay increase. I'm not moving anywhere unless I have a job to go to.
Because Silicon Valley offers perks that might make it worth living in poverty.
I was born and raised here. My parents were born in the middle of the Great Depression, knew what poverty was, and lived a modest lifestyle (not that mother didn't try to spend every dime). I live a modest lifestyle in Silicon Valley, save 20% of my income, and I'm content with what I have. Just because I have no desire to own two Tesla cars at the same time doesn't mean I'm living in poverty.
Sometimes getting what you are worth is simply a matter of ASKING for it.
If you'll note, I'm a contractor. Negotiation is a luxury. The choice is to take a job at the specified rate or find a job somewhere else. Since this is a five-year contract, I'm in a much better position to negotiate for a $100K+ per year job. But I do expect recruiters and hiring managers to low-ball since the last 30+ positions I had prior to the five-year contract were short-term contracts (i.e., four hours to one year).
No wonder why you are making shit for pay with a level of professionalism like that.
I think you misunderstand the nature of IT Support. I'm not paid to be nice to the users. I'm paid to get the job done. If a user wants to make my job difficult, I can return the favor and suffer no consequences. Why? Because the user got in the way of getting the job done. At the end of the day, that's the only thing management cares about.
That's a mighty big "IF," friend. It also assumes that the market for it will remain for the next 30 years, which is another big "IF".
There's no "IF" about it. I make more money from ebook sales than I do from first serial right sales to anthologies. The virtual shelves have no expiration date. If I maintain this side business while working a regular job for 30 years , I'll have significant royalty income in retirement
Which piece of yours would you consider your best? Which are you proudest of?
On the fiction side, it would be "The Giggling Mongoose: Scarlet Hearts". My bestselling essay is, "Death At A Hell's Angels' Funeral: Driving Past The Memories "
The $0.99 price model is dead. I'm in the process of revamping my catalog by consolidating titles, getting new cover art commissioned, and raising the prices to $1.99. I'll be releasing new titles next year.
Why do I need to call IBM for help with my HP printer?
Call the number and find out.
I hope this is not the advice you give to your lusers.
When I worked the IBM Help Desk, we gave out that phone number to annoying users. They called back shocked — SHOCKED! — to find out that IBM operated a sex phone line (IBM stopped using the phone number in the 1980's). We would apologized and give them the current help desk number.
You are a junior/mid level sysadmin, who happens to be old.
I'm quite young. Most of my coworkers are in their 60's and 70's.
You are getting low-balled.
When you don't have a four-year degree, that's typically the case.
Yes, you are a the embodiment of a karmic nut punch, creimer.
Been there, done that.
You are officially the lowest paid senior system admin in the country. I'm calling Guinness.
Yes and no. "Senior" is in reference to my 20+ years technical career. I've been system admin for nearly three years. When I go for my next job, I expect recruiters and hiring managers to low ball me on salary.
Back when I was in IT support I made more while being responsible for a couple hundred machines at most.
The local site techs are responsible for ~1,500 systems each.
If anything you say is true not only are you seriously underpaid but you're also in serious denial about it.
This is my first job as a system administrator. All my fellow system administrators also make $50K+ (the national average for family of four). I just happened to live in a more expensive region.
Then why haven't you already gotten a better one instead of reminding Slashdot daily about your low salary?
Because I'm on a five year mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.
(Let's see which pre-written excuse he uses this time.)
You didn't see that one coming.
Let me guess.... You have-no-idea when to-use-hyphens?
I stand corrected.
http://writingexplained.org/years-old-hyphenate
So that side hustle you have going on must involve reminding the kids to buckle their seat belts before the Super Himalaya starts moving. Nice...
Content creation. If I can sell it today, I can sell it for the next 30 yeas.
I make four times as much working for a Fortune 500,
Good for you!
[...] but I don't fix printers all day either.
Neither do I!
Face it, you are the IT equivalent of a janitor.
No, I'm a senior system admin with responsibility for 80K workstations. I create tickets for the local techs to work on.
[...] we don't mop the floors [...]
Neither do I!
Now go fix printer 2C-HPTreeDestroyer.
Call 1-800-IBM-HELP for assistance (you must be 21+ to call).
The H1-bs just cram 5 people into a one bedroom apartment.
Not realistically. At best, three people (two in bedroom and one in living room). The days of 20 people sharing one room is long gone.
Are you going to be able to retire?
That's what the side business is for. Once it's generating significant cash flow, I can pay myself a salary, contribute 100% pre-tax to a qualified retirement plan, and, with corporate matching, put in $54K per year. That's a lot more than you can do with a 401K ($18K per year) and IRA ($5K per year).
No, it's that you aren't that good at your job.
I'm exceptionally good at my job. You're just jealous.
And probably wear one of those shiny plastic name tags over your breast pocket.
I wear my badge, security token, building keys and an extra iPhone ear buds on a lanyard.
I made ~$55K last year with an extra month of pay as a Christmas bonus in IT Support. I'm not surprised. Fortune 500 companies don't want to pay top dollar for talent anymore.