There's such a dearth of talented IT professionals who actually know how to positively interact with others (including other IT professionals), that in my experience there's roughly a 200% salary uplift for people with a combination of IT systems talent and people skills.
Of the people I've worked with over my years in IT (going on 6 now), there is a significant percentage I would consider as talented or more talented than I am. However of those people, a minute percentage of those talented people can actually have a positive conversation with their customer. Definition of customer in this case can be a user, IT manager, or literally customer (in the case of vendor relationships).
Disputes over the idiotic things customers want to do are the root of the problem. Most IT folks are unable to state why the customer should not do things the way they are currently doing things or plan to do things. Instead they just spout off about how things are wrong.
The result is that these people are dismissed ("engineers love to tell you why you can't do something"), and only positive people are listened to at the managerial level. The message that things are being done incorrectly never gets to the level where things can be changed, because those who know don't have the interpersonal skills to make their case to management.
The way I approach idiot customers is to state how they plan to do it, and explain that it is a valid way of doing things, then explain the alternatives, and which risks the alternatives eliminate. This simple process has netted me 2-3x the income of other similarly (technically) skilled people I've known over the years.
Those who cannot approach their customers with respect (if not humility) are destined to never work directly with them, and never to have an influence over the truly meaningful things they work on.
Tommy: Here's how I see it. A guy puts a guarantee on the box 'cause he wants you to fell all warm and toasty inside.
Ted: Yeah, makes a man feel good.
Tommy: 'Course it does. Ya think if you leave that box under your pillow at night, the Guarantee Fairy might come by and leave a quarter.
Ted: What's your point?
Tommy: The point is, how do you know the Guarantee Fairy isn't a crazy glue sniffer? "Building model airplanes" says the little fairy, but we're not buying it. Next thing you know, there's money missing off the dresser and your daughter's knocked up, I seen it a hundred times.
Ted: But why do they put a guarantee on the box then?
Tommy: Because they know all they sold ya was a guaranteed piece of shit. That's all it is. Hey, if you want me to take a dump in a box and mark it guaranteed, I will. I got spare time. But for right now, for your sake, for your daughter's sake, ya might wanna think about buying a quality item from me.
Ummm. Do your research douchebag. Network Appliance was not bought by Juniper. Why in the good lord's name would a networking company spend the billions it would take to buy a pure storage company of NetApp's size.
Evidently you went to a really shitty college. Your insipid, condescending attitude toward liberal arts majors is disgusting, but unfortunately it's rather common among science/math majors.
The reason they call it a "university" is because you get a universal education. I needed 6 semesters of language, 2 semesters of science, and 2 semesters of calculus among other seemingly unrelated topics to get my degree in American history. I am much better for it.
I'm of the opinion that not enough history, sociology, psychology, etc is required of science majors. What I see coming out of our universities in terms of science graduates are people loaded with the latest techniques and thinking, but no idea how it applies outside of the rigid framework of the particular science, absolutely no clue how to collaborate with a larger team to achieve a goal, and an inability to analyze an opposing viewpoint.
Incidentally, I am now a technologist, as are many of my libreral-arts undergrad friends. I work shoulder to shoulder with math and science graduates and post-graduates, and I'm often more successful than them. I attribute that largely to my liberal arts education, since I was taught to write well, explain and present evidence in favor of my viewpoint clearly and succinctly. Those poor dinks who got science degrees from second-rate colleges don't stand a chance.
I've been in the IT world since 2001. I got in just as things were crashing. My first IT job was a pay cut from $45k to about $40K per year. Last year I pulled down about $130k. The increases will level off after this year where I'll make $150k, but I don't expect I'll ever get less than a 8% raise per year.
I've had five IT jobs since 2001. That's because when I got the first inkling that my talents and effort weren't being accurately assessed by my company, I started to look to get out. I always go into a job with the notion that I'll spend no less than one year there, but obviously I've broken that a couple of times (and one of them I was laid off when the company closed).
Now I'm with a company where management recognizes the value I bring to the table, and treats me accordingly. It also helps that the company has strong growth, but is established. I'm never going to get stinking rich working here, but the living is comfortable. If things continue like this, the only reason I can find to leave the place is sheer boredom with the technology, or I just don't want to work in IT any more. I suppose I could also see getting into a startup just for the thrill of it.
Job-hopping is not a bad thing, as long as you don't work for more than 2 places in any 12-month period. You should have crisp responses for questions as to why you left each job. They should never focus on inadequacies at the job or problems with people (especially management). Rather, it should be focused on you (you had achieved your goals there, you had a great opportunity to specialize in something at a new job, etc).
It also helps to have a concise statement as to why you're looking, and what you want to get out of your next gig.
And despite what the unwashed slashdotters here say, getting a job is (and should be) as almost as much about salesmanship as technical skills. You are trying to convince someone to pay you a lot of money for your talent. You need to be able to convince them that it's a good investment. The salesmanship must continue after you get the job, or they will start thinking about putting their investment elsewhere...
Anyway, I doubt that distributing a fruit subject to severe seasonal supply shortages is going improve a newspaper's popularity. And I can't remember the last time I saw a teenager eating a mango. It's all fries and candy bars with the younger set nowadays.
First, since when has Unisys had Joe Average for a customer? They've always sold to the data center. Second, since when was the "we have a way out" campaign about Linux? It was about UNIX. And 3 years ago, UNIX (Solaris, mostly) was the established data center OS, with MS and Linux contending to unseat it. Linux is winning the battle.
That depends, of course on my evaluation of the surgeon. Not my evaluation of their age.
My experience with doctors indicates that it's a wash. Older doctors have their way of doing things, and may not be up on the latest techniques and treatments. Younger doctors have less experience, but are trained on the latest techniques.
A bad doctor is a bad doctor, regardless of age.
What do you call the guy who graduates last in their medical class? Doctor.
Slashdot Mirror
There's such a dearth of talented IT professionals who actually know how to positively interact with others (including other IT professionals), that in my experience there's roughly a 200% salary uplift for people with a combination of IT systems talent and people skills. Of the people I've worked with over my years in IT (going on 6 now), there is a significant percentage I would consider as talented or more talented than I am. However of those people, a minute percentage of those talented people can actually have a positive conversation with their customer. Definition of customer in this case can be a user, IT manager, or literally customer (in the case of vendor relationships). Disputes over the idiotic things customers want to do are the root of the problem. Most IT folks are unable to state why the customer should not do things the way they are currently doing things or plan to do things. Instead they just spout off about how things are wrong. The result is that these people are dismissed ("engineers love to tell you why you can't do something"), and only positive people are listened to at the managerial level. The message that things are being done incorrectly never gets to the level where things can be changed, because those who know don't have the interpersonal skills to make their case to management. The way I approach idiot customers is to state how they plan to do it, and explain that it is a valid way of doing things, then explain the alternatives, and which risks the alternatives eliminate. This simple process has netted me 2-3x the income of other similarly (technically) skilled people I've known over the years. Those who cannot approach their customers with respect (if not humility) are destined to never work directly with them, and never to have an influence over the truly meaningful things they work on.
This is why idiots shouldn't right laws. "email" is a casual, invented term. Why wouldn't use the term "electronic messaging?"
Better yet, why not just make the penalties for solicitation of a minor harsh enough that you don't have to charge the a55hat with multiple crimes?
Ted: Yeah, makes a man feel good.
Tommy: 'Course it does. Ya think if you leave that box under your pillow at night, the Guarantee Fairy might come by and leave a quarter.
Ted: What's your point?
Tommy: The point is, how do you know the Guarantee Fairy isn't a crazy glue sniffer? "Building model airplanes" says the little fairy, but we're not buying it. Next thing you know, there's money missing off the dresser and your daughter's knocked up, I seen it a hundred times.
Ted: But why do they put a guarantee on the box then?
Tommy: Because they know all they sold ya was a guaranteed piece of shit. That's all it is. Hey, if you want me to take a dump in a box and mark it guaranteed, I will. I got spare time. But for right now, for your sake, for your daughter's sake, ya might wanna think about buying a quality item from me.
Ummm. Do your research douchebag. Network Appliance was not bought by Juniper. Why in the good lord's name would a networking company spend the billions it would take to buy a pure storage company of NetApp's size.
Evidently you went to a really shitty college. Your insipid, condescending attitude toward liberal arts majors is disgusting, but unfortunately it's rather common among science/math majors.
The reason they call it a "university" is because you get a universal education. I needed 6 semesters of language, 2 semesters of science, and 2 semesters of calculus among other seemingly unrelated topics to get my degree in American history. I am much better for it.
I'm of the opinion that not enough history, sociology, psychology, etc is required of science majors. What I see coming out of our universities in terms of science graduates are people loaded with the latest techniques and thinking, but no idea how it applies outside of the rigid framework of the particular science, absolutely no clue how to collaborate with a larger team to achieve a goal, and an inability to analyze an opposing viewpoint.
Incidentally, I am now a technologist, as are many of my libreral-arts undergrad friends. I work shoulder to shoulder with math and science graduates and post-graduates, and I'm often more successful than them. I attribute that largely to my liberal arts education, since I was taught to write well, explain and present evidence in favor of my viewpoint clearly and succinctly. Those poor dinks who got science degrees from second-rate colleges don't stand a chance.
I've been in the IT world since 2001. I got in just as things were crashing. My first IT job was a pay cut from $45k to about $40K per year. Last year I pulled down about $130k. The increases will level off after this year where I'll make $150k, but I don't expect I'll ever get less than a 8% raise per year.
I've had five IT jobs since 2001. That's because when I got the first inkling that my talents and effort weren't being accurately assessed by my company, I started to look to get out. I always go into a job with the notion that I'll spend no less than one year there, but obviously I've broken that a couple of times (and one of them I was laid off when the company closed).
Now I'm with a company where management recognizes the value I bring to the table, and treats me accordingly. It also helps that the company has strong growth, but is established. I'm never going to get stinking rich working here, but the living is comfortable. If things continue like this, the only reason I can find to leave the place is sheer boredom with the technology, or I just don't want to work in IT any more. I suppose I could also see getting into a startup just for the thrill of it.
Job-hopping is not a bad thing, as long as you don't work for more than 2 places in any 12-month period. You should have crisp responses for questions as to why you left each job. They should never focus on inadequacies at the job or problems with people (especially management). Rather, it should be focused on you (you had achieved your goals there, you had a great opportunity to specialize in something at a new job, etc).
It also helps to have a concise statement as to why you're looking, and what you want to get out of your next gig.
And despite what the unwashed slashdotters here say, getting a job is (and should be) as almost as much about salesmanship as technical skills. You are trying to convince someone to pay you a lot of money for your talent. You need to be able to convince them that it's a good investment. The salesmanship must continue after you get the job, or they will start thinking about putting their investment elsewhere...
There's no GPS tax. Neither for French people, American people, or French-American people.
Leave it to the Euro-trash to think of taxing their own people for a service that's paid for in full by foreigners.
Maybe it would be a good idea for the French citizens to pay a "Marshall Fund" tax to the French gov't too.
Anyway, I doubt that distributing a fruit subject to severe seasonal supply shortages is going improve a newspaper's popularity. And I can't remember the last time I saw a teenager eating a mango. It's all fries and candy bars with the younger set nowadays.
First, since when has Unisys had Joe Average for a customer? They've always sold to the data center. Second, since when was the "we have a way out" campaign about Linux? It was about UNIX. And 3 years ago, UNIX (Solaris, mostly) was the established data center OS, with MS and Linux contending to unseat it. Linux is winning the battle.
Unisys bet on the wrong horse, plain and simple.
That depends, of course on my evaluation of the surgeon. Not my evaluation of their age.
My experience with doctors indicates that it's a wash. Older doctors have their way of doing things, and may not be up on the latest techniques and treatments. Younger doctors have less experience, but are trained on the latest techniques.
A bad doctor is a bad doctor, regardless of age.
What do you call the guy who graduates last in their medical class?
Doctor.