I'm 30 years old. I'm leaving the coding business in 3 months, cashing in my chips to do a little traveling. I'm currently making about 80+ a year. I'm probably moving to a job that will probably pay me in the 20'k.. if I'm lucky (chef).
1999 I worked on a project that took 1.5 years to complete. 70-80 hour work weeks. Stress. Near nervous breakdowns. Broke up with my serious girlfriend because she never saw me. Gained 20-30 lbs. from sitting in front of a monitor for 15 hours a day. Finally got the app out the door. It lasted for 2 years. I just found out the other day that the application is going to be rewritten, because we just hired a new end-user upper end manager who doesn't like it. Its client server, but she wants it in web. The fact that it works perfectly fine and we don't even have any reason to go web matters not... She's got 10X more pull in the company than anyone in IT. So there's two years of my life flushed down the drain. Boss told me he wanted me to be the project manager for the rewrite. It was everything I could do to keep from laughing in his face.
I chose a CS major when I was 18, graduated by the time I was 21. I had taught myself C++ languages and built small apps for my parent's small business. I was a heavy gamer at the time. Loved computers. Got my Prodigy account on my 2400 baud modem and became an internet junkie. A pretty tried and true geekster.
Now, I rarely (if ever) log on to the computer after work. I bought an Xbox when it first came out, but haven't turned it on in over a year. In the 9 years I've been in the business I've worked in Powerbuilder, VisualBasic, Oracle Forms and J2EE shops... this is with just 2 companies. I have absolutely no desire to learn the next one.
I'm getting off the treadmill. You youngsters can have it. I'm going to go travel and see the world. Good luck chasing the gold and learning the next big thing that is going to "revolutionize the world as we know it". Wait until you've been through about 10 of the "deadlines of all deadlines" to put out an app that will have the shelf life of guacamole.
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I'm 30 years old. I'm leaving the coding business in 3 months, cashing in my chips to do a little traveling. I'm currently making about 80+ a year. I'm probably moving to a job that will probably pay me in the 20'k .. if I'm lucky (chef).
1999 I worked on a project that took 1.5 years to complete. 70-80 hour work weeks. Stress. Near nervous breakdowns. Broke up with my serious girlfriend because she never saw me. Gained 20-30 lbs. from sitting in front of a monitor for 15 hours a day. Finally got the app out the door. It lasted for 2 years. I just found out the other day that the application is going to be rewritten, because we just hired a new end-user upper end manager who doesn't like it. Its client server, but she wants it in web. The fact that it works perfectly fine and we don't even have any reason to go web matters not ... She's got 10X more pull in the company than anyone in IT. So there's two years of my life flushed down the drain. Boss told me he wanted me to be the project manager for the rewrite. It was everything I could do to keep from laughing in his face.
I chose a CS major when I was 18, graduated by the time I was 21. I had taught myself C++ languages and built small apps for my parent's small business. I was a heavy gamer at the time. Loved computers. Got my Prodigy account on my 2400 baud modem and became an internet junkie. A pretty tried and true geekster.
Now, I rarely (if ever) log on to the computer after work. I bought an Xbox when it first came out, but haven't turned it on in over a year. In the 9 years I've been in the business I've worked in Powerbuilder, VisualBasic, Oracle Forms and J2EE shops ... this is with just 2 companies. I have absolutely no desire to learn the next one.
I'm getting off the treadmill. You youngsters can have it. I'm going to go travel and see the world. Good luck chasing the gold and learning the next big thing that is going to "revolutionize the world as we know it". Wait until you've been through about 10 of the "deadlines of all deadlines" to put out an app that will have the shelf life of guacamole.