KT7AGuy wrote:

You said what I was thinking. Especially the part about bitterness. Might I also add in a generous helping of cynicism? I made […]
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Anonymous Coward wrote:

You don't want to know me better, because I've become a very bitter person.
Let's just say I would never recommend an EE degree to anyone who intends to maintain a decent standard of living.
Electronics is still a great hobby though.

You said what I was thinking. Especially the part about bitterness. Might I also add in a generous helping of cynicism?
I made the mistake of getting into IT. My little retro-computing hobby also helps me to blow off steam.
Back in 1999 when I started hearing all the radio ads for "earning an MSCE in as little as two weeks" I started to say to myself, "It's time to get out and go do something else. "
I really should have listened to myself then...
Last year, I was finally (mercifully) laid off. I went back to school and earned an AAS in Criminal Justice. I can't ever see myself working as a cop. I'm just too old and have too much respect for myself and others. Perhaps I'll end up as a dispatcher like borgie83.

snorg wrote:

I work in frontline support/helpdesk for a massive corporation. I have been doing this for close to 20 years (but not at the same location). Pretty much everyone hates the IT guy. I occasionally have fantasies of ramping my motorcycle off an over pass at about 120 with no helmet.
If I could give my 12 year old self advice, it would be this: don't make your hobby your job.

Just get out now. If you're having thoughts like that, you need to move on.
The job is not worth your sanity, health, and mental well-being. After almost a full year of being unemployed, I still don't regret being laid off. I actually have nightmares about being back at my IT job. Hopefully, I'll never have to go back to anything like that. If I do, I'm going to do my best to make sure it's temporary.

I honestly don't care if I ever earn even half as much as I did when I was in IT. It's just not worth it. I'm running out of life to live and I don't want to spend the rest of it being unhappy.

BTW - I also ride both bicycles and motorcycles. Once I get re-employed, I intend to spend more time with my motorbikes as well.

I know I need to get out, eventually. I've only got enough savings to last so long, then once it is gone it is gone. So I have to get something else worked out so I'm not burning through everything.
It seems like I keep saying "just one more year and I'll have enough to be ok".

It could always be way worse is what I always say...working in any office can drain you of energy, spirit and even confidence sometimes...I know this first hand...but trust me, there are way worse things out there that two thirds of the world deal with every day.

I worked in an office for months with absolute crappy pay, just to "get my foot in the door" so to speak, and I am better for it now, but man let me tell you it sucked at first and I thought I would be working like that for the rest of my life 😵....that said, at least I had a job....for that I was grateful and still am today 😀 .

I used to daydream about getting out of the office and just doing some sort of construction/manual labour jobs (which I have done a lot of in the past) to 'simplify' my life, just like at the end of the movie "Office Space" 🤣 ....I have worked at many different places in my life, most not related to each other at all, and I think that's kept me happy for the most part. The most taxing thing about working in an office job for me is the fact that once I go home, I sometimes still have to think about work (answer emails sometimes, think about what I have to do the next day and be prepared for deadlines), as opposed to other jobs I have had in the past where once I'm done work, I'm done for the day and that's it...I don't have to think about it until I get to work the next day. I kind of miss that about other jobs I have had in the past.

I am currently a twenty-two year old adult still trying to get my foot in the door after graduating from a local community college with an Associates degree. I am not sure of what I want to do yet, been thinking of something involving computers since I am an obvious computer geek who registered to this site for that reason. 😜 Though admittedly on the getting my foot in the door, been having some serious trouble just trying to get an entry level job in something like a fast food joint because of my degree, and living in a small town with hardly any opportunities available to a guy like me without a vehicle or public transport to get to better opportunities.

Get yourself a shitty used car and start your own business. Most
stuff you could do (building small networks, tech support, security
consulting, web design, etc) is very low overhead. If you live
in east bum-fark Idaho there may not be a market for much other
than PC repair, but it's better than waiting around hoping something
falls in your lap.

Job market is tough right now, but you're better off running your own
small business than working for $8 an hour anyway.

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That's another option. I can definitely state that small towns suck.
Anything under 100k people is too small for there to be much going on.
If you're in some sleepy burg of 3000 souls or less in the Midwest GTFO now.
I don't know I'd pile on more debt just yet, though. If you're smart enough, or
can prove you're poor enough to get someone else to pay for additional
education, by all means go for it. I wouldn't stay in school past 25, though,
the opportunity cost of lost wages is too high particularly if you do something
dumb like get a degree in some branch of "victim" studies.

What is your undergrad in? I wouldn't do IT, btw but you might want to combine
computer science with a minor or associates in some other hard science and
then go do IT/programming for eggheads. Worst case, you can always decide
to go do IT for management weenies later on.

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I seem like most others here and my passion for IT has dropped. I've also seen the IT guy gone from the helpful person everyone liked and respected to the hated person cause they cant get the end users latest "thing" working on the corporate network or even worse (but smarter) refuse point blank to do it.
I don't tell the sales guys how to sell crap, Accounts how to budget, why do they think they know what is best for IT?
One thing I would recommend KT7AGuy and others is in my experience smaller is better. When I'm manning the helpdesk I'm just a hated uncaring, nameless person on the other side of the phone.
When I go on site to "my client" I'm a person again who they can see working hard, talk to on a personal level and get to know. You will still get some who bitch if you say no I'm not installing iTunes on the RDP servers or whetever, Some companies will still expect that you can do everything under the sun without updating/replacing anything but its better then working for these bigger company's in my opinion anyway

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Regarding working in small towns or city's with a low population, I'd recommend against it. Down here, I've lost count of how many businesses I've seen close their doors for good. In my suburb in particular, there is approximately 12,000 people. I've been living there for the past 4 1/2 years and have seen many businesses open up and then close their doors within 6 months to a year. Sad to see but there is just not enough people to sustain a business unfortunately.

Regarding working for large corporations, I agree with this when it comes to government jobs like the police/fire/ambulance services but other than these jobs I've just seen too many large companies downsize and source out overseas in countries like the Philippines where they can employee 3-4 people for the cost of 1 person down here. I've had 2 mates so far who became victim to this working for Telstra (Australia's largest telecommunications company) and Toyota. Both these mates were managers but lost their jobs in the downsizing process. Very unfortunate considering they both have families to support.

I remember when I was in sales I had a client who ran a business converting money into foreign currency and organising everything for people who wanted to send money to their families overseas. When I first walked into this business, there were approximately 20 people working there. Over the course of 6 few months, I noticed this number drop to 4 people. I then asked my client what had happened and where everybody was thinking he may have opened up a separate location and moved the remaining staff there. His answer was "I've downsized down here and opened up a call centre in the Philippines as it was too costly to pay so many staff when I can more than triple the amount of staff over in the Philippines for the same amount of money" He said that for 1 persons wage down here in Australia he was paying 3-4 people to do the same job over there.

Now I highly doubt these overseas employees are going to work as efficiently as the ones down here and I don't exactly agree with this but I can see his point as in the end, people don't run businesses for fun, they run them to earn as much money as they can. Just a shame that so many Australians have to suffer in the process.

borgie83 wrote:

Just a shame that so many Australians have to suffer in the process.

I'll have to politely disagree that Australians are 'suffering' from this process - we're a very rich, safe, and stable nation and I for one am thankful that I live here and not the places that we often outsource to. I've had a redundancy hanging over my head for the last couple of years (I work for an ex-subsidiary of Telstra) and if it happens it will be stressful and inconvenient, but the economy is strong and I'd get through it.

I agree though that outsourcing is often inefficient - not because our Indian and Filipino friends aren't up to the challenge, but because of the cultural, communication, and time-zone difficulties that are impossible to avoid. I think that over time we'll see less of it, and the outsourcing that is done will be done better, and more judiciously.

badmojo wrote:

borgie83 wrote:

Just a shame that so many Australians have to suffer in the process.

I'll have to politely disagree that Australians are 'suffering' from this process - we're a very rich, safe, and stable nation and I for one am thankful that I live here and not the places that we often outsource to. I've had a redundancy hanging over my head for the last couple of years (I work for an ex-subsidiary of Telstra) and if it happens it will be stressful and inconvenient, but the economy is strong and I'd get through it.

I agree though that outsourcing is often inefficient - not because our Indian and Filipino friends aren't up to the challenge, but because of the cultural, communication, and time-zone difficulties that are impossible to avoid. I think that over time we'll see less of it, and the outsourcing that is done will be done better, and more judiciously.

I do agree that we do live in safe and stable nation. We've got things pretty good overall and I'd never live anywhere else. Wages are good, house pricing is afordable, taxes are quite fair, transport is good and crime is very low compared to many other countries. Our low population of approximently 23 million for the whole country helps. I'd hate to think what life would be like if we had that same population in one state/city alone.

When I say "suffering", yes we have got a lot of opportunities available to be able to survive through being found redundant but for many like myself and I'm sure yourself, it would be quite hard to get by if we didn't get another job quick enough. I mean, centrelink would help us in regards to government payments temporarily while we look for work but they do not pay enough to support a mortgage and family. I'd most likely have to sell our house and take my children out of private school if I were to not get work quickly enough. So yes, I would suffer to an extent. But again, at least we do have options available, provided we are not lazy, to get ourselves out of trouble.

Regarding the efficiency of overseas employees in these countries, yes you are correct in what you say regarding why they are inefficient. Mainly due to the language barrier and Australians love for wanting to deal with people locally as opposed to overseas. I just don't like the fact that eventually, most businesses will revert to outsourcing to save money leaving many unemployed in the process.

Even with my day job, a company from the UK has bought out our suppliers and most of our competition and even offered money to buy us out. Many people from our main supplier lost their jobs in the process late last year and when I spoke to some of them recently they were really struggling because of it. 1 guy in particular was cleaning at the local shopping centre whilst he tried to get another job. I really felt for him because he has a mortgage and 3 young children to support.

Its hard to cry tears for lost Australian jobs when you look at the ridiculous wages that makes these jobs unsustainable, for instance I work in a menial factory job but made $432 for 8 hours on Sunday at double time rates, yesterday for the Queens birthday public holiday another $540 at double time and a half, only made $216 at normal rates today and will be another $648 for Wednesday,thursday,friday $1,846 for a weeks work probably about $1,700USD.

What do I do? Vaccume floors, scrub grime and grease off machinery check control points in the manufacturing process, though of late Ive been mostly cleaning toilets/offices & Lunchrooms really only work 7 hours a day with 1 hour paid lunch and I only live 5 minutes from work.

🤣 we do the same sh!t that Eminem was doing in 8 Mile except he was probably working twice the hours for a quarter of the money.

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PeterLI wrote:

I prefer very large companies. They usually pay better, have more benefits and career opportunities.

True.
But a downside of working in a large company may be the assignment of a single specialized task. Whereas a smaller company requires one to handle the various tasks that need to be done. Speaking for Engineering here.

dirkmirk wrote:

Its hard to cry tears for lost Australian jobs when you look at the ridiculous wages that makes these jobs unsustainable, for instance I work in a menial factory job but made $432 for 8 hours on Sunday at double time rates, yesterday for the Queens birthday public holiday another $540 at double time and a half, only made $216 at normal rates today and will be another $648 for Wednesday,thursday,friday $1,846 for a weeks work probably about $1,700USD.

What do I do? Vaccume floors, scrub grime and grease off machinery check control points in the manufacturing process, though of late Ive been mostly cleaning toilets/offices & Lunchrooms really only work 7 hours a day with 1 hour paid lunch and I only live 5 minutes from work.

🤣 we do the same sh!t that Eminem was doing in 8 Mile except he was probably working twice the hours for a quarter of the money.

This is basically what was happening here in Greece for quite a while. During the late 90's and especially the early 00's, Greek jobs started paying way too much. It was, like you said, an unsustainable economy. This, paired with a lot of other stuff that was happening (and is still happening sadly), caused us to go under in 2010. We're still doing like shit. Unemployment rates in young people have reached 35% and this is not an exaggeration. Unfortunately, we're still making far less money than we're borrowing and I don't think this is about to change anytime soon. The Greeks have a stupid mentality that they're at the world's epicenter. The rise of the Neo-Nazi/Fascist party isn't a coincidence either.

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Last year I quit my education early (for various reasons I don't want to discuss) so was left with no diplomas or degrees. Still, after being unemployed for a year I recently found a job as electronics repair technician where I have to troubleshoot, fix and test all sorts of proprietary systems ranging from 8086- to Pentium-class hardware. Needless to say I really love this work so far, it's fun, varied and challenging and you learn new things every day 😀

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