How do YOU make money?

Glad there are people who enjoy IT. It would be way down on the list of things I would want to do, even though I have no problem being an end-user.
 
In the late 1990s I went back to school part time to study IT while still turning wrenches for the airline. After getting an AS in Computer Technology with a 4.0 GPA, I decided to stick with aviation maintenance. I found it very interesting and challenging but I decided that I wanted to stay in aviation after all. No regrets but I think if I had been younger when the computer revolution happened, I might have chosen it over aviation to begin with. I do wonder how many young folks have made that choice in recent years.
 
Always wanted to be a professional pilot. Got involved in IT and started getting paid for it when I was 12.

Now, would like to break into pro piloting, but I couldn't afford the pay cut, and I don't think my family would like the schedule.
 
Gerhardt said:
Just a guess here, but you probably think of your work as an extension of your life. Many people isolate their work as something they have to do to earn a living.

I was in IT a lifetime ago and hated every minute of it. Not the work, the work was fun. It was the atmosphere, and that's what makes a world of difference for most people.

The final straw for me was being plucked from my domain and assigned to a project in an area I knew nothing about, using a variety of software and languages I knew nothing about - working solo and given a 90 day deadline. No ****, I was handed a dozen 3" binders and told everything I'd need to know was in there. The final step was sending the info to the state, and I talked to my liaison there a few times a week. As I was wrapping things up she said she was coming to town and wanted to take my team to dinner.

When I told her I WAS the team she was livid. Unbeknownst to me they'd extended our deadline time and again for a variety of reasons, all of which were now obviously lies.

To be fair, when I took the job I was told that I'd be working on Priority #1 - nothing-is-more-important assignments and would have to drop them for another Priority #1 assignment time and again. I guess I figured it would be out of necessity rather than poor planning. Changed careers w/in the same company and now enjoy what I do.
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I agree.

Often we forget that computer science IS a science. You learn new things, new tools, techniques, procedures, etc. Stale skillsets are a career killer.

I've worked on nightmare projects. I tried to stick it out and take it as an opportunity to learn what *not* to do. If I know nothing about the tools or languages selected for a project and they are not adding marketable value to my skill set then I go elsewhere. Otherwise it's an opportunity.

As for atmosphere it really depends on leadership. Bad leadership values can destroy a project regardless of technology or budget. I think this is true in all lines of work. For IT environment - the days of living in a cube farm are over. The newest thing is open office concepts, agile development, no silo work, one team, etc. Once you get those things you won't want to go back.
 
Everskyward said:
Glad there are people who enjoy IT. It would be way down on the list of things I would want to do, even though I have no problem being an end-user.
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Heh. It's pretty far down the list of things I want to do, too... but above a lot of other harder ways to make a living. ;)

MadseasoN said:
As for atmosphere it really depends on leadership. Bad leadership values can destroy a project regardless of technology or budget. I think this is true in all lines of work. For IT environment - the days of living in a cube farm are over. The newest thing is open office concepts, agile development, no silo work, one team, etc. Once you get those things you won't want to go back.
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Open offices? Screw that. It's noisy and I'm trying to think over here... I'd happily go all the way back to when businesses had real offices for staff.

"Open office" to me looks like a way to set up a sweatshop with the equivalent budget-wise of buying cars tables at Walmart and some folding chairs and calling it an "office".

But hey, it was software deployment night and I got to send this to the deployment chat channel... again...

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"Agile" is just a word coined by the industry that equates to "we couldn't figure out how to ask people what they really wanted so we figured out a way to institutionalize punting". Haha.
 
denverpilot said:
Heh. It's pretty far down the list of things I want to do, too... but above a lot of other harder ways to make a living. ;)




Open offices? Screw that. It's noisy and I'm trying to think over here... I'd happily go all the way back to when businesses had real offices for staff.

"Open office" to me looks like a way to set up a sweatshop with the equivalent budget-wise of buying cars tables at Walmart and some folding chairs and calling it an "office".

But hey, it was software deployment night and I got to send this to the deployment chat channel... again...

52bdc257176fc40a4ee37b769bb78152.jpg


"Agile" is just a word coined by the industry that equates to "we couldn't figure out how to ask people what they really wanted so we figured out a way to institutionalize punting". Haha.
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Tell me where you work so I wont go there. Those are exactly the types of attitudes that help ruin a project culture. With all due respect.
 
denverpilot said:
Heh. It's pretty far down the list of things I want to do, too... but above a lot of other harder ways to make a living. ;)
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I had a former flying buddy whose answer, whenever someone asked if he liked his job was, "It's better than pounding nails." I would answer, "It's better than working in a darkroom with chemicals."

I took one computer programming class in college... and, at the time, I chose to work in a darkroom with chemicals.
 
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On the other hand, the young pups I work with have a twisted sense of comicon style humor
 

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denverpilot said:
Open offices? Screw that. It's noisy and I'm trying to think over here... I'd happily go all the way back to when businesses had real offices for staff.

"Open office" to me looks like a way to set up a sweatshop with the equivalent budget-wise of buying cars tables at Walmart and some folding chairs and calling it an "office".

"Agile" is just a word coined by the industry that equates to "we couldn't figure out how to ask people what they really wanted so we figured out a way to institutionalize punting". Haha.
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At my last job we switched to an "agile office" environment. There were lots of protests, but it was done anyway. The end result was an overall decent environment, but everyone just sat in the same place every day.
 
I work in Information technology for a large hotel/gaming company in Las Vegas
 
Medical device sales. We make stuff that will fry your prostate (and your cancer).

Our latest device is used during major, open surgery so I have been attending a few of those.
 
sferguson524 said:
Maaaaaybe!!!! One of my projects for '15 was an overhaul of the server based gaming systems
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Tell me something. On a slot machine, how is the jackpot winning push of the button selected. Is it static, i.e. the 55,315 push on this particular machine will hit it? Or is it dynamic and can change with each push?
 
dell30rb said:
Medical device sales. We make stuff that will fry your prostate (and your cancer).

Our latest device is used during major, open surgery so I have been attending a few of those.
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"Our products will make you willingly bend over!"
 
Gerhardt said:
Tell me something. On a slot machine, how is the jackpot winning push of the button selected. Is it static, i.e. the 55,315 push on this particular machine will hit it? Or is it dynamic and can change with each push?
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Random number generator inside the machine. We've got no control over when/if a jackpot will hit.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
At my last job we switched to an "agile office" environment. There were lots of protests, but it was done anyway. The end result was an overall decent environment, but everyone just sat in the same place every day.
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I was referring to 'agile' in the context of software development methodology.

I've not heard of agile seating arrangements. Seems like another misuse of the term.
 
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sferguson524 said:
Random number generator inside the machine. We've got no control over when/if a jackpot will hit.
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But you can (and do) adjust the _probability_ of it hitting according to the casinos preferences/schedule, etc, right?

Or are the odds of hitting on an given spin set at the factory and un-modifiable?
 
MadseasoN said:
I was referring to 'agile' in the context of software development methodology.

I've not heard of agile seating arrangements. Seems like another misuse of the term.
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It was a marketing spin to try to make the masses accept it better. "Flex seating" was the original term.

The idea behind it works for some groups - you have a variety of working environments that you can pick to suit what you're doing that day or that hour. It doesn't work too well for engineering.
 
I run the services company I founded 13 years ago, which focuses on helping other companies with data security. It's not big, but it provides a decent living for a few folks. I still get personally involved in delivery for most customers.
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
Half the people here are too young to have seen that.



But wait until you mention someone really famous like Errol Flynn you are the only one in the room who actually remembers the name.
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I don't think I've ever met an engineer young or old that didn't get an Office Space reference.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
It was a marketing spin to try to make the masses accept it better. "Flex seating" was the original term.

The idea behind it works for some groups - you have a variety of working environments that you can pick to suit what you're doing that day or that hour. It doesn't work too well for engineering.
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Oh. Yeah, I've seen that before. No bueno In my experience.
 
My team started using one. It really depends on the team. I like being able to turn around and say, "Hey, can you slide over here and take a look at this" rather than picking up my computer and carrying it over to someone's cube. Or worse, scheduling a meeting. Or even worse, having to do some sort of screen sharing.

The ideal for these areas is to have another space you can go to if you need quiet isolation to focus. However, sometimes management forgets that part.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
MadseasoN said:
I was referring to 'agile' in the context of software development methodology.
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I read 'agile' as 'disorganized but we are good at fixing our own problems'.
 
weilke said:
I read 'agile' as 'disorganized but we are good at fixing our own problems'.
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Over and over and over. Haha. Same problems, different week.

Conceptually the problems are always the same.

Take this week's outage. Conceptually, the standard error of not making sure data was unique when added to storage.

Detailed: One word was left out of an SQL statement.

That same conceptual error has been happening since everything was written in Assembly. New languages don't truly fix it.

That same error in code and thought process happens probably a hundred thousand times a day worldwide of not more.

It's the thought process that's broken. Changing the syntax of how to code every few years will never fix it.
 
weilke said:
I read 'agile' as 'disorganized but we are good at fixing our own problems'.
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It works well when it's done right. Too many teams "try to go Agile" and never seem to get there. Usually for the same reasons.
 
'agile' is an excuse for not knowing what the heck one is doing.....or where its going.
 
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