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Old 4th November 2008
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TerryP TerryP is offline
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Join Date: May 2008
Location: USofA
Posts: 1,547
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ai-danno View Post
And never, ever, ever... make your posts as long as this one.
I generally avoid it as much as possible for many reasons, except when I need quotations to clarify what I'm posting or things. I believe this reply is one of them.


Quote:
Originally Posted by drhowarddrfine View Post
Just got off the phone with one of my nephews whos brother went to ITT. He did graduate a couple months ago and the only job he could find was with something similar to Best Buys Geek Squad. He was fired a week later for not clocking out (!). I'll have to figure out what went on there. He spent a lot of time looking for a job but, as of Monday, he's going to work at my brother's work. He's a sheet metal worker so I don't know what's going on there either but it doesn't sound good.

Sorry to here that about your nephew, not a great time to be out of work. If he can get into your brothers business though, that might not be to bad; he can make some good savings to move on if it's not what he wants in the long term. Most people I know that have worked in construction generally made good money at it, economy permitting. Sometimes they use computers for things in that kind of business, but I don't think it would keep him awake...

Quote:
Originally Posted by DrJ View Post
You would count as a "non-traditional" student, and that makes admissions and getting financial aid much easier. You count as that because you are older, are living independently (namely, not with mom and dad) and were home schooled.
Currently I live with my mother, two dogs, a newt, and a loud parakeet. (needless to say, I do most of my stuff when everyones asleep!) Likewise, I'm in the position that if I don't work my current job, that puts my mother put of work.

Quote:
Originally Posted by DrJ View Post
There are work-study programs available on campus for a variety of tasks. There are also research programs available that hire undergrads. I did that, and it paid decently and I learned a great deal.
This seems like a great idea, I don't think I could see to much of it that revolves around networks, without programming them. Then again, that would actually be fun... ;-)

Quote:
Originally Posted by DrJ View Post
You also have Georgia State and Georgia Tech available in Atlanta, instead of Athens for UGA. Tech is outstanding.
Coming from you, I would take that seriously :-)


I don't really want to take on more debt then necessary at one time; goes against my mental structure. But I know, short of waking up with a winning lottery number glued to my forehead, I will have to live with it. In the position I am in financially, if I could get a job in replacement of the one I have, that is also moving towards my goals - and made me a profit by payday. It would be possible to save a nest egg for paying future debts off, if family doesn't bleed my dry first.


To be honest, if I got hired I could get out of the business I'm in and work at one of the stores here for awhile (bagger, etc). The only problem, bills and minimal wage don't mix; and knowing my family, I would end up working there their forever obligated to what is "steady". My brother stepped down from a management position awhile back from the stress, with a $20,000/yr pay loss as the result; our mother still thinks he's crazy. My sister bought me a T-shirt that says most of the people that drive me nuts are in my family, and it's true lol



Quote:
Originally Posted by DrJ View Post
I wouldn't worry too much about deciding what it is exactly that you will be doing. As an undergrad, I learned to design petroleum refineries. My Ph.D. had a topic of nuclear waste disposal. I'm now in the intersection of biology, chemistry, medicine and electrical engineering. You will likely have many different careers too. That will come.
I rarely change things like that in the wider perspective, but I always seek to learn more; it's an excepted fact to me that most people change careers several during their life. Most of my studies with computers revolve around computer science, administering unix systems, and forcing my boxes various OSes to co-operate with one another in order to get things done. I have other interests outside of computers, but few I would consider employment wise.


When I was a child, I wanted to be an animal doctor, fast forward about 3 lustrums and I'm glued to a computer.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ai-danno View Post
Getting a job at $13/hr "pushing carts" in a datacenter is key to the rest of the journey, and no one hires degreed people for that kind of position. ... One last thing- you don't want to push carts for the next 30+ years. But, pushing carts for the next 1 to 3 years is what's called "your foot in the door."
Actually if I could work for $13/hr and get at least a 40 hour work week, it might beat the stresses of my present job... fuel expenses excluded anyway. I don't have a problem with pushing carts for awhile, if it's working towards goals and not settling into a decade+ long rut.

Now moving a decent UPS around by hand, my back would have a problem with that lol.


Quote:
Originally Posted by ai-danno View Post
- Atlanta is a place where, given some qualifications, would allow you to spit and hit a networking job, even in this recession. At some point you're going to want to hit a metropolitan area, and being as close as you are to Atlanta (30 miles?), you're actually in a good position (literally.)
Yes it's about 30 miles from here to the southern border of Atlanta; the northern most parts of Atlanta are about 50 miles (~80km) away from here. My head just thinks in terms of mm, inches, feet, metres, kilometres, and lightyears so I write in it - odd for an American I know, but I haven't read much Sci-Fi that uses yards.

Most of the jobs I've seen or heard about in GA generally center around the Atlanta or Savannah area; some further north then Atlanta but at more extreme distances if gas ever spikes again. Most of the people in this city either work locally at some place of business, or commute to Atlanta. When regular was closing in on $5/gal, it was killing a lot of people.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ai-danno View Post
What would you ultimately like to be doing when you're "at the top of your game", getting ready to think about retirement? Work your way back from there. You'll start to see some of the stepping stones, and your plan will slowly fall into place.
To me, the top of my game would be working on the FreeBSD/OpenBSD kernels for a hobby but I'm not that smart (maybe someday...). Work wise, I reckon that I'll need to let events take their course a bit. I love to code, and I love working with networks.


Quote:
Originally Posted by ai-danno View Post
There are only two reasons to change career direction that make sense- 1) You fall in love with something else, and can't stop working on it. 2) You can no longer pay rent doing what you are doing. SO, barring those two things, discipline yourself to stick to something and you will be rewarded for it over the long term.
More likely someone else then something else in my case, but the last one is always a factor. I'm kind of locked into my current business, unless I can get something stable that pays bills and appeases money hungry family members. Discipline is something I am both good and bad on - but when I set my jaw on a target, I'm a tough one to shake off. It's just a question of shaking off the vampires...


Quote:
Originally Posted by ai-danno View Post
- Let me emphasize that last point- PRESSURE. Networking is a strange life- you work hard to design and build networks on crappy or non-existent budgets (because networking devices don't translate into revenues so management can't justify a $50k firewall until their assets get hacked), you are on call 24/7/365 (I can't tell you all the "Christmas is ruined" stories), and when the doo-doo hits the fan, clients, coworkers, and management on are all over you like white on rice. But here are the great parts- the pay is decent, job security is great, and if you can cut it, you get respect.
One thing my time in my gaming team has thought me well: crap happens, figure out how to deal with it *now*, and panic later.


For me, treat me well... and I'll sleep in a server room if asked (not the best choice of words I know, but you get the point). As long as I'm single, bills paid and a chance to save I don't really care about money. It's not what drives me, it's just what most people barter with; so I need enough of it. For me it's more important to eventually have a job that both pays my way, and doesn't make me miserable day in and day out. The pressure involved, I know is bad and gets worse as one gets closer to the fun stuff. If your business is loosing thousands of dollars (or worse) every moment something is offline or toast, the guys in charge are naturally going to breath down peoples necks. At least at home, one of my goals is to figure out what can go wrong, plan for it, and plan on how to do it with the minimal of foul ups. I only get my time off work and between "interruptions" to do stuff, so efficiency is important to me.

On [SAS] because I'm the webmaster, if I keep myself as available as I can for dealing with stuff, everyone comes to me... Last time I went on vacation, in case of emergency I would've left my cell phone # in the clan forum, if I had one to give out lol. I'm not paid, but I still take it seriously. I come from a family that basically has the mentality... it don't matter if your head is stapled to the wall and the grim reapers on your tail; you go to work and do what needs to be done.


If a company wants to pay enough to cover my needs and treats me squarely, that basically means I work until I pass out if necessary.


Quote:
Originally Posted by ai-danno View Post
I hate cursing too much, but it bears mentioning- in small to medium environments, no one fucks with the network admin. That's because the network is your baby, and if you leave, it could all fall apart without enough understanding by who's left to fix it, no matter how much documentation you put together. And as much as management will ride you, they know that.

I don't care much for such arrangements but I know life is built up around them. In [SAS], when I held the rank of RSM I was always happy with the idea that if I got hit by a bus tomorrow, the SSMs (the RSMs right and left hand men) would be able to carry on until a replacement was promoted. The RSM position on the team is mostly dealing with officer ranks <-> enlisted ranks communication and coordinating the lower Sgt/Cpl ranks doing training ops, so it was kind of easy to get things running to that point; the SSMs already have most of the necessary tactical knowledge by definition, having passed through the same ranking structure as every other member.

A friend of mine learned basic things the hard way. The webmaster turned bad and got booted out of the team, they made my friend the new webmaster since he was the only one left who could be trusted for the job (even though he knew nothing). Ten minutes after he locked out the old webmaster, the guy AIMs my m8 with the new root password. So my friend had to learn enough to properly secure sasclan.org from trouble, remove the back doors, and I wound up helping with coding duty a couple months down the road in order to ease his work load.


Quote:
Originally Posted by ai-danno View Post
In larger environments, you are simply a target, IMHO. But never have an ego- an ego will get you fired out of spite.
I generally have little patience for people that just live to try it all the time, but for me the inter-personal ego consists of know what your talking about or be willing to learn something - ask me how to cut/copy/paste 3 times a day for a week, and eventually I'll glue the instructions to your monitor >_>. Ask me how to do something, and I'll generally do what I can to help (especially if I think the person asking will learn from it.)

I prefer to work with people whenever possible, rather then smash'em and move on.
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