26 Jan
2012
26 Jan
'12
9:29 p.m.
On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 11:36 PM, Richard <legalize at xmission.com> wrote:
In article <CAALmimmn7ZO96S=LfAaSYrknGq2Syk8mBLW8C2xS99COwtAp=g at
mail.gmail.com>,
? ?Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> writes:
I have worked for many companies over 30 years, mostly in the same
city. I am rarely enticed away from any present position, but I move
when I must (one drag about working for small companies is the low
rate of success on the ten-year scale; one drag about working for
large companies is the regular purges as the "needs of the business"
shift). I ride the economic ups and downs and maintain my
technological fluency and relevance largely on my own nickel,
supplanted by whatever opportunities float by.
Is that what was said, or perhaps was it that in
the professional
world (in the States for sure, and perhaps the UK now) you won't be
_given_ time to learn anything, nor are you likely to receive much
support to learn anything - [...]
Jesus guys, if that's really what you're experiencing, then my advice
to you is to quit and move to another company or another city. In 25 years of writing software in Salt Lake City,
this has *never*
been my experience at any place I've worked. ?It's just the opposite,
actually. ?The same is echoed by my colleagues that work in Seattle,
Portland and Si Valley.
I'm in the mid-west and do not desire to live on either coast (I enjoy
visiting them, but ~80% of the US carries burdens and costs and issues
that I feel outweigh the benefits according to my own values).
Perhaps Utah is different, but I've seen friends in the Bay Area and
more put through the same meat grinder where companies hire for
experience in favor of retaining employees and paying to fit them into
new roles. I'm too young for the "employment for life" model of my
parents' generation. I've only ever seen 3-5 year cycles of ins and
outs.
A specific example that worked to my benefit was being hired as a
contractor at Lucent/Bell Labs because I had Sun experience and most
of the department only had NCR experience from years of AT&T owning
NCR. Even in a place where 30-year anniversary parties were a
frequent occurrence on the factory floor and around the office spaces
(the building was about that old), they chose to hire in a fresh face
with specific expertise about a technology they wished to move to
rather than train a single person in that new technology. I worked
there for two years, ordered $500K of new equipment, and to a large
extent, was the departmental expert on the platform. Months after my
contract reached its term and I moved on, Lucent sold off the
manufacturing assets of the plant and laid off manufacturing-related
employees to be rehired by Celestia, a contract manufacturer. They
then ran down the outstanding orders then idled the line and shuttered
the factory. There are only enough remaining Lucent/Bell Labs folks
here locally to fill a school bus, down from a peak of many thousands
in the 1970s. Decades of growth and innovation, ending in
intellectual pump-and-dump.
This tale is far from unique in my experience. If it hasn't happened
to you, you are fortunate.
-ethan