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A career ending mistake

bitfieldconsulting.com

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Re: A career ending mistake

#91

Post by vsareto »

danity wrote: post #87

A long time ago, after interviewing for months, I finally landed my first job as a developer. It was VERY hard to get your foot in the door back then. On my first day, I was given someone's old computer that had a bunch of junk on it. While cleaning it up, I accidentally deleted all files on the company's file share. Shortly after, I started hearing murmurs of missing files and then, panicking inside, realized what I…

Hopefully lots of folks swing by to say that if they didn't have backups, they should have seen it coming.

It's a great example of how you can be made to look bad because of other peoples' decisions.

Re: A career ending mistake

#92

Post by giantg2 »

hinkley wrote: post #84
giantg2 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like obscure tech if it had a future - like when I thought the company would do the right thing. I do think some companies are better than others, but I don't think any company is really good. They all lie. My company has a reputation for being great and caring. On paper it's true. For over 90% of people, that might be true. But they don't follow their own policies, screwing over a small percentage. So I thin…

I recall thinking that my friend who had decided to gamble on Objective-C as his specialization in '95 was being foolish, because NeXT wasn't doing that well, and the hazard pay for being one of the last N experts was probably fraught. Less than 2 years later NeXT merges with Apple, and Steve Jobs has begun the biggest comeback in tech history, including switching Apple to Objective-C. Well then... This sort of thing…

True, but I don't see Filenet and Neoxam ever getting big.

Re: A career ending mistake

#93

Post by kosievdmerwe »

alonsonic wrote: post #63
dvtrn wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point you cannot become more productive as an individual and you need to start coordinating the work of many people if you want to increase your productivity. Neat. Another manifestation of the attitude regarding productivity of "more, more, and more still" as the default trajectory in the name of 'growth'. Calling it "inescapable" even. Sheesh. What's the point at which we realize "enough" productivity is ex…

This is something I ask myself constantly. I believe what the commenter means is that if you want to "grow" or get a higher salary then you will be expected to do more, and at a certain point the definition of more can only mean stepping into a leadership role of some sort where you have to interface with more people. If you're happy with your current responsibilities as an IC then you should be able to stay at that…

Yup I meant exactly this.

Re: A career ending mistake

#94

Post by jrm4 »

duxup wrote: post #42

I changed careers at 40+ years old. I'm very happy that I did it. People have all sorts of constructs / ideas about how careers work (based on experience) or how they think it works, or how they want it to work. I talk to some college graduates who tell me what they're planning for and have ZERO clue what industry they're talking about, their description is unrecognizable to me ... even tho I know it is the one I wor…

Right? I teach college students going into IT, and this feels like something they would write.

Offhand, I can't think of too many people (myself included) who are a) very happy in their jobs and b) planned very diligently to get to that exact space.

Mostly the opposite, "A lot of random stuff happened, I followed through on some stuff that felt right at the time, and just kind of did that over and over."

Re: A career ending mistake

#95

Post by ghaff »

ido wrote: post #78
nonameiguess wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about employees with physical disabilities? I've got ten screws in my spine and never thought when deciding to work in computing that I'd be expected to be able to ski and surf.

I’ve not personally thought about that specific case but it’s similar to a lot of other issues with well meaning benefits (e.g. company outing focusing on activities like Laser Tag). The best solution I’ve come up with so far is simply paying well & giving a lot of time off (and making sure people actually feel comfortable using their vacation days, which is an issue with “unlimited vacation” sometimes). Then each pe…

Yep. Outside of the occasional off-site and/or team dinner (which aren't really the same thing), I pretty much want to keep company recreational activities--especially outside of work hours--to a bare minimum. They're never really optional.

Re: A career ending mistake

#96

Post by giantg2 »

wussboy wrote: post #79
giantg2 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like obscure tech if it had a future - like when I thought the company would do the right thing. I do think some companies are better than others, but I don't think any company is really good. They all lie. My company has a reputation for being great and caring. On paper it's true. For over 90% of people, that might be true. But they don't follow their own policies, screwing over a small percentage. So I thin…

I feel like your perspective is very narrow. You’ve had a bad experience at one company that you admit has done well for almost all their employees, therefore all companies are evil and your chance of happiness is zero? That doesn’t seem reasonable or even likely. May I recommend “Feeling Good” by David Burns? It has helped many people in situations like yours.

"therefore all companies are evil"

Not evil, but that they lie and screw over employees. Are there any companies on Glassdoor with 100% positive ratings (with n>100)?

Re: A career ending mistake

#97

Post by giantg2 »

hinkley wrote: post #83
giantg2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It felt great at first. Once you realize that the company - respected/known as a place that does the right thing - doesn't follow its own policies and screws people over, you realize that every company/job sucks. It won't be better anywhere else. And you wasted your youth on obscure and obsolete tech because the company needed it and you wrongly believed their promises that they would take care of you (retraining, ca…

I don't know what sort of alternate reality bubble I exist in but I've found that I often get more opportunity to learn new technology when working as a contractor or consultant than as a FTE. You would think that they would want to hire people who already knew the domain, but apparently that is often not the case.

I have a friend who was laid off and said the contractor company he's with provides way more learning opportunities and courses.

Re: A career ending mistake

#98

Post by hinkley »

AlbertCory wrote: post #88

I came to realize the wisdom of a quote from a truly bad movie: “Everything ends badly, otherwise, it wouldn’t end.” ---Bryan Flanagan from “Cocktail”. [1] I had to look that up as part of my due diligence for this post. The more you know. Occasionally a sports career ends with hitting a homer in Game Seven of the World Series (David Ross of the 2016 Cubs). Most of the time, not. You want to have the sweet we'll-stil…

The fact that things end is why you should enjoy the good times when you have them. If you're going to live forever, you can always see that sunset tomorrow, or next year, or a century from now. No particular value in doing it today.

Re: A career ending mistake

#99

Post by zabzonk »

giantg2 wrote: post #81
zabzonk wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So change careers. I spent the first 6 years of my working life as a medical microbiologist, and was miserable for almost all of it. Then I gradually got into programming, and things looked up. I was still miserable for some bits of it though - such is the nature of things.

There aren't any good career changes that I've found so far. I'm looking though. I think it's easier to get into tech than most other decent paying jobs. So if we reversed the direction of your change, I assume it would be much more difficult to go from programming to medical microbiologist.

> I assume it would be much more difficult to go from programming to medical microbiologist.

You are right - it takes you several years of training, whereas you can probably pick up the bits and bobs of programming in a few weeks, if you have any aptitude.

But the basic idea remains - if you are doing something you hate, stop doing it, no matter what the price. It isn't going to get any better.

Re: A career ending mistake

#100

Post by giantg2 »

dboreham wrote: post #50
rscho wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Healthcare... No, just kidding. Don't do that.

Healthcare software..

Actually, there are some interesting at-home testing startups out there. I even came up with an idea for one when I couldn't find anything on the market for it, but it was already patented.
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