that's where the gif loops

7/17/2012 1:37:26 PM

I kinda HATE my career, but I LOVE my paychecks. I guess you could say my passion is money. My job affords me the lifestyle I want to live and then some.

At 30 years old, I can't think of any career or field that I can see myself being happy and fulfilled in long term. I might as well suck it up, be miserable, and ride this shit out until I can retire (hopefully early).

7/17/2012 1:40:50 PM

My career is turning into more of a chore and less of an interesting vocation with each passing day, it seems. The trouble is, the idea of leaving a profession where I have 10+ years of experience, to go back to school and have to come out and get an Entry Level Job when I'm pushing 40 just doesn't sound that appealing. But neither does doing this for the rest of my working life.

I envy those who are passionate about what they do, and good at it. I just don't have the motivation to excel in something that I'm not fully invested in, though I can keep my head above water just fine.

7/17/2012 4:53:06 PM

Quote :

"My career is turning into more of a chore and less of an interesting vocation with each passing day, it seems. "

This.

My biggest fear is being stuck, driving in circles for the next 25 years.

7/17/2012 5:01:31 PM

Yeah, I've got to be honest, I don't really think there's anything I could really be passionate about job wise. My current job is fine. I'm very good at it, it's occasionally rewarding, occasionally stressful, and occasionally terrible. I certainly don't wake up excited to go to work. However, when it's all said and done the paycheck is pretty nice and in 20 years or so I won't have to work anymore, so I'll suck it up and keep doing it.

I sort of agree with BobbyDigital about the whole "make your passion you job" myth. 1 person out of a 1000 might actually love what they do, but I bet for a lot of people they just end up ruining the thing they love by making a career out of it and having to deal with a bunch of workplace bullshit attached to the thing that used to make them happy.

7/17/2012 7:36:02 PM

If the follow your passion is a myth, why do so many people I am interview for ask me about it?

7/17/2012 8:34:31 PM

because the vast majority of interviewers absolutely suck at interviewing.

Especially if they're asking questions about your passions. It's a great way to get an interviewee to tell you what you want to hear, and nothing more.

Sort of like the "what are your weaknesses?" question. Anyone who uses this cliche question is outing him/herself as someone who is a horrible interviewer.

But more to the point, myth is probably the wrong word. Impractical is probably a better word. It's not the norm for jobs that are high paying to also be extremely interesting to a large number of people. TWW is full of engineers, so in this community you'll have a lot of people who are passionate about technology, but among the entire population, that number is pretty low (as evidenced by our country lagging the world in STEM education benchmarks). Too many of those who go to college today tend to gravitate towards easy, interesting majors and end up with an expensive degree and horrible job prospects.

Meanwhile, tech workers are so hard to find in silicon valley, and with H1B limits too stringent to staff to the needs of companies, there are plans to put a ship just off the coast of San Fran in international waters to house immigrant workers to bypass immigration restrictions. Most of these companies would be more than happy to hire Americans, but our education system is not producing enough scientists and engineers. But we have more than enough people with degrees in history, sociology, and women's studies that have a ton of debt and no useful skills!

and I don't mean to crap on liberal arts majors as a whole. It's a supply/demand thing. We need more STEM graduates, and fewer experts on early British history or we as a country will see our former glory only in history books.



[Edited on July 17, 2012 at 9:02 PM. Reason : .]

7/17/2012 8:48:46 PM

butterjob

I'm Krallum and I approved this message.

7/17/2012 11:17:35 PM

Quote :

"Sort of like the "what are your weaknesses?" question."

mine's my throat. if i got hit in the throat, it'd set me down for sure.

7/18/2012 9:15:34 AM

Quote :

"would you still do the same job you do, right now, if it only paid $20k a year? I definitely wouldn't. I'd do what I needed to do to switch to a better paying career. "

I think there's a fine line. I get pretty cruddy pay for what I do, but I really enjoy my work (most days lol) and they give good benefits and flex time so I can kind of forgive the pay. But you better believe if I get offered something else for a significant pay bump my ass is out of here.

7/18/2012 9:55:25 AM

I think I luckily learned BD's lesson when I was in high school ... I was never a computer nerd, but had lots of math skillz... and someone told me I could make 6 figures doing computer networking ...

So, I took the networking academy classes which are very basic ... (and any reasonably intelligent adult could pick up easily in a year or so) ... and saw immediate benefits. Got paid 20/hour as a high school student to do some basic networking stuff ... mostly acting as a cable monkey.

Now I work at the networking Giant, and was even able to get a CCIE ... but have never been and probably never will be a tech junkie or whatever ... I dont think about this shit unless someone is paying me to think about it ... I go home and think about kids, sports, making more money ... but not networking.

You don't have to be a tech addict to be successful in tech ... you just need to have good work ethic, common sense, and slightly above average IQ Obviously the tech geniuses out there get paid monkeyball$, but everyone else can do very well for themselves as well.

7/18/2012 10:41:35 AM

If the money right I'll do any job.

I'll shovel shit for 6 figures.

I'll live in Afghanistan for 6 figures.

I'll rape your mom for 6 figures.

[Edited on July 18, 2012 at 10:47 AM. Reason : I'm hungry]

7/18/2012 10:46:39 AM

Computer networking is boring as hell. I slept all through that class in college. I figured out at an early age that there was no job that paid you to drink beer and play videogames so I just lucked out and went into CSC because my parents told me to because I was good with computers (which means I knew how to use one). I make sure never to work more than 40 hours a week and get to surf the internet at work. It could be far worse. I take it for granted. I was stressed as hell in college because I'm not the smartest guy in the world but it has paid off.

If I could do anything else I would probably be a journalist but that seems like a very hard field to make $ in. Now that everyone has a blog it is even more saturated. I would have to vastly improve my writing skills.

7/18/2012 10:51:28 AM

Quote :

" because my parents told me to because I was good with computers"

LOL my parents picked my major too. Mostly because at the time my dad was the dean of the CompSci dept at the university I went to.

7/18/2012 12:19:52 PM

it's turrible to be a writer these days. Sites like huffington post don't pay their writers anything usually! Literal "milk for free".

[Edited on July 18, 2012 at 12:25 PM. Reason : ]

7/18/2012 12:22:00 PM

Yeah, currently I am unemployed. I straight up quit a job because of many reasons. There are some things I will not stand for, and compromising my ethics and morals is one of them. The money was pretty decent, but not worth the hell my supervisors were giving my coworkers and me. Fortunately, I was in a position to quit; not all people are lucky like that. But this has given me the chance to seek out something I do want to do and in the living area I want to be in. I have been volunteering for this, but I am much happier working for free and doing what I love than getting paid decent having to deal with that crap. I am hoping now that two of the girls are going part time, I might be able to get hired full time and get more training. I can tell you there is nothing more I would rather do than this and with enough experience (about 2 years), I have the potential to make $bank. It sucks now, but hopefully in the long run, it'll be a win-win situation.

7/18/2012 12:27:04 PM

^^ not true. If you're good, you'll be compensated fairly for writing.

7/18/2012 12:32:13 PM

Quote :

"Meanwhile, tech workers are so hard to find in silicon valley, and with H1B limits too stringent to staff to the needs of companies, there are plans to put a ship just off the coast of San Fran in international waters to house immigrant workers to bypass immigration restrictions. Most of these companies would be more than happy to hire Americans, but our education system is not producing enough scientists and engineers."

Where is this really happening? We have ogles of people on TWW with tech degrees, both the computer science type stuff and engineering. I've heard what you're saying, and every time I hear it, I think it's a lie.

A silicon valley company complaining about how they can't get good tech workers they need needs to be kicked in the balls. I'm not talking about "ho hum, why can't I find an expert developer with 10 years experience managing large scale systems for $50k / year". I'm talking about reasonable hiring requirements. Tell me what they can't find. There's probably an employed TWWer who could do it.

7/18/2012 12:37:44 PM

it's true. in charlotte, i've been getting calls/emails from tech recruiters near daily for 2 years. it's even more competitive in areas like SV, NYC, Boston

7/18/2012 12:42:05 PM

message_topic.aspx?topic=621821

7/18/2012 12:54:52 PM

Yeah, at IBM it took us a while to fill our last position. Every time we'd make an offer the applicant had already accepted one elsewhere.

7/18/2012 1:26:53 PM

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/07/17/how-to-win-the-tech-talent-war/

I read this line

Quote :

"Callahan joined Facebook's (FB) Vice "

and was like oh shit cdubya

7/18/2012 2:06:09 PM