New Grads Shun IT Jobs As "Boring" 752
whencanistop writes "Despite good job prospects, graduates think that a job in IT would be boring. Is this because of the fact that Bill Gates has made the whole industry look nerdy? Surely with so many (especially young) people being 'web first' with not just their buying habits, but now in terms of what they do in their spare time, we'd expect more of them to want to get a career in it?"
If I had the power to do it all over again... (Score:5, Insightful)
I would have gone into Economics.
Or maybe Forestry...
If I had only known the IT world would turn into what it is now, I'd do something else. Too much politics... To much hype...
Let's spice up IT (Score:5, Insightful)
The TFA goes on to quote someone as saying, "We need to show [young people] the variety of roles in IT and the importance that IT carries today. IT is at the heart of business these days and there are real opportunities now to have a career in IT which will ultimately lead to a position on the board."
A position on the board? That is supposed to be "not boring"?
Well, many IT jobs ARE boring (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh come on now... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Spair time?"
Seriously, this is ridiculous.
Of course IT is boring! (Score:5, Insightful)
And it's not because it's nerdy (as the summary opines). It's simply because its about maintenance of poorly-designed shit. You might as well call it glorified janitorial work.
In contrast, creating new stuff, as actual programmers and engineers do -- that's interesting!
Of course it's boring (Score:4, Insightful)
All you do is sit and type all day and have absolutely no respect from society. It's worse than being an accountant.
Is this news? Is this bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
FTA:
Non-IT graduates think a job in IT would be "boring,"
despite its good career prospects.
IOW:
People don't enter fields that they aren't interested in.
Film at 11.
As opposed to... (Score:5, Insightful)
Shit, I wish my job was boring. When something breaks it gets so exciting I worry that I'm going to keel over dead.
Anyway, the damn snowflakes need to suck it up. What entry level job isn't boring? You put in your crappy dues, so that you get a better job down the road. I've worked all kinds of jobs, and they're pretty much all boring, even things you wouldn't think would be boring. I did a stint doing wildlife tagging, where I got to roam around on a four wheeler shooting things with a tranq gun, and that was astoundingly boring...99% of the time you just sat and waited and let the mosquitos gorge themselves on your blood.
Surely!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Thank goodness (Score:5, Insightful)
Back in the late 90's/early 2000's WAY too many people were jumping into IT because it was the new field du jour which was supposed to make those starry eyed high school kids (some even drop outs) rich with no real effort. Them oversaturating the industry with underqualified and uninterested workers half-killed IT over here. It almost felt unfair working on my Computer Science degree with people who flat out hated computers and always wanted to copy each other's programming projects to pass classes, simply because they though that was the way to go for a good job. The industry could use a bit of thinning out if it means that we're left with actual bright and enthusiastic people who really do like doing this type of work.
Um qualified even? (Score:2, Insightful)
Just b/c these younger people buy and live online does not mean they're in any way qualified to work in IT. Sure, they might not be interested, but lets not make an unnecessary connection that they should be in IT b/c they grew up with a mouse at the end of the umbilical cord.
Re:Well, many IT jobs ARE boring (Score:5, Insightful)
Hate to piddle in your soup, but most jobs in the world are "pretty fucking boring". Welcome to reality.
It is (Score:3, Insightful)
My limited experience was installing new machines in an office building one summer. For the first few weeks, I imaged disks. This consisted of reading The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide and pushing enter when prompted. The rest of the summer was spent teaching people how to use their new machines. I'm sure there is more to it, but I have a suspicion most of the work is dealing with PEBKAC.
Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
"But over 60% of non-computing students do not wish to enter the sector because they think it will be boring."
Who cares what non-computing students think? I can think of dozens of other job sectors that I suspect would bore me stupid, that's why I had the sense not to study for qualifications in them.
I suspect that these graduates all have a nasty shock coming to them anyway, courtesy of real life. Most jobs are "boring" in some way. That's why you get paid to do them rather than doing them for fun.
Low unemployment and kids these days (Score:4, Insightful)
This is not necessarily a bad thing (low unemployment is better then the alternative) but it does bring with it a certain attitude in the young.
Those young whippersnappers should try haying in 95 F (35 C) weather. They would learn to appreciate an IT job, I tell ya.
Oh come on! (Score:4, Insightful)
Computers were nerdy WAAAAY before Bill Gates came on the scene.
Seriously, BillG gets way too much recognition and way too much blame. All he is is an obscenely rich, lucky bastard who happened to be in the right place at the right time and played his cards just about perfectly.
Re:If I had the power to do it all over again... (Score:3, Insightful)
If I had only known the IT world would turn into what it is now, I'd do something else. Too much politics... To much hype
That's going to be the case in any field. I would imagine that economics would be worse than most in those respects, so you may be lucky. Forestry might limit your job opportunities.
yes it is. (Score:5, Insightful)
For the first 20 years, being a developer was cool. You were a hero, you worked during emergencies, you had a bit of freedom as a result, the pay was decent- never superior unless you became a contractor. And there is/was a problem with constantly becoming obsolete and having to retrain a lot more than other professions.
I finally left to be project leader and then a team leader. I see my developers suffering from the boredom.
It's mostly SOX. It's also a view of developers as generic by management. Executives do NOT WANT heroes. They want grey reliable processes that consistently take 3 times as long (and are not random between 1/10th as long and 10 times as long without anyway to predict it).
Programming in business is just not fun like it used to be. It's okay- but you code about 1/10th as much as you used to because of all the paperwork overhead. And you are a LOT more accountable. this is a good thing for slackers but it stifles the good people.
Most jobs are boring (Score:5, Insightful)
If jobs were very exciting and fulfilling in and of themselves, we wouldn't need to pay people to do them.
Life requires labor. Civilized life requires even more labor. Most of that labor is unpleasant in some way. We face the grind anyway, day after day, because it keeps the ball rolling, and because it gives us the money we need to do the things we actually like doing.
If you manage to find a job that you actually like a lot, that's great. If not, hopefully you will be strong enough to accept the realities that most people face, get a boring job, be useful, and earn a decent living.
bill gates reference (Score:2, Insightful)
1. bill gates doesn't work in IT, he was the CEO of a huge company, which couldn't be less related to IT.
2. bill gates is worth billions of dollars. There's nothing boring about having billions of dollars.
3. IT jobs are boring but they beat the crap out of day labor, warehouse, etc. in about every way... so I would seriously consider how much work you think a job should be before you turn down an IT job.
Re:Five Years Into the Job (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if you dont find it boring to begin with you really need to ask yourself the question "where will I be in five/ten/twenty years?". For the majority going into software engineering or IT the answer is "prettymuch the same thing I was doing two weeks after I graduated college". You might be better at it and you might be leading a team of people, but you will still be doing about the same thing.
You see this at big companies too, its much more common to promote a software engineer to a "software engineer level 2" or something similar than it is for them to move on to something else. The career path is usually designed to keep you doing the same thing for a long period of time. For many other types of jobs (such as consulting) the entry level position is seen as stepping stone to bigger and better things.
Now I know that there are a lot of exceptions to this rule, but generally speaking 90% of people who start out in a company as an entry level software engineer or IT guy dont move on to anything else. Thats why people get bored with it imho.
Re:Five Years Into the Job (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, I know people who would die of frustration in my job: there is no direction from higher and you have to write your own job description on a monthly basis.
I think the IT industry is like any other: you need to find the company with a corporate culture that is right for you. If you like independence, you work for a place like mine. If you like structure, you get a job with one of the bigger code factories. Once you have found the right place, you will like what you do.
Speak for yourself (Score:3, Insightful)
That's the kind of dull I can get behind.
Having to support 10 different wonky platforms and trying to make a cohesive infrastructure from them?
I'm glad those bad-old-days are over.
Re:If I had the power to do it all over again... (Score:5, Insightful)
Economics is an extremely limited niche field? Have you heard of wall street? All those big investment banks and trading firms look first to economics grads when they go hiring. Wall Street grabs just as many economics grads as Silicon Valley does CS majors.
Re:Of course IT is boring! (Score:3, Insightful)
Not necessarily.
Wait till you get a programming job that consists of coding the same thing over and over for a series of your company's clients.
Re:Expectations (Score:3, Insightful)
> You will start by being the windows reinstaller, cable puller , desktop lugger, etc. ...ah, no.
If that's all that you can manage after getting out of school then you wasted your time.
Re:Different perspective (Score:3, Insightful)
Bell labs in its heyday was a couple thousand people. Ma Bell as a whole was nearly a million. I somehow think that most people's idea of what "work for the phone company" means is more like the guy who installs phones or the one who runs a switchboard...
Besides, alongside the Bell Labs reputation for brilliance was their reputation as the alpha geeks of their day...
Re:What's IT? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:It is (Score:3, Insightful)
It depends on your position.
To me, interesting would be finding a way to not have to press enter all the time.
That's Awsome!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Well, many IT jobs ARE boring (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't help it, I'd rather be a university gaining new knowledge, than be on an overseas holiday. I rather spend all night configuring, adjusting and tweaking computer hardware and software than be getting drunk in some crap night club. I'd rather be /.ing than mindlessly myspaceing and so for me a career in computers just ain't boring even if a do find some elements somewhat tiresome like coding.
So the grads are just leaning the computers skills are more difficult than other grad choices and the big entry level salaries are gone eliminating blind greed as the only reason to choose a career in computers, so reduced numbers are to be expected and generally it is better for the whole industry, less drones sucking up space doing more harm than good and of course the actually computer geeks/nerds get to enjoy higher salaries and better conditions.
it's not compensation, it's booty (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:yes it is. (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree totally.
So go work for a startup which desires hero developers, doesn't care about business processes and paperwork or project plans, but might have a few late nights. Preferably a startup with decent funding from a parent company. As soon as the timesheet filling requirement arrives, leave.
Re:'boring'??? (Score:3, Insightful)
I have dealt with enough, paycheck hunters and shiny thing people to be tired of them. I get tired of asking the question; "Why are you buying that again? Cause it looks good?" We need to ween this populace down to the passionate individuals who get the job done well. I have been in departments saturated with shiny thing and paycheck hunters that could have been run by a quarter of the people passionate in IT and bored. hell when I left my gov't job they had to hire 2 people to replace me, technically there were 3 that replaced me if you count the one that was hired a couple months before I left.
IT has changed. Life was better then. (Score:5, Insightful)
When I first got into computers it was exciting and new. The first computer at my work place was mine, an Apple ][. What could it do? Anything! Look at this Visicalc thing! Then I stuck a CP/M card in and got dBase II. That allowed us to build a complete accounts payable and payroll system (once we got to dBase III). More computers followed. I thought it would be very cool to get a computer on everyone's desk! People were interested and amazed at what you could do with one of these small desktop boxes. More people got involved. Then came Ethernet! Yes! We're networked! And what about gophers and email? And what was this www thing? It ws an exciting time when hobbyists and enthusiasts drove innovation and spearheaded the drive to compute the world. They were seen as intelligent, innovative saviors. To open up a box with a new computer and smell those polymers wafting in the air still gives a sense of progress! The future has arrived (it's just unevenly distributed--William Gibson) but we were evening the distribution! We were changing the world, increasing productivity.
Well.....Mission accomplished.
Now there IS a computer on every desk. Now there are more servers than you originally had computers. Now without a flashy web site you are hopelessly behind. Now everyone wants in on the action to tell you what to do. Now if you're down for a second it's all your fault and heads will roll. Now IT is a subservient class with deadlines and 'management.' The corporations, big and small finally got over their wide-eyed enthusiasm and ignorance of the field and yoked it in--hard. It has turned from an art to a science, from innovative to expected, from bleeding edge to basement cubicles.
The same thing happened with electricity. The same thing happened with radio. And now it's happened with IT. It has gone fom a hobbyist paradise to a mundane backwater. Too bad. Life was better then.
Re:Well, many IT jobs ARE boring (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow. Must suck to be like that.
I mean, it's easy to be cynical, but if you're bored at what you're doing, it's your fault.
Blah blah blah, it's too hard to start my own company. Blah blah blah, it's too tedious to do that thing. Blah Blah Blah.
If it's that hard, that boring, then make something that does that thing for you. Sometimes it's easy (autohotkey script), sometimes it's not so much (lots of things).
You are the master of how you react to what you're doing. If you're bored, sucks for you, and I sympathize, I really do.
But the way "reality" works is that it pays people who come up with better, faster, and cheaper ways of doing stuff. Often times you don't even have to do all three!
Cynicism may win you karma on Slashdot, but it doesn't pay the bills.
Re:Five Years Into the Job (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd agree, we take the job because we like figuring out problems. "promotion" is not to management, but to get to work on harder problems... the majority of problems are pretty boring though.
I've said before, IT is like Plumbing, nobody respects it until it doesn't work. Keeping Plumbing working is pretty boring business too. Of course you see good Master Plumbers make nearly as much as good IT people. Just like IT people, even the best plumbers still lay pipe and plunge toilets.. pretty menial work, just like making, testing, storing backups and building new servers for software testing is.
Re:Most jobs are boring (Score:5, Insightful)
Me too. But I haven't always valued money the same way.
Alone in your early twenties is a good time to chase after fun experiences and short term payoffs. Your money needs are relatively low, job security in a nice to have, and independence is new and exciting.
Wait eight years. Add a mortgage and a couple of kids. Get used to the independence. Suddenly a stable job that pays the bills sounds a lot better. You've done enough exciting jobs and short term payoffs, and now you need to think it terms of decades.
Most IT jobs aren't so complex that you have to start right out of college. You can do something else and change jobs.
Re:Most jobs are boring (Score:4, Insightful)
If you are going to be a paycheck hunter and just find a place to put your time in. You are in for a very unfulfilled life. I specifically chose IT because it is enjoyable, therefore in my mind I really don't work. I get paid to do the things I would be doing anyway. There are a plethora of positions like this out there.
You pay people because they have certain needs they want met and you exchange their time for the ability to meet those needs. So the idea that we get paid because a job is not exciting or fulfilling is just plain wrong.
Re:Of course IT is boring! (Score:5, Insightful)
And it's not because it's nerdy (as the summary opines).
Yeah, my favorite part was, "Is this because of the fact that Bill Gates has made the whole industry look nerdy?" Really? Bill Gates made it look nerdy? Like if not for Gates, the whole industry would be filled with badass cowboys and hot chicks or something?
Yeah, even the fact that "badass cowboys and hot chicks" popped into my head as the opposite of "nerdy" is probably an indication that I'm an IT nerd.
But yeah, I've found that at least the IT work that falls on the support/maintenance side (as opposed to the development side) is kind of boring crap-work. It's fixing problems that some other moron broke, and cleaning up problems caused by poor design. It's 2008, and we still don't even have decent backup/archive methods. Every product out there has huge problems and gaping holes in their functionality that should have been fixed 15 years ago, but instead everyone has been working on things like database-driven filesystems that never make it to market.
That's right, I'm looking at you, Microsoft.
InfoTech work isn't all science-fictiony and cool. Oddly, it's more like being a Fonzie in training. It's like all this technology amounts to a broken jukebox that has to be smacked in just the right way to get it going, and you're just hoping to learn how to do that so you can stand around looking cool until someone needs you.
Except that this Fonzie never ends up looking cool and everyone treats him like a trained monkey. "Slap the machine and play me a song!" they all yell.
Oh, yeah, I know I've jumped the tracks and gone into nonsense. Whatever. I work in IT. Making up random crap on Slashdot is the most interesting part of my day.
Service jobs (Score:3, Insightful)
A lot of service jobs do involve a high level of skills. If you don't believe me ask your doctor.
The fact is we've gotten really good at manufacturing. So good that the manufacturing we need can be done by a lot less people (just as agriculture now requires a lot less people than it used to). Services are a lot harder to optimize because you can't stockpile them.
Re:Thank goodness (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the reality is that "doing it for a living" is a good way to drain the fun out of almost anything. I enjoy building things out of wood. For about a year or so, I made custom furniture for people, and that's how I got the money I needed to eat. I did not enjoy woodworking all that much for that year. Now that I've been working in a different field for a few years, I've spent a good portion of my disposable income on building up a decent woodshop, and it's once again a hobby I enjoy. *shrug*
Re:it's not compensation, it's booty (Score:5, Insightful)
If giving CEOs a bigger cut of the profits produces incentive for the CEO to increase earnings, it's just good business to give them a bigger cut.
Re:Most jobs are boring (Score:3, Insightful)
This is also true of many non-profit or social work jobs. By and large social workers get paid dirt, but they are so aware/fufilled-by of the need for someone to what they do, that they do the job anyway. Until they burn out, but by then the next crop of social work grads is ready to fill the gap.
False (Score:2, Insightful)
If jobs were very exciting and fulfilling in and of themselves, we wouldn't need to pay people to do them.
Re:What's IT? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:If I had the power to do it all over again... (Score:3, Insightful)
I did go into economics, and look where I ended up... I've done a lot of things in my life, and technology is hard to beat.
BTW, economics was and is a great degree to get. Without a good understanding of economics, it's hard to really understand why the world and business work the way they do.
IT is boring unless you are at the top (Score:3, Insightful)
This is especially true the lower you are on the ladder. When you are entry level, you are probably doing help desk most of the time along with setting up new machines. Sure, when you get that eight core computer in, the computer is probably pretty exciting to check out and play around a bit while you install what is needed, but after a few installs, it's simply repetitive -- just like all the other computers you have set up and will continue to set up. Maybe you get to write reports. You'll definitely awe your friends with how you successfully joined 10 tables to create your latest report.
I think IT gets more exciting and interesting when you reach the point where you are creating solutions to new problems. There is a great deal of responsibility but a much greater feeling of reward and satisfaction. I think the saying about the lead dog having the best view is true and not just in IT.
I enjoyed reading the comment where someone said that IT is like janitorial work.
Re:Well, many IT jobs ARE boring (Score:3, Insightful)
I dunno about you, but my salary is a substantial multiple of the median wage in the country. Sure, the job sucks some days, but it's better to suck for a good wage than not.
If you are miserable in your job, you need to look inward, my friend. We're as happy as we decide to be.
There are very few well paid jobs that don't require education and paying your dues. Since I don't have the prerequisites to be a $1000/hr hooker, technology will have to do.
Re:Five Years Into the Job (Score:5, Insightful)
What's made it much, much worse is how much clerical work we have to do now due to regulations and general ignorance of people new to the industry. We have to document everything so that our job can be outsourced to someone less skilled and willing to work for less. We have to have reviews and justification only because the CIO wants to pretend he has some clue about what's going on. What should be a 10 minute fix turns into a two week red-tape fest. Then they have the nerve to ask why I'm not getting more done.
If ANYONE asks me if the IT field is a good choice for a career, I solidly reply "Hell, no. Run the other way and get a job *making* something that is useful or a job *helping* people."
I've been trying to leave IT for the past 10 years, but where else will I find a job that pays so much for such little work?
Re:it's not compensation, it's booty (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you're missing relation and context here.
It's not uncommon for a CEO to earn 10x or even 100x the salary of an average employee.
The reason is not that he's adding 10x or 100x more value, the reason is because he can.
He's worked himself up (or got born into) the top of the food chain and that's his privilege: he can fire you, you can't fire him.
He can demand ridiculous salaries, you can not. He can sink your company but still get the golden parachute, you can't.
This is the common pattern, admittedly quite a bit simplified.
Nonetheless my point is: no single person can add >1000% value above average to a company constantly.
As far as I am concerned: Pay them big bonuses when they strike a hot deal.
But seven digit "salaries" are a [known] bug in our system.
Re:it's not compensation, it's booty (Score:5, Insightful)
CEO's do not set their own compensation, the board of directors does.
You clearly have no idea how things work in the real world. CEOs always try to pack the Board with their supporters, cut deals on the Board's compensation based on their own, recommend Directors for seats on other companies' boards, etc.
Now carry on with your ignorant corporate cheerleading.
Re:it's not compensation, it's booty (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Most jobs are boring (Score:3, Insightful)
Boring jobs don't exist because people want to have boring jobs. They exist because some people have to take whatever they can get. Faced with collecting trash or resetting passwords all day, I'll gladly reset yours to the default.
Re:Most jobs are boring (Score:5, Insightful)
What is funny is the best time I ever had with IT is when I was coding/developing/programming only to learn that that was "shit work" to be outsourced. Kinda nice when I was running a division of a help desk after that, only to learn that to was "shit work" to be outsourced. Turns out they cannot outsource security work and policy management due to ethical reasons. But I consider the position "SHIT WORK!". What I do now is SHIT WORK! And the last time I checked SHIT WORK WAS SHIT!
I would NEVER suggest or recommend an IT career to anyone at this point. The article is WRONG. The work is not just boring, it is SHIT WORK.
Re:Most jobs are boring (Score:3, Insightful)
I've always found that it pays to like boring jobs ;-)
Re:Most jobs are boring (Score:3, Insightful)
...hopefully you will be strong enough to accept the realities that most people face, get a boring job, be useful, and earn a decent living.
Come on, seriously? Is that really your response to a young college student who's mulling over career choices and happens to think one may be less fulfilling than others? "Well, life sucks, so quit whining and pick up a shovel?"
Man, if this is the attitude students are running into when they talk to people in IT, it's no wonder they're wanting to avoid the field like the plague. Way to inspire passion in the youth, folks. Bravo.
Re:Most jobs are boring (Score:5, Insightful)
> Wait eight years. Add a mortgage and a couple of kids. Get used to the
> independence. Suddenly a stable job that pays the bills sounds a lot better.
Wait ten more years. You'll find out you hate it more and more every day, culminating in what is known as the "midlife crisis", where you quit your lousy boring job, get a backpack, and go live on the Appalachian trail. Human beings are not suited to being cogs in a machine. Yes, you can tolerate it for a while, but eventually you'll go nuts.
Re:it's not compensation, it's booty (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a common piece of propaganda as to why CEOs (and other executives) get paid so much (setting aside the obviously idiotic golden-parachutes-after-running-a-company-into-the-ground scenarios), but the executives are hardly doing all of the work themselves.
Just as it is hard for the employees to be productive without having some kind of vision directing them, a visionary executive is pretty damn worthless unless he/she has people who can competently implement that vision.
In many cases, the employees are taking MUCH more of a risk than any of the executives - when the company is doing badly, a lot of employees usually find themselves without jobs, and are left to figure out how they are going to take care of their families. There aren't too many executives that are going to find themselves living out of their cars even if they royally screw over a multi-million revenue company.
The so-called risk & value that even well-respected CEOs provide to their company is often wildly overstated, and is more of a function of the "buddy-buddy" relationship they have with the people who set their compensation, rather than an objective look at the relative value they are providing to the company, and the personal risk they are taking.
Re:Most jobs are boring (Score:5, Insightful)
You have to take breaks and do other things, otherwise you do go nuts. I take an evening a week to write stories on my own.
However, being bored at work isn't enough reason to ditch your kids. If you decide to have children, they need you to work to support them and they need you to figure out how to stay sane doing it.
BTW, even a boring job today is a lot more varied than the farming jobs most people had two centuries ago. We're just spoiled.
I think I know why this is. (Score:3, Insightful)
Boring...or insanely stressful and overly demanding of your time.
Re:Most jobs are boring (Score:5, Insightful)
I have worked in IT for ten years. At my previous employer, where I got my break in IT, I found that working as a sys admin in a fairly large company was becoming increasingly unrewarding due to mismanagement and being pigeon-holed into a subset of the tasks we had all shared earlier. I left for a better position in a smaller company where I once again had the opportunity to learn a lot of new skills and could break out of the rut that I had been in at the previous job. Now the company I work for has been bought out by another large company, and it's looking like they are trying to figure out which pigeon-hole the other IT guys and I fit into within their organization. The work load has dropped to nil, and, well, I'm bored again (thus, posting on
At this point in my life, I am seriously considering going back to my first love -- flight instructing. I've taken a part-time job as an instructor, and I've decided that if things don't work out in the new parent company (i.e., if they decide those of us from the smaller company are no longer needed), I probably won't search for a new job in IT. I'll probably flight instruct full time and maybe take a part time job teaching C.S. at the local college. Throw in a little part time IT consulting, and I'll think I'll probably still be financially secure, but a lot happier than I would be in an environment like my first IT position.
You can be happy and financially secure; just think a little outside the box. In today's economy, it's probably a better idea to work a couple of part time gigs than put all of your eggs in the single basket of one job where you could be outsourced/laid off at any time.
Re:it's not compensation, it's booty (Score:3, Insightful)
You're not just paying for their guidance now, but all of what it took them to get there and become the seasoned leader they are.
That's not to say that there aren't the exceptions where people are given their positions, but for a good percentage, I would imagine this would apply.
Re:Most jobs are boring (Score:1, Insightful)
Except most starting IT jobs aren't really boring. Most starting level IT jobs are horrible, soul-sucking, life-destroying, gauntlets of low-wage serfdom. When I first started out I couldn't believe people would return to work after a month of this. Since then I've revised my estimate downwards.
There are many times that I have wished to have my arms and legs hacked off, have my body stripped naked, covered with honey, and half-buried in a fire ant hill instead of returning to work.
Why?
At least I'd only have to endure that torture once.
Re:Most jobs are boring (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is, when they hit a midlife crisis, rather than do something MEANINGFUL, like bug out of the rat race, they instead dump their wives and kids for a trophy girl, get drunk a lot and spin their way into debt on a sports car and trinkets for the trophy, like this fat idiot and his bleeth. [hotchicksw...hebags.com]
when faced with a crisis, people tend to panic, and they don't always make the best choices when they're flopping around like fish on the existential beach.
Me? I turned 40 and flipped out, but instead of the bleeth and the car, I talked with my wife, went back to school and got into academia... teaching university is incredibly intense, but lots of fun, and now we're a happy family living and teaching abroad. Yay!
RS
But sometimes I wonder about the sports car...
Re:Most jobs are boring (Score:3, Insightful)
....It's only rarely that we admins get to do heroics.
];)
Re:Most jobs are boring (Score:5, Insightful)
> I thought a mid-life crisis was a rebellion against being tied down
No, a midlife crisis is about taking a look at your life and finding it wanting. We all have high hopes and dreams in our young years, and what do we get as we age? We get to watch our dreams die. One after another. It really really hurts. And at some point you just think, "what is this all for? Is this all there is to life? Kids, a car, a wife, a bland and safe life, a boring job, and a mortgage?" and then you think forward and imagine yourself dying of old age, having accomplished nothing of significance. Then you'll realize that only a few years after you die, nobody will even remember you existed. Only your kids will remember, with memories that will get weaker. Eventually they'll die too and every trace of you will be gone from the universe. That's what midlife crisis is all about, and it's frigging serious. What you do about it is up to you, but I guarantee you, if you don't do something, you'll end up in the depth of depression.
Re:Different perspective (Score:1, Insightful)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Labs#1960s [wikipedia.org]
(of course there are exceptions flame boys)