On Sat, 29 Jul 2006 18:46:50 +1000, Shane <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >Excuse my sceptocity, but such "customers" exist ???
Yup. Not like they did when I started in the 80s, but they do. Early this year, I was presenting to a customer, and a colleague was asking some "z/OS trivia" questions. There was a guy in there who was green out of college - around 22 - my colleague said "hey, you're probably a distributed systems guy, do you know the answer?" They guy says "I'm a z/OS Sysprog". (I about shot Mt. Dew out my nose...) That's an anecdotal report, and I don't have comprehensive stats, but I see it on more than rare occasion. >From my perspective, seems that customers are more willing to hire >expertise than assist its growth. Whilst good for me and others with the >requisite experience/expertise, it is a stone wall for those attempting >to enter the industry. That's been a problem since day 0. I remember when I was a rookie, thinking "gee, I can't wait 'til I have 5 or so years experience so I can find a better-paying job, since everyone wants experience! >Bloody short sighted. Yep. >Then there is the issue of off-shoring the whole kit and caboodle ... Not a whole lot any of us can do about that, unfortunately. >Good luck, but I empathise with the earlier comment about turning (such) >a big boat. You're right - I occasionally think the same thing about our initiative to build a new pipeline of skilled mainframe folks. It's a hard thing to do, but I am very encouraged at the attention it's getting, all through the hierarchy at IBM. Yeah, we dropped the ball in years past, but it's back in play now. Has the situation been harmed by past indifference and inaction? Yes, I'm sure it has. But neither I nor my colleagues are willing to just give up and throw in the towel. The platform is much too important to customers and to IBM to do that. The more of us who tug on the wheel of the boat, the better job we're gonna do in turning it. > >Shane ... ---- Bill Seubert System z Software I/T Architect IBM Corporation [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
