Over the last several years, I have worked in many different business
environments, with a variety of languages, on assorted networks, using
various operating systems.
The last 6 years have been the most hectic. A large portion of my skill
set became "obsolete" or irrelevant. Nobody where I was wanted to pay
serious money for an assembly language programmer, or even for a
C/C++ programmer. The XBase languages I had learned (dBase, Clipper,
FoxPro) were being abandoned in favor of "modern" database engines.
After years of being one of the best at what I did, I was about to have to
learn it all over again or become involuntarily retired. And, finally, at
the
end of March, I lost my job. The consulting firm I was with decided to
focus on MS-oriented languages and technologies (VB, SQL Server,
Access, etc.) and had no compelling reason to pay top dollar for a guy
who wrote low-level drivers (sockets interfaces, XML implementations,
messaging layers, and such) when most of that stuff could be done
from VB.
The next few months were a scramble. I worked at freelance consulting.
For a while it looked ok, but I was limited to network troubleshooting and
repair. Very little software project work out there for just one guy. The
money dried up.
In desperation, I sent my resume out all over the country. My internet
account paid for itself in that week. I found that outside the small-minded
community where I lived the technology world was bustling. Companies
from 8 states called and interviewed me, and 6 strong showings became
4 solid offers, all of which were improvements and 2 of which were serious
upward adjustments of my former salary.
The best offer came from Phoenix. I accepted and moved. The whole
thing (resume-to-offer-accepted) took 2 weeks. Moving took another week.
I moved my family (wife, 2 kids, 2 cats) and all our belongings out of our
home -- the house where we'd lived for 7 years -- into a small apartment
in a strange town.
Traumatic? Yes, definitely. Adventure? You bet! Exhilarating?
Absolutely!
And why am I telling you this? Because, after a month at my new job,
I've had a chance to reflect, and I have learned some things. Hopefully,
someone else in the list will benefit from my (possibly flawed)
observations.
The company where I now work has its systems deployed on Unix boxes
of various flavors. My work is primarily in C and SQL. The time I spent
learning Linux has paid off. Here are some things I've noted at this new
place.
There are guys who have been with the company more than 10 years,
some as long as 20. They elected, in the very beginning, to go with Unix
over other OS choices. They deliberately designed their systems to
follow the standards and avoid any special proprietary "advantage" of a
particular vendor's brand.
Unix has changed over the years, but it has never overturned its standards.
What worked 10 years ago works today. Better, faster, enhanced, but
compatible with all their accumulated knowledge. Suddenly, the basics
that I learned all those years ago are relevant again. The C language is
still the C language.
Is there more to learn? Oh Yeah! I'm ramping up in Perl and Java. These
are new, but they don't make any of what I know useless. These guys
don't trash their legacy in the name of their future. Knowledge builds.
Experience is meaningful. Trust the Force, Luke. Oh -- sorry.
By now, the SurvPC crowd is wondering ... and your point ... ?
Here are some observations, in no particular order:
01) If you want to work in technology, and it doesn't seem to be
happening where you live, you may need to move to where it is.
02) Keeping up with all the latest "gee-whiz" stuff may not lead to
the best long-term result.
03) Learn what will last, not necessarily what's most popular. Pay
attention to what the standards are.
04) Align yourself with honest, honorable business ventures;
ethics matters (there's a story behind that one).
05) Unix, in all its forms, is more stable over time than Windows,
in all its forms.
06) Windows is not going away.
07) What is popular will tend to be cheapened. If "everybody" is
doing it, it's not special, and won't pay well.
08) Become an expert. At something. If you can be really good at
many things, that's great, but you must be expert in at least one.
09) The internet is here to stay. It will be at the center of all
meaningful
business within a few years. Find a way to make that work for you.
10) Don't wait for someone else to decide your talents are obsolete.
Keep learning. If the wind turns and blows the wrong way, be
willing to make your move before someone shoves you out.
11) Technical merit doesn't have much mass-market appeal, but it is
vital in the support of businesses that appeal to the mass market.
I hope some of you can benefit from these ramblings. Surviving a
near-catastrophic loss of income tends to make one thoughtful.
Always,
Garry
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