Computers as a career

Post #115,087 by orion 8/23/03 4:25:58 PM Reply	Computers as a career Well even if I am not working, I am fixing friends and relatives computers, for free. So my Technician skills are still being kept up to date. After all, no matter what happens to the job market, someone is going to have to clean up this mess that Microsoft made. Just a matter of gaining the business and accounting and marketing skills to make a small business suceed at tech support work. Also there is always Nursing, as the Baby Boomers get older and sicker, hospitals, nursing homes, hospices, etc are all hiring nurses. Takes about a year to get a CNA, after that the employer will pay you to take classes to get a LPN or RN degree. That is if you should choose to cross-train in Healthcare, and get a degree and get certified. Also having that degree will help you to get hired by medical companies in their computer department. If you know Healthcare, you can make solutions for it with computers. Something I should have considered, was to learn two or more areas in college in case one of them fails or the market goes sour. I almost went into Engineering, but if I did I'd face the same problems with the computer jobs. *"Lady I only speak two languages, English and Bad English!" - Corbin Dallas "The Fifth Element"*
Post #115,205 by Ashton 8/24/03 6:00:26 PM Reply	Maybe you're getting it.. Maybe not. [link\|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=115171\| Barry's] comments here seem pretty up-to-date and - surely he is among a few here who have actual daily hire/fire responsibilities within a Medium? Large? (typical??) US Company From all you've said, I can't imagine how You imagine.. that the Post-.com IT now "commodity industry" - is apt to want to pay you a decent wage, one capable of supporting [any] US Family\ufffd .. at least one who doesn't dine periodically, from a dumpster behind (a soon Ex-) "Middle Class" restaurant. If I read his post with comprehension, he is saying: Hell Desk at $10/hr and No Perks [!!] is the level of this economy: now aiming Depression-wards, and certainly Not valuing hard-won techno-skills any higher than would McD's or Walmart == Our Future for some time? in the mega-Monopolization of as many 'needs' as Can be Monopolized next. [That's just My crystal ball, of course - you can always pray for a Miracle] As many have said before (and I) - Surely! the problem-solving skills you have acquired - in general sense - is applicable to those many many Other areas which need such an ability. As surely.. many recent 'grads' of fatally-defective 'courses' Lack such 'skills' (or lack having learned the development of such Skills). Why!? would you doggedly insist upon (still) "preparing yourself" to compete for 10! OK maybe 15/hr deadly repetitve grunt-work in an Oversupplied Field !?! And plot this, from a current position where [unlike most Rich People\ufffd] > YOU OWN YOUR OWN TIME ?!?< {sheesh} - You have the opportunity to actually Look Around for gaps.. to ID a few places whose basic functioning demands a few persons who can Analyze a Problem ie Create a Fucking Mental Algorithm to Solve [Anything]. You have the Time.. to start collecting relevant info about Those Niches. Fixing friends'/relatives' junk computers for-free - might give you a warm fuzzy feeling for a time. So does peeing in your pants. You demonstrate that you are a somewhat 'Literal person' (WTF that might mean) and your imagination is not, apparently so very good on the Rockwell-scale of 'hardness' - so you aren't very good at Imagining how to laterally arabesque into New Territory. So maybe you need the services of one of those 'attitude inventory' folks -Again- only Listen this time: In brief, to me it seems that so long as you keep your blinkers on and see tunnel-vision Only that old [IT] thing in front of your nose: you will be wasting your precious Free Time to er Innovate.. until it is All Gone. Mental laziness I am familiar with; and I recognize it when I see it. It IS harder to examine the 'New', when you'd Much rather.. do some complex rote-thing that (for you) is EZ. Can you stay in this mode forever? That [Box] you are not thinking-outside-of: is covered in duct tape. A box-knife is the recommended tool. (It won't work on airplanes any more, though) Computers [The Universal Machine] may be the largest time-sink ever spawned - one can waste weeks! merely rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic: which will sink with all Accounts in a tidy orderly database - to -12,000 feet negative Elevation. Then they make a movie: not about 'The Titanic'; about its Sinking. Wanna stay in that Movie? Luck, Ashton
Post #115,212 by orion 8/24/03 6:55:52 PM Reply	Maybe I'm done for being out of work for so long, and not keeping my MS-skills up to date with .NET, etc might be major factors against me. I don't really know what I can do, I might not even be able to handle a job anymore. I might be on disability for the rest of my life. Maybe it is the best thing for me right now? I cannot escape my past, not sure what former employers would say about me, not that they understood that I have an illness that limits my abilities. Maybe I can get a simple job, but not enough to support a family. All I know is that I cannot take the road that a best friend of mine took in 1999 when he killed himself. I'm doing my best to prevent that. Not easy, but I still live. *"Lady I only speak two languages, English and Bad English!" - Corbin Dallas "The Fifth Element"*
Post #115,251 by mhuber 8/25/03 1:33:49 AM Reply	I guess I can't say this in 2-syllable or less words Because "computer" has 3. What Ashton is saying is this: There are other ways for a smart guy to make a living than IT. Hey, I guess I did do it. Now, look around you. What expensive problems do you see? Which of those is solvable - no, treatable - only by the continued local application of a mind that can manage complex processes. Ignore the presense or absence of data processing equipment. As an excercise, follow the ones where data processing equimpent is not present or atr least not central. Now go tell the guy with the problem you can help. And how your help is cheaper than not having your help. ---- Sometime you the windshield, sometime you the bug, sometime you the driver you turn on the windshield washer you keep going.

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