February 13, 2018 at 9:06 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Valentines Day for Data Professionals
February 14, 2018 at 3:59 am
My career is pretty good for me compared to the other options. I'm not sending it a sodding card though. £3.50 was more than enough outlay for my wife's :crazy:
February 14, 2018 at 4:52 am
On Feb 22nd I'll have been a data pro for 30 years. It's been a great and exciting career and will be for about another 15 years, learning new technology all the while to keep up with my much younger peers. I tried application development but find it boring compared to working with data. Wouldn't have changed anything about my career. I'm learning scala and spark now that my company is moving off SQL Server, but I find it fascinating, and still get to work with data.
February 14, 2018 at 6:14 am
I once had to work for a living, so this data/it stuff is quite all right.
I've a few co-workers I would send a card to, but if the Mrs. found out she would expect one, too.
February 14, 2018 at 6:20 am
No.
I could have been in a dozen different career choices and still paid the bills while being a professional. I've worked in other technical roles and they were equally appealing and appalling .
My true passions aren't with the corporate/political uses of technology, but as a meta tool to understand the universe while stuck in the irrational world of monkey mankind.
February 14, 2018 at 6:21 am
I took a computer course in high school way back in 1968. Have been hooked on data and the machines/software that handles it ever since. Looking back to where I'm at now and all the things that led to the present, I've got to be the luckiest man in the world... although I hate the fact that I got a text message w/audible alert at 5:15AM this morning from a new paging system that my boss put in place yesterday for program faults that I can't actually do anything about. Being Valentines Day and all, I may have to deliver a couple of heart shaped pork chops to help him come to a more accurate distribution list.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
February 14, 2018 at 6:41 am
I absolutely flat-out *love* my career, and have ever since that day in 1976 when I walked into our high-school's computer room (with stereotypical raised anti-static floor and frigid air-conditioning) for the first time, complete with sparkly, noisy shiny 1960's era IBM equipment with the glowing buttons and blinking lights (that's not a typo, the school actually had a 1962-era IBM 1130 as the only computer!).
Up to that moment I had had NO idea what I wanted to do with my life. After that glorious epiphany I've never looked back and never regretted my choice for a single moment.
I consider myself truly blessed to have discovered my calling. Even today I wake up looking forward to going to work.
If computers didn't exist I literally have no idea what other career could offer me the same life satisfaction as my lone wolf developer/DBA/jack of all trades career does.
Sometimes I wonder what the next hundred or two hundred years holds in the way of technological wonders. And I regret I won't live to see them. But, given the choice between being born when I was, or born in the future, I have to say I'd choose the former. After all, I got to participate in the tech miracle that has been the computer revolution, almost since its beginnings.
So, yeah. Count me in the sappy group about my career. :hehe:
February 14, 2018 at 7:03 am
I don't write software because I love it. I do it because I can't help it. I can't believe that people pay me to do this stuff.
February 14, 2018 at 8:37 am
Gigging/Freelance isn't that easy in the UK, lots of pitfalls in running a company (we have IR35 and a government that thinks we are all tax dodgers) and then you have "gaps" between clients known as bench time which can last from a few weeks for over a year. I had last four months of 2017 on the bench, not easy. One plus was watching my kids grow up and I did pass my MCSA/MCSE certs but the finances took a huge hit.
Still, I wouldn't swap it for a permy/career job anytime soon.
Edit: After 18 years I still love messing around with that infernal RDBMS we know as MS SQL Server. :crazy:😀
qh
February 14, 2018 at 8:44 am
it's been more years than I care to remember; that first of many disks that held dBase II, the "first" relational* database system for microcomputers that got me hooked designing screens to look like my client's forms (*at least that's what the 3 inch thick Osborne-printed manual claimed!). I still look forward to the career; not doing much in the way of database work every day. As an analyst/engineer (along the way I got certified in sql, Microsoft servers, even a Novell cne) our team of pros handles just about any issue that crops up. Lately, it's been compliance and pci; next month, who knows.
Still love it, but...my mantra: Work to Live
I feel very strongly that you can give your best and still make time for a life.
It's kept me sane in this career for over 30 years.
I'm sure your boss/manager would have you flip that around to state: Live to Work.
That's just their garbage being passed on to you!
So, take a long lunch, buy that special her/him a nice card and get back to living your life.
February 23, 2018 at 9:22 am
I enjoy software development.
I've even developed applications for my personal use. When I read an MSDN article that C# could interact with Microsoft Office, I knew I had an application to develop. NASA Space Shuttle TV Schedule Transfer to Outlook Calendar
After I was riffed from my second job, I learned to never get emotionally attached to another job. Since then, I have been RIF'ed from a number of companies, two of those were "dot-bombs".
I've set a retirement date, but that isn't until 2021. When that happens, I will have spent 45 years developing applications.
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