June 11, 2009 at 6:52 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Back to the Future
June 12, 2009 at 1:59 am
I have some regrets in my life like I wished I learned harder in school and have a proper Matric behind my name and that I went to University/College to put some qualification behind me not to show that I am a very learned person but so I could earn a better salary today. I fortunately do not linger with regrets 'cause that makes you bitter. I started out as a bank teller and did that for a year until I decided that was not for me. Then I became a stock controller at the South African Railways and Harbours and worked there for 18 years. I was a Warehouse Manager when I left. My brother was a computer programmer since he finished studying. Got his B.Sc degree and I was always interested in what he did. The same year I became 40 he gave me an opportunity to work for him and he will give me all the training I will need. I jumped for it 'cause I've been wanting to do that for a long time I just did not quite understand what it entailed. My wish would be that I could've had the opportunity to do that sooner in my life, no regret. I enjoy what I am doing now and I can live myself out in this work. The salary sucks unfortunately but we are getting there.
:-PManie Verster
Developer
Johannesburg
South Africa
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. - Holy Bible
I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is to be flexible at all times. - Everett Mckinley Dirkson (Well, I am trying. - Manie Verster)
June 12, 2009 at 3:23 am
I have two regrets about the career path I chose and have to live with now. The first, my first job was as a junior (later senior, although never acknowledged, should have been the first warning sign) lecturer at a local college, in IT Software Development. I stayed there too long, which cost me valuable time. The second, when deciding finally to leave and start a development career, I had the opportunity to work for a large company with almost a global presence, meaning I would have had some of the best exposure and opportunities. But instead, I decided to go with a smaller company because I knew some people there and was scared to go into a new environment, which started a year of hell for me, up to a point where I decided to leave and join another company, where the experience is better. But, I still wonder and sometimes regret about what happened with the first company I could have joined.
E.K. a.k.a Horatio
Software Developer
South Africa.
June 12, 2009 at 4:11 am
I often find moving 1s and 0s from left to right and back again quite tedious and regret not being a rock and roll star. Unfortunately that's down to talent rather than anything else.
I tell myself the moneys good but I also wonder whether if I'd concentrated on more creative stuff at school and college I could've made a decent living doing something I enjoy rather than just something I'm good at (actually, for that read "something I'm better at than people who haven't bothered learning all the stuff I've learned about computers", which is possibly a completely different thing).
June 12, 2009 at 4:47 am
[OT]
What is it with the high visibility of the South Africans here (seemingly) all of a sudden? Are we taking over the forum?
[/OT]
I regret not finishing my CS degree at varsity and going into computer game AI research. Yeah, I'm still young (25) so I guess I can fix it, but I really do miss out on not being able to append certain letters (like "Ph.D.") to the end of my name right now.
Caveat: I've only been working for about three years now, so I'm not really sure that my opinion counts for this subject... 🙂
June 12, 2009 at 5:01 am
I wished I had listened to a SQL DBA about 4 years ago. I was doing 3rd Level Support for 800 Woolworths UK stores including SQL Support for 800 instances of SQL Server 7. I got an internal development opportunity which I jumped at (more money, no weekends) and the SQL DBA said in passing, 'I don't want you to take that job but I can't say why'. Turns out there was a DBA position coming along due to a departure but she was under instruction to keep it quiet. Three years later I took up the SQL position anyway but only held it for a few months before the Company went down last Xmas. The three years development experience turned out to be a waste of time in the marketplace, I just wish I had spent those years learning more SQL. I now have a SQL DBA position in a small Company (5 Live SQL Servers) and am learning all the time.
She was a good colleague and wouldn't have been doing anything underhand towards me, it would just have looked strange if I had turned down the role when i had expressed a strong interest previously. Don't ya just love hindsight?
June 12, 2009 at 6:00 am
My one big regret...
Around 1979-80 I was working in Los Angeles when a former college hockey teammate who had become a stock broker called me and another friend and asked us if we wanted to make an investment in what could be a very lucrative company. We had already given him a little bit of money and he got a good return for us on some Bally stock (just before Atlantic City took off) but at the time I really didn't feel like I had an 'extra' money to hand over to an investment. After all, I was working in high tech and the PC revolution was picking up speed and I thought, well, I will be a millionaire before 30, so who needs any investing now.
I didn't invest any money that second time and passed up the opportunity to back a small company then headquartered in New Mexico. That company was called Microsoft.
About four years ago my son had a project for his high school math class and he decided to figure out what I would have made by age 30 if I had sent the same amount I had invested in Bally. I would have made 16.5 million dollars by age 30.
My stock broker friend did invest and retired before 30, and I am very close to double that age still working.
Its been a good life and career, and this has always been my one and only big regret.
June 12, 2009 at 6:28 am
I am probably one of the bane's for most professional SQL users. I am a self taught accountant who was rather tossed into a role that required writing queries and maintaining the database. I have climbed the corporate ladder to Assistant Controller, but in recent years have stagnated in the job market; I believe not because of skills, or lack of quantifiable successes, but from lack of credentialling. If I had a chance to start over, I would pursue formal training with formal certificates for whatever skills I possess. Whenever I can avoid HR and talk with a department head I can have a meaningful interview/discussion, but whenever I enter an HR department like begins to bare a striking resemblance to a Dilbert cartoon.
June 12, 2009 at 6:46 am
Career-wise, I kind of wish I'd taken this one job opportunity. Didn't take it because I didn't want to move long-distance at that time. Six months later, the company I was working for went out of business, and three weeks after that, I ended up moving 1,000 miles for a new job. The other one would have been better, most likely (no way to know for sure, but it definitely would have had better pay). Oh well.
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
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"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
June 12, 2009 at 7:04 am
I wish I knew earlier in life, like when I started college, that I didn't want to be a chemist and that career in IT was much better suited for me. You would think I would have realized I was studying the wrong subject when none of my classes interested me and I got marginal grade in all except those that were heavily math-based because they were intuitively easy. As it was, I spent 6 and a half years earning a BS and MA in biochemistry only to declare upon completion of my graduate degree that I never wanted to set foot in a chemistry lab again. I learned about databases and a little SQL at my first job doing data management for a chemical distributor, which allowed me to get my current position since no one here knew any SQL. Now, my title is DBA, but I'm pretty much a business intelligence developer, having no idea how to maintain my server other than what I've read on this forum. I'm good at what I do, but I'm limited by my lack of education. I work for a non-profit, so training money is non-existent, and I don't have the funds of my own to get proper training (b/c I work for a non-profit). So, I try to learn from books, but it's hard to turn reading into marketable skills when I have no projects to work on and no one to criticque my work. Proper education would have put me on the right track for a career I control, rather than one that controls me.
June 12, 2009 at 7:08 am
I wish I'd spent more time at the office.
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June 12, 2009 at 7:12 am
Finishing school,
Not so much for any lack of knowledge on my part, but for the things I missed when I was young. I started working very early resulting in less social contact with people my own age that were still studying. Not that I was very socializing to begin with as I had very different interests from just about anyone else around me.
On top of it I was one of those early IT kids that back then was maybe even a decade ahead in the field compared to adults working in regular companies those days. It was hard to fit in a work environment, society was simply not adapted to it, education in the field was kind of non-existent and what existed was of abysmal level. People really had no clue at all, except those practicing it. You were only accepted for what you did if you came from high educational background as people then expect not to understand you in full. It was a time where everything was about having a diploma and to a lesser degree certificates.
This in turns affected everything from pay to career opportunities and subsequently I never ended up where I felt I would thrive and would be best utilized. Eventually I stopped caring in the sense that IT stopped to drive me forward to learn. Now it is just a Job like selling ice creams or shoes, I can still get passionate about it sometimes, but it’s fleeting.
These days I wonder if I ever find a company that can provide an environment that reignites the kid in me. I have become am more cynical and assertive to society due to my experiences then I was naive about some things when I was young.
From the heart!
June 12, 2009 at 7:14 am
soggie_old_soul (6/12/2009)
...but whenever I enter an HR department like begins to bare a striking resemblance to a Dilbert cartoon.
I think that's true for most of us, even with computer degrees and/or computer training. Alot of interviewers just don't understand enough to properly evaluate a candidate for a technical position. They look for buzzwords on resume's and are more interested in what tools you've worked with instead of trying to find out what your talents and skills are. Tools are easily picked up if you have the talents and skills.
Back to the topic at hand, I wish that I would have gotten into consulting earlier in my career. The few opportunities I've had where I have been a consultant or contractor worked out very well for both the company who used me and myself. It was also very liberating to not have the yoke of office politics on my shoulders.;-) I also didn't have to deal long term with work I didn't like doing on the hope of getting a little bit of the kind of work I'm best at and enjoy most. In-house jobs I've had tend to result in me collecting a number of responsibilities that really shouldn't be a part of my job but that no one else was taking care of or wern't taking care of properly.
June 12, 2009 at 7:14 am
My only regret is that I did not jump out on my own sooner. Being self employed is where it is at.
June 12, 2009 at 7:21 am
I've been working in IT for 12 years, on and off. In that time I've committed career suicide not once, but twice. First was an 18 month side trip to work in a bookstore. Second was a 2 1/2 year side trip to start a retail business (online and later brick-and-mortar). I've managed to salvage my IT career pretty well, and am thankful to be where I am. But I look back now (older, wiser, and with much less wanderlust) and wonder how much more knowledgeable I would be now if I didn't have those large gaps.
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