April 15, 2011 at 12:28 am
My career is going better or rather, still going good. The crisis never hit me in any way. The company I worked for during the crisis had as a motto to get more people (consultant company) and thus rather than hitting the breaks it hit the gas pedal.
From what I know, most companies with a strong focus on IT kept investing. Some delayed their investments thou.
So from my knowledge, the crisis never hit the IT sector in Sweden.
April 15, 2011 at 12:40 am
I work in a private bank in the channel islands (I know, I know...). The main impact that I've seen is the slowdown in annual bonus/salary rises. I'm also in the process of fighting for a promotion and a few years ago it would have been passed without question.
Seems to me like (at least in the banking industry) IT is rarely the business area that gets excess funding. When times get hard, it's probably going to be the last department that gets cutbacks. That and the fact that we're seen as providing mission critical infrastructure that directly impacts core revenue streams. I'm sure that's probably not the case in every sector or geographical area though.
April 15, 2011 at 1:51 am
I work in local government, so pay is less, prospects are worse and formal training is none existent.
April 15, 2011 at 2:32 am
paul s-306273 (4/15/2011)
I work in local government, so pay is less, prospects are worse and formal training is none existent.
That sounds horrible. I strongly advice you to consider your options and look around for something else.
April 15, 2011 at 3:52 am
I got made redundant 18 months ago when the entire Systems Department (around 83 people) was outsourced to two third party companies. My current employer has a much more enlightened approach - yes we use third parties, but the core business knowledge built up over time by us in-house BI/SQL Server developers is retained, and third parties are engaged only when demand outstrips in-house capacity.
So do I feel secure? Well, as secure as anyone can feel nowadays. Additionally, my personal development plan/training schedule is negotiated annually with my boss when we work through my objectives for the year.
April 15, 2011 at 4:56 am
For years I was a consultant and MS Trainer working with SQL Server. This served be well as I got to experience a lot of different installations and problems. In 2009 I decided I had enough of the travel and not know what the next assignment was going to be and took a job as a full time DBA. I have to say, I love it. I have responsiblity for servers around the world, I got to set them up to my specifications, I determine the jobs, alarms, monitoring, everything. I have automated everything. And as problems arise, I am able to set up alerts, jobs and notifications so that things get better and better. Finally, I am able to practice what I preached for years in the classroom.
Not to mention I am actually making more money and spending less time than I was as a consultant. This year I even get to work on Oracle and we are upgrading to SQL 2008 R2. Life is good.
Raymond Laubert
Exceptional DBA of 2009 Finalist
MCT, MCDBA, MCITP:SQL 2005 Admin,
MCSE, OCP:10g
April 15, 2011 at 5:29 am
Frankly? I've died and gone to heaven. I won the lottery. I asked the prettiest girl to the prom and she said yes. My code compiled the first time. I dropped the toast and it landed butter-side up.
Financially I haven't improved my situation. In some ways it's a little worse. But in every other regard it's night & day.
"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood"
- Theodore Roosevelt
Author of:
SQL Server Execution Plans
SQL Server Query Performance Tuning
April 15, 2011 at 5:43 am
I'm significantly better off then I was in 2009 and more secure then I was this time last year. In 2009 I was very unhappy with my job, I quit towards the end of 09, started as a temp employee at a new company in 2010 and haven't looked back. Now I'm a permanent employee and I still love my job. 😎
April 15, 2011 at 5:51 am
I work for an independant government body and things are worse - our pay has been frozen for last 2 years and probably this coming year (this adds up to about 11% pay drop), pensionable age upped from 65 to 67 and will probably reach 70 by the time I get there, employer pension contributions reduced. Also experiencing major frustration caused by the internal IT being outsourced, everything now costs much more to get done and is implemented in extreme slow-motion.
Probably time for a change.
April 15, 2011 at 6:21 am
I too work in local government, and I can concur that the situation gets worse every year. Government seems to lag behind the private sector by a couple of years. When the recession first hit, government was still doing OK while the private sector was crashing. However, now the private sector is slowly turning around while the government is still spiraling down.
For the past two years we have had layoffs and will likely see layoffs for the next couple of years at least. Since terminations in government are based on last-in first-out instead of performance, I'm worried since I'm one of the newer members of our staff (and I've been here for almost seven years).
There is no training money ... none. No one on the entire DBA / development team has been granted permission to attend a single training course in four years. We're limited to the free training we can find online and the occasional purchase of a training video.
Therefore, no I don't believe things are getting better just yet -- certainly not in the public sector.
April 15, 2011 at 6:27 am
I thank God everyday that yes, I am better off today than last year, and for a number of years even amidst the tumult, I have been doing successively better. As well, this year a number of us got very generous raises to make up for some previous years when business was slower.
But that said, I live in an area that has been dedevastatedver recent years job-wise, with the shake ups at three large companies; HP closed and sent all work to India, Fidelity has made huge cuts with hundreds losing jobs, and a large defense contractor closed their offices in this area affecting a couple thousand.
All over my area there are closed plants, office buildings and small businesses that served these larger operations. Its a bit depressing, having lived in this area for a couple decades now, to see what a ghost town it is slowly becoming.
This is not the world my Father and his generation thought they would be leaving us, and I realize my kids are going to have it much harder than my generation did. So while yes, I am better off, I am also living with the realization that I am likely the exception, not the rule.
April 15, 2011 at 6:30 am
You paint a good picture of your situation but the economy as a whole is getting again ready to tank. The unemployment picture has not gotten better and the latest economic indicators point down again. Contrary to the slick talks by leaders in Washington who still don't understand that increasing taxes will not improve but worsen the economy.
April 15, 2011 at 6:55 am
Walterkurts (4/15/2011)
You paint a good picture of your situation but the economy as a whole is getting again ready to tank. The unemployment picture has not gotten better and the latest economic indicators point down again. Contrary to the slick talks by leaders in Washington who still don't understand that increasing taxes will not improve but worsen the economy.
The state dept per person which usa has is very high and so is the cost for the loans that usa has. To decrease that cost from the loans the loans needs to be paid back. For usa to be able to do that, tax increase is one option as opposed to cutting in costs which would decrease state service to the people in usa and increase the amount of unemployed and thus there you have the dilemma. Do you want more unemployed and a lesser service or higher tax rates.
April 15, 2011 at 7:11 am
Ask me how I'm doing in July because until then I really won't know. I've been in my current position for almost 4 years and it is ending at the end of May by my choice, so I'm currently looking for work. If I had been looking in 2009 I think I'd have been worse off as there just didn't seem to be much available, but right now I'm regularly contacted by recruiters about positions they are trying to fill.
Overall I think things in the SQL Server world are much better than in 2009. As a PASS user group leader in Orlando (OPASS) I can say that my user group did not have recruiters attending meetings in 2009 and now we have multiple recruiters every meeting and they are fighting over sponsoring the meetings. They all have SQL jobs to fill and are struggling to find qualified candidates.
I'm looking for work in New Hampshire and there are SQL jobs available there as well. Not as many as in the Orlando area, but there is work available.
Jack Corbett
Consultant - Straight Path Solutions
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