January 20, 2012 at 9:47 am
In 2009 when the economy went to dogs, my nice dev contract was abruptly terminated. I took a gig as a junior tester, a script-running monkey. Within four months I was the QA lead and it was no longer a survival job.
It taught me the development discipline, and since then I evangelize TFS and its automated, repeatable tests and deployments.
In hindsight, that temporary income step-down was well worth it.
January 20, 2012 at 10:12 am
TravisDBA (1/20/2012)
A co-worker and I were talking just yesterday in a somewhat similar vein. He noted that when the network goes down, or some other occurrence interferes with our ability to work, we don't say "Whew, time for a break!" No, we're pounding our desk cursing the outage because it keeps us from working! I'd say that's a mark of dedication, and I'm pleased to be working with such people.
I hope all the rest of you are so lucky.
I love my work as well. My father though, always keeps me grounded as to what is really inportant. He once said "Travis, how many people do you think that on their death bed say "You know, I wish I spent more time at the office." It does make you stop and think about what is really important in life sometimes. 😀
I should have clarified: my employer gets 110% of our agreed-upon work schedule - 40 hours per week. It's been known to go up to 120-130% in times of great need. I did need to "re-train" a couple of managers on how to do math, though, and calc percentages.
Hint: never tell someone who's already putting in 130% that "everyone must give 110% or else". I simply thanked them for letting me know I could drop back to 44 hours per week.;-)
Steph Brown
January 20, 2012 at 11:14 am
Ironically, IT was for me a survival job in that I never wanted to enter the technical or business world, because it didn't appeal to me. It sounded so mundane. But I didn't have a clear path on anything else, and I knew that IT would expand my options more than anything else I was remotely qualified for. To make a long story short, it turned out to be my only career (since like 1990)...
"Survival Job" used to be a term used a bit tongue-in-cheek a lot more than it is used that way in the current economy, but for those who have kept their skills current, and isn't a handful of workplace drama, opportunity abounds. But it is easy to feel like you might not be very valuable or desirable when you've just been canned, providing some with a motivation to seek too hard for a survival job and not hard enough for the many jobs they are qualified for.
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What I lack in youth, I make up for in immaturity!
January 20, 2012 at 4:25 pm
There is survival as in make the mortgage payments, eat, wear clothes.
There is also survival in terms of your own sanity. I've known people who have taken on a more junior role simply because stresses and strains of the more senior role was detrimental to their happiness and mental well being. I've heard it termed "down-shifting". The people in question were supremely competent at the higher level, it just didn't make them happy!
Steve has often mentioned work-life balance and I think you reach either a point or an event in your life where you realise that above a certain level material fail to bring you the happiness you would have hoped for. In some cases they bring you down-right misery! Pause for a rant about Lancia Betas.
When my father-in-law retired he had a wide range of interests and visited more countries in 3 years than most of us probably visit in a lifetime. The sort of places he visited were not expensive, luxury holiday destinations but places like Uzbekistan and various other locations you probably wouldn't be able to point to on a map. He was a fascinating bloke to talk to. When he died we couldn't fit everyone in the church and so many of the people who came to his funeral commented that it was unusual in that it felt as if we were celebrating a life rather than mourning a death. Even though his pension was modest he considered himself well off and indeed in terms of friends there are few people who could be considered richer.
I earn vastly more than he ever did and yet I and many other allegedly higher ranking people revered him. The lesson I take from that is consider where your self-esteem comes from. If it is from external factors such as a job title and salary cheque then that feels inferior to an interesting a varied job and the respect of your peers.
January 20, 2012 at 4:58 pm
Uzbekistan is an often-overlooked country, because it is nested in between Afghanistan, Pakistan and Hot-Doggie-Stan.... 😛
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What I lack in youth, I make up for in immaturity!
January 20, 2012 at 7:35 pm
brosspremier (1/20/2012)
Uzbekistan is an often-overlooked country, because it is nested in between Afghanistan, Pakistan and Hot-Doggie-Stan.... 😛
Man, your goegraphy is off... How can anyone mistake Kyrgyzstan for Pakistan? 😉
January 27, 2012 at 2:34 am
TravisDBA (1/20/2012)
Life itself is a "survival job", particularly nowadays. Another day above ground is good day.:-D
to subscribe under your words:-D
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