Re: degree requirement / employment / careers -- MIDRANGE-L

Al:

I feel like we might be kindred spirits!  I look for the same types of
environments for the same reasons.  I tried working for a large company once
and I found that they moved entirely too slow for my taste and I lost my
individuality and flexibility as well.  I didn't stay there long.  On the
other hand, I tried working for a very small company, less than ten
employees, and I hated that equally as much.  I have found my niche in
medium sized companies between 100 and 500 employees with relatively small
MIS staffs of four or less.  Not only do I get more variety in my daily
routine (because I have to work to some degree in every aspect of MIS) but
I've also experienced a hell of a lot more than I ever would have in a
single responsibility position.  Also, like you, I try to stay away from the
hardware work as much as possible but I still get dragged in from time to
time.

However, I disagree with some of the comments made by others in this thread
about short time workers.  As a newbie right out of college, I couldn't find
any open doors in my area for the inexperienced, everyone had to have at
least two years under his/her belt.  I lucked out by knowing someone who
could pull some strings and I managed to get my first programming job at
about five thousand less than what I was making as an uneducated snack
machine route attendant.  I might have been able to get a better job if I
had been willing to move my family to a metropolitan area but that isn't
something I am willing to do.  Anyway, besides being insultingly underpaid,
the company didn't keep their promises about timely raises and insurance
among other things.  So after six months of telling them that I was
underpaid, I started looking again.  This time, I didn't have any trouble
getting offers from companies in the Memphis, TN area (at least an hour
drive to and from work everyday but I was amazed at what a difference six
months could make)!  The company made a counter offer which was still
grossly low but better than driving two hours a day to work so I stayed.
That has been the story of my life as a programmer, changing jobs just to
get my just due because employers in this area are too stupid to realize
that their staff wouldn't be looking over the fence if the grass was green
on their side.  However, my current boss is the best and he realizes that he
has to pay his employees to keep them so he fights with the bean counters to
make them understand.  Consequently I have fared a lot better here.  I could
still make more money elsewhere but I like this company because the employer
is great and we are always working on something new and exciting around
here.  I've been at Sun for nearly four years now.

I've written a lot just to make this one point, I think that everybody
should be willing to do whatever it takes for them to reach their goals and
be happy.  If you are not making what you want and your employer refuses to
work with you on that front or you are miserable with your environment, then
in my opinion, that is more than enough reason to leave.  Some people are
never happy and I can see the problem in that but just to generically say
that if a person hasn't worked at one company for five or more years then
they probably don't have any experience doesn't work.  At every company I
have worked for, I have worked with people who took a job and stayed with it
for years, some with 20 years under their belts and frankly, I haven't been
impressed with any of them except my current boss.  Most of them were what I
refer to as stagnant.  For instance, when I first came to Sun, there was a
programmer (I use the term lightly) who had nearly 15 years experience, 11
of those years right here at Sun.  He couldn't program his way out of a
paper sack!  He would manually fix recurring data problems on a daily,
weekly, monthly and yearly basis instead of simply fixing the program that
caused it in the first place!  In fact, I wouldn't even hire most of the
people I've worked with, there are only a couple of exceptions.
Furthermore, I have found that my job hopping has given me more experience
because I have working experience in many areas of MIS and on several
different manufacturing and accounting systems.  In fact, I have always been
surprised at the lack of experience in modern technologies shown by the "old
timers" where I've worked.  That experience has helped me make better
decisions when designing new systems because I have come away with a variety
of ideas about how a system should work.  Also, because I have worked in
Unix, HP3000, HP9000, Windows, AS/400, COBOL and RPG shops and work as a VB
consultant on the side, I can make experienced decisions about the strengths
and weaknesses of each system.  The bottom line is that some people are good
at IS and some aren't.  The good ones can go anywhere they want and do
anything that they want and they will succeed, the others just get by in
their mediocrity.  If you've got a good thing, by all means stick with it
but don't rag on those who choose to look for something better.

JMHO,

Jack Mullins
Sun Ergoline
P.O. Box 2026
Jonesboro, AR 72402
http://www.sunergoline.com
jackm@sundash.com
870.935.1130 x 109


> Aside from these realities, there is also the size of the MIS staff & the
> degree of freedom for individual members of that staff.
>
> I have worked in the large staff where I get stuck with pretty much one
area
> in which I specialize & am considered to be the company expert in that
stuff
> but I hated it.
>
> Most of my career I have worked in the small staff where I get to do all
the
> different kinds of MIS jobs there are ... programming & operations &
security
> & hardware (I am not too keen on hardware any more) ... in the programming
> area, I work on all the different applications & all the different kinds
of
> interfaces.
>
> Some of it is mundane mucking with the same old program to add some new
> feature to it & some of it is brand new programming something we never did
> before.  I tend to believe that I have more freedom to enter new areas
when I
> am the only person doing the programming for a company, than if I was one
cog
> in a big wheel of many programmers.
>
> There is the problem of the company not willing to get us the tools we
think
> we need to be proficient, but I have found that problem at both small &
large
> shops.
>
> Al Macintyre  ���
> http://www.cen-elec.com MIS Manager Programmer & Computer Janitor
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