Need an IT job!

[myvice]

My brother is looking for a new job in a help desk position or desktop support.
I know a few of you are in the trade so to speak, so if you know of any one looking can you PM me and I'll pass the info along.
Ta.

[Sniper]

Where abouts is he wanting a Job?

[sAsLEX]

EDS have just lost all there internal help desk people, my flatmates have just left there

on second thought that is the same building as bugjuice is in so maybe he should look else where

[Devil]

Tell him to get out while he can.

[James Deuce]

What Devil said.

Pump gas or something. Anything except becoming a minion of corporate whoredom. There is only one thing worse than slavery. Being enslaved by people who refuse to learn ANYTHING.

[Sniper]

IT isn't that bad. I can teach my bosses things, it took a while and I learnt that threats don't work, but they have now learnt to fear.

[James Deuce]

I've worked in IT for 20 years Sniper, and it IS that bad. There is nowhere to go in terms of career progression except up the IT chain which is a second string management chain. IT workers do not become CEOs of anything except technology companies, and then it is usually the technology company they started. Each move up the chain is great for reducing drastically the amount of personal time you have.

I'm lucky in that I work for an IT corporate, but all my other jobs have been with organisations that don't value IT staff input, underfund their information management and communication infrastructure, and make the CIO report to the CFO, thereby ensuring that a clueless dolt of a bean counter controls the technology policy. This generally results in the underinformed demanding the impossible of the underfunded. The resulting failed project then confirms how useless IT people are with money.

DO NOT enter IT if you value lifestyle over career. It is the worst mistake you can make.

[myvice]

DO NOT enter IT if you value lifestyle over career. It is the worst mistake you can make.
Safe for him then, he has no life!


Where abouts is he wanting a Job?
Auckland, tho I should send him down to you... He could use a bit of a new perspective...

[Devil]

Unfortunately I am stuck in the trap. I've spent too long working with people who are so stupid, that it has taken away my will to learn anything new. I think I am dumber than when I started so I dont know what else kind of job I can do now. I'm doomed.

[Cookie]

Thanks Jim2. I just need to whip down to the store to buy some nice razor blades and then it's back home for a nice warm bath. :(

Everything you say has a true ring to it though.

I've got to say that compared with some other work, if you can hang on for a few years and dish out a bit of "three bags full sir" every now and then, the money is not too bad.

Unless you are doing cables all day, you go to work clean and come home clean. That puts it above say, meat works jobs for me anyway. ;)

[Drunken Monkey]

I've worked in IT for 20 years Sniper, and it IS that bad.
...
DO NOT enter IT if you value lifestyle over career. It is the worst mistake
you can make.

I disagree. I do very well in both lifestyle and career as a self-employed IT all-rounder.

[sAsLEX]

self-employed

Would this be why you have had such a diff view on things? I would say so judging by jims hatred of corperate society.

[James Deuce]

I disagree. I do very well in both lifestyle and career as a self-employed IT all-rounder.

Everyone's experience is different, and you certainly can ake a go of it if you have the right mental attitude, but the HelpDesk, Technical Support, Technical Management, Technical Consulting route is a hiding to nothing.

I'm only in it for the stable job thing. The money is, quite frankly, shit. You can make more as a policeman or a truck driver. BUt you get to 40, look back at a spectacularly unsuccessful career and wonder just what the hell you were prostituting yourself quite so hard for.

[Hitcher]

Ahh. Second-string management chains. I know them well...

[Cookie]

I could make more money doing other things, but I can't find any sailors who want my body.
:wacko:

(Edit: But proving your other point Jim2 about lifestyle - I am actually at work at the moment running queries).

[Drunken Monkey]

The money is, quite frankly, shit. You can make more as a policeman or a truck driver. BUt you get to 40, look back at a spectacularly unsuccessful career and wonder just what the hell you were prostituting yourself quite so hard for.

I assume you mean some entry-level hell-desk job? OR maybe your job? IT salaries are 'quite frankly, shit' ? Can you justify/clarify this please?

[James Deuce]

I assume you mean some entry-level hell-desk job? OR maybe your job? IT salaries are 'quite frankly, shit' ? Can you justify/clarify this please?

Why the interrogation?

[Drunken Monkey]

Why the interrogation?

Seems like pretty negative advice for someone who's trying to look at a different work path.
On top of this, what I really want to know is, if you are indeed referring to the industry in general instead of your own job, is what kind of Policemen and Truck drivers are on 6 figure incomes? It would really bug the f**k out of me to find out I could trundle around in a rig or chase after speeders on SH1 for more than I'm earning.
On top of that, there's very little 'certainty' in my job. Come to think of it, I never heard anyone say IT is a reliable career choice until I read this thread. IT staff usually either get axed or quit all the time. Spend 2+ years in an IT job and you're usually considered an 'old hand'.

[Ixion]

I could make more money doing other things, but I can't find any sailors who want my body.
..

Hardly surpising is it :motu:

[Cookie]

Yeah I guess Ixion. I thought they might go for the all-over-blue-furry-look I've got going on, but apparently no. :-P

God knows I would not be a cop even if the senior ones might earn more than I do. Hats off to them.

What sectors DO have a reputation for outstriping IT wages? (say at the 5-year-plus experience level - because most wages suck at the beginning).

See this simplified overview for example. http://tinyurl.com/7bt8g