The New And Improved Unofficial R65 Forum V2
General Category => Totally Off-Topic Discussions, Rants, Tire & Oil Threads, Etc. => Topic started by: Rob Valdez 79 R65 on April 09, 2010, 06:32:58 PM
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I may as well start a proper thread on this.
My job skills are, and have been dinosaur-like for several years, now. I was just lucky to have found the job I am currently in.
They are implementing a new billing system sometime around August that will eliminate the IBM mainfraime (MVS) that is my specialty, in operations.
The big boys are dropping like flys, and operator jobs are getting scarce.
Except for my daughter's school loan of ~$15,000 and whatever it takes to rent someplace cheap to live, I don't need a big income to sustain myself.
I will look around Indianapolis half-heartedly, if, for no other reason than to maintain my current lifestyle and continue to pour copious amounts of money into said college debt. The sooner that is paid off, the sooner I can lower my income expectations, and the happier I will be.
I have a dream in the back (and front) of my head to move back to Pennsylvania to be within a reasonable distance to my daughter - and wonderful riding and mountains and trees. :-*
So I am going to be going through the house looking for stuff to sell, and more importantly, stuff to throw away - make myself as portable as possible!
"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose..."
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And the reason I started this thread, so folks can feel free to post on it instead of me trying to keep track of PMs! :)
Thanks, Bob!
Subject: Job Hunting
Date: Today at 18:57:06
Sorry to hear about your job .
You mentioned about 18-24 months ago, that your current job probably wouldn't be renewed .
Any plans on where you're might be going from here ?
From an aviation view, I know that Republic Airlines, or Airways, has just made a major corporate headquarters expansion in the Indy area, after acquiring Frontier Airlines last August .
An airline, is quite IT intensive, just a possible job tip .
Bob
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I think it is pretty much guaranteed I will be out of a job sometime in the next 4-6 months, so please respect my price.Sad
This is not good news. Seems like you were just in this position not so long ago. :(
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How do you like the way I moved your post to here, Aïda!
Too bad I can't find a job in HTML. It's the only programming language I have ever been able to get a grasp on. Not that I used it to do this parlor trick. I just used my moderator options and read all the instructions and stuff. (something I rarely do... ::) )
But yes, this job has had a timer on it since I started. But it was so perfect for my personality and pay expectations (work alone, get paid more than ever in my life), I just ingored reality, as normal.
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Sorry to hear the bad news about the job, Rob!
It seems that there are still website development jobs out there - more than most other programming jobs. Perhaps you can get in some Java or Ruby or Python/PHP classes at community college, or self study with some books @ home, to broaden your web-appeal?
If you haven't already done so, check out www.linkedin.com a basic account is free, and I've gotten several leads on jobs from there through networking with other folks.
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Very sorry to hear about this, Rob. Although things are obviously bad everywhere, there's still a fairly strong tech field in this area. And Philly is less than 7 hours away, if that helps.
If NC is a possibility, I'll keep my eyes and ears open for anything that sounds good for you. And, you are always welcome to come down and crash here for a while to look around, interview, whatever. Mi casa es su casa, so if you want, hook some days to the Gathering of the Clans, if not sooner.
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Thanks everyone. NH, I am now a member of linkedin. Now all I have to do is figure out why it won't let me look at some jobs it listed when I did a search!
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So sorry! :'( But at least you know a bit ahead of time.
I don't know what to say. Just know where you're at. Will you get unemployment for awhile to tide you over? It has saved me...............so far.
I know it's harder to believe in yourself than it is for other people to believe in you when you encounter a job loss. (sigh, yes, I know that one :-/ ) But I know you can find something out there.
Go for it Rob!!
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Yes, I am already thinking about unemployment money.
And if things are truly fruitful (I'm not counting on this one), there could be some kind of severence package. The reason I doubt that, is because the city is shifting control of the water company and sewage treatment at the end of the year to the gas company, and the gas company will just eliminate most of the jobs here in the office, as they will be absorbed into their call center and IT departments. They will need to keep the field labor, no doubt, but the equipment, et al will be moved, and this property will be plowed under, as the local city university has been chomping at the bit for it for a long time.
It is such an idyllic setting - I hate to have to leave. :'(
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=39.783518,-86.184837&spn=0.00545,0.009624&z=17
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Rob, I sent you an invite to "link in" with me - hopefully I got the right Rob Valdex - there appear to be 10 pages' worth of them (whoda thunk that )?!?!?!!
It isn't exclusively a tech-only network, but it is tech-heavy, and there ARE companies which will only post jobs on linked-in or else will post them there first.
I will help any way I can.
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Rob,
We can piss and moan together. Sorry about your employment situation, I mean that. If you sense a bit of anger in my delivery, you're right. I too am facing the big reality of loosing my job...and business. I've been part of a successful Land Surveying Business for over 28 years. Now we're facing the reality of closing our doors and the humbling experience of rewriting my resume' after almost 40 years. With little optimism. I've worked without a paycheck almost 6 months now and I can assure you it's a contributing factor why I'm up at 3:30 posting this message while my girls are sleeping soundly downstairs. I still have 2 college educations and 2 weddings to pay for someday. I have a 21 year old currently attending community college hoping to transfer to USD while my 16 year old has dreams of attending Emerson in Boston. I'll be damned if she won't get her wish. I look around and notice an increasing separation of the "haves" and "have nots". We're currently puking out about 3 proposals a week with no notice of award or status. Seems all the jobs that resulted in our president's stimulus plan that was supposed to be the holy grail of our bail out - has only resulted in a flood of work for the city, county, state and federal governments while the small business operators are dropping like flies.
Misery loves company brother. We'll land on our feet, somehow. As you mention, probably with less weight and baggage. For me, failure is not an option...although i use that word carefully. My situation along with hundreds of other professionals (as you) isn't a result of glut, greed, theft or dishonesty. All I want is the opportunity to work hard every day and earn my way with no gifts as I have in the past.
All my best thoughts and prayers to you and your family.
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That's tough news, Rob. I used to program on my high school's big NCR computer, I don't remember the model number. NEAT-3 was the least useful programming language I ever learned, as it was specific to their machines. I never even bothered with the brand new Apple II computer the school bought, as it was too slow.
Does your workplace offer training for new jobs, or anything like that?
Anyway, I hope you find something that you like, where you like.
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Sorry to hear about your situation, there isn't much I can say but I think that you will land on your feet somehow.
I hope that you find a new job soon.
greetings from a sunny and cloudless north with excellent driving conditions, 46F~8C
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Mike V.
You too? :'( California is in the pits right now for sure. I worked for a construction company that was doing relly well until .............................. well, you know. Nothing going on at all. And I'm still out of work since October. We are all holding on by our fingernails. Although I've heard encouraging words from some folks in the construction industry that things might be picking up here soon. I sure hope so for your sake.
My thoughts are out there with you and Rob. We will get through this!!!
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Finding my current job was such a stroke of luck, that it has made me believe.
I found it on Craig's List, posted by a Contracting Agency that places people with specific experience in job openings, and I was paid by them for the first 6 months before the water co. hired me on.
It is a common scenario here in the States, I don't know about Europe, trolle.
I will probably head back to their office, and others, before this is over.
But I will also be scanning the want ads.
Is there a program that you can set up to look at Craig's List automatically for key word searches?
You know, like eBay has for looking for things.
My company reimburses any money spent on education in my field. But I can't get my head around Structured Query Language, which has been the mainstay language where I work.
I'm much better with the machines that are rapidly disappearing - the big printers, etc.
We'll see.
I sold my back rest! :) Thanks Yikes!
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Rob,
We have something here in California called Jobs Link. It's associated with EDD (Employment Department) They have different classes that help you write up your resume and figure out how to transfer your skills. Also they help you figure out where to go to get a job. They say in this job market that people get jobs mainly by networking, so I think you are on the right track.
Thought that might help. Check with your local state employment office. I'm sure they must have something like that in Indiana.
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Rob, SQL is one of 5 languages I use all the time in working on websites. I build websites mostly using the Drupal open source CMS (http://www.drupal.org). Drupal is written in PHP to run on a web server and delivers pages in HTML and CSS with some JavaScript. All of the content in Drupal is stored in a SQL (MySQL preferably) database.
At this level, SQL is just snippets of code to search, insert, replace and delete data. I have a friend who works for a county agency in Oregon and writes "serious" SQL that include stored procedures, views, subqueries and other, more esoteric stuff.
The SQL language is pretty simple (and if you're out of the mainframe world, you can see the heritage of it back to COBOL), but the lingo of JOINS (INNER, OUTER, LEFT and RIGHT), KEYS and other such stuff is opaque.
If I can help, let me know. Depending on what you're trying to learn, you may find one of the "cookbook" books will help you to understand it through examples.
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My problem with computers is, I have never been formally educated, and book learning about them quickly puts me to sleep.
As an operator, I would go in, do my job, and go home.
Other than the name, I never learned a lick about COBOL, either.
Mostly I know how to make images and links appear in a forum postings. (Before they made it easy!)
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Well, I learned the most about computers on my own, after taking a BASIC class in the 10th grade. I did eventually get a BS degree going to school at night, after about 13 years. By then I had been programming professionally for about a decade.
So, you've learned some about HTML. It describes how a web page is structured. There's some formatting that can be done with HTML, but the standards committees are trying to remove that. They would like everyone to use CSS to describe things like bold, italic, fonts, sizes and colors. Both of those languages are static and descriptive; they have very little to say about making web pages dynamic. To do that, you add JavaScript, which runs in the user's browser and can create and delete HTML and change CSS information. All of this is downloaded from the websever. Often these are just text files on the webserver, but if they are customized for each user, then probably a program written in PHP creates or embellishes the HTML. If the information needs to come from a SQL database, PHP provides a way to pass SQL statements to the database and get results back.
To get started with just HTML, you can use Notepad or any simple text editor to create a web page on your local machine. After saving it, you can double click on it and view it in your browser. In this way, with a book on HTML, you can teach yourself to write HTML and test it on your own PC. You can do the same with CSS and JavaScript.
(There are much better, free editors than Notepad, but you don't have to have anything more than a browser to start learning web programming.)
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I think I am going to go after a PC tech-related job.
While looking at Craigs List in my daughter's area, I stumbled on a 'Computer Services Technician' position. And it is for the county library system - the same place she is working part time and expecting to be hired on when she graduates! lol!
I'm not sure she is ready to "call Dad" when she needs IT support at work!
Besides the timing is all wrong, I need to keep my big money job until the end. Unemployment from this job will be better than anything I can make in Lycoming Co., PA, I am sure.
But to that end, I ran out and bought a A+ Certification All-In-One Guide for Dummies book.
I hope to take and pass the A+ Cert. test before I hit the streets.
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"Well, I learned the most about computers on my own, after taking a BASIC class in the 10th grade. I did eventually get a BS degree going to school at night, after about 13 years."
I know it's weird, but that was one language I never learned. Neat3, Cobol, Pascal, and Fortran, yeah. Then I took one chemistry class in college and never looked back. :)
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Ed,
Now that's funny. I never could figure out how to balance redox reactions!
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Good luck, Rob... I'm sure you'll find something. :)
Darryl... I'm in the beginning stages of teaching myself Drupal. I know just enough PhP to make myself dangerous. I design websites (self taught) using Dreamweaver (html and css) but really need to start teaching myself some more complex scripting and database stuff.
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I faced the same thing in 2003. Been a computer specialist and network admin for over 20 years but skill-set didn't keep up with the times as I was more worried about keeping my infrastructure tuned than lobbying for new skills. Now I thread pipe and do stuff on the side.
Don't be averse to totally changing careers, maybe find something to do that you've always wanted to...
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I think I am going to go after a PC tech-related job.
While looking at Craigs List in my daughter's area, I stumbled on a 'Computer Services Technician' position.And it is for the county library system - the same place she is working part time and expecting to be hired on when she graduates! lol!
Rob
Schools may also be worth a look.
I was made redundant 10 years back after 27 years as an Electrical Engineer. I took a Temporary job as an IT Technician in a High School, got to like it and finished up as a Network Manager with 5 Servers and 500 computers to look after. When I started I knew very little at least on the Server/Network side.