"You're a small fish in a big pond, why should we choose you?"

a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn

Yep, familiar with the Bernaysian aspect of this existence since quite some time ago.

I find it amusing when people much older than myself tell me stuff has always been this way.

I remember what my Grandparents told me, rest their souls, and remember how many people told me what they were telling was nonsense.

...Add memory hole meme...

End.

a reply to: AccessDenied

Enjoy the Brave New World.. I blame the ignorance of the masses.

a reply to: NarcolepticBuddha
I made a mistake a few years ago that I will never forget. It haunts me to this day, but it was a lesson well learned, and a mistake that will never be repeated.

I had worked night and evening shifts almost my whole working life. I was a night owl pre-birth, according to my mother. My mother is elderly and was ill, at the time. Right about this same time, I too became ill, and required surgery. I ended up having to take three months of sick and family leave.

When I had to return to work, I was not ready physically, and there was no way I could leave my mother alone at night, because I live in the woods, with a dirt road that can sometimes be near impassable, in a regular car, or an ambulance.

So I had to switch to day shift. My mistake? I felt desperate, and I allowed my employer to know it.

What started out as a feeling of gratitude, slowly morphed into disgust and hatred. My employer went out of her way to push everyone of my buttons, because she thought she had me by the short hairs. The disgust and the hatred was not projected towards her, it was what I was feeling about myself.

That is when I made the choice to let go, and freed myself of the material world. There was nothing that I needed or wanted badly enough to subjugate myself to a person just for a job and a paycheck. Eating road kill was more appealing than kissing arse. So I downsized, and now I live a simple, just what I need, life.

Like I shared with Squirlli, no one is going to value you more than you value yourself. If you don't value and respect yourself, then you will not be valued or respected. One of the mottoes that I live by is that "you teach people how to treat you."

a reply to: MyHappyDogShiner

I remember what my Grandparents told me, rest their souls, and remember how many people told me what they were telling was nonsense.

I too have the haunting voices of my grandparents echoing in my ears. I remember thinking they were just old fashioned and didn't understand the modern world.

I am sure my grandchildren are saying the same thing about me, as I said to myself about my grandparents. I just pray we leave them a world worth passing on.

a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn

He who leads by example walks alone.

Few do things the hard way when nearly everyone else is going the easy route.

Easy is a trap.

The hard way, the one that requires effort, is the one that keeps you alive.

I fear it is too late for me...

Not so much fear though, as I really don't care any more.

Worrying about stuff does not make anything better, the worry and energy aimed toward the avoidance of undesirable outcomes is what feeds the negative or undesirable and gives it power. Works the same with positive except opposite.

It's all quite meaningless.

a reply to: MyHappyDogShiner

He who leads by example walks alone.

Truer words have never been spoken.

a reply to: NightSkyeB4Dawn

I'm seeing this on my end as well - Back when I was in college (only about 5 years ago), I was given high marks for my resume listing for an IT Dev/Programmer role. My resume + interviewing skills got me into about five jobs.

Recently, I sent it off to an adviser (just because it hasn't changed in a while, and I want to make sure it was still good), and he asked me where my "experience box" was. Apparently, companies are also using word-screening algorithms to pick up what words are present on a resume, and how often those words were mentioned. Many of the IT resumes now include a literal box in the resume, with each software I intend to work with listed in its own box.

What scares me more is that colleges are going out there saying "Hey, we will give you a degree in whatever field you want, and there will be a job for it". I see people now adays getting degrees in subjects such as Art History, where unless you plan on being a museum curator or teaching art, there's virtually no use for a degree like that. Kids these days expect that there will be a job for them, when the reality is that businesses don't care if you have a degree, they want you to have 4-5 years of experience by yesterday. I know people that went to school for valid degrees, spent 4 years worth of money that could have been spent on a car, home, savings account, and yet they still work at a fast food joint because their degree didn't pay out.

-fossilera

originally posted by: NightSkyeB4Dawn
How many people remember getting a lunch hour? How many remember when you were rewarded for staying over to get the work done, instead of punished?

I remember one company where I worked, where the expectation for lunch hour was that you were unpaid, but there was work to be done. If you went hungry, that's your problem from not having eaten a large enough breakfast.

I've also worked at places that serve you food 24/7, and the expectation is the employees can go into the kitchen and eat when they're hungry, they're on salary and they manage their time.

Corporate culture is a very real thing, there doesn't seem to be any correlation with successful vs unsuccessful companies and how well they treat their employees, but the number who treat their employees bad is increasing.

I remember my first job in high school, I held it in 1998-2000, right after I turned 16 and could transport myself to/from work. It was in the bowling alley of a casino. There were negatives, they broke labor laws on the times I could work and my usual in school schedule was 5 pm to 1 am on Wednesday nights and 6 pm to 3 am on Friday and Saturday nights. They also paid the minimum wage at the time of $5.42/hour (which was fair for my position). Raises were on the order of 2% per year.

On the other hand, the perks were fantastic. I got a $20 credit every day in the arcade, I could bowl 5 games a day for free, free access to the company gym and hotel pool, you were allowed to eat a meal in the employee kitchen (free and cooked for you) up to 2 hours before/after your shift, and one meal during (max 3/day). Paid Vacations started at 20 days/year once you put an hour in, and sick days at 10.

Occasionally there would be big events we got to run like the world bowling championships (even got to help out slightly in the movie Kingpin... nothing on screen though).

So, it wasn't all good but that was a pretty ideal entry level job in my mind. The company gave you things to do, there were neat jobs, the pay was fair, and there was time off, and most importantly they made sure the employees could afford to eat. Room for advancement was moderate (little from my position, but pretty good in the company). They even had health care for all employees.

No one does that today, and I bet half the people who read my little story above will even believe a company would act like that towards their employees but they did.

It makes me sad, that we won't be going back to those times where the employers could be seen as the good guys.

Alternatively, I worked a job in a deli just prior to making the decision to go back to school. I worked there a year. The entire time it was a string of verbal abuse from my boss about how she would fire me, or how I was useless. The dish washer in that business was autistic and she took a particularly sick pleasure in making him cry. Catering jobs on weekends, and then leaving the food in a hot truck to bake/rot for days before having him come in and clean it out. The pay was less than minimum, the tips were "split" with the owner getting 50% because it's her business, the cooks each getting 20% because they made the food, so 10% of a tip would go to me. And I would never get the good delivery orders, the boss took those. And you can forget about lunch, if you wanted a lunch hour you would just leave an hour early. Not allowed to eat/buy any food in the business unless it came from the supplier. Once the food was slated for the business... you couldn't even buy it to eat it for your lunch. Despite working in a deli my lunch those days was often gas station sandwiches I could sneak in and buy while filling my car with gas between deliveries (had to pay my own gas too).

That was in 2003 in another area of the country.

Company culture is everything.

a reply to: fossilera

Dev here, not IT but read that CS jobs frequently shove Dev's into IT just because they don't know any better. For me, it's projects. I have a short list (shorter than I would like) of relevant work. But I have a lot of education due to multiple degrees, as well as a github with all of my code, and a personal website with web streaming work of everything I've done. From what I've been told, that's a much better route to go than listing technologies.

For example instead of writing
Technologies - Unity, Vive, Maya, Photoshop, C#, Python, MySQL, Javascript, CSS, HTML

I can instead write
Developed virtual reality simulation in Unity for use with HTC Vive that lets players take apart a virtual product and put it back together as a puzzle. Created custom assets with Maya and Photoshop. Programmed simulation with C# and Python. Implemented MySQL database for scale ability. Hosted game with Unity Web Streaming on a website using Javascript/CSS/HTML to create an appropriate and immersive container to hold the game.

That's my strategy at least, and then I link to where it's hosted as well as link to the github repository.

I don't think IT has quite the room for interesting projects but I bet there's 1 or 2 you could do.

a reply to: fossilera
Experience and flexibility can be great assets that can help you in getting a job.

While I stress flexibility, you should never be so flexible that you are no longer in control of who you are, or you will find yourself split in half. You will hate the job and hate yourself.

You want to get paid what you are worth. Most people want to pay you as little as they can get away with.

I always made it a habit to cross train myself. I learned how to perform the tasks that were done by other members of my team, so I was not limited in doing my job. It was a great plus because it helped out the other members of my team and it help me move forward quicker.

If you can, learn how to do as much of the jobs as possible.