[CLUE-Talk] Re: Marketing Your Linux Skills

[Nate Duehr]

Sean LeBlanc wrote:

> 2. Not possessing even basic communications skills. I mean, even an eight
> year old child with no business experience should know you need to provide
> some CONTEXT with your communications. "can't read it" doesn't cut the
> mustard. Yeah, in a down market, you can be flexible in how well you treat
> the worker side of the recruiting equation[1], but memories last a long time,
> and markets have a strange way of turning tables...in a good market, I would
> have struck the guy off my contact list. If he's giving me that sort of
> impression, what must his clients be getting? 

Oh, I can't resist...

They're getting the bottom of the techincal barrel.  People that know 
how to drive MS-WORD but never built a PC, never had any excitement for 
the job, never tried anything new in technology.  (Good technologists 
know a HELL of a lot more than that... and it should be demanded of them.)

> Anyway, bottom line is, I ended up falling back to Word. Some of the people
> you have to get through to get to the competents are not the brightest
> of bulbs. But even the lowest of the low know how to open a Word doc. As for
> creating stuff in OO and hoping it will look okay in Word, I'm with Jed.
> Without knowing for sure, I wouldn't count on it, and when you need money to
> pay rent/mortgage, it's too much at risk. 

Agreed.  Been there, done that.  But... comments below...

> [1] Sorta off subject here, but the other day I was pondering if the
> employee/employer relationship is going to be a vicious cycle now that
> things are maybe turning around a bit. Here's a brief synopsis of how I see
> the cycle. Keep in mind this only an impression, and I didn't enter the
> workforce fulltime until 1994.

Okay fair enough...

> Once upon a time, loyalty meant something. People worked hard and when their
> 30+ years were up, they'd get a gold watch, get an "atta boy" and would
> retire. 

Loyalty will remain dead as long as the average corporation is focused 
only on a quarter worth of business at a time and not over the long-haul.

Interestingly the Internet has played a large part in opening up the 
securities markets to the average consumer -- pretty much anyone with 
$1000 to "throw away" can invest it in the Stock Market nowadays with 
nothing more than five minutes time to sign up for an online brokerage 
account.

These same under-educated (I won't say uneducated, that would be cruel, 
many are highly intelligent people who simply have never managed a 
portfolio before) "investors" panic when the "Dow" drops 100 points.  Or 
a company has one bad quarter monetarily.

(Even though that drop only consitutes a 1% change in the overall value 
of the underlying stocks.)  They also then equate such a drop with 
something to be "nervous" about (as the news people say all the time 
now) and place their fears on the economy as a whole - even while living 
a lifestyle better than almost 80% of the rest of the world's 
population.  Neurotic?  Uh-huh... yessiree.

Smart investors research the companies they're buying into.  One 
particularly famous smart investor we probably all recognize (Warren 
Buffet) said recently, "When you go to purchase a stock, imagine you can 
only make ten stock trades during your entire life.  Then act 
accordingly."  Pretty good way of thinking of long-term investing.

Why long-term?

Companies today are driven by market pressure from the sheeples to 
perform and create strong revenue numbers each and every quarter.  This 
pressure to look at only three months at a time is ultimately going to 
have some severe and epidemic problems which will show up as some pretty 
severe symptoms.

Such companies will spend little if any money on pure Research & 
Development, they'll innovate less and "circle the wagons" more, and 
their employees will be 100% expendable, just like any other monetary 
commodity because of the way they feel their hands are tied by their own 
investors and the markets at large on long-term planning issues.

Of course, then the sheeples feel even less comfortable -- their jobs 
are now ALWAYS at risk, so they take bigger and bigger risks in the 
commodities markets attempting to "make up for" the possible loss of a 
job "someday"... looking for a pot of gold.  And the vicious cycle 
continues... they push the pressure level up to perform on a quarterly 
basis right into the hearts of the very companies they're working for.

> Then came the late 80's/early 90's and the downsizing/rightsizing fads swept
> the corporate world. Employee loyalty was given a slap in the face. So,
> employees remembered that burn and wanted to get a payout when things got
> better in the mid to late 90's. They wanted flextime, telecommuting, signing
> bonuses, laidback dress, stock options and overtime pay. Job-hopping
> didn't seem to have the taint that it once had. The impression was that we
> got all we wanted as IT workers and then some. 

The "fads" I think were due to market pressures created by some of the 
changes in the barriers to access of riskier investments and the mental 
attitude toward long-term investing the average citizen now has.  You 
never hear anyone say "I think I'll put some GE stock in my portfolio 
and hold it for at least 10 years" anymore do you?

As far as the perks go, anyone who got them or knew someone who got lots 
of them knew deep-down that they couldn't last... businesses don't make 
money by doing those things.  People who understand a simple balance 
sheet can tell you that those items are overhead expenditures.

However, the craziness over some of the more beneficial things like 
telecommuting probably did prompt a little resetting of the expectations 
on both sides -- after all has been said and done -- and I think 
companies try a little harder than they once did to keep employees 
happy, but spent less money wastefully doing it.

But the really happy employees figure it out sometime in their lives 
that their happiness is not their company's responsibility and take 
responsibility for their own happiness.  ;-)  There's a balance there 
somewhere.

Personal responsibility is at an all time low when it comes to 
finances... listen to commercials for mortgages sometime, if you don't 
believe that.  They all pander to people who've lived so far beyond 
their means that they now are double-mortgaged to the hilt and will 
probably never own their homes, ever.  Some people don't mind this and 
do it intentionally -- managing their cash flow by making the conscious 
decision to carry massive amounts of long-term debt... others just find 
themselves there by mismangement of their resources.

But it's happening to a much higher percentage of people than ever 
before.  And I'm not saying I'm exempt... I've certainly got some stupid 
debts out there I'm paying down!  But... here's the tie-in again...

It affects how "desperate" the market at large feels and how badly they 
want to make money quickly -- and thus more pressure on the companies to 
perform perfectly.  And less job security.  Ironic, isn't it?

> Then the downturn hit.  Recruiters and HR people alike seemed to want to get
> "revenge" (some, not all) on "uppity programmers" and other IT folks who
> somehow are viewed as making out like bandits in the 90's. Some corps
> starting making the geeks at least wear biz casual, in some cases, ties.
> Arrogance and a "you had it coming" attitude seemed to greet me on some of
> the calls I received/made. People would post ridiculous contracts for $20
> hour and turn me down for them because I "didn't have enough JSP" on my
> resume, for example. 

I've felt this "revenge" mentality a bit also, but never truly figured 
it out.

I do think part of it was brought on by us techies -- many techies were 
so overjoyed that Internet technologies became big business and that 
they could join in and "play" all day, they also were a bit overzealous 
about telling friends, relatives, and people with what techies might 
call "normal" jobs about how much "better" the high-tech world was.

Many people developed a resentment to how much "fun" their friends in 
tech were having.  It became fashionable to say one was "learning HTML 
this weekend", and other such silliness, just because people were jealous.

In reality, tech work is difficult to do WELL.

Knowing a system from the component level all the way up through the 
application level and caring enough about each piece to understand how 
it all works is a rare thing in our busy world.

I've run into a large number of situations where, because I've dealt 
with both hardware AND software from custom building my own circuit 
boards to writing my own software to do a task I need done, sometimes I 
can "see" things or make better "gut feel" guesses about a subtle system 
problem than someone who only focuses on one piece.  I recognized long 
ago that I'm a generalist and thus, well-suited for customer support 
roles and not design engineering.  (!!!)

Actually, I enjoy it... troubleshooting customer's systems is a huge 
turn-on for me at work, and while I certainly wish the world was perfect 
and no bad software was ever released -- you guys that write bugs keep 
me in a job!  Heh-heh.

There have been instances where what could only be described as 
"intuition" have led me to the correct hypothesis about what's truly 
wrong with a particular complex system.  That's a nice feeling when 
you're right and then you prove it scientifically via a hypothesis/test 
cycle.

So what's it boil down to as it relates to this whole job/hiring/resume' 
thread?

If you're in business to make money, you want techies that are 
interested enough to work toward knowing things at the "intuitive" 
level, and after you find that type of person, it's kinda up to where 
you "plant" them in your organization as to how much "good" experience 
they get over the course of their career where they can learn and grow 
THEMSELVES.

Any techie who sits at a desk and says "Where's my training?"... throw 
them out on the street immediately and find someone more interested.  I 
guarantee there are techies out there much more willing to take 
responsibility for their own careers.


> Now, things seemed to have turned the corner. Maybe. Hard to say. I've had a
> few calls (unsolicited, mind you) from recruiters testing the waters. Do you
> think potential employees will turn the screws even harder this time around,
> and the next downturn, you think HR/recruiters will be even more nasty? I
> was never a hardass on my salary negotiation. I did leave one perm position
> and told them frankly on the exit interview that I was leaving for more pay,
> but that was it. And it was REALLY low pay, even for the low cost of living
> in that area.

Things turned the corner a while ago, but companies are being much more 
cautious these days about spending hard-earned cash on new employees 
until the very MOMENT they need them.   "Just-in-time supply chains"... 
the buzzword in warehousing and product shipment/management... it's what 
employers would LOVE to have for people too.

As far as the "more nasty" attitudes during the next go-around of the 
business cycle:  I don't think so.  These things have a way of naturally 
dampening themselves out -- people still (usually) have some common 
decency to others.

I think of it more as a sine-wave... up and down, with some excursions 
to lower lows and higher highs once in a while, but never really leaving 
the pattern completely.  Market forces pull outrageous employer and 
employee behaviour alike back in line with the status-quo.

> I'm just wondering what the long term effect will be on the so-called social
> contract between employee/employer. Personally, I wonder if it ever really
> existed, but again, I really wasn't in the workforce when it supposedly did.
> Anyone care to comment?

I think honestly unless the money markets work harder at education about 
long-term investing vs. short-term, the social contract is basically 
this: "You'll have a job as long as we hit this quarter's numbers."

And that's about it.  And totally fair if that's how you, your friends, 
and your family invest money.  It's a mirror.

Countries that think longer-term will benefit greatly.   A decent but 
far-from-perfect example might be Europe's semi-privatized 
semi-governmental space and aerospace programs.  Even with as 
bureaucratic as building spacecraft and aircraft is, they're downright 
"progressive" when compared to say, a NASA or Boeing.

On products that take longer than a quarter to produce, the U.S. is 
going to have our butts kicked over and over for many years to come, I 
think.

We'll still sell plenty of products, but the rest of the world is soing 
to examine where we do things wrong in great detail and exploit it. 
That's definitely... "just business".  We need to be smart about where 
we compete and where we put our resources.

So... basically I think you can be "loyal" to a company, but learn to be 
as much of a self-employed contractor to YOURSELF as you are a loyal 
employee.

Pop your head up once in a while, make a long-term plan, and go toward 
YOUR goals, and check them against the real-world to see if anyone 
really wants to PAY anymore for that service or knowledge or labor you 
do best... if not, you're probably on a dangerous path.

I took a dangerous path to get some skills I sorely wanted -- more time 
on Unix/Linux systems in production environments.  When the first offer 
to work as a Linux/Unix admin (as well as many other hats) came along 
for a start-up a few years ago, I jumped.

Eventually, it bit me though.  I knew the industry sector I was working 
in was probably on the bubble right from Day 1, and yet I stayed there 
anyway.

My ultimate reward was a year without a job and another year at a job 
barely making more than minimum wage.  But... I *DID* get that 
experience, and that experience plus prior experience before the foray 
into Unix/Linux administration helped me to get the job I have today.

Was it worth it?  Honestly, I don't think it was long-term in my 
personal case.  Two years of blowing away savings and investments really 
hurts on the bottom line out ten or more years from now.

Was it avoidable?  I don't know.  There were other ways I could have 
gone about my goal.  Would I probably make that mistake again anyway and 
be lured by the shiny toys and good salary to work in a sector I know 
has no sound financial basis?

Hmm... Only time will tell!  ;-)  But I doubt it.

Aspiring techies: Take the time to learn the theory and underlying 
basics of any technology you use if you're a technology worker.  And 
here's where I tie this all back into this thread about interviewing:

Most of the people on this list have a passion for tech.  The very fact 
that a discussion took place about various documentation file formats, 
their strengths and weaknesses, and when each should be used -- shows 
that passion very clearly.  Eventually the non-passionate will filter 
out of the industry... and those with the passion will carry on.  A lot 
of that happened in the bubble-burst, but the industry's still not 
through culling the wheat from the chaff, so to speak... people that 
want to work in tech will always find a way back if the inadvertantly 
get pushed from the nest.

People that only did it because it was "cool" will move on to the next 
cool thing... similar to highway lane-changers who change lanes 27 times 
between the Denver Tech Center and Downtown Denver on I-25 and you look 
over and they're only three cars ahead of you when you both get to 
Downtown!  ;-)  (God I love that... I always smile and wave...)

As a note of encouragement... for those still looking for jobs... keep 
sharpening your battle axes (skills).  Your day will come.

Uninterested, unmotivated, low-skill level people do have one common 
characteristic that makes them hard for companies to get rid of them:

They never ever rock the boat.  It's because they don't have any 
original ideas at all... so it takes a while for it to become apparent 
that they're not providing any value other than keeping a chair warm all 
day.

Anyhoooo I'm raaaaambling!  :-)  G'night all...

Nate Duehr, nate at natetech.com