New Career Direction

[MonsterZero]

I graduated from college in 1999 with one of those new Bachelor of Arts degrees in Interactive Multimedia. Spent about 3 years as a webmaster for a media duplication company building and administering their website as well as those of their corporate partners. In college I did whatever jobs fit my schedule

Lost my job in February 2002 and eventually gave up on the IT industry (the industry was pathological and plagued by very serious problems even back in 1999) and then spent a couple of years directionless, doing sales (fraudulent, unethical scum-that firm) and home improvement services contracting (actually a decent job although dirty and dangerous).

Today was my second day of a Certified Nurse Assistant class and so far so good. As soon as I'm done with this course (March) I get a job at a hospital and push on with my education (B.S. degree in nursing).

Both of my older sisters are in health care so the transition to health care wasn't exactly a decision that came out of nowhere. As professionals my sisters are happy, confident and highly successful on all levels and this has come not unnoticed to me. My mom works in a hospital too (housekeeping) and can't stop praising that industry.

I'm not exactly excited about clearing fecal impactions by inserting my finger into somebody's anus but if I have the choice between regular feces (health care) and feces that wears an expensive suit, walks on two legs and talks to me (private sector, general business), I chose the former. Ordinary feces I can deal with.

I'm too honest (and thus vulnerable) to work in general business.

Wish me all the good luck I can get because it's a big change in life.

[Priest]

Good luck !!!! I once knew a nurse that couldn't stand to be around sick people.....strange woman.

[jlbetin]

In French we say, " There is no stupid work, only stupid people"

I wish you the best in your new job. Taking care of others is a nice thing. Even cleaning feces helps those who are unable to do it on their own.

Best thoughts

Der WanderRingingTheNiceNightNurse :love: Not you !!! the girl in pink :D

[JAMiAM]

Good luck.

[SoccerDJ]

Good luck and hope you found a job that suits you well.:cheeky:


My mom's a lab tech so I always get to hear about all kinds of strange sicknesses and disease. She gets to work alot analysing body fluids and such so she has some interesting storys, but they make me sick some times.:eek:

[MonsterZero]

Good luck and hope you found a job that suits you well.:cheeky:

My mom's a lab tech

So is my sister

[screamer]

Good luck monster,

My mom is a nurse btw.

[Goblin]

My sister is going to school for nursing right now. Good luck!!

Goblin

[Brevet]

My daughter is doing a 1 year internship at a hospital in clinical lab science. She's much smarter than I am; a living challenge to Darwin's theory. Her mom's pretty smart so I guess Darwin may still be in the running ;) :TRUCE:

[Airborne]

Best of luck to you. My brother-in-law retired from the US Navy as a X-ray repairman (official job as he had many others) in Jacksonville, NC. He went to nursing school afterwards and is working in the field.

I am a Field Engineer for a Johnson & Johnson company. I install and repair Clinical Chemistry analyzers in Hospital labs.

Hope you find happiness in your new pursuit.

[Tim McBride]

I geuss I am just one of those fools happy and still working in the IT industry.........

Good luck!

[MonsterZero]

I geuss I am just one of those fools happy and still working in the IT industry.........

Good luck!

Well, if you do hardcore programming there is elbow room there but as I said, I was one of them multimedia people involved in Flash animations, interactive CDROMs, video editing, sound edititing and related issues. This particular segment of the industry, after a brief period of enthusiasm in the 1990s, has become like oil painting, sculpture and graphic design. This means a hundred million people do it, but only a handful do it professionally and of those professionals most are very unhappy about the quality of their lives and pessimistic about their future. I'm sick and tired of listening to their whining.

It is unfortunate I was a late starter in creative computer stuff, maybe I could have kept it going for a few more years before the industry went down the sewer pipe.

But I'm 31 years old now and don't see myself as a 40 year old multimedia designer, I really don't.

Website design and multimedia are such...such juvenile professions with juvenile pay and juvenile career advancement opportunities. Programmers (and ralated computer science graduates) are somewhat different. My best friend's huby is a brilliant database programmer and that dude's career is unstoppable no matter what happens in the world. But even he's seeing very disgusting management attitudes and complaining about it.

Once outsourcing became available management has become to think it's is doing you a favor by maintaining your job on the payroll and for me that's unacceptable power balance. No SOB will ever have the satisfaction of "doing me a favor by keeping me on the payroll". NEVER. Every freaking day I open my eyes in the morning I will have the satisfaction of knowing I'm important and special and my work is needed and makes others happy and makes a difference in peoples' lives.

[laszlo.nemedi]

Good luck Monster (my ex-girlfriend works in the health sector, too).
Helping people is a good way of life.

[Priest]

I have a cousin that works as a nurse and she says that it is a very satisfying job.

[Tim McBride]

Well, if you do hardcore programming there is elbow room there but as I said, I was one of them multimedia people involved in Flash animations, interactive CDROMs, video editing, sound edititing and related issues. This particular segment of the industry, after a brief period of enthusiasm in the 1990s, has become like oil painting, sculpture and graphic design. This means a hundred million people do it, but only a handful do it professionally and of those professionals most are very unhappy about the quality of their lives and pessimistic about their future. I'm sick and tired of listening to their whining.

It is unfortunate I was a late starter in creative computer stuff, maybe I could have kept it going for a few more years before the industry went down the sewer pipe.

But I'm 31 years old now and don't see myself as a 40 year old multimedia designer, I really don't.

Website design and multimedia are such...such juvenile professions with juvenile pay and juvenile career advancement opportunities. Programmers (and ralated computer science graduates) are somewhat different. My best friend's huby is a brilliant database programmer and that dude's career is unstoppable no matter what happens in the world. But even he's seeing very disgusting management attitudes and complaining about it.

Once outsourcing became available management has become to think it's is doing you a favor by maintaining your job on the payroll and for me that's unacceptable power balance. No SOB will ever have the satisfaction of "doing me a favor by keeping me on the payroll". NEVER. Every freaking day I open my eyes in the morning I will have the satisfaction of knowing I'm important and special and my work is needed and makes others happy and makes a difference in peoples' lives.
Actually I work the support side of the industry. I fix things which is something that is hard to outsource! :cheeky:

[Cheetah772]

Actually I work the support side of the industry. I fix things which is something that is hard to outsource! :cheeky:

Why don't the industry outsource the support side to Steven Urkel? You know the nerd guy on the black family sitcom TV show, Family Matters? He always got into weird accidents.

Yup, you really need to be Urkelized! :p

Dan

[Deltapooh]

Monsterzero, you sound like a motivated person who is not afraid to meet new challenges. Abandoning one path to pursue another requires self-confidence and determination. Many people focus on the negatives, which often are miniscule compared to the positives further down the road.

I'm confident you will do fine. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

[rasmus]

Wish me all the good luck I can get because it's a big change in life.


Here is a quote about dealing with patients, that I was given when I entered Med School.

Always comfort
Often ease (their suffering)
Sometimes cure

Good luck.

[rw527]

Out of curiosity, what is the pay like for people who do the kind of multimedia and website work that MonsterZero was talking about?

[MonsterZero]

Out of curiosity, what is the pay like for people who do the kind of multimedia and website work that MonsterZero was talking about?

The average for Chicago area (poorer states such us Florida obviously pay less) is $33-35K per year provided that you have a full time job (highly unlikely) plus standard benefits if you work full time.

For somebody like me this is nowhere near enough considering how much time, energy and health you have to sacrifice for the endless hours in front of the computer (full time work + study of new tech theory after hours + hands on practice and portfolio development after hours).

I started making $33K during the peak of the Web boom in 1999, ended the career at $40K. I hear the most somebody has ever gotten right out of the program was $38K. But again that was 1999. A couple years later most of the multimedia experts of my college program were lined up in front of the program director's office looking for a teaching job because everybody had gotten laid off.

if you plan to get into the industry starting from nothing high pay or low pay is not going to be your problem; it will be the serious unemployment in your career group (5 or 6 times greater than the national unemployment rate of 5.7%).

If you are talented and hardworking you should be able to do freelancing even in a bad job market but again, freelancing is for youngsters. Do it while you're very young, don't do it if you're over 30 years old or you'll regret it terribly when it's time to start thinking about retirement (you'll wish you could turn the clock back). Forget freelancing if you have a family to support and real bills (mortage) to pay.

[LaPalice]

Good luck in your new job, Monster Zero.

LaPalice.

[Wolfe Tone]

I worked in I.T. from 1995 to 2002 when I was let go. Though there was a downturn in the industry that year it had as much to do with Office politics as anything else. Must say I loved the buzz of selling and helping to change the World we live in, but all that backstabbing and rugpulling got me down. + I don't socialise or rub shoulders with no one to get up the ladder.
Anyway I am much happier where I am now and love and respect the people I work for now, and I think they have the same for me.

So it's never too late to change...

[MikeJ]

Well the development sector is getting progressively worse and won't improve. If you know anybody studying now to get into the industry, tell them not to bother and switch to something else.

In a couple decades, most software won't be developed in N. America or Europe. When even a small company needs something they will simply contract out to a middleman who represents any of a million firms popping up in India.

The support sections of the IT industry (administrators, technicians, tech-support etc) will still do okay, though they're likely to be affected somewhat by the increasing losses suffered by the development sector (and I mean, the market is pretty well flooded with these types already). Still, someone has to use all that software the Indians are churning out so clueless office workers will still need help, need their computers fixed and networks managed and setup. Add to the mix the increasing number of computers/internet users, which has not slowed, and they're looking okay.

I'm still making excellent money in development and I'm going to hang on for now but I've noticed the development sector slowly drying up. Even up to late last year I had more work than I could handle and I could choose to be very selective in what I took (to the point where I almost considered just switching to an administrative and management position, handling design and subcontracting everything out... to India heh). But as I was planning out my mid-year 2004, I was only able to find a single opportunity for freelance work under my usual payscale (for what I do, it's pretty much standard fare for me to have work lined up months in advance). It involves architecture that I'm not familiar with so for the first time since I left school I'm going back (well, not so much school as online MS certifications). I took that as a bad omen... or even a premonition if you will :P. It only gets worse from here from my point of view.

I've been thinking about going back to school for a physics degree (I'd like to eventually end up in 3D programming for some game studio) but I'm increasingly seeing that as too much of a risk. I have a lot of contacts in the gaming industry and getting a job probably won't be an issue, but too many game studios live from release to release... a lot of friends lost their jobs when Dynamix was axed by Sierra/Vivendi for the relatively poor performance of Tribes 2 (they were a couple million in the black, but it was well below the many, many millions Sierra was expecting to earn, so Sierra shut them down - a fairly common story). Too much risk for my tastes, too unstable and from all my friends who work in game development, the pay sucks for the long hours you need to put in as release dates creep up. Add to that an economic model in the electronic entertainment industry totally stinks and makes independent development difficult and you have an industry that, while growing, is inherently flawed IMNSHO. The internet might be the saviour of this flawed model, or it might implode due to piracy. I don't want to be around to find out, though.

So at the advice of my girlfriend I may go back to school part-time... probably for an engineering degree (of what flavour I've not given much thought yet)... whatever the case the next couple of years will be transition for me as I likely jump ship form the IT industry. I've no doubts I could remain employed in some boring office environment, but I'd probably need to take a considerable pay cut from what I make now (as in, probably about 50% and no flexibility) and that would interfere too much with long-standing plans to retire in my late thirties to leech off of my rental properties and be that bastard landlord hassling people for the rent.

A shame that the tech boom was so short, but the last thing we need are more protected industries that live or die by how many politicians they can pay off to give them subsidies and/or tariff protection. That's the surest way to inefficiency and is just asking for trouble. So kiss the software side of the IT sector goodbye. It's slowly fading away.

To get more on topic, my sister works in health care (was an RN for several years and recently was certified as a specialist of some sort to work with babies). Rock-solid stability and always in demand. If you're tired of the instability in IT, you couldn't have picked a better career path. If you're really interested in making a lot of cash, you can work in Saudi Arabia. They pay very well, fly you home at their expense for vacations and such. But its apparently kind of boring as all the foreigners typically stay in their compounds (at their will, not based on any restrictions from what I hear, there's just not much to do there with their religious bans on all the things we usually equat with fun [casual sex, getting smashed, etc]) and they more or less sit around and get drunk whenever they're not working. Just make sure you don't blurt out some of the things you have on this forum about Arabs during the screening process and you should be ok ;).