Job market collapse has people packing

San Francisco Chronicle ^

[MeneMeneTekelUpharsin]

Yes, you are not getting what YOU deserve. However, those who are deliberately dragging their feet in the system will cause you to get what THEY deserve. If people think that no consequence will result from laziness and a lack of desire to work and produce, they seek to make God a liar. Let's see who wins.

I could write a complete essay on this subject. However, the people who do not want the standards lifted are cold-blooded. You have not idea to what degree they are cold-blooded. If someone determines that I've given detailed information as to what is going on...I'll never teach again. I've even posted here on Free Republic asking for help to find a job outside of the teaching profession and got very little help.

Approaching despair.

[FormerLurker]

They deliver docs, but its meant to satisfy computer-illiterate managers, not the engineers.

On one major project I worked on, the documentation was virually non-existent, and the code looked like spagetti. In fact, most of the base classes needed to be rewritten, and ALL of the memory allocation and deletion calls had to be reimplemented.

The original code and accompanying "documentation" was written by off-shore "consultants" in India.

[painter]

"Just FYI, Burger King is now selling tacos which taste JUST LIKE Jack In The Box tacos! Mmmmmm"

No kidding? I live in central Missouri and there aren't any Jack in the Boxes here any more. If I want any tacos I have to be in StLouis to get any.There sure is a Burger King here.I'm going to give them a call today to see if they serve them here!

[Lazamataz]

Do you know WebSphere?

Weblogic, but I understand the concepts are the same. I implemented Weblogic for a B2B.

AIX and Solaris UNIX?

No, but I am a Linux-y kinda guy; putting RedHat 7.3 on a spare box here at home.

OS/390?

Nope.

Are you Java certified by Sun and IBM?

I'm not certified, but I've been programming Java for about 3 years. I'm versatile with JDK1.1 through 1.3. Haven't messed with the 1.4 JDK yet. Anything there worth going into it for?

Can you debug and profile distributed applications?

Of course!

Do you have experience in VisualAge for Java or WebSphere Studio?

No, my primary IDE has been Borland's JBuilder. NICE, does everything the other guys can and then some.

Can you write shell scripts for the UNIX korn shell,

Kinda, what with my Linux hands-on.

write, debug and deploy Enterprise Java Beans?

Of course! I'm deeply into J2EE. Stateful session, stateless session, Entity, Messaging -- what type do you need? I've puzzled through JNDI, written JSP, servlets, applets, even applications.

Do you know MQSeries?

No.

Do you know SOAP, WSDL and UDDI?

Sure! Who doesn't! .NET has some interesting new applications of this technology. System.Reflection gives you a lot of power making assemblies reveal their interfaces to ya.

Do you know mainframe and distributed DB2?

Never touched DB2 but have a lot of time in SQL, various implementations.

Do you know Oracle 8i?

Somewhat, have had a little time on that.

I'm deeply into .NET these days. Java will be seriously challenged by .NET. It is fully web-services aware, is a language agnostic framework, and is a very rich environment. I've been doing C#.NET, ASP.NET (and WinForms), ADO.NET and a touch of VB.NET. VERY COOL STUFF....

I can get you a job paying good money in a Fortune 500 company right now if you know these things.

No thanks; they are paying me too well and giving me too cool a set of technologies for me to want to leave. ;^)

[Lazamataz]

You are not getting a job because you are not highlighting the tools you used. There is no place I can go on your resume and have a comprehensive list of the langages and products you know. If I was in a hiring authority, I would glance at your resume for about 5 seconds, then put it aside as underqualified, because I do not see the languages and systems you were working with POP out at me.

Just some friendly advice.

[Lazamataz]

On one major project I worked on, the documentation was virually non-existent, and the code looked like spagetti. In fact, most of the base classes needed to be rewritten, and ALL of the memory allocation and deletion calls had to be reimplemented. The original code and accompanying "documentation" was written by off-shore "consultants" in India.

NEVER, repeat NEVER hire Russian programmers unless they have been successful in the states for a while.

Trust me on this one.

[Lazamataz]

Wait, you do have a Skills Section, but I think it needs rework:

· Borland Delphi
· SQL on a variety of platforms including Oracle and SQL Server
· Object Oriented Technology
· Internet and Web Technologies
· C and Visual Basic
· Windows and Microsoft Office

These iterations seem a little vague, and some of them -- like OO tech and Internet and Web tech -- seem redundant and unnecessary, since most people will know you have these based on your languages. My Skills Section is not even that great -- I needed to mention some more facets of my understanding -- but take a look at this. Maybe the example will assist you: .NET, C#.NET, VB.NET, ADO.NET, ASP.NET, Java 1.1 through 1.3 (Java 2); UML design tools, Microsoft ASP; Javascript; XML / XSLT / XSP, Flash 4.0; Crystal Reports, C++; DHTML; Visual FoxPro 7.0; FoxPro 2.6 under Windows, UNIX; InstallShield; COBOL; Cognos Powerhouse; QBasic; Assembly Language; Some exposure to Paradox; Perl; SUN Solaris; Win95/98/ME, Win NT4/2000

[Red Jones]

wow, that's really very sad what you say about the teaching profession. I know we've got a big problem in education; What people don't understand is that many times americans overcome the disadvantages they get in grades 1-12 when they get to college. But these people are still behind the curve and can't catch up to get the high powered credentials valued in the market now. It is very sad, from americans' point of view we are just sand-bagged in every way by our own people.

That's why I'm for vouchers. We need freedom in education industry or else we will be second rate. The elite in america doesn't care if the bulk of americans have second rate schools in grades 1-12. As long as children of the upper income get good schools, then they're OK with it. As long as the corps can import h1b's, then they think that's OK.

I'm aware that lots of people leave the teaching profession because either they can't take the political correctness or because they're frustrated with how the bureaucracy doesn't allow high quality. So it is really poor management that is protecting its position and pursuing its ideological agenda and discouraging these good teachers in the process. Then the management is claiming they can't find teachers and they're demanding we import docile foreigners to do the job. We are importing some teachers today because of the alleged teacher shortage.

The same exact thing is happening with h1b in high tech only on a much larger scale. They will do this with nurses too. As the conservative intellectual, James Burnham, predicted 40 years ago, the managerial class is going to walk all over everybody.

[FormerLurker]

NEVER, repeat NEVER hire Russian programmers unless they have been successful in the states for a while

I've known one that although pretty good technically, would have some serious attitude problems. After being asked to implement a function using an existing set of APIs, he went off and bypassed the API and incorporated his own version of what the API should have provided. Thus, if there was ever a need to add more functionality to the work the API should have done, someone would have to find HIS code and revamp what he wrote. He was a very stubborn individual, and would get REALLY upset if anyone critized his work.

Then again, I've known other Russians that were nice to work with and knew what they were doing...

[ninenot]

Upper Midwest not much better. Manufacturing of basic goods (stamping/machining/casting) is quite slow, and industrial 'accessories' (i.e. shop supplies, etc.) is also slow as a result.

Little going on in new product development in consumer durables (refrigerators, autos.)

Thus mid-to-upper managers and professionals are up the proverbial creek. No place to go. Outstanding buyers' market, however..

[VOA]

If you like LA, you've got to get out of California.
BTW, SF was a wonderful place to visit 40+ years ago.

LOL...you are probably right!

I really was saying that, relatively and in the present time, I think the Los Angeles/SoCal
area is just a better bit of the socialist mess than San Francisco/Bay Area is.

Here in Los Angeles, at least the place is kept fairly clean and the people at least
try to keep the veneer of friendliness, except during "insurrections" in
in South Central or after another Lakers championship season!

Being relocated here from a lifetime in Oklahoma (and hoping to head back to OK/TX/MO)
there is plenty that is culturally unsettling about California in general, but in
many ways this place is sort of like a Democratic/leftist version of
Texas: big in business, commerce, and living large.
And the average mainstream citizen is much more like the average working person in other
states: they do have to get up and work, etc. Hollywood has really warped the view
of what "average" California is like. You don't see much about places like
all the military enclaves in San Diego, etc.

There are lots of things that need fixed here, but there is also a lot that
is probably "redeemable".

But some days my "flyover country" brain reads The Los Angeles Times (for opposition research)
and I just shake my head in a fit of amazed revulsion.

[RipSawyer]

You ain't the only ones, old Rip remembers it well. I think that was the final nail in the coffin of the American economy. The amazing part is how many idiots are ready to swear that all the trouble started after GW was elected. I would love to sit down with someone a lot smarter than I am and ask why people are always so ready to revise the facts of history. My question number two would be, why is it that most people I know seem to find the things that are so simple to me to be beyond understanding and yet they find the things that baffle me to be very simple. Does my mind run in reverse gear or what?

[jpl]

Bryan Clouse, for his part, never grew fond of San Francisco. "Over the years, it started getting dirtier and stinkier. It wears on you," he said. "I can't think of anything I'll miss other than the people."

Clouse apparently can't make the connection that the city is getting dirtier and stinkier because of the people. Streets and buildings don't just clean themselves, moron.

[RipSawyer]

I was in SF exactly 40 years ago as a resident of Treasure Island. I had some good times there and would have had a lot more if I had actually had an income to speak of.

[HamiltonJay]

San Fran is a filthy city... liberal policies make it full of bums, gangs and filth. The landscape coming up 101 toward san fran looks like giant trailer parks on either side, with square 1 story homes painted horrid colors.

There is some beauty in San Fran proper, but you have to ignore a lot of filth to see it.

The valley south isn't as bad, just overcrowded and overpriced. I did my time there, hated every minute. The only thing nice about the area were the people I met and the weather... everything else completely sucked.

[fogarty]

Believe me, you speak for more than just Boston. Dallas is in a hurt locker. For the Richardson-Plano corridor, it's like a neutron bomb went off. Several hundred thousands layoffs during the past two years, and incredibly, the layoffs are continuing. I have a friend who fortunately found a job here on the Fort Worth side, and he finally sold his home over there (after 8 months on the market, and at a loss of $20k).

One thing Texas has going for it is Defense contractors, but they are maybe putting back 10% the jobs the telecoms and tech companies are getting rid of.

7% unemployment nationwide may not be far off.

[RipSawyer]

"Are we rollin' down hill like a snowball headed for hell?"
Merle Haggard

[Hammerhead]

"WHAT DOES THE WHITE COLLAR HIGH TECH WORKER THINK ABOUT TH GLOBAL ECONOMY NOW ON THE UNEMPLOYMENT LINE. "

"There was a lot of sneering at the blue collar types by the white collar types when the blue collar types were losing their jobs and homes. Home foreclosures under Clinton were at very high levels but those who didn't see their own fates were headed in the same direction thought those without college degrees deserved what they got."

Always kinda of found it humorous that computer geeks thought (or think) that they are better than a brick layer, plumber, or mechanic.

Computerism is nothing more than a TRADE. A TRADE where you dont get your hands dirty.

[VOA]

Believe me, you speak for more than just Boston. Dallas is in a hurt locker.

I have a cousin that does (profitably, amazingly) webwork in Dallas.
He's had two friends that lost their telecomm jobs in Dallas during the blood-letting
of the past two years.
Interestingly, both of them eventually found telecomm/engineering work...in Boston.
(One had worked for Nortel in France and in Dallas; the other had jumped between
so many telecomms in Dallas, I lost track of which ones he'd been with.)

[VOA]

"Are we rollin' down hill like a snowball headed for hell?"
Merle Haggard

I think the start of the current unemployment picture started off as a variant of
that old Merle Haggard line of "some day, I'm gonna' leave you when things are good.".

The early layoffs must have seemed as though the corporate policy had been:
"Some day, when things are good, you are going to leave us."