Posted on 09/22/2002 7:21:38 AM PDT by RCW2001
Edited on 04/13/2004 2:41:01 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Jobless and broke, Bryan Clouse sits among the dwindling possessions in his studio in San Francisco's Fillmore District getting ready to leave what he once thought was a computer nerd's promised land.
In a week, the 35-year-old programmer will load up a rented SUV and say goodbye to the city that has been his home for the past nine years. He will go to live with his grandparents in Brooklyn, Mich., a tiny town of brick storefronts and clapboard houses a few hours west of Detroit. There, with no rent to worry about, he will look for work.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
I give up. You are just hell bent on coming up with excuses to continue a program that will inevitably destroy the engineering profession in this country. Blaming our schools, the quality of American brains, ect. is all just a bunch of bull. The fact is that there is no SHORTAGE of qualified American engineers in this country. There is only a SHORTAGE of JOBS. Thousand of highly skilled engineers are sitting home applying for jobs that don't exist. Claiming that schools are the problem is so out of touch with reality that it is not even funny.
Immigration attorneys have a very big stake in this game. They are making a bundle of money via the H-1B visa program. They will fight very hard to keep it and you will never EVER see the day when they will import foreign lawyers.
The number of doctors in this country are controlled by the AMA. You will never EVER see Doctors unemployed in this country. Every other profession could end up just like the engineering profession.
Stockholm Syndrome
When .NET offers a legacy transaction system connector framework... When .NET compiles and runs on the mainframe... When .NET offers services that participate in a transaction across distributed and legacy systems... When .NET can handle transactions that move the equivalent of $40billion in one weekend, then I'll look at deploying it into our production environments.
C# is cool for prototypes and functional departmental apps. I can't imagine replacing MQSeries and Java for MoveMoney. I appreciate the enhancements that MS provides in C#, it is way cool with respect to events, properties, etc. VS.NET rocks. But, we live in reality.
Why torture yourself with the too high rent, long commute, cold winters and smelly liberals, leave while you still can.
How many more terrorist activities originating in Boston do you need to see before you leave the witch land behind.
BTW, I'm just kidding, kinda.
I grew up in San Jose and moved to LA in 1979 to attend college. Upon graduation, I was recruited by downtown CPA firms and ended up getting a job and staying. My family still lives in the Bay Area and I visit at least a couple of times each year.
In fact, my brother was just down here visiting over the weekend - he's seriously considering moving down. We were talking about the basic differences between the two areas, and I provided him with my favorite pet theory:
As people are making their way out to the coast, they have an option somewhere around St. Louis whether to take the I-80 into the Bay Area or I-15/40 (the old Route 66) into LA.
IMHO, the choice usually hinges on whether one has a positive or negative outlook. The happy people move to SoCal; the bummed out negative people move to SF. As way of example, my brother was amazed at how everyone seemed so happy and relaxed i.e. 'laid back'.
I explained to him that everyone works pretty hard, but they're also very conscious that they live in a fanastic area. Most people equate going to the beach with a holiday, but for SoCal residents, it's like going to the grocery store. It's just right there and easy to get to, so it's no big deal.
BTW, I weathered the aerospace downturn here during the 90s when NO ONE ever thought the region was coming back. The stories like the one in the Chronicle could have been lifted from the LA Times from 1993.
The Silicon Valley is totally screwed for at least another 5 years, which makes the fact that the SoCal economy is humming even more ironic.
Last night, I was talking to my Dad about why the economy is so strong down here - he was asking what was the primary driver; he thought it might be the entertainment industry.
I told him LA has returned to original roots: it's real estate development. People throughout the country are moving here to get a little piece of the action they see projected around the world. The whole place has gone crazy from a building perspective. While prices are getting higher, it's the NEW building activity, not speculation, that's keeping all the trades folk busy and employed.
What kind of engineering do you mean? And no matter what kind you do mean, 7 years is a very long time ago.
Someone who was trained 20 years ago would have to have taken refresher courses many times over the years. Unfortunately, many do not.
Man, that's worth repeating often! I grew up poor. The message that was drummed into us kids was that we were poor because Dad didn't have an education.
Of course, all of us are educated and far from poor.
And, BTW, we all got educated in fields that had good possibilities for employment. We didn't take majors in Women's studies, diversity programs, or social studies.
Great get rid of H1B visas if you want. The companies will follow the cheaper talent and the American Engeering sector will die all the sooner. Do you think I like what is happening? NO, I want higher pay for less work, just as anyone else, but it is not possible under the conditions of a global economy. Look at the EU or Japan, these two entities are stagnant because of their government subsidies to protect jobs. Can we as a nation survive like a 10%-15% unemployment rate for the long term. That is the consequence of the action your espousing. All I'm saying is that making ourselves better will help us out in the long run. Because you know that indian software engineers will always be cheaper, at least we should try to be better! That is all I'm saying, if I'm a "small man" or a "complacent slave" for saying such things, then surely you must be smoking something.
Finally from the swamp of complexity comes a valid thought.
No matter what I've done, I've never thought those who did those jobs were somehow lesser that I. If anything, I thought the wholesale exodus of work going to China, Taiwan, Mexico, Indonesia, and other such rat holes was the beginning of the end. I may have been right all along....
If only posting on FR would pay. Now THAT wouldn't be so bad....
Unfortunetely it doesn't. And for anyone out there to say that there isn't enough qualified engineers to fill positions, well, they have an agenda that has nothing to do with helping America.
If that is true, I can bet that you fall into that 2 out of five. Hoping to compete against those who can't speak English so that you'll have some type of edge?
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