2nd May 2007

Status: Pro

posted in Uncategorized |

One of the great things about OmegaGranny is that she has leapt into the technology world, and often sends me links to stories or blog posts that she feels might be of interest to me.

One blogger that she forwards on to me occasionally is a guy named HalfBakedSigma.

HalfWittedSigma is a computer programmer who is in the process of getting a law degree so he can practice law.  He wants to practice law so he can get Big Bucks and become High Status.  One of his posts was a tirade about how programming is a dead-end job, that older programmers never get hired, that the swift pace of technology and the constant introduction of the new programming language de jour leads to programmers stalled in their careers because they can’t catch up, that programmers have no social status, and it’s just plain dumb to get a degree in computer science.

Knock me over with a feather.

Okay, here I am, a software dudette.  Yeah, I’ve got to admit, I don’t have a great deal of social status; I’m never going to be country club material.  I’m not sure it’s because of my profession, though, or more a matter of my personality.  I don’t give a hoot about having social status and prestige.  Just ain’t my style.

I don’t know what his definition of “old programmers” is, but it seems to be anyone over 40.  I am well over 40 (alas).  If we move to a big city, I’ll be able to get a job programming within a week.  I’ve done it before–all I have to do is contact the local tech temp company and send them my resume. 

The new programming languages shutting out older programmers is a bunch of hooey.  Anyone who can program well in one programming language can learn to program well in any new one, and can usually hit the ground running with a week’s worth of sitting at a computer and working his/her way through a Sams Teach Yourself book.  The only programming language I ever had a problem with was LISP.  (If you’re someone who is good with LISP, I don’t want to hear from you; you probably think in a totally alien fashion.)

“Dead-end job” is, like status and prestige, one of those things.  To advance in any career, you have to get into management.  You have to attend lots of meetings.  You have to start bossing other people around.  Most software folk I know are into software not because it’s going to lead to bigger and better things; they’re into software because they think it’s just pretty damned cool that someone is going to pay me to play with puzzles all day!!!  You’re getting paid to fiddle on the computer.  How cool is that?!

Anyway, I’ve been mulling this one over for a while, and have decided that I’m just not his target audience.  He seems to have a bone to pick.  He just isn’t happy working with computers.  This is cool!  Not everyone likes to do that!  But he’s making sweeping generalizations about an entire career choice based on his personal feelings about that career.  Piffle.

Then, this week, there was this lovely article in the New York Times, which just keyed right into my feelings about HalfEmptySigma’s point of view.  The article, written by a Harvard alumnus who interviews Harvard applicants as a service for Harvard, is a glowing look at today’s high school graduates.  Bright, talented, gifted, these kids are not guaranteed to get into Harvard, or any other Ivy League school.  Once this bothered him–but now he has come to realize that an Ivy League education is not necessary for success in life. 

Success in life can take many forms.  To some, “success” means bling on the fingers, the latest and greatest fancy cars, a private jet, mingling with the rich and famous on a regular basis.  To others, “success” means living a life of faith.  To many, “success” is just finding something you like to do as a career, building a family, loving people, having friends.  Of course, you can do it all, and end up being rich and famous, truly religious, and having a loving family and a career you love. 

To me, these days, success is having my dotter look at me when I’m dressing up and breathe, “Mommy!  You look beautiful!”  Or having OmegaDad laugh and bump heads with me and caress my nose with a finger when I admit that watching the dotter in her first recital costume was both my most happy and most sad event of the day.

Technorati:

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 2nd, 2007 at 6:37 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

There are currently 5 responses to “Status: Pro”

  1. 1 On May 2nd, 2007, J said:

    When I was chit-chatting with nurses and doctors in the neo-natal ICU (NICU), they asked me what I did for a living. I said, “Well, ummm, I’m just a programmer at the Mega-lo-corp.” They sorta laughed/guffawed, “Just a programmer?!” And shook their heads.

    To me, they were the people operated on premies and took care of them with all these complex instruments and drugs. I just hacked on C.

    To them, this computer is very complex and indecipherable.

    Perspective.

  2. 2 On May 2nd, 2007, GrannyJ said:

    There’s the fact that you are my daughter! My attitude toward the career thingy was that I simply didn’t want to be bored at whatever I had to do for a living. One reason I wound up in Arizona (aside from that telescope in LA) is that my job was turning into (ugh) corporate management, though I didn’t even have much or many to manage, but the corporate BS was growing by leaps and bounds…

  3. 3 On May 3rd, 2007, Spacemom said:

    I tend to agree with you. When I left my programming job to work science ops, I was told by my b*tch, I mean my old boss, that I was leaving the world of advancement to languish in a dead-end job.

    I actually love my job. I don’t want to manage other people. I am happy. I get to work on puzzles, and check spacecraft commands and all sorts of fun stuff. I love it! No, I will never get the pay I could have in the programming world, but I have the flexibility to be with my girls on Mondays and enjoy what I do.

    It is all perspective. I am trying very hard to keep that in mind for the kids. It doesn’t matter WHERE you go to college. Just that you do your best. The grades don’t matter to me, if it is the best work you can do…

    Experience over bragging rights, I guess….

  4. 4 On May 3rd, 2007, Anne said:

    So right…I did ok in high school (3.1 GPA) and on tests (1250 SATs). I went to a middle-tier university. But I got good grades in college and got good professional experience, and wound up getting into a pretty competitive Ph.D. program (where they pay YOU to go to school there) in the field of my choice. I would not be doing anything differently if I had gone to an Ivy League for undergrad (or graduate school, for that matter…) My brother, who likewise did just ok in high school (and got even lower test scores than me) wound up studying his butt off in college, transferring to the University of Chicago as a junior, majored in economics, and is now making all kinds of money working as a financial analyst in New York. There are ALL kinds of pathways to “success,” and there are all kinds of “success.”

  5. 5 On May 6th, 2007, omegamom said:

    J–It’s a wild and wonderful world out there, with so many options for each person to follow. I would *never* have gone into medicine–all that blood and guts and puke and stuff like that. But it’s the right fit for a lot of people, and I’m in awe of them.

    Mamasan–I joke with the management where I work that they’re being paid the big bucks to attend lots of meetings, because no-one would do that many meetings unless they were being paid very well. So far, I’ve managed to avoid management, though they keep trying to push it on me. Yuck.

    Spacemom–Now, see, if any of *my* putative employees were to tell me they were going to work with spacecraft and stuff like that, you betcha I’d be jaw-dropped envious of them and not muttering anything about “dead-end jobs”!

    Anne–Yes, I agree–many pathways. I feel sorry for people who get so hung-up on the “trappings” that if they don’t get those particular trappings, they don’t feel “successful”. It’s like they get mentally stuck on One True Way.

Leave a Reply