Tech's 10 Worst Entry-Level Jobs 312
Nicholas Carlson writes "These employers (Amazon, Google, Yahoo, etc), and the others hiring for tech's 10 worst entry-level jobs will look good on a resume someday, but for now the only good these jobs promise the world is the pleasant feeling you and I can share knowing we're not the ones stuck in them." The story is really obnoxiously laid out, requiring many many clicks to read very little actual content. Perhaps Valleywag could afford to hire another of tech's worst jobs: the web designer.
The article sucks? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The article sucks? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Chiming in (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Chiming in (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd have to say that's not the worst entry-level job in tech by a long shot, ever since I started working in the wonderful area of, wait a minute some guy had to restart his DSL modem and needed me to hold his hand, tech support.
Seriously, working in tech support is about as low as it gets, you're expected to have college-level skills while everyone assumes you're some high school dropout who is barely capable of reading and writing, the pay is horrible and very few people really appreciate the work you do (most of the time the first thing you hear after helping someone fix a problem is "...and how are you going to compensate me for this?").
/Mikael
Re:Don't make me laugh. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the point here was that it's about "crap entry level jobs at well known big IT companies". Having Google on your resume is an asset. Your job, while absolutely sucky was not at a high-profile IT company.
DB admin at goggle (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Well, this is a slashvertisement for valleywag (Score:4, Insightful)
Boycott. For great justice.
Re:Chiming in (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine it the other way around, though; There have been many times where I have been on the phone to somebody like yourself, having already performed ALL of the troubleshooting tips you'll go through (having done them at least three times before on seperate calls), yet you still WILL NOT proceed with escalating a call until you've been through them ONE MORE TIME to make sure we've done it right.
Too damn right you get a mouth full, you insensitive clod!
Tech Ghetto? (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's my take from back when I was in IT.
Developing software can be really interesting, cool, challenging, stimulating, etc... but when the project it done, they really don't need you anymore - unless you work for a software firm. Even if it's a large company with a shitload of projects, eventually they'll be done. With the current trend of buying canned software and integrating (usually done by the canned software co.) there's less opportunity for he hard core developer.
Support, DBA, and other admin type of jobs.
Ghetto indeed! There' always something to be done and some of the scripts I've seen from you admins can rival much software I've seen. And if I could do it all over again, I would be going for an admin job/career. Why? Because there's a bigger demand for them and you're more likely to have a job. I learned the hard way that it's more important to have a steady job than to be chasing after the highest rate and the coolest project. Well, maybe in the beginning I would do that, but definitely later on, I'd switch to the steady stuff. And, invest my money a bit beter - save, save, save!
Just this old fart's $0.5.
And it only pays $80K. (Score:5, Insightful)
Since when is $80K an "entry level job" in this industry?
And when is being a SysAdmin an "entry level job"?
Who writes that crap?
So you're not in your dream job at 21 (Score:5, Insightful)
What's so bad about most of these jobs? Sure, they all look kind of mundane and I wouldn't want to do them for 50 years, but when did we start thinking that every job was supposed to be so fun, fun, FUN! I realize this may sound a bit like a "get of my lawn" post, but the biggest fantasy we've hoisted onto young people is making them think that work is supposed to be glamorous and the be all/end all of life.
I'm lucky enough to be in a job that I enjoy very much, but at the end of the day I realize that it's a JOB and that if for whatever reason I have to work on some projects that are a little mundane or boring it's no big deal.
The job you can't escape (Score:5, Insightful)
The guy who fixes our computers has been with us for about ten years. He got the idea that he should upgrade his education. He got a BComm. It cost a lot and it was hard work. The trouble is that he has no administrative experience so our mutual employer won't promote him to anything where he can use the degree. His only option is to quit and take an entry level position elsewhere. The trouble is that he can't afford to take a cut in pay.
That has to be the worst job. Look up 'wage slave' in the dictionary and you see buddy's face.
Re:Chiming in (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Chiming in (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, see the thing is that even though I'm not just some script-monkey I still need to check certain things with the customer and I can honestly say that any customer who knows what he/she is doing shouldn't need more than a few minutes to go through all the things I need him/her to check.
If I don't check these things before sending off a ticket then the 3rd line techs send it back to me with a note to contact the customer and get the necessary info (plus a comment about always getting all relevant info)...
Can't really type now, some guy has managed to mangle the settings for his DSL modem's built-in WAP and I need to guide him through setting everything up again... Somehow he thinks it's related to his browser proxy settings... *sigh*
/Mikael
Re:Pffft (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll keep my nice clean text, thanks.
Re:The article sucks? (Score:4, Insightful)
Okay, deep breath, clean the coffee off your screen, let me explain:
Something that's usually doled out in small amounts (leave 'em wanting more) becomes basically a janitor's job. Think you'd really like to spend your day applying mods to goatse and crapfloods? Sounds boring to me.
Mind you, I'm not saying that being a Slashdot editor sucks in general. I just wouldn't want the job.
Re:Is this any better? :) (Score:5, Insightful)
This sounds awful close to the standard Slashdot business model.
The quality of your job is what you make of it. (Score:4, Insightful)
Often Tech Support jobs are hated by college grads because they feel the work is really below them, in many ways it is. But if you put that asside and focus on making peoples lives a bit easier then the job would be less of a pain, and letting the angry insults roll off your back.
Or you can be a software developer on actually a very exciting project but you tend to focus on the mononoty and your ideas that got rejected, making working on the project just mizerable. Vs. exciting if you focus on the interesting bits and the ideas that you contributed and got approved.
It is often the mindset of the job that makes it good or bad. Yes managers and corporate culture can effect your mindset as well. And just staying happy with your job isn't really an option. But it is not always the job itself but what you make of it.
Re:Chiming in (Score:5, Insightful)
Toss in draconian call metric systems, skeleton crews and call volumes that burn out your L1 and L2 techs before they start getting raises and you've got a system that favors not promoting customers up the chain if at all possible.
Another thing to remember: when you call in you are bothering the other person on the other end as well. They really don't want to talk to you. They will make you share in the suffering. If the L2 techs can find a way to keep you in L1 hell, they will. L3 does the same.
I'm amazed that we haven't had enough incidents yet to coin the phrase "going tech support". Hitler and Stalin don't have anything on the average L2 tech when it comes to malevolence and a burning desire to rid the world of all life in the cruelest, most painful ways possible.
Re:Chiming in (Score:5, Insightful)
I do technical support for cell phones and BlackBerrys. Although I try to get a feel for each person's competency and react accordingly, it does happen that a competent-sounding person has overlooked something obvious. Better safe than sorry, I say, if the basic troubleshooting is pretty quick to do. It's embarrassing to escalate something and find out that it was a no-brainer after all.
I do get callers who are in charge of setting up other people's devices, and when I hear from them multiple times, I start trusting that they know what they're doing.
One thing's for sure, though: I don't just talk like a robot through some script. I'm a human who likes helping humans.
Re:So you're not in your dream job at 21 (Score:5, Insightful)
Those who listened threw themselves at the entry-level help desk jobs, where they stayed just long enough to angle for a junior admin slot at a start-up or small biz, which in turn was a resume' boost for bigger and better things. It's just how one gets up in the world nowadays... I still get a kick out of hearing from a couple of them, and how they've been doing. The ones who didn't are working in some other field entirely after a ton of disappointment and rejection.
The funniest thing is, I don't think it's us the pros who have foisted visions of joy and glory onto the kids: It's the images from Hollywood of "'leet hackers" (*snort*). It's the unholy size of Bill Gates' bank account. It's the image that all the non-tech-oriented folks project (as if we were keepers of some arcane dogma that only The Chosen Few can ever learn... Cripes, folks - it's just a frickin' BASH prompt!)
That, I think in combination with typical youthful impatience, is what tends to delude the kids into thinking that it's all glory and no muck-hauling...
Re:Is this any better? :) (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Chiming in (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Pfft! Please... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:And it only pays $80K. (Score:5, Insightful)
I know there are pretty crappy jobs in every business. Thats because there is just a lot of crap that needs to be done, period. The real question is "what do you get from it". If you work at Google or Amazon, there is probably a pretty good chance that your job is going to lead to "something else". Even if its just within the company for a few dollars more an hour. If you do things right, chances are you will have career advancement.
Someone needs to define "worse". Mundane, boring jobs may not be what everyone is looking for, but truly 'terrible' jobs, in all industries, are ones with no advancement, no benefits, and expose the employees to all sorts of potential career/health hazards with practically no pay (and yes, there are LOTS AND LOTS of these jobs in every industry, even IT).
Re:Pfft! Please... (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly how I like my food inspectors.
Re:Chiming in (Score:3, Insightful)
It not really either lying or understanding. Many times the customer calling in believes that they automatically know more than you, since you're just a "script reading monkey." Once armed with this belief, they ignore everything you say and insist that their diagnosis must be correct, even when its absolutely bollocks.
Re:And it only pays $80K. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Chiming in (Score:1, Insightful)
why even post this?? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:So you're not in your dream job at 21 (Score:5, Insightful)
Just in my own city, I could find 10 "tech" type jobs that are all FAR worse gigs than anything they listed in this article.
Like one guy said, have a Best Buy in your town? How about Geeksquad being on the list? There's a job where you'll never see anything remotely LIKE a $50K a year salary, yet your customers will all place demands and expectations on you like that's what you make (since that's the kind of money they pay Best Buy to get you out there in the first place!).
Or try a call center for any of the telcos? I've had friends doing that job for Verizon and AT&T. You're looking at being packed in a building like sardines, with no windows and poor climate control. The whole place literally stinks of sweat and mildew, and their idea of "variety" is shuffling you around to different cubicles every few weeks. (Really, it just ensures you don't get too friendly with co-workers sitting nearby and actually make new friends!) The pay? $11/hr. if you're lucky.
I know cost of living is different in different parts of the country, but geez! I'm past my mid 30's and I've been working in I.T. since I was 19 or 20. I've STILL never received a salary as high as $50K, much less the $70-80K some of these "worst 10" were offering! I have to work two jobs to get into the lower part of that range at all!
Re:Chiming in (Score:4, Insightful)
There's no identification mechanism on either side (IP address, machine name, etc) of a point to point (not PPP) dialup connection you either initiate or answer and once the handshake is complete there's no further distinction between the two nodes. There's no addressing mechanism either, you just pump stuff out your serial port and the other side gets it nor not, you may never know unless you were running a specialized transfer app/protocol like Kermit or X/Y/Zmodem. In fact you can't even tell if there is "another side" sometimes you may just be sending to the bit bucket.
Re:Chiming in (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Pfft! Please... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Chiming in (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Don't make me laugh. (Score:3, Insightful)
Looking without seeing. I don't see the actual contents anymore - salaries, names, numbers, cause of death, how the fire started, child abusers, IRS cheaters, executive emails discussing layoffs - none of it. I see the code. I see the machines. I see whether the application talks to the database via ODBC or not. I see that the printer is printing, and the queues are moving. But I don't even glom the contents of the data - haven't for years.
Some stuff, I'm much happier (and safer) not knowing. I highly recommend it.
Re:Chiming in (Score:3, Insightful)