> Alan Dayley said:
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>> On Tuesday 09 December 2003 09:13 pm, frankburton@cox.net wrote:
>>> I was just wondering what you guys thought of this article.
>>> http://businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/dec2003/sb2003122_8887.htm
>>
>> After the .com bust, sysadmins and techs, and some programmers, already
>> felt the pain of reduced wages. Worse, some the pain of long
>> unemployment. It is reality.
>>
Wages are down for just about everything; I should be making 20K more than I am
but I'm content with stability even at a lower wage. I decided to start my own
company to make up the difference.
>> Supply and demand. This was bound to happen, I think. I don't have a
>> magic answer for it either.
>
Move into areas that are more difficult and require more responsibility.
Any sort of 'production' job is expendible, meaning that if something is
produced then once that thing is done, you're expendible. It doesn't take as
many web programmers to maintain a site as it does to build it.
> I think most IT people want their cake and eat it too. In high times they
> "demanded" high salaries. Now in lean times they refuse to work for less.
> In the end I think there is a middle ground. That is the control and
> quality you lose by going overseas is a real tangible cost. At this time
> it might not be enough of a cost to justify overpaying greedy americans.
I believe that many IT people believe they are worth what they want to get paid.
While I've worked with many people that weren't worth what they were getting
paid, a lot of people are. Given that housing and other prices haven't fallen,
I dont see how anyone would take less pay than they had to. The way I see it,
is if my costs are lowered I'll accept less.
Much of what we are seeing now is the evil side of NAFTA, even the Mexican
people that it was touted to help are now feeling the effects as their jobs are
going to Hungary or China because labor is cheaper there. I'm not sure what we
can do about it other than take as much as we can when times are good, and put
as much of it in the bank as possible for when times are bad.
>
> As this article pointed out, this firm could pay 10% more to go local and
> it was worth that 10% to get the added quality and control.
45k is workable as a starting wage, less than that and it gets difficult to pay
the mortgage/etc. It think the days of 100k for web development work are over
though.
If you're a web developer, you'd better have OTHER skills too.
>
> I stumbled upon an interesting article that I rather liked. About role
> fragmentation within the IT sector and how it ballooned to a large degree
> earning and status roles and probably set us back 10 years.
://
www.softwarereality.com/lifecycle/role_fragmentation.jsp
While I agree with that guy to some extent, I think he takes it too far.
There are good reasons to control access to the database, network, and other
things by having a centralized person approve each change before allowing them
into production. While it may not be required for that person to actually
perform the change (as the article portrays it), in a production environment
changes must be controlled, logged, and documented. Much of the article talks
of untalented IT people which I believe should go to something else or get
training.
One side effect of what the article talks about is that it creates people with
expertise in a limited area. When technology changes or market forces push
technology different directions, those people are often the ones that resist the
most. When those people lose their jobs (think Cobol programmers) they are
forced to get training before finding a job and often enter at the bottom again.
When I was laid off in Oct of 2001 I realized that web programming wasn't going
to pick up any time soon. So I moved in to Oracle database administration,
since the learning curve is pretty steep and I had some experience already. It
was a smart move for me and has worked out well. I think IT workers have to
stay flexible and move where the market needs them. This means that you never
stop going to school or learning on the side; never get too comfortable doing
whatever you do.
I think more than ever this offshore outsourcing situation will fuel increased
worker dis-loyalty. When the job market picks up, the companies that are
sending jobs to India, China, etc will likely find the turnover to be quite high
when workers jump ship for better pastures.
>
> -Derek
>
-JD
--
JD Austin IV
Cell: 480-231-8312
Twin Geckos Technology Services
http://www.twingeckos.com
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