<p>ucbalumnus,</p>
<p>My father has passed, so I can’t check with him, but I feel fairly confident it was the good case he was talking about. ;-)</p>
<p>He loved me very much. Or at least he pretended so well that to his dying day, I never knew the awful truth. :-p</p>
<p>Ohio is surely the place for a rewarding career and wonderful life in general.</p>
<p>I used to work at a company that did event log management, ie, they stored records of phone calls, emails, etc., in a specialized database. Pretty mundane stuff.</p>
<p>We used to cynically joke that we were passionate about event log management.</p>
<p>It sounds nice to tell others to find a job they’re passionate about, and sometimes those jobs exist, but that’s not typical. I’m satisfied with any job that I don’t hate.</p>
<p>simba9,</p>
<p>You may need to watch “Joe Versus the Volcano” more than GLOBAL TRAVELER. ;-)</p>
<p>You live in San Francisco, one of the greatest cities in the country… strike that… one of the greatest cities on the PLANET, and you took a job in event log management?!</p>
<p>How did you find it? Did you throw darts at a newspaper help wanted page?</p>
<p>C’mon. San Francisco? You could do ANYTHING! You could reinvent yourself again and again until you found your niche in a city like that. There is no end to the opportunities. We’re about the same age. You shouldn’t be writing defeatist stuff like that.</p>
<p>“I’m satisfied with any job that I don’t hate.” That’s unacceptable. </p>
<p>How about “I’m satisfied with any spouse I don’t hate.” Would you find that acceptable? You probably spend as much time in your job as you do with your spouse, maybe more!</p>
<p>I’m really surprised by this reaction.</p>
<p>Realistically, most people do not have the perfect job that they love that also pays them well enough. For example, lots of people love to play sports, but only a few play sports well enough to get paid to play sports (though some others manage to get college educations paid for through sports). Most people who love to play sports need to find some other kind of job to pay the bills, even if they do not like to do it as much as playing sports.</p>
<p>Choosing a job and career is an optimization problem where one has to consider how much you like the job with how much it pays and other factors like location or commuting. Of course, during down parts of the economic cycle, you may have less choice than during up parts of the economic cycle.</p>
<p>maikai, ucbalumnus pretty much summed it up in his(?) first sentence. My passions didn’t pay enough to be able to afford a house out here.</p>
<p>Well, maybe I’m leaving out the part about making an effort to love something. Kinda felt that was implied, but…</p>
<p>It’s a combination of finding the right chemistry of company and position and finding the right mind set for yourself. What I’m suggesting is, with the right mindset, we can find companies and positions that suit us. Positions we can truly be happy and perform fantastically in. Positions we are eager to get out of bed and get to. </p>
<p>I wasn’t suggesting that you take your passion, whatever it is, and try to make money with it. I was saying have passion for what you do. The two things are different. </p>
<p>And passions are different. Please don’t confuse that I’m saying I have the same passion for work that I do when I go surfing with my son. That’s ridiculous.</p>
<p>We all control our feelings. We can all decide right now to burn the flames of our love for our spouses brighter today. I don’t think anyone would disagree with me on that. Why not your job?</p>
<p>Good point. Attitude is important, and sometimes it’s the only thing we can control.</p>
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</p>
<p>The companies mentioned in this post will have weight. The one thing they have in common is that they all build software/os platforms.</p>
<p>
I’m about 50/50 on whether you’re serious.</p>
<p>maikai, that’s nice rhetoric, but it has nothing to do with the reality of making a living.</p>
<p>I’m not being defeatist. I’m being realistic.</p>
<p>noimagination wrote:
</p>
<p>On a typical day, that’s exactly right. 
On this, I’m being very serious. Here is my comprehensive list.</p>
<p>1) I believe young soon-to-be-grads should be looking for jobs in geographic areas that are ripe, if not oozing with positions in their chosen line of work. These are the very best places to find the experiences they need to round out their skill sets for a successful career. These are also the very best places to find the “perfect fit” job in their field and to create the network of friends and colleagues that can be so vitally important to each other in the years to come.</p>
<pre><code> 1a) They should also build varied skills in various positions for both a broader employment appeal and to understand what they like best about their field.
</code></pre>
<p>2) I believe the name of the company is next to irrelevant. The value any resume holds is what you accomplished and what you can do, not where you worked. Let’s say you’re in the hiring chain and your company is “on the grow.” Projects need to get done by particular dates and, as a manager, you’re under a heck of a lot of pressure to get things done. Engineers need to be hired for these tasks. What would you care about more? … whether your candidate has sufficient skills in the systems or on the processors you’re using? … or that he worked at GE? Personally, I don’t give a rat’s butt that he worked at GE unless he did at GE what I need him to do here… and then I <em>still</em> don’t care he was at GE.</p>
<p>3) I believe young people should approach their career choices like they approach picking a spouse. It’s going to be as important a partner in their lives. Sadly, in many cases, a more important partner. They should not be as cynical about their employer/employment as some people on this thread. They should look at it as a marriage, where both parties are happy to be with each other, both parties are making a huge investment in each other, and both parties are working toward common goals. </p>
<p>We spend so much time looking for the right girl… starting in elementary school where having a girlfriend meant her best friend told your best friend she liked you. To middle school where having a girlfriend meant going to the movies with mom and dad, but you and your girl sat up front. To High School where having a girlfriend meant… well… ;-)… you know… All the while we are building a list of our likes and dislikes in women. We didn’t know what those things are until we got together with a girl and said “Damn I hate that!”, hopefully to ourselves. Then we found our mate… the girl that fits… and we fit her. Sure, sometimes she fits, but we don’t and it’s heartbreaking, or visa versa. Same with finding a position and company to work for. It’s hard!!! But so damn rewarding in the end!! After that struggle and you find a mutual fit you have a lifetime of fun… a lifetime of passion. </p>
<p>Until the company goes under and you get to do it all again, but hopefully by then you’ve built a reputation and your dance card is full of hot babes. :-O</p>
<p>With the internship programs and CoOp programs the colleges have put together, this has been made easier to do. Engineers can start this process before they even graduate. They should pick the brains of the people in the department they were assigned and branch out to pick the brains of others. They can start to get a feel for the types of “girls” out there before they ever get a diploma.</p>
<p>@Maikai,</p>
<p>That process of choosing a employer like a marriage is good for the “old way of thinking” that one will stay at the same company for 100 years, but that doesn’t really work with the consulting and contracting world where you are a “hired mercenary”.</p>
<p>In contracting, one needs to know that they will be “better with more skills” after the short term than what they are before (when choosing an employer). After that, one parlays the new skill set into higher paying positions.</p>
<p>The “dynamic” part of consulting/contracting is when employers win/lose contracts…which may prompt changing employers. This would apply whether or not one is doing private-sector or government contracting.</p>
<p>Even when not doing contracting and consulting, an employment relationship is not necessarily as durable as one would hope a marriage relationship is. Indeed, the lack of durability of employment relationships is a reason for locating in an area with an abundance of employers for the desired type of job.</p>
<p>I hear that woodworkers in Cincinatti, OH are very passionate about their work.</p>
<p>Yes, contracting is indeed different. But then again, this thread isn’t really talking about contracting. We’re talking about how soon-to-be-grads should be thinking about their careers. Should they be looking to work for Google, Apple, GE, etc… Should they look on the coasts or in Ohio, where a man still greets you with a firm handshake and has mastered the art of talking with a toothpick in his mouth, where women still know how to bake, and a dollar is still worth something. ;-)</p>
<p>To talk about contracting is to rather significantly change context, IMHO. It didn’t register that you were talking contract work, because you mentioned benefits, 401K, etc… Typically, that’s not part of contract work. You’re on your own for that stuff typically when you contract.</p>
<p>Also, IMHO, the new norm for the typical engineer (not contractors) is to find a home and stay. During the 80’s and 90’s the norm was to work somewhere for two years then leave in an effort to bump your salary. But when the tech bubble hit, those guys were the first to have guns put to their heads and triggers pulled. </p>
<p>…and then their resumes told their stories in such graphic detail that, unless they had some darn impressive skill sets, many of them had to find another career. </p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong, people still move around, but it’s usually the younger guys “finding themselves” and older guys making career advancements or for other good reasons. It’s not anything like the dynamic free-for-all it once was.</p>
<p>New grads probably leave school intending to be passionate about their work, but after a few years, reality takes over.</p>
<p>“Finding yourself” can take a while to do. Many new grads don’t have the luxury of spending months and months looking for the perfect job. They have to eat and pay those school loans off, so they take the first acceptable job that comes along.</p>
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<p>Lots of people do not have the luxury of choosing how long to stay at a given employer (even during non-crash periods). What looked like a promising profitable company when one joined may be going out of business or having massive layoffs a few years later.</p>
<p>IMHO, young engineers should always be working on their resume and always have their eyes and ears open for oportunities.</p>
<p>“Finding yourself”… finding the right segment of your field and the right position for yourself… as an engineer has little to do with eating, paying of student loans or starting to build a life… unless you are in an area of limited possibilities and each career move necessitates a geographic/residence move.</p>
<p>As for going out of business, yes, that can happen. That’s why I wrote, a few messages back: “Until the company goes under and you get to do it all again, but hopefully by then you’ve built a reputation and your dance card is full of hot babes. :-O”</p>
<p>With that mind, we all must do our research on a company before we work for them. Climb into the annual report, financials, earnings calls, etc… before deciding to work for a company just as you would before deciding to invest big in it. This assumes it’s public. If private, you’ll have to take in more subjective data, but it’s still out there. You should be confident the company will be around for the next 5 or so year… barring another tech bubble or housing crisis or (what’s next on our financial disaster list?).</p>
<p>That being said, we must also consider the wealth of experience and rewards, along with high risk, that comes with start ups. If a young engineer is lucky enough to be able to accept the risks that come with such deals… and the working hours (be prepared to go 12 hour days, 7 days per week)… than it’s a GREAT way to accelerate a career. </p>
<p>Experience with a start-up, even a failed start-up smokes anything else on a resume, expect experience, of course. It says all kinds of things about dedication, motivation, work ethic, team work, etc… that nothing else on a resume can say.</p>
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<p>The type of situation I’m discussing is when the company is competing to win and/or retain the customer and/or against other companies. So, even though a top software developer may produce better results in fewer hours, there are more tasks that need to be done. For example, Steve Jobs leaned on his staff to produce results that met his high expectations, even if more than a 40-hour workweek was required.</p>