<p>In my 24th academic year at a cc. While I love most parts of my job, it has certainly changed and will likely continue to change quite a bit in the next 8-10 years before I retire. When I started there was strong demand for evening classes. Now the demand for those in the workforce or with other restrictions that prevent them from taking live classes is for online instruction and many aren’t necessarily suited for that and the discipline it requires to be successful. At the beginning of my career, state funding provided the greatest source of our budget, but now it’s tuition dollars and the pressure for quantity of students over quality of instruction continues to escalate. It will be interesting to see how higher ed continues to evolve in the next decade.</p>
<p>11 companies over 29 years. 5 of those companies were because of acquisitions, 2 of the companies went out of business, and I was laid off several times.</p>
<p>So all the movement hasn’t been my choice.</p>
<p>These companies ranged in size from 5 employees to 120,000.</p>
<p>The last gig lasted almost 9 years through 3 companies when I was laid off.</p>
<p>I think I am at Pizzagirl and Njmom23’s company too. I will have been there for 35 years in May and that is not unusual. They treat their employees well and get a lot of loyalty in return. I was particularly touched by other employees reactions to my sister losing everything in Katrina. None of these people had ever met my sister, but they sent checks for her- ranging from $25 on up. I don’t remember the exact total, but it was over $1000. I have had numerous jobs over the years and just moved into what I think will be my final one in August. It amazes me how much there still is to learn and how willing people are to teach me, even knowing that I will probably retire as soon as I get my son out of college (may 2017) or sooner if he take the Alabama scholarship.</p>
<p>28 years with the company allow you to get away with stuff that the junior peons would not even dream of getting away :). The key is to stay current in your field and not have an attitude. What I do is very entertaining but also very desirable from the young engineers - we try to hire some every year and they usually stay with us for a few years, but the core of the company is all geezers. Very unusual for a high tech company. </p>
<p>Both us and our management often pass up promotions to stay put (and not transfer around the world every couple years). I mean, how do you talk performance assessment with the same guy for 14 years in a row? Takes 10 minutes a year.</p>
<p>Sure, I could make more money if I job-hop like my wife (who job-hops quite often) but she’s more of a generalist while I’m more specialized. By far, tho, the biggest benefit of having 3 decades is accumulating enough ‘gravitas’ so that you don’t have to fight to convince anyone higher up about anything. You need $50k for a new GeeWhiz, or $10k for training, or a new req, nothing to it.</p>
<p>Not to mention we get paid overtime and catered food when working overtime :).</p>