Random Chit Chat

[strollin]

In my own experience, I started out working as a technician while attending classes at night to get my degree. All of my tech buddies, had various excuses as to why it wasn't worth it for me (or them) to go to school at night to get a degree. "I'm too old to go to school.", "Won't make any difference", "Can't teach an old dog new tricks.", "I'd rather spend my free-time doing xxx.", etc...

After I got my degree and moved on from being a tech, I not only made more money than my buds but they all got laid off more often and when they did get laid off, they were out of work a lot longer. I know of at least 3 of them who ended up retiring early simply because they could no longer find jobs. I have one friend that is still working as a technician and he got laid off from a decent paying job about 3 years ago. He was then out of work for about 20 months before he finally found another technician job but this job only pays about 60% of what his previous job paid. I retired 2 years ago and I know that if I wanted to go back to work, I could, and for more money than I was making when I retired. I still get recruiters contacting me all the time asking if I would be interested in this or that job.

I've had conversations with tech buddies, reminding them how they told me I was wasting my time getting a degree. Everyone of them told me that they now regret that they never got a degree.

However, I do see that the trend is changing and that companies aren't as hung up on someone having a degree nowadays. I have 2 sons, the youngest has a degree while the older one doesn't. They both work in the automation consulting field with six figure salaries but the older brother (no degree) is a higher level and gets paid more.

 

[Smart_Guy]

Smart_guy, they also have a 86 Octane here. Not very popular as the fuel millage goes down when using it.

Guess I misread that it's banned in USA, then. Every single user manual for an American car I read says minimum grade is 87. But I guess I haven't read many to begin with.

And here we don't have Ethanol. Only the two mentioned gas grades and diesel. Even diesel here is weird. Full of sulfur and I don't think it's a good idea for your health to tell how much it costs right now and always has so far. And it lasts like 2 times more than our premium gas. Did I say it's ~$0.53 USD?

 

[PP Mguire]

In my own experience, I started out working as a technician while attending classes at night to get my degree. All of my tech buddies, had various excuses as to why it wasn't worth it for me (or them) to go to school at night to get a degree. "I'm too old to go to school.", "Won't make any difference", "Can't teach an old dog new tricks.", "I'd rather spend my free-time doing xxx.", etc...

After I got my degree and moved on from being a tech, I not only made more money than my buds but they all got laid off more often and when they did get laid off, they were out of work a lot longer. I know of at least 3 of them who ended up retiring early simply because they could no longer find jobs. I have one friend that is still working as a technician and he got laid off from a decent paying job about 3 years ago. He was then out of work for about 20 months before he finally found another technician job but this job only pays about 60% of what his previous job paid. I retired 2 years ago and I know that if I wanted to go back to work, I could, and for more money than I was making when I retired. I still get recruiters contacting me all the time asking if I would be interested in this or that job.

I've had conversations with tech buddies, reminding them how they told me I was wasting my time getting a degree. Everyone of them told me that they now regret that they never got a degree.

However, I do see that the trend is changing and that companies aren't as hung up on someone having a degree nowadays. I have 2 sons, the youngest has a degree while the older one doesn't. They both work in the automation consulting field with six figure salaries but the older brother (no degree) is a higher level and gets paid more.

Yea it definitely is changing. I'm getting told constantly I'm over qualified for 50-60k jobs while just trying to survive the post covid year, I can only imagine how bad it would be if I had degrees on top of my current level of experience. Last year (and this year) really killed my hopes of getting back to my almost 6 figure salary I had from 2017 to 2019. One interview I will never forget from January, CIO of the company said it would mentally pain him to ask somebody of my experience to go and fetch headsets from the warehouse for $30/h. I wanted to scream. Technically speaking he's correct, it's a total waste of talent but with all the stress I've endured the past 8 months I would have 0 issue working for a company of 100 people doing simple AD/Exchange tasks and hardware tasks for that pay grade.

 

[Wallaby Dan]

Here we have to use low sulfur. Something like they say its lower on emissions and the engine runs cleaner. Now if you believe that... Another thing is the E-85. I haven't seen it here but at Sunoco stations. I think that Sunoco has high test at 92 or 93 grade even.

 

[PP Mguire]

Here we have to use low sulfur. Something like they say its lower on emissions and the engine runs cleaner. Now if you believe that... Another thing is the E-85. I haven't seen it here but at Sunoco stations. I think that Sunoco has high test at 92 or 93 grade even.

E85 isn't very popular because it lowers your mileage, but it's super popular in the car community.

 

[Smart_Guy]

Here all vehicle fuels come from only one company; Saudi Aramco. That's why we don't have many varieties to compete. I believe high sulfur diesel is still allowed because diesel cars are not really many around here. I don't even know a single person owning one. I only know of one driver working in our company uses one for the department and that's it. Typically shipping vehicles like pick-ups and trucks are diesels and they are no way even close to the number of gassers. But we do have diesel emission control still.

 

[PP Mguire]

Here all vehicle fuels come from only one company; Saudi Aramco. That's why we don't have many varieties to compete. I believe high sulfur diesel is still allowed because diesel cars are not really many around here. I don't even know a single person owning one. I only know of one driver working in our company uses one for the department and that's it. Typically shipping vehicles like pick-ups and trucks are diesels and they are no way even close to the number of gassers. But we do have diesel emission control still.

You guys also don't have our EPA lol.

 

[Wallaby Dan]

Thats a good thing!!

 

[kmanmx]

Yea it definitely is changing. I'm getting told constantly I'm over qualified for 50-60k jobs while just trying to survive the post covid year, I can only imagine how bad it would be if I had degrees on top of my current level of experience. Last year (and this year) really killed my hopes of getting back to my almost 6 figure salary I had from 2017 to 2019. One interview I will never forget from January, CIO of the company said it would mentally pain him to ask somebody of my experience to go and fetch headsets from the warehouse for $30/h. I wanted to scream. Technically speaking he's correct, it's a total waste of talent but with all the stress I've endured the past 8 months I would have 0 issue working for a company of 100 people doing simple AD/Exchange tasks and hardware tasks for that pay grade.

What kind of job pays $30/hr to fetch headsets from the warehouse ?. That's the pay of a mid level software developer here lol.

US IT salaries always blow my mind. I know you guys have to pay for health insurance and all that jazz but man, i'm still jelly.

 

[PP Mguire]

What kind of job pays $30/hr to fetch headsets from the warehouse ?. That's the pay of a mid level software developer here lol.

US IT salaries always blow my mind. I know you guys have to pay for health insurance and all that jazz but man, i'm still jelly.

Tbf the position is right under the CIO and the guy clearly makes well over 6 figures. Grabbing headsets from the warehouse is an exaggeration that he used, but it is a support and admin position for a long lasting home building company here in the states (so they have $$$). And yea, that's the pay of a mid level software developer here too, granted it depends on who you work for. The way I took it is, this guy has 1 dude doing your "level 1" type support like getting conference rooms ready, replacing projector bulbs, helping Barabara with her daily email issue etc. He does everything else of "value" like server side work, patching, upgrading, deployment, purchasing, AD stuff, whatever. It looked like he was searching for a person to do his work while he kicks his feet on his desk but because they only employ about 100 people in that office I'd have to help the other guy with the mundane tasks so I'm not "doing nothing". What he also forgot I guess during the interview is the position called for somebody to head out to the contract areas and deploy IT equipment for the housing contractor trailers. IMO all things combined is worth that level of pay when you add in the travel. After we got done talking about my experience I guess he forgot about that part and got scared I'd get bored because I've worked in such a large corporate environment for 6 years. Definitely not the case but it is what it is. Not everything pays that lucratively though, I mean my last position I did a lot more "upper level" type stuff but only was paid ~40k.

It all comes down to finding the right company to work for that actually values good IT experience.