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buswolley writes:
"Soylents: Concentrated pools of experts, doers, thinkers.
I am a neuroscientist.
What do you do?"
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
I'm not a robot like you. I don't like having disks crammed into me... unless they're Oreos, and then only in the mouth.
-- Fry
(Score: 5, Informative) by gishzida on Monday March 17 2014, @04:14AM
The short answer: General Specialist...
The long answer: I specialize in being a generalist...
In the old days this was called "being well-rounded" or "jack-of-all-trades" or in the long ago days possibly "a renaissance man" but that seems much too sexist nowadays... I know a little bit about a lot of things but not a lot about anything... I am un-degree'd except by the school of hard knocks... I've done a lot of different things... taking the slow road to no-where. [Ever been there? Of course not! -- there's nothing there!]
But of late it seems that the demand for a person that has nothing to offer but the ability to solve problems by applying rule-of-thumb, back of the envelope, general systems thinking influenced solutions... which is to say dive in and see if you can fix it in an OJT / "By Jove! I think you've got it!" sort of way, has fallen to an all time low.
I got axed three years ago as a network administrator [Novell, Windows, Some Linux, Some Mac, Some *nix, a little bit o' every thing] by a specialist "headsman" my former employer brought in "to trim costs" which means anyone that was there longer than five years was history through various "creative" means... after all it's a right to work state and they did not want to pay unemployment... so they got creative.
This has resulted in my current under-employed state... call it PTSD or just learned aversion but that last job pretty much cooked my goose. I have come to hate selling myself [as if I could ever be as good as a hooker with an MBA / BSEE / BSCS regardless of gender)]. To make matters worse I live in the heart of the Bible Belt-- in the one of the dumbest states in North America. I've spent three years looking and got one, first round interview... Oh sure I'd get calls for stuff but it was obvious the contact was so the headhunter could say they called someone. That sends a strong message... especially since I'm 60 years old [Sorry there are no ponies in this room full of horse manure].
So now I spend a lot of my time annoying people here at SN, keeping 4 blogs going [see my user page for the URLs], fooling with music, words, and trying to keep alive...but I'm sure you really didn't mean to ask the question I've answered...
Maybe my purpose is as a reminder [despair.com] of what not to do with your career... In that case I suppose you'd could say I have simply fallen down the rabbit hole into luser space and I can't get back.
Now that you've heard the long answer I'm sure you wished you had stopped at the short answer.
So do I.
Let the AC trolling now begin...
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Monday March 17 2014, @08:51AM
I don't think you've been AC trolled because you're pretty much on the same path as the rest of us, although maybe a little further along. Although I'm not as far along the path, I do have the degrees (Well, not the MBA, don't have the prerequisite lobotomy) which makes me less employable because I'd be more expensive, so we're stuck about the same place.
From what I've heard the job market is about the same here, thousand or so miles roughly north of you.
So... I'm old enough that I'm probably in my last full time job right now, and on the inside we tell each other we'll just consult / contract or start our own thing once we're out. At least that's what we tell each other. I'll have about three decades to figure it out before I collect retirement checks.
I sense a demand for some kind of "this is how STEM-type people survive the second great economic depression" blog. Or at least an article here on SN. Like the housingBubbleBlog or zerohedge but for STEM type people. HN is close, at least it has a similar demographic, but its focused on stylish startuppy yuppie groupthink echo chamber so there's not much insight there.
(Score: 1) by egcagrac0 on Monday March 17 2014, @09:39AM
I do a lot of the same things, although not yet dismissed.
I generally refer to my position as "factotum"... although after the big company bought out our little shop, it's no longer "factotum extraordinary, plenipotentiary".
(Score: 1) by tempest on Monday March 17 2014, @09:43AM
I've wondered about this path as well. I'm a jack of all trades, and the guy before me was too (he's retired). When I leave, could they replace me with another jack? Is it just me or is that becoming really rare these days? I guess in a way we've been outsourced. Instead of getting a "computer guy", everyone just buys IT services from somewhere else. I've noticed over the years that the jack is a good guy to not only keep existing things working, but also create new solutions that WORK. By that I mean if left to their own devices, users don't know what exactly they want, and usually come up with "solutions" that turn into an over complicated pile of shit without a technical person to steer them strait.
Well I'm stockpiling my assets for my "plan b" if I get canned. I suppose my employer might be a little surprised that the next IT person may not be able to do web development, video editing, database administration and so forth, but I guess there are plenty of companies getting by without a guru these days and I'm over estimating our value.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by egcagrac0 on Monday March 17 2014, @11:49AM
In my experience, yes, if they can find one.
If they're unable to locate another jack, 3-4 non-jacks can usually fill the void.
(Score: 1) by samwichse on Monday March 17 2014, @03:51PM
General specialist, I love that and I'm stealing it!
I'm a greenhouse manager, or at least that's my job description. In reality I do anything my lab needs done because I love the challenge of solving a conundrum. Always a new challenge... from growing touchy plants to transferring viruses to troubleshooting arcane lab equipment to "how do I _____ in Excel."
I don't know how you _____ in excel, but I bet we can figure it out!
Sam