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Book idea

So with some of the posts I've seen from Le Scoble and Shelley Powers, an idea has been bouncing around my head: for a book about the downsides of working in the tech industry from the POV of well, my generation. By "my generation" I mean the people who got into the tech field when it was still really new. For example, I graduated High School in 1984. The Mac was barely six months old, Windows didn't exist, and my first computer courses were Fortran and Basic on a Univac that took up most of the fifth floor of Primera Casa at FIU's Tamiami Campus.

There were no real degree requirements for being a sysadmin, because no one knew wtf that was. A lot of people wandered into it from other fields. I always had a thing for fixing stuff, which is what drew me to it. Well, it drew me to "computers". What we were using for "networks" were lots of serial and/or parallel cables. I don't think a lot of kids graduating college today have spent much time building ethernet cables, much less serial cables, and learning the joys of pin crimpers, or why you were so happy when you were able to use Zmodem regularly for file transfers.

The tech field was this wide open place where really, anyone who wanted to put forth the time and had a bit of a knack for it could be incredibly successful. There were no job requirements as long as your arm. Hell, I think Novell had the only real certification program at the time, and even that was waiveable if you could show you knew your stuff. Self-taught? No problem, everyone else was too. Most companies hired you expecting that they'd have to train you for a few months before you were truly useful, and that was okay. On the other hand, it was expected that you'd figure out some bizarre way to get things done that no one had thought of yet, because there was no concept that anyone "knew it all", because we didn't even know what "all" there was to know.

But like everything it's changed, and in a lot of ways, for the worse. It's become a place only for people with the right college degrees and initials after their initials. If you can't walk in knowing almost everything, you don't even get in the door. HR roundfiles resumes and applicants because they don't fit the right checkboxes. Finding a new gig without knowing people inside is damned hard if you're too far over 30, and god help you if you're over 40. At that point, they just give you some hemlock and a comfy chair on an ice floe. Businesses summarily reject thousands of people who can do the job, then whine to Congress they need more H-1B's.

Of course, that's because for what they want, people from my generation are poison. We've been around long enough to know at the start when a project's deadlines are so much fairy dust and cloud farts. We're going to have lives outside of work. We're willing to work long hours when needed, but "when needed" is not "every damned day of the year". We recognize that a company willing to pay for tons of services on site is also saying "we never want you to go home". We also aren't going to kill ourselves for a crap salary and promises of benefits. Let's see...canny, experienced workforce, or disposable, cheap foreign workers that you can send back home when you don't need them, and who daren't piss you off, because you control their ability to stay in this country. Gee, I wonder why Bill Gates keeps begging Congress for more H-1Bs instead of training existing people here?

At some point, the tech industry stopped being an unlimited opportunity, and became what it is today: a place that only wants you young, ignorant, and desperate for approval.

This isn't just my opinion. There are far too many people out there who's only crime is being over 35, and not having the right paper from a university. Dori Smith has talked about the fact that she hasn't been able to land a "real" job since 1998, yet she's one of the best people out there for Javascript/AJAX/etc. Don't take my word for it, google her name, and see the reams of info you get back. Shit that people want and need. But no one wants a middle aged woman who can pound out code with the best of them. Everyone my age is realizing that experience doesn't matter. You don't fit the right checkboxes, you don't get interviewed much less hired. That's the worst part. It's not that you can't compete, it's that you're not allowed to even try.

Obviously, I think it's crap. Yes, college is important, but in a field that as it stands today, is not even a half-century old, the stratification, and unbending degree/certification requirements we're seeing is just bullshit, and I don't think it's just a few people who think that.

So here's the deal. I think this could make a good book, but I don't want it to just be me doing the writing. If you're in the same relative generation I am, (since we have to pick a number, let's just say, if you were born around 1972 or earlier), and you're really not liking where the tech industry is going, and if you've had to deal with the bullshit of it that a lot of us have, then comment here. Let me know what you think, and if you'd be willing to send in your stories, even anonymously. If it looks like there's some real interest in this, then I'll see about the next steps.

It doesn't just have to be stories about trying to get hired either. Give me what you've got, anything from "our" POV, as the generation that really saw networks and computers go from oddity to ubiquity, and how you've seen things change from then to now. Tech is not just a young person's game, and it's not just for people who have never done anything else but computers. One of the best network administrators I've ever known went to college for graphic design. The only degree I ever ended up completing was an A.S. in Avionics Tech. My first post-military boss barely went to college at all, yet was one of the best tutors I had in this business. Yet today, they'd be thought of as fit for naught but working out of a strip mall computer store.

So, let me get opinions on this, and we'll see what happens next. (Oh, the title that popped into my head on this was "Working in the Tech Industry: How doing what you love can eat your soul" I'm open to better suggestions.)

Technorati Tags: Books

Posted by John C. Welch at 10:10 | Permalink

Comments

Thanks for ruining my weekend. :)

Is being born in 1975 too late to participate?

Posted by: Aaron | May 25, 2007 10:42 AM

Nah, not particularly. I'm kind of trying to keep it to a demographic that's kinda vague at best, so that's not going to be a rigid rule

Posted by: John C. Welch | May 25, 2007 10:48 AM

Look me up at WWDC. I think I may have some stories for you.

Posted by: Mike Silverman | May 25, 2007 10:59 AM

Absolutely this could be a good book. But I suggest toning down the usual sarcastic bitterness of the blog -- what I enjoy as a blog would not be very sustainable as a book.

As someone born in '73, who went into tech with no formal background, I hear what you're saying. A few years ago I was laid off from my job at a tech company (where I was originally hired by a history major turned IT guy) and found I couldn't find a job to save my life. No college degree, no certifications, just a lot of experience. I contracted for a couple years before starting to work for a guy who himself started a tech company without a college education.

I think my generation may be slightly later than yours -- I came in *during* the transition you describe. I just lucked out that my field was web, which has undergone the same transformation you describe in IT, it just happened later because it started later.

Posted by: Robert | May 25, 2007 11:22 AM

Speaking with my book author's hat on, questions arise: WHO is going to go to the store wanting to buy a book like this? WHAT section of the bookstore should this be filed? I think it's a hard sell, and might just be a better web site than a printed book.

However, I'd love to help co-write/edit/collate this, because DAMN, I feel strongly about this issue!

{and to take another issue into account: personally, I think that this is one of the main reasons that "girls don't go into tech"--they're smart, and they see that these are lousy gigs without a future. When was the last time you saw a middle-aged female geek in the media? And no, it doesn't count if she's an academic, in management, a VC, or in marketing; I'm talking about a geek personally working to create tech.]

And because this is bynkii.com...

Q: What's the difference between the tech industry and NAMBLA?
A: There isn't any; they both want young men--the younger the better--that they can screw.

Posted by: Dori | May 25, 2007 11:24 AM

And I should add on: I actually have a BS in Computer Science (from UC Irvine) along with a certificate in Engineering Management (from UC San Diego Extension--a two year program). But the minute they hear that the BS is from 1985, companies lose interest.

I once went to CSULB looking to get a certificate in JavaScript so I could have the official doc saying that I know this stuff. After talking to the guy running the department, he hired me to teach it. So I've given certificates in this stuff, even though I don't have one myself. Sheesh.

Posted by: Dori | May 25, 2007 11:28 AM

I was born 5 weeks before JFK's brain was splattered onto his wife's pink designer dress. I was college trained in a discipline that was completely transformed by technology in the five years after my graduation. Ironically, it was technology that took that discipline from one practiced by very few, and made it literally a commodity that "anyone" could do. Sure enough, everyone did. This made getting work pretty damn hard. Here I was a novice Priest looking to become an Elder in my field, and blammo, suddenly everyone gets religion. It was unbelievably fscking hard to get work in the field already! This is when I changed careers.

I became the Technological Priest to my Brothers. I was the guy who understood the Scripture and the Habits, and could assist them in their transformations to technology. That did me well for about a decade. I worked my way through the OSI model from A to PL, top to bottom, at least one step ahead of everyone around me. Layers 1-3 entertained me the most, so that is where I branched off and learned a new skill set. THAT required hiring minions to care for my users, so I also had to learn leadership and management. I had been blessed with both fantastic leaders and complete morons. The morons I left as soon as I was able. If you look at my resume, the jobs where I didn't stay long: morons. I've experienced bad-manager/bad-leader, good-manager/bad-leader, good-leader/bad-manager, and good-leader/good-manager people, and learned from them all. I would hope that I have been able to apply what I have learned and my staff, past and present would rate me good/good.

You seem to have acquired a similar skill set John. Technical knowledge, and technical ability, combined with enough experience of leadership (along the whole bad-to-good spectrum) that you could parley that into a single package. I have been at the same job now for 7 years. Those were not easy years, as I'm in an industry sector that has gotten the crap kicked out of it since 2001. I have stayed though as I find myself with the proverbial slice of the pie. My employers destiny is my own destiny.

Capitalism is all about man exploiting man (and as the saying goes, Communism is just the opposite) so you will never have the desire for young, cheap, compliant labor vanish John. Our species breeds as such a rate that the supply will almost always meet, or exceed the demand. I suggest you give up looking for a "job" and instead focus on finding a position at the helm of an enterprise. That is the natural next step in your personal evolution.

Your book idea is a good one though, and I'm be more than happy to contribute.

--chuck

Posted by: chuck goolsbee | May 25, 2007 11:46 AM

Business or History come to mind, and there's no reason why it couldn't be both, just ask Bob Sutton.

However, I'd love to help co-write/edit/collate this, because DAMN, I feel strongly about this issue!

I figured you would ;-)

You mean other than you? a handful, and 90% of them are in IT.

And because this is bynkii.com...

Q: What's the difference between the tech industry and NAMBLA?
A: There isn't any; they both want young men--the younger the better--that they can screw.

BAAAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA

Posted by: John C. Welch | May 25, 2007 1:05 PM

That's beyond fucked up. WTF, you've been working in this industry constantly, you have the degree, and now they care about the DATE ON THE PAPER???? Time to get out the Hulk Hands.

Sheesh doesn't begin to approach it.

I suggest you give up looking for a "job" and instead focus on finding a position at the helm of an enterprise. That is the natural next step in your personal evolution.

that's what I've been thinking for a while, but it's only in the last year or so that I could start really entertaining that beyond the "Yeah, i should do that" stage. Being a single parent with no local family to help out really makes you conservative in how you go about things, and I'll be the first to admit that's hurt me a few times.

But yeah, you're right.

Posted by: John C. Welch | May 25, 2007 1:10 PM

Your tale is unnervingly close to my own. It's a good thing I found a small niche that isn't in danger of being H1B'd or MCSE'd in the race to the bottom. my BA is in social science but by the time I finished I'd already established a good base of tech experience so the only reason I bothered to go back and finish the degree in 1990 (started in 1983) was the increasing need for the fucking thing to establish any credibility, nevermind what the degree was in.

going back for an MS was the best thing I ever did, though, because it was in an obscure field which has paid off well for me. The knowledge gained from it is long obsolete, but it doesn't matter now.

Posted by: 42 | May 25, 2007 1:11 PM

New idea for a title, with help from Dori:

back_stab();

possible subtitle: How the tech industry shoved aside the people who started it

Posted by: John C. Welch | May 25, 2007 1:58 PM

Hey, I said "back.stab()" (dot, not underscore)!

What can I say, I'm a javascripter...

Posted by: Dori | May 25, 2007 2:26 PM

Oh yeah, so you did. Stupid no sleep eyes!

back.stab(); it is then. I like it muchly.

Posted by: John C. Welch | May 25, 2007 2:31 PM

Born 1969, BA in Religion & Philosophy, working in tech since 1997 (also, a woman).

I had the good fortune to grow up in San Jose and I lived right smack in the middle of the tech explosion. After college graduation I became an Admin Asst for UC Santa Cruz Extension. My best friend there was the computer guy; he wandered around to people's desks, tapped on their keyboards for a few minutes to solve the problem in question, then spent the next 2 hours being fawned over and showered with treats. And he made more than twice as much as I did. I'm no fool- I made him teach me everything he knew and I've been working in IT ever since. I talked my way into a desktop support job at a private school & learned on the job, and I've never looked back. Within 5 years, I was the Director of Technology, had my own assistant, and controlled a half million dollar budget. Not too bad of promotion after 5 years and having little formal tech training.

As for women not going into techie jobs- who knows why? There's as many reasons as there are women. I approach it as a field where I get to solve puzzles, the harder the better. But that's what attracted me to philosophy in college; and by working primarily in Education (where yes, the salaries are lower than industry), I've usually worked for people who value the intelligence and analytical skill of their staff over a certification or specific degree (and usually, they didn't have the specific degree themselves).

But that never stopped me from taking full advantage of my training budget and free tuition benefits at both UC Santa Cruz and my current employer, U of Washington. I witnessed too many layoffs when I was living in the valley to think that I could ever stand still. I get paid less than industry but I'm making up for it by getting a free master's degree out of it.

Posted by: kristen | May 25, 2007 4:20 PM

Tangental observation: As someone on the user end of it (most of the time) I've noticed that there are precisely two types of IT guys. The ones who see it as their job to help you do your job, and the ones who see it as their job to protect their network from you. The interesting thing is that it doesn't seem to break along the lines of old timers/fresh faces.

Posted by: Pike | May 25, 2007 7:18 PM

John, I'm another user who's had to absorb a bit about IT issues over the years. In my case, it's within the field of print production. Pike's pretty much described the fraternal moat I've often run up against.

I may not constitute a member of the tech industry as you describe it, but I rely upon information about it to do my job, which is spent mostly within apps like InDesign, Acrobat, Illustrator, and Photoshop, while watching undertrained production artists struggle through software menus they barely know, as they ask me inane questions whose answers are a click away within the Help docs.

I don't code or adminstrate networks, but I build layout documents and illustrations a lot better than any 25-year-old I've ever met (I'm a 47-year-old graphic designer), and I like to think that leads to cost-savings for a production department, just to name one advantage of having someone on staff who already knows how to solve problems. What are business schools teaching today's plug-in managers besides the belief that they don't have to understand what a department does in order to hire bodies for it, and to run it well?

The institutionalized managerial ineptitude in hiring practices and running businesses that you describe crosses lots of professional and industry lines, and I'm convinced that my 25-year resume of work needs a bunch of trimming (and stealthy avoidance of time references) if I'm to conduct a realistic search for my next job.

Posted by: Moeskido | May 26, 2007 10:53 AM

Pike-- in my experience, the user support/network defense attitude breakdown is largely a factor of non-IT work experience. Before getting my current IT job I worked as a freelance photographer/writer and as a salesman-- so I came into the IT world with an understanding that business involves a lot more than the network, and my job is to enable business. I think if you've never had a non-IT job, it gets a lot easier to slip into the Underwear Gnome mindset:
Step 1: Optimize the network
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Business improvement!

Posted by: Dave Pooser | May 26, 2007 12:57 PM

Dave, that makes sense, but doesn't really map to my experiences.

It seems that a lot of people who should know better go through MCSE class (or something) and drink the Kool-Aide. Next thing you know they're limiting your emails to ten megs, eliminating your FTP site as a virus vector, and isolating your macs from the network for security reasons (all of which have happened to me or the GF in the past couple years.)

Remarkably, some fresh-faced kids come right out of the sausage factory and spend a good deal of time figuring out how to make your job do-able.

I suspect it has more to do with how people are wired. Some are just vessles of received knowledge, while others are 'hackers' (in the old school sense.)

Posted by: Pike | May 29, 2007 12:11 AM

When I graduated high school in '84 I had been introduced to computers - our school built a computer lab in '82 - but the only thing I had done with them was play Wizardry...

Next time I sat at a keyboard was in '89 when I had a contract to produce a handbook for the student union at my university. I was introduced to the combination of Ventura Publisher (2.0) and WordPerfect (4.2), and had to figure out how they worked without any training. It worked, and I realised the prosess of figuring it out was at least as much fun as the actual design, and I parlayed that experience into a job doing all the in-house desktop publishing at a small academic publisher.

(I am still convinced the Ventura/WordPerfect (DOS versions) combination is pretty much the perfect setup for desktop publishing.)

I also bought my own 386 with the same setup, although by that time it was Ventura 3 and WP 5.1.

In '92 I started working for non-profit arts organisations, and was usually the only person with any computer experience, and that made me the de facto IT guy. That taught me to embrace my inner geek.

I didn't work on a mac 'til '97, but now I can't imagine ever working a PC again.

I am currently a media teacher, but find the IT dept at our school knows nothing about macs and so I am also the only tech support the 50 or so students using macs have.

Thank goodness for that inner geek.

Posted by: Fred | May 29, 2007 3:01 AM

I'm coming in late to the discussion. The idea for the book sounds interesting; there have been other books that have touched on this somewhat, such as Ed Yourdon's.

FWIW, I've been out of work twice, both times 16 months. I was laid off by Yahoo not too long after it bought Overture, which had bought AltaVista earlier. I came into the search industry by accident, because prior to 1996 I had primarily worked in the networking and distributed systems area. I was working on a firewall for Digital when funds were pulled. At that time, AltaVista was just starting out as a business unit, so I was "drafted". I wound up analyzing the web server logs, and had to deal with a lot of problems such as click fraud and scrapers. You can read about this in my journal, if you wish. Unfortunately, I haven't had time to tag everything.

Posted by: gregbo | June 19, 2007 1:22 AM

Ed Yourdon might have written a book that nominally relates to this, BUT...

In some ways Ed Yourdon's grasp on reality is kind of tenuous. After reading his _The Decline and Fall of the American Programmer_, and some other odds and ends by him, I concluded *he seems as if he's never met a silver bullet he didn't like.* [see Footnote 1]

Isn't that a nice way to describe a difference of perspective that sets up one obstacle against those who have years of experience? Those of us who are experienced and capable have seen and participated in some legitimate, genuine progress in how work is done. But we are noxious in the eyes of *people who've seldom or never met a silver bullet they didn't like*.

Footnote 1: 'Silver bullet' is a phrase for a usually-mythical magical super-booster of productivity by 10x or more. The term was popularized by Fred Brooks' "mythical man-month" book, which someone kindly brought to my attention when I was but a young pup in this field. Fred Brooks is a guy who writes as well as Larry Wall's fanboys like to think Larry Wall writes. When I read an updated edition of Brooks' book with more chapters added, I was amused to find Brooks' update casually describing a method ["methodology" to BS artists and those with mental impairments in their ability to think about English] of development that I had independently created through the /ad hoc/ application of common sense, logic, and experiential evidence. You know, the stuff you might use if you don't have a silver bullet-based religion.

Posted by: Chris Niswander | October 5, 2007 3:41 AM

Book idea

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