I just found this article on the Hewlett Packard website. It talks about how IT is going to move to a utility-type service before long, and that rather then businesses having IT resources (and thus, people to maintain them) they will purchase their IT needs from suppliers - much like electricity.
Before I launch into a tyrade of "Oh great, there goes the galaxy!", let me just... Actually, on second thoughts, let's just launch.
So here's me: When I started doing my computer science degree, people who do the job I'm doing right now were getting over 100k a year. Some of them well over it. Technical (ie: non-management) positions were available to anyone with skills, and were increadibly lucritive for the average IT boffin. They made IT look like the Holy Grail of vocations. However, during the 3 (...ahem... or 4...) years that I was at uni, everything went to pot. People realised that the internet was not the answer to all their business woes, and that the 23 yr old "specialist" they'd employed on a bazzilion dollars a year to get their business on the internet wasn't actually worth a bazzilion dollars. Oh and hey - while we're at it, let's pay our network manager less too. So salaries began to fall...
Enter an educated me. I'm hunting around for jobs approaching $100k, but can't seem to find anything that doesn't require 100 years experience with Windows 2000, or specialisations in obscure software packages. I take a job at a school, and now am forever locked into working in schools. I don't know why, but that just seems to be the way it's going. Schools don't have profit margins, and therefore don't care if I do my job to a way above expected standard - they're still not going to pay me any more money. So I do some motivational speaking to the school's executive until they bump my salary up a little. I rest happy in the knowlege that my pay is now what I'd describe as "averagely good", even if my peers in industry are making me look like I'm 14 and 9 months, and working for Micky D's.
So what now? I hear that by the time I'm 40, IT jobs are going to be all but defunct. I'll probably be made redundant as my place of employ signs up with "Integral Computing Services" and has the highspeed data cable run to their door. Sure, I could go and work for one of these suppliers, but basically the premise is that you need less workers. So less jobs. I guess I just need to work out what the next big thing is, and then get stuck into that. It's times like this that I wish I had a time machine... or magic spectcles... Maybe I should have a word to that Joseph Smith fella... :P
Anyway... this is a bit disjointed, but it just made me feel pretty put-out that people are seeing this change on the horizon. Maybe it's time to think about a change in career...
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3 comments:
In this age of uncertainty there are certain fields where you can be relatively assured of a living. Kids will always need to be educated, thus working in the School system is a good idea. Working with computers (or technology more generally) is also a good call. Yes, things will evolve, but regardless of how techno-groovy things get, there will *always* need to be people to hold other people's hands as they come to grips with them, and sort out the problems when they insist on confusing the common room microwave for a monitor for the third time before recess. Oh, prostitution is also a fairly stable gig as well, historically speaking, but then, you already run Windows, don't you?
Fields you can be assured of making a living in...well starting your own religion is supposed to be one of the great money makers of all time...though if you're worried about the future, all religions are going to become one anyway...\o/
Grant - I think you may have misunderstood. I know that noone my age is on 100k these days. But when I started uni, the paper was full of jobs on inflated salaries, ripe for the pickin'. Did this influence me picking this profession? Of course it did. Also factored in was the fact that I'm damn good at it, and generally like computers. All I'm saying is that the bottom has fallen out of the IT job market. Sure, you'd expect that - but I was hoping for at least a couple of years of inflated salary after I finished my course...
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