[ale] OT: How to live (and work) happy forever

[Geoffrey]

Jim Popovitch wrote:
> On Wed, 2004-10-06 at 22:55, Steve Nicholas wrote:
> 
>>In defense, Jim may have been referring to becoming FD&H (fat, dumd, and
>>happy) syndrom.  But I'll leave it up to Jim to clarify ( since I just
>>gave him a possible out :-)

<snip>

> YMMV, but to me working
> at the same place for 25 years is boring.  Go see how other companies
> function.  Besides, if your motivation is $$, you can always get a
> bigger "raise" by jumping ship.

You're absolutely clueless when it comes to working for a large company. 
    I never spent more than 6 years in the same organization.  As I 
noted, I started out (at 21) driving a fork truck.  After 6 months, I 
knew that wasn't what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.  Returned 
to college part time, and during that time I went from

fork truck operator->quality control inspector->
data center support->software development

Tell me again about motivation?  At that point I completed my studies, 
BS in CS with a minor in Physics.  That's right, multi-dimensional calc, 
  differential equations...  NO, I didn't go for the whimping BA in 
business.  What's this shit about motivation?

After that, I accepted an assignment that relocated me to NC, there for 
a year, another assignment that brought me to Georgia.

Started out as an A3->A4->A5->B1->B2 before I left AT&T.  As previously 
noted, 2nd highest technical position in the corporation, Principal 
Technical Staff Member.

While going from an A3->B2 I worked on a time reporting system, writing 
device drivers and plenty of C, making extensive use of ipcs, informix, 
Progress db.  Got tired of that, accepted an assignment at the labs, 
continued software development for facility planning, C, perl, html, 
gradial db.  Tired of that, moved on to another assignment, technical 
lead of team of developers for HR, perl, html, javascript, server side 
javascript, oracle db.  Add to that, sitting on a technical promotional 
review board for the HR organization.  Tired of that back to the labs 
but a different group in the labs, writing software supporting the NOCs, 
java, C.

Tell me again about motivation?

>>If the above is not true, maybe Jim can point us to aa employer / field
>>that might better serve us.
> 
> 
> Monster.com, the world is waiting for you.  ;)


Sure.  If I had left AT&T prior to the offer I received last year and 
after I was vested, I'd have given up over .25 million in retirement 
pension, lost my medical benefits.  So, now tell me again about your 
damn motivation.

You can not make blanket statements.  I'd be willing to bet that I was 
making more money when I left AT&T then most folks in the software 
development world.  Probably still am now.

-- 
Until later, Geoffrey       Registered Linux User #108567
                             AT&T Certified UNIX System Programmer - 1995