New jobs aren't so scary anymore

As I begin my second week with the new company (to rename nameless on this blog for anti-search purposes), I find myself reflecting back to the first week at my last job.

It was 2004. After graduating in May, I spent the next few months working for my father's construction company. And then I started with Symbiosys. My main responsibility in the beginning was just tech support so it shouldn't have been so bad. But as everyone knows, you don't know nuttin about nuttin when you get out of college.

It was pretty scary. I was trying to learn real-world IT skills, while learning how to act like an adult in an office, while learning how businesses worked (they have acronyms for everything). In my 2nd week I nearly got fired for making a joke to the wrong person.

It's like the first day of kindergarten. You get herded in to this place called "school", where you have to keep your clothes on, stay awake, and only play with the toys when they let you. So traumatic.

Anyway - This new job wasn't nearly as bad. After being with Symbiosys for 5 years, I've learned a ton of real world IT skills. I've also been working in a corporate business all that time. Oh, and then the whole grad school thing.

As I sat down in my "intro" meetings, I was able to understand everything they were doing right away. I had dealt with it all before. And I even made a few good suggestions for some things we were working on.

If you look back to some of my old posts, you'll notice that I often felt like I was cheating my employers. That one day they would come in and say "Ok Rob, we figured you out. You don't actually know anything. You're fired." and I'd just say "Well, I had a good run"

...but I don't feel like that anymore.

So the moral of the story is that you shouldn't be afraid to start a new job, because you're probably more qualified than you think.

No one wants a Jack of All Trades

Ok - I just wrote a long rambling intro to this blog but then erased it (you're welcome). Instead, let's get right to the point.

I don't know how it is for every career, but in IT you have a broad range of areas in which to work. For years I prided myself as a generalist. I could write code (but not well), manage projects (little ones), handle customer support ("did you try turning it off and on again?"), etc. But there was nothing that I was an expert at.

And now I'm finally seeing this as a problem. As you get older, no one wants a generalist. They want people who are really good at something.

So here's my advice. When you get out of college, go ahead and be a generalist. Learn as much about your field as possible. But only do this for 3 to 5 years. By the time you get to the 5 year mark, you need to choose a focus or two. And make sure that it's something that you really like because you're gonna be doing it for the next 40+ years.

My focus is going to be IT Management and Business Analysis. I want to either become a CIO, or a business consultant.

Now that being said, at this point I'd take just about any job that will pay me more than unemployment rates.

(NOTE: I'm not actually unemployed right now. But it's looming over head)

Entitlement is a 4-letter word

Oh boy - this one is gonna move around a bit - so try to keep up.

I'm going to refer to this bit later on - but I think it's interesting so let's do it first. Try this exercise for me. On a piece of paper, draw 3 concentric circles (I'm not sure what concentric means really... but we're drawing a VENN diagram). Label each circle with one of the following:

1. Things I love to do
2. Things I'm good at
3. Things I can get paid to do

Then start filling it in. After a while you will notice that some items fall into multiple circles. For instance, I love to watch movies. I am also good at watching movies. However, I haven't yet found a way to get paid to watch movies... so I can only list this one in 2 out of the 3 circles. Ok I'm going to get back to this later on in the post.

Do you ever think about why you chose your career path? Is it something that you dreamed about doing when you were young? Did it seem like you could make more money in this career than in another job that you may have found more rewarding emotionally?

When you go home at night, do you think about your career - and how you can make yourself better?

See, I'm using the word "career" because it's different than a "job". When you study to gain a skill-set in something, and then plan on doing that in some capacity for a long time - then I would call that a career. Conversely, if you get up at noon and spend your evening saying "would you like fries with that?" then you have a job. But don't fret - people with jobs can keep reading too.

We are the first generation to see college as a necessity. As I was going through high school, they constantly stressed the importance of doing the things that would help me get accepted into the college that I chose. They told me that if I got a degree then I would graduate and enter the work force... and then the money/promotions would start rolling in.

So we went to college, and graduated with our bachelor's degrees, and got jobs. And then we sat in our cubicles and wondered when the big bag of money with our name on it was supposed to get delivered. But it never did. And many of us responded with "What the fuck?!"

And the world says that we have a sense of entitlement. But ya know what I say to the world? It's your fault! (I'm going to avoid even bringing up the paradox I've just created... we simply don't have that kind of time). Let me explain...

50 years ago, most people didn't go to college. They just graduated high school and started working somewhere. So let's say that the promotional ladder in this fake company has 10 rungs. When a person graduated high school he would start at the bottom rung. He would work hard and some day he might make it to middle management (rung 7). Now, some people DID go to college back then. So when they graduated with their fancy business degree they would start working at the company already at rung 5, and jump right past your ignorant parents on the way up.

There are two points I'm trying to make here:
1. Our parents worked HARD because they were never able to work SMART. So today they say we are lazy. Well, we're not... we're just smarter than you.
2. As we grew up, our parents kept telling us that if we went to college then we'd get a great job and make tons of money... because that's what was true back when they were our age! They made us think that we would be handed comfy jobs with big salaries by getting that stupid diploma.

But now we've moved into a new class system. People in the base class all have college diplomas - and they are worth about as much as a high school diploma back in the 50's (except with 80K+ of debt attached). To get into the upper class today you need 2 things: a post-graduate degree, and a passion for your career. Heck, I would even drop the post-graduate degree and just keep the passion part.

The people who get ahead today are the ones who eat, sleep, and breath their career. They are always thinking about how to help their company to better. They spend nights reading up on the latest "methods" so they can be on the forefront of change. They are the ones who have hobbies that are strikingly similar to their career. The best example I can think of is a computer programmer. The programmers I know who are very successful are the ones who go home at night and write programs for fun. Or they read books about the latest languages and standards.

My point is that if you want to make a lot of money and be successful then you had better become passionate about what you do. You need to constantly work at it - day and night.

So let's talk about the 3 overlapping (I know what that word means at least) circles from the beginning of this post. Ideally you want your career to fall into all 3 circles. Most people have careers that fall into 2 of the 3 circles. If your career only falls into the category of "things I can get paid to do" then you need to find a new career.

I think there are a lot of us out there who choose careers before we really know if we like it or not. Society forces us to make life-altering choices without full knowledge of the consequences.

Well anyway, this is the kind of stuff that has been on my mind. See, I have my career. And I have some hobbies which are similar. But then I have some hobbies which are not similar. For instance, I love movies. I love watching them, and talking about them, and would love to make them. I am even currently writing a script (not because I think it would ever make money... I just really wanted to get an idea on paper). So I often wonder if I'm in the wrong business. Maybe I should go to hollywood and make movies, instead.

The other reason I am thinking about this stuff is that we only have so many hours in the day. We can't do it all. We can't have a million hobbies and side-projects. At some point, you have to choose a path. Well lately I've been adding quite a few things to my daily "regime" and it's getting pretty crowded. So I think I need to stop some hobbies.

You should look at yourself for a bit and reflect. Do you like what you do? Are you willing to put in the effort to succeed? Are your hobbies indicating that you are in the wrong career? Or maybe indicating that you have the wrong hobbies?

Or maybe I'm just a complete nut-case who needs to stop whining and writing super long blog posts that don't really go anywhere. Can I get an Amen?

A "Come drink the Kool-Aid" moment?

In the past I've blogged about pivotal moments in a person's life. Situations where your decisions/actions will dictate the path you follow for a long time. Many times, I don't recognize these moments until it's over (and usually because I've made the wrong choice). But today I was given some advice - and I'm deciding how I will use it.

I was discussing a project with one of my managers. The project needed an IT Lead role; Someone who could run the show and also ensure that the technology solutions were aligned with the business needs. On a small scale, this is what I do every day. But this particular project was so big and important that they are getting someone with multiple decades of experience. The important bit of information about this story is that the job pays really really well. It's a lot higher than what I could get from a client.

Well, in a moment of frank discussion, my manager listed some things I should do to be in a position to make that kind of money some day. These were fairly straight forward suggestions. They included things like:

1. Always dress for the role you want to be in. So I should always wear a nice shirt and pants and a tie. Sometimes even a suit. This means no more "Casual Fridays".

2. General suggestions on finding the people in the company that can give me more projects and help me get ahead.

Most suggestions were like that. But then he brought up something which caught me off guard. He said that I needed to take out my ear-rings.

For those that don't know. I have two holes in my left ear. I got them when I was 14 and just never felt like removing them. These don't represent anything about me. They don't make a statement about my beliefs. They're just accessories.

...But I sorta thought that I'd always have them. And now I'm being told that if I want to get ahead in life then they need to go.

Now, this is just the example of a deeper issue. It's more about becoming an adult, selling out to the man, and the line between expanding who you are and losing your identity.

I had a sudden image of the leader of a Cult telling me that I can join them and have eternal happiness if I just drink the Kool-Aid - or sign my soul over to the devil.

I guess I'm just trying to decide if the advice was like "Hey here are some neat ways to improve yourself and get ahead in life." or "Hey, you don't fit in here so become this other person."

How much, in life, do you get involved in because you want to do it - Or because you think it will help your career?

One thing is certain. Image is important. Dating - Jobs - Politics - Celebrity... image is important. Anyone who says otherwise is stupid or ugly.

Maybe you just need to figure out what the end goal is... then it's easier to decide what you should do to get there. If I don't want to become a business person then adopting this lifestyle would be pretty foolish. But if this is what I want then it's stupid to think I can avoid these changes.

I don't think I have any questions at the end of this one for you readers out there. I just needed someone to listen for a few minutes while I made a public record of my personal thoughts...