Hmm, that does not ring quite true to me, to be able to learn the skill set required to get involved in IT, must require a person to at least have an interest in that subject in the first place, much the same as someone who becomes a surgeon, doctor, lawyer, vet, pilot etc. You don't just leave school and think about which jobs pay the most, and then learn the skills in order to gain employment in that sector. Yes, I accept that there are many thousands with the attitude that they only work as a means to an end and those people normally can't be arsed to learn anything special as it normally requires years of very low pay while learning and also involves either going to university or college and loads of evening course work while their friends are out on the town.
![Popcorn :popcorn:](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/EatingPopcorn.jpg)
We are only in it for the money ...
This job is not what I would consider fun
Get out of it then and do something that is more fun, thats been my motto because you spend a huge amount of your life working and it is a hell of a lot easier if you actually enjoy your work.
Most people can't earn a living wage doing something that is fun or enjoyable to them and sometimes when you do something because you have to it ruins it for you. I have always found that it's best to keep the two parts of your life separate.
A fine example is electrical engineering. I found the corporate side of it to be absolutely horrible and at the time I didn't know enough to start a business and go solo. Now I know enough about business, having run one, that I don't want to mix something I enjoy with the business. I also understand that I probably don't know enough about electrical engineering on a professional level now to risk it either. But I can now enjoy it with no consequences either way other than burning some cash occasionally.
Ergo the only option is efficient use of energy versus return of investment which means looking for something where there is a high demand for skills, a low supply of skills, a low entry cost and a low risk from failure. Some parts of the IT sector are absolutely perfect for that ![Cool 8)](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/cool.gif)
Ehhh... a lot of truth in that.
Working at what you're good at is not necessarily what you enjoy.Like me; I'm a fixer.
![Confused :-//](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/confused0024.gif)
A mechanic in the classical definition of the word: someone who fixes machines. The part of the job I
enjoy is the part where I'm learning aboot a new kind of machine to be able to fix it; alas, the conditions under which I'm allowed to pursue that bliss by their nature only want you to fix the same old shit 1000x a day until you're ready to take a walk off the edge of a volcano.
I thought when I was young that I could resolve that by going into a line of work where I helped design and manufacture those machines; surely in that role I'd have ample opportunity for new experiences, but no...
ultimately every such job I had turned into some variant of manually debugging reject boards/devices/bins of stock with some form of multimeter and either fixing or decommissioning the thing. While I was doing that mind-numbing drudge work, I had to deal with insane scheduling bunk like swing-shift, 40 hours in 3 days and the PHB up my butt 6-12 hours a day like all his production shortfalls were my fault, not because his little cabal of douche-puppets refused to pay for even basic maintenance on the machinery on the floor until it blew up and production halted.
Which of course was also our fault.
![Banging Head |O](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/bangheadonwall.gif)
If I wanted to do more, I had to deal with all that
and go back to school at my own cost for
even more specialized training than what I'd been doing all the while working for years that it was very obvious would literally become useless knowledge the moment they cast me off for some noob undergrad with zero experience that they could pay a dollar less an hour.
And this went on for over decade, until what was a repetitive circle-jerk of layoff and rehiring every other production campaign abandoned all pretense of being an actual career and turned into the zero-safety-net clusterfuck we now call the gig economy; lather, rinse, repeat...
But hey! I was living the dream!
I'm not looking for sympathy here; at this late stage of the game, and having burned up my youth making pretty much the worst possible choice at every juncture because it seemed I didn't have any choice at the time, it's obvious I am not meant for life in the corporate setting. ![Roll Eyes ::)](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/rolleyes.gif)
I'm just laying it out so when I say that I held out until I knew I was going to wind up a news story aboot some guy on a rooftop with a rifle, you understand my full meaning. I was that close when I bailed on the corporate clusterfuck... I could literally count the days before I went completely off the rails.
mnem
![Popcorn :popcorn:](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/EatingPopcorn.jpg)