by ClassicSpiderman » Wed 24 May 2006, 23:45:10
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Vexed', 'F')ast forward 5 years. The two workers are no longer in the tech industry. Many of the folks I knew in the industry who had expense accounts you wouldn't believe (I spent one incredibly pleasurable weekend in Tampa entirely funded by an Amazon reps. expense account) are now working at Wendy's or Home Depot. The signs that portended the fall finally couldn't be ignored, and the free ride finally ended.
The funny thing is is that during the 'hot' period between 1998-2000 I was making peanuts grinding away at being a dial-up tech support monkey. I saw people who never had any computer science education brag about their $100 an hour HTML coding contracts after taking a 3 week crash course. Life was passing me by.
I've seen so many layoffs, I became a conspiracy nut. Yeah, I knew it was coming, but to experience it, or see others experience it is a totally different thing. The job market was flooded with unemployed MCSE, CCNA people. By hook or by crook, I was able to stay employed during this time. I still work in the sector today against my better judgment but my passion is for computers. I may not be a genius like Linus Torvalds or Bill Gates (and who is, really?) but I think I'm pretty OK at what I do.
Has the market recovered? Well, I think things have eased up a bit because the unemployed MCSEs have stopped looking for work altogether. We'll never see another boom period again, and of course peak oil will virtually guarantee that we're headed for a 'soft-landing' (Great Depression II) in the best case scenario and global thermonuclear war as the more realistic outcome.