More Work Musings
Mar. 13th, 2004 10:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
learnteachI've promised myself I will use this as an actual journal. Therefor,
I'll use the cut tags.
When I was in high school, I applied to a number of colleges. I had two advantages: 1. I was on welfare, therefor getting student aid was easy; and 2. I was a National Merit Finalist, therefor getting in was easy. I checked out the local schools, and applied to MIT, Stanford, Cal Tech, Berkeley, and oh yeah, Santa Clara because it was close.
Cal had weeder classes and too many distractions (I knew I'd drop out, or get lost.) MIT was waaaay too far away. Stanford I had visited and wandered and seemed full of rich assholes, and no one like me. Cal Tech? Nah. And I went to Santa Clara, and talked to two teachers, in their office hours, and it had community service possibilities, and...
But I didn't have a clear idea what I wanted to do. My mother thought I should be a doctor, because she'd seen my drive, and my ability with people, and my problem solving, and thought I'd be good at it. My father had told me don't become an engineer, as it had been a bad choice for him.
In small part to spite my father, and because I didn't know what else to do, and loved math, and felt that I could transfer out of engineering into any other program (which was pretty much true) I entered the DaVinci engineering degree program, focusing on electronics. This was a good general degree, with lots of things that electrical engineers don't usually study, such as basic Civil Engineering, and hydrodynamics, and drafting.
When I graduated, I was burned out. In order to take the classes I wanted to take, I had to get through the classes I had to take, so I was always 1 class over full load. Always. The last quarter was a haze of finishing my thesis (thank you Vicki Camgros) and graduating on my 21st birthday (a three day drunk starting alone the night before graduation with a bottle of alter wine and ending at a friends Hawaiian graduation party late Sunday afternoon.)
Then, I couldn't get a job. So I went back to security, and took what contracts I could find, until Pete got me in at Mouse Systems.
MOUSE: Started as a technician, repairing mice, brought in by Peter Alix. Moved to quality engineering, process engineering, customer support, repair....all at once. Liked working with people the best, which you did most as the engineer who went on site to places like SUN and trained them on the product. Mice all the way--computer peripherals.
At GE Calma I started as an OEM engineer: Specifying the parts that went into the CAD/CAM systems. Moved to being a Marketing Engineer, but there was no work.
Burned out by the layoffs... but had worked on peripherals, storage, Unix, networking...(Apollo token ring networks.)
Got into Tymnet doing tech support. (Friend got me in.) Very interesting. Did some trade shows, really enjoyed those. X.25 switching, cool stuff. Watched Frame Relay being implemented. Watched R&D shut down.
Moved to KLA, 6 months with a PCB inspection system as a Sales Engineer.
Had some time off, did some gardening. (Friend introduced me to gardening.)
Went back and did consulting/sysadmin work, on Sun solaris. Grunt job but easy money. Company looked bad. Lots of Sun boxes and CAD/CAM support in the chip industry.
For Digital Link, back to networking. CSU/DSU, good ones, and hooked up with several good people: Patrick Baxter, who was going places, and Donna Marie Smith, who went overseas. Did a lot of tech support, then moved to International Sales Engineer. Great job! Then, Marketing Engineer after being forced out.
Series of startups as an SE, none more than 6 months long,
Then 3 years at NetScout, as an SE. Brought in by Mike, salesguy, who was good to work with except when he was tilting at the windmill of the corporate policy and the local sales management (Ferrets!)
Themes: The intersection of people and technology is in Sales or Customer Support (or Marketing). Sales makes the most money for the same work. Marketing has prestige. Customer Support is more blue collar.
I've not really selected this path, just fallen into it.
Hmm. Next, perhaps, motivations.
I've fallen into most of this, with the best jobs coming through friends. The worst problem is pretty much conservative managers; I work best in a fluid environment where I don't get too bored and where I can be very out of box if needed.
I'll use the cut tags.
When I was in high school, I applied to a number of colleges. I had two advantages: 1. I was on welfare, therefor getting student aid was easy; and 2. I was a National Merit Finalist, therefor getting in was easy. I checked out the local schools, and applied to MIT, Stanford, Cal Tech, Berkeley, and oh yeah, Santa Clara because it was close.
Cal had weeder classes and too many distractions (I knew I'd drop out, or get lost.) MIT was waaaay too far away. Stanford I had visited and wandered and seemed full of rich assholes, and no one like me. Cal Tech? Nah. And I went to Santa Clara, and talked to two teachers, in their office hours, and it had community service possibilities, and...
But I didn't have a clear idea what I wanted to do. My mother thought I should be a doctor, because she'd seen my drive, and my ability with people, and my problem solving, and thought I'd be good at it. My father had told me don't become an engineer, as it had been a bad choice for him.
In small part to spite my father, and because I didn't know what else to do, and loved math, and felt that I could transfer out of engineering into any other program (which was pretty much true) I entered the DaVinci engineering degree program, focusing on electronics. This was a good general degree, with lots of things that electrical engineers don't usually study, such as basic Civil Engineering, and hydrodynamics, and drafting.
When I graduated, I was burned out. In order to take the classes I wanted to take, I had to get through the classes I had to take, so I was always 1 class over full load. Always. The last quarter was a haze of finishing my thesis (thank you Vicki Camgros) and graduating on my 21st birthday (a three day drunk starting alone the night before graduation with a bottle of alter wine and ending at a friends Hawaiian graduation party late Sunday afternoon.)
Then, I couldn't get a job. So I went back to security, and took what contracts I could find, until Pete got me in at Mouse Systems.
MOUSE: Started as a technician, repairing mice, brought in by Peter Alix. Moved to quality engineering, process engineering, customer support, repair....all at once. Liked working with people the best, which you did most as the engineer who went on site to places like SUN and trained them on the product. Mice all the way--computer peripherals.
At GE Calma I started as an OEM engineer: Specifying the parts that went into the CAD/CAM systems. Moved to being a Marketing Engineer, but there was no work.
Burned out by the layoffs... but had worked on peripherals, storage, Unix, networking...(Apollo token ring networks.)
Got into Tymnet doing tech support. (Friend got me in.) Very interesting. Did some trade shows, really enjoyed those. X.25 switching, cool stuff. Watched Frame Relay being implemented. Watched R&D shut down.
Moved to KLA, 6 months with a PCB inspection system as a Sales Engineer.
Had some time off, did some gardening. (Friend introduced me to gardening.)
Went back and did consulting/sysadmin work, on Sun solaris. Grunt job but easy money. Company looked bad. Lots of Sun boxes and CAD/CAM support in the chip industry.
For Digital Link, back to networking. CSU/DSU, good ones, and hooked up with several good people: Patrick Baxter, who was going places, and Donna Marie Smith, who went overseas. Did a lot of tech support, then moved to International Sales Engineer. Great job! Then, Marketing Engineer after being forced out.
Series of startups as an SE, none more than 6 months long,
Then 3 years at NetScout, as an SE. Brought in by Mike, salesguy, who was good to work with except when he was tilting at the windmill of the corporate policy and the local sales management (Ferrets!)
Themes: The intersection of people and technology is in Sales or Customer Support (or Marketing). Sales makes the most money for the same work. Marketing has prestige. Customer Support is more blue collar.
I've not really selected this path, just fallen into it.
Hmm. Next, perhaps, motivations.
I've fallen into most of this, with the best jobs coming through friends. The worst problem is pretty much conservative managers; I work best in a fluid environment where I don't get too bored and where I can be very out of box if needed.
