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Temp Tips
December 17, 1999
As we move into the new Millennium (whether it really happens in two weeks or in a year and two weeks), it is becoming clearer and clearer that Employment is being projectized and Job Security is a concept of the past. If you want to be sure of future Employment you will need to be learning continuously as you move from one Job to the next. Your guarantee of work will only be as solid as your work skills combined with your Jobhunting ability.
For the well prepared, there will be opportunities galore. The uninitiated, however, will find a frustrating series of dead end Jobs and uncomfortable periods of unemployment between them. Some keys to surviving the new and improved minefield of Jobhunting in the 21st Century:
IT Jobs
December 16, 1999
Jobs, Jobs, Jobs.
That's the mantra being chanted by Corporate America as it seeks workers with database technology skills. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the already high demand for database managers will nearly double in the next five years. This bodes well not only for computer science grads, but for workers certified in vocational fields that specialize in information technologies.
Typically, database managers take care of system management, and their responsibilities include system programming, troubleshooting, analysis, and system reports. They ensure that their software meshes with other departments, and they are responsible for making sure that the use of the database is compatible with overall business goals. Salaries for beginning database managers range from $45,000 to $65,000.
There are several different database technologies to choose from. Try investigating some Usenet newsgroups to see what's really in demand today. For example, DB2, Oracle, and SQL are good choices to start with.
Professional Associations periodically have conferences sponsored by database user groups and database vendors. Attend a few and get some first hand experience with these people and the programs. Ask how they got started in their Jobs, and see if they know of openings or internships. These shows often have database beta versions that you can get for next to nothing. Getting familiar with the technology and the people that buy it, use it, and sell it will move you up the learning curve as fast as anything else.
Some other high-tech job descriptions and salary ranges:
Bad Boss?
December 15, 1999
Usually the most important factor in your work environment is not the work itself, your coworkers, or the long hours.
The primary reason people leave their job or stay with a company is the quality of their relationship with their boss. Even without reading Dilbert everyone has seen their share of tyrannical supervisors and bad bosses. Some enjoy being mean, while others just think that verbally abusing employees is necessary to get the most out of them. A few are management refugees from the early est days, and a large subset of bad managers are merely incompetent.
Bad bosses come in a variety of forms, with a good deal of overlap:
Many career advisors have simple advice for someone stuck with a boss who falls into one of the categories above: Quit. Unfortunately, most of us live in the real world where even a few weeks of no pay is a huge strain on our monthly budget. Before you can find another Job, the pertinent question is, ‘How do I deal with them once I know what their hangups are?'
Generally it is easier emotionally to work for a nonmanager than a micromanager. You have the opportunity to take projects and run with them, learning on the fly what are the best methods for getting them completed. With micromanager types, you are better off building alliances with colleagues and documenting everything you do. Carefully presented data, used in coordination with coworkers and other department heads, takes some of the belligerent steam out of a bullying boss.
Remember first that you probably have the power to improve your relationship with your boss. They're human, after all, and appreciate praise, recognition, and hard work just like you do. Mending fences is always easier when you work on your own side instead of telling someone to fix their side. If all else fails in staying on the increasingly shrinking ‘good side' of your boss, use your spare time wisely in looking for a new position - it will be time well spent.
Two Masters
December 14, 1999
The Economic churn engulfing the Global Economy can be disconcerting to Jobhunters and Jobhoppers. Corporations are reporting record profits while laying off significant percentages of their workforce. This whirl of Economic activity includes record numbers of new Jobs being created combined with historically low Unemployment rates - opportunities abound for those with the right skills and initiative.
Clearly the rules for Jobhunters are changing. Where Loyalty and hard work once was exchanged for Life-long Employment with one firm, now labor skills are traded for short-term projects. Both Employers and Employees have the same motto, "Upgrade, or Else!" But Employers are demanding upgraded skills, and Employees are demanding upgraded work conditions (better pay, flexible scheduling, and career advancement).
A large segment of new Job opportunities are in very small, entrepreneurial enterprises. These startup companies typically have very limited funds, so they are unable to offer competitive salaries. What they have, and seek to enlarge, is their pool of intellectual capital.
In a word, they want your brain. Or at least use of it for part of the time.
Unfortunately they often can only offer stock options and a promise of a 'big payoff' down the road. And if you are looking to switch Jobs, your current Employer may be troubled by your work after hours somewhere else. You have the right to work where you choose without corresponding duty to tell anyone. Hopefully you have a strong enough relationship with your Employer to feel comfortable discussing the issue with them openly.
If your second Job is in an unrelated field, there shouldn't be any problem. The difficulty arises when you work in the same field for another company. Are they a competitor? Is the work you do for your regular Employer closely related to the work that a secondary Employer wants you to perform? Employers often feel that they own (and sometimes they actually do own!) the rights to your intellectual creations while you are on their payroll.
Employer #1 may watch your work output with more than their usual scrutiny once they know you are moonlighting, so you'll have to keep up your productivity. Explain to them that the exposure to new ideas is stimulating your creative processes, and can benefit their firm.
It can be difficult to serve two masters, but it is neither impossible nor unethical, if handled with honesty and integrity.
Cut and Paste
December 13, 1999
Access times to information seem (despite the often maligned world wide wait) to be getting shorter and shorter. What used to take weeks of industrious research can now be assembled in a few hours online, cutting and pasting from a variety of sources. For researchers (and students!), this has meant an exponential increase in productivity.
The Information Superhighway allows fast access to gigabytes of data, and within a few clicks you can find and appropriate lots of useful information. However, there are potential drawbacks.
Why write anything original when it's all been done before, and probably with better grammar and spelling? Hordes of students have taken this as their mantra over the last two years and 'composed' research papers, essays, and other works that were only partially their own. A Professor at UC Berkeley recently caught 15% of his Neurobiology students (forty five in all) plagiarizing their term papers, using the Internet as their modus operandi.
Copying other people's work without accreditation is old hat. What has been remarkable is the reaction, or lack of reaction, by most bystanders. Several website owners are even trying to make the legal case that they can put copyrighted material on their sites without getting the copyright holder's permission. It begs the question, "Are Intellectual Property Rights really relevant anymore?"
One site that tries to combat this phenomenon is Plagiarism.org. Created by a UC Berkeley grad student, the site scans millions of pages on the Internet and compares them to student papers submitted by a professor. Passages with as few as eight to ten consecutive words that match are highlighted and given the url address of where the original works can be found, and the whole process is completed within 24 hours.
While a refreshing resource for Educators looking to curb an epidemic of copied works being passed off as original, this could turn ugly for students and other researchers. Who really owns particular combinations of words, anyway? Students are no dummies (with a few notable exceptions), so it's easy to speculate on web purveyors who will 'scramble' published works enough so that they won't be 'recognized' as plagiarized documents when submitted as original.
We all want high-speed access and transmission of data. When we get it the pricklier ethical question becomes "At what Cost?"
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