4grams

Once again, thank you so much. It means a lot coming from someone in the industry, who’s walked a similar path.

I have been making some moves. I am evaluating, but I don’t want to get stuck in analysis paralysis. I’m in the “what happens if my situation changes” stage, and right now, I still think having a degree will be a benefit.

Wait his lead over who??? That coke fueled failson is in the running??

Jebus, this is the stupidest country that has ever existed.

First of all, I can’t thank you enough for the thoughtful reply. Your experience in the first half of your reply is very valuable, and what I am hoping for in my journey.

I’m not sure this place you’re imagining exists the way you’re describing.…

I agree, it might not, but in my career, as I’ve advanced higher, I have found a new landscape to explore each time. I didn’t even get in to managing a team on purpose, I was the lead engineer on my team and my boss quit. I had no eye on the position, until the rest of my team got behind me and told both me and the company that they wanted me as their leader. It was then that I took stock of where I was going in my career and after doing that for a little while, I knew the direction I wanted to go. Despite my role turning from the day to day technical, to a more long term thinking type role, I found I enjoyed it greatly. I was able to re-shape the team to be more effective, and I made some tremendous improvements in our tech stack. Most of it didn’t come from me, it was things my team brought to me, and we worked to turn into proposals, with financial metrics and so forth. This was also where I got my first taste of Architecture, being put on the CAB, in charge of evaluating all the infrastructure requests and designs.

At the time I was sure it was the architecture and planning I enjoyed, so I accepted a position as an Architect with another company. In the end though, I realized that it wasn’t the technical work I enjoyed, it was mentoring and building a team. It felt great to be the guy who could help take the ideas that the team had, and build them into a workable business solution. I even enjoyed bringing my engineers back down to ground level; sometimes a really good idea, just isn’t workable in the current landscape. I wound up walking away from that job amicably to deal with some family health issues and now I’m stuck back in a Senior Engineer role, slowly dying of boredom.

As you get higher into management, firing people absolutely sucks. Keeping on dead weight/underperformers/overstaff instead of firing them means you are robbing your ability to give raises or advancement to the other workers you have that are really performing well. So you fire them, but it still sucks.

Wholeheartedly agree, but I’ve also done this long enough, and seen enough of the type who need to go, that I am willing to act. I have not directly fired anyone, but I have been on the hiring, managing and I have had to develop performance review practices for the engineer that I wanted to fire, but did not have the authority to do so (was a good lesson, he eventually turned around, just after far more strikes than most places would tolerate).

I don’t say any of this to discourage you. This has just been my experience. Perhaps you’ll navigate the river differently and find what you’re looking for when you advance. But seriously, you can totally get a Bachelors degree, and you don’t even need to quit your current job.

Again, thank you so much for your input. I know a degree won’t fix every problem, but at this point, working on new ones is what I’m after. I’d change careers entirely but I don’t think I have the time, so instead I want to advance and see where it takes me.

I’m in the evaluation stage, trying to make sure I can stick to it if I embark on this journey. Discussions like this help a great deal.

Does he even know what words mean?

Some maybe, most probably not.

I’m aware, but I am not built for that. Plus, I’m so established as someone without one in the industry that such deception would be instantly discovered.

I do, I have a career goal I have been marching towards for some time but the momentum I had has stopped.

I joined the IT workforce during my generals at college, before the .com crash in the 90’s. I dropped out and have been working my way up ever since. I’ve led teams, I’ve been an architect, I’ve been a senior engineer, but I have always been after a director level role. No matter the experience though so far, the door is closed unless I have the degree.

So, I’m thinking about WGU, for an IT Management degree (maybe eventually a masters). It’s what I do every day, so I hope I can test out of a fair bit and the rest I should probably brush up on anyway.

I’m not after Fortune 500, I’ll go be a director for a balloon manufacturer or something, just a role where I can have a little of my own agency.

I’m aware, but I’m stuck where I am and can’t climb any further. So, either stop trying or try something else.

I never did but I’m now middle aged and stuck in my career without one. I’m right now planning on finding a competency based program to try to speedrun, so I can stop working on implementing others peoples broken garbage.

I love this idea. Libraries should provide free hosting for people in the community.

Im all about democratizing the internet, and im all about self hosting. Libraries could be just what we need for that.

Brilliant idea my friend.

That’s why they are going to saddle the neckhole dude’s widow with him.

Aka the nestle phenomenon.

I have, but they wouldn’t take a fist born, nor magic beans…

I try to keep one or two near collections at all times. Makes me feel like someone cares…

This is a joke (although I am often behind on bills).

All part of the design. They are dumping department of education for the same reason. They want education to be only for the privileged, and only teaching what they want taught.

We aren’t there yet, but if you look at the steps they’ve taken it’s quite obvious what their plans are. If it’s not, it’s all spelled out in project 2025.

I use Dr. Bronners hemp peppermint for everything. Soap, shampoo, toothpaste, dish soap, dog shampoo, hell, I once washed my car with it.

Ok, so I only use it as toothpaste while camping, but still, I could.

*modern pickups are common offenders, often for false beliefs such as “my properly aimed headlights are fine”, when they are in fact not fine all the time because roads are not flat and smooth.

Not to harp, but roads not being smooth is a problem for all lights, not just pickups. If I’m behind someone, even close, my headlights are pointed below their rear window, I watch for where the line cuts off so as to intentionally not blind people. I’m high up and am often still blinded by any number of cars behind me though.

I totally agree that many truck drivers are assholes, and there’s a shitton of assholes with the squat and lifts and shit who never adjust them. Those are the ones to get mad at.

I mean, agree, but I’m a scout leader who towes at least monthly, had a bed full of wreaths to deliver yesterday for example… I’m a middle aged dude with a work from home job, so all of those are indeed considerations and I do my best to be conscientious. Besides, my properly aimed headlights produce less glare than all the aftermarket, poorly aimed ones that people who think the blueish light makes them look fancier.

It’s commmts like yours though that kinda irk me. I mean, if a grey 4 wheel drive pickup, with a bunch of campground stickers offends someone, that’s not really on me. I’ll take the hate from assholes any day.

It’s this realization that led me to buying a truck. I always wanted one but couldn’t justify it, too wasteful. Well, after this shitshow I realize that all my guilt has been to naught, only there to placate the masses to reduce in order for the billionaires to get away with anything.

So, when I needed a new vehicle, I got the one I wanted. Ironically it’s both the largest and best gas mileage car I’ve ever owned (still got a hybrid, but because it’s cool, gas savings are an appreciated benefit).

I still can’t shake all the guilt, but I absolutely love my vehicle at least.

It’s true. I have had a good number of jobs, I come, work on things, make improvements, then move on when I’ve grown or they are in a better spot. I honestly thought I was the guy coming in to help fix things and then move on once things are stable.

Instead, I have created a series of opportunities for them to blame the last guy to leave.

No matter how good of a job you do, unless you are there to remind folks, they will forget and use the easy scapegoat. I’m still very popular with the folks I worked with on the ground, but management types are primarily after someone else to blame…

They are both worse than useless but I’m actually more upset by Jeffries. We have known for ages who Schumer is, never should have gotten a position of power. I remember Jeffries coming up though, he was sold as this new, young, dynamic and progressive face for the party. But he is the oldest young person in America, he governs like someone even more out of touch than the crypt keeper he replaced.