Glad to hear you're on the mend. My daughter went through that a couple of years ago; it was caught before her appendix ruptured, but it was a near thing.
So it's starting to look like I'm going to need to get a new charge cable for my computer. It's been acting up the last few days, and today it finally stopped charging my computer. So if no one hears from me for a while, don't worry, I haven't forgotten you. It just sucks that I might not be able to participate in all my games! :(
A heads-up in advance: I'll be largely afk from 8/30 through 9/3; I'll be at WorldCon in Chicago. Anyone else going to be there?
Sadly, no. I'll be trying to become a college graduate.
Nope. I'll be carrying the pager for work, so I won't be leaving town AND I won't be drinking or going to a movie or spending money on anything else that I might have to walk away from without getting to enjoy.
Have I mentioned that I carry this stupid pager about 50% of the time? Yeah. I don't think I'm paid enough for that.
I can delegate a lot of stuff for when I'm gone, but work pays for me to have a phone with email, and I often end up dealing with brush fires while I'm away. OTOH, I figure I *am* paid enough for that.
Delegate.
Interesting word. Technically, I am a team lead and can delegate to my team members. Realistically, I actually have no supervisory authority and the guy above me in the office avoids conflict whenever and however possible.
Oh, and no one CAN pay me enough to charge me vacation time and expect me to perform work for their benefit at the same time. That is simply not possible. That assumption is a violation of the very concept of a vacation! I view the vacation time of my team and my management the same way, though.
When I'm not on vacation, the members of my team can call me seeking help/guidance at any time of the day or night, and if they have been working a production problem for an hour they are REQUIRED to call me. I am paid better than they are because of that difference, but not much. We're civil servants. My team is 1 GS-9, 3 GS-11s, and my GS-12 spot. Because we're IT guys, those BELOW GS-12 get a premium pay rate increase. The 11's really are not making THAT much less than I am.
Before anybody starts trying to figure out whether they think I am well-paid or not, keep in mind that I am a computer programmer/software engineer/whatever title you want to choose with over 27 years of experience. GS-12 pay is good, but it ain't THAT good.
Don't suppose you have any tips for the CS major?
My pay for my life is my computer. My life is topsy turvy to the point that wife had career and enough stuff has happened that I am home 95% of the time it seems. I have my sister's kids (going to court hopefully next month to make permanent) and so ready for the either to all be mid teenagers or older so I don't have to worry about being at home to take care of anything.
Bachelor's
I may get my master's but I don't know if I will after the headaches I've gone through getting things ready for this fall.
I typed up a nice reply, and network lag ate it . . ..
Remember that the vast majority of employers out there are going to see you as an expendable resource, and will attempt to get all the work from you that they can while TRYING to burn you out.
Try an internship or two, if you can afford to go without pay or with almost no pay. They help you from contacts and give you an idea of what working inside a given organization is REALLY like while building creditable experience you can put on a resume. The summer between your junior and senior years would be best, but many organizations have internship programs DURING the school year, too . . ..
Also, what kind of CS work are you looking to get? A true CS degree will give you more options than most of the IT degrees people get these days.
I, naturally, recommend civil service work if you can get it. Getting it takes a LONG TIME. As with any other potential employer, various positions in various locations provide varying job satisfaction. There is a civil service career specific to CS majors (though I can't remember what it is right now) and 2210 (my generic IT career code) which covers everything from infrastructure to software to help desks to sys admin to IA to policy & planning to DBA to whatever else they can assign us.
Don't be confused by salaries. Remember to compare the cost of living that goes with said salary. Jobs on the coasts provide much larger salaries, but the cost of living means people in the "fly over states" have better standards of living. The 11's working for me would be 12's in DC, maybe even 13's, but they would STILL not live as well there as they do here.
Gs-1550 is "comPuter scientist", but it's rare as hen 's teeth. Dod,NSF, nist, and a few other places differentiate 1540 from 2210. There are also some weird places like FAA that go their own way. General rule is 2210's though.
I'll drop something at greater length tonight, but I generally concur with dada's thoughts.
Daniel Rothman, tsa/OIT, sv-2210-k, previously DISA, gs-1550-15
Thanks for the advice. I do have a job as an intern and actually make decent money all things considered. I'll keep the cost of living in mind when looking at salaries, a lot of $200K homes here would be $400K to $600K elsewhere. I'm getting a CS degree, and I've been through two software engineering courses to prove it. I'm taking databases, networking, and programming languages this fall, and I'll hopefully be getting my diploma in December.
I'm working for an IT/Web Design company where I live right now, and they've been good with working with me while I'm in school. Not a lot of programming, and my job is more designing, setting up, and maintaining websites. I fill in when needed with the tech side, diagnosing, repairing, and on-boarding computers. I've asked about getting some practical with maintaining the servers, and we've got a big set up job for a client that should give me a chance to learn a little bit.
and yes, I have called myself the jack-of-all-trades at work before.
Again thanks for the advice.
At least one of our IT folks is permanent because of doing a co-op here while she was in school, and impressing everyone.
@'Dada: Some parts of Flyover Land are more expensive than others; Chicago area is a 25% increase over GS base, last I checked, though I don't know what it is on the coasts.
Chicago's not normally included as a fly-over spot. Neither is Houston.
The "rest of the US" rate is 14.16% over the base pay chart.
San Francisco/San Jose/Oakland is 35.15% over the base pay chart.
MOST of either coast is mid-20%.
As a rule, though, the GS base pay bump for a region is less than the additional cost of living expenses that justified it.
As a rule, though, the GS base pay bump for a region is less than the additional cost of living expenses that justified it.
Imagine my surprise.
OTOH, I'm a little more surprised that the SF Bay area isn't that much more than Chicagoland. Granted, this was in the late '90s, but after I finished grad school I had two postdoc offers; the one 50 miles east of SF was something like a third again what the one 25 miles southwest of the Chicago Loop was paying, and apartment rentals differed by about the same ratio. (I went with Chicago to ensure domestic tranquility, as they say.)
Wow, and this conversation went way over this college dropout's head fast lol.
*To clarify, am attempting to get back into college, though I'll be majoring in either Business or English this time instead of Computer Science.
Don't worry about it too much; I dropped out for a couple of years after finding out the hard way that college wasn't that much like high school. Oh, and I couldn't game as much as I liked :-). Then I managed to scrape through a bachelor's degree by the skin of my teeth and work for six years before I went to grad school. Funny thing--even with all of that, I wasn't the youngest person in my research group.
MMmm.. first thought - "wear your sunscreen" "remember the lessons you learned in kindergarten"
Congratulations on impending graduation. Hurrah!
--------
Excellent execution - internship/part time job.
BS CS + any applicable experience >> BS CS + 0 > BA IT Management > certificates
Tactically, the job market is lousy. Any opportunity to parlay your current position to something full time is worthwhile. Otherwise, if you're not going for more schooling (also a legitimate option) you need to start your job search yesterday. Again to Gudada's discussion, civil service is a great stepping stone at the moment, and there are a number of recent-grad programs out there, or interesting entry-level stuff (i would have done state dept field tech stuff if I'd known about it...). If you're interested, PM me, and I'll dig up some links.
Strategically, there are two fields of play. One field of play is your toolkit specialization. CS is a toolbox - databases, networks, languages, etc. are tools that go out of date, and require maintenance to keep sharp. It's extremely difficult to keep a very broad range of tools current and sharp. Conversely, it's poor practice to be ignorant of related toolsets - I'm currently resolving a S/W dev project that was all developers, and no systems folks - they're overdue and poorly performing on getting their deployment platform squared away (this is VERY TYPICAL). In-demand, well-paying specialties currently include database admins/designers, IT Security, storage specialists. Currently out-of-favor areas include networks, sys admin, general software developers. I'm a contrarian - I think IT Security is going to implode and reinvent itself within 5 years. Oracle database folks are going to be in oversupply within 5 years, with Hadoop and OpenText adminidomain arearators/designers in demand. Ten years ago, I'd have recommended specific technology/vendor targets (Oracle & Cisco...), but for the next while I'd pick an area you like and work well in, grab a variety of projects, and watch for the next big train coming through.
Second big field of play is domain - finance, travel, manufacturing, retail, etc. It's my experience that multi-classing doesn't generally pan out (occasional exceptions) - in general, you're IT, or you're Line of Business. But a little bit of crossover - LoB that can talk IT, or IT that understands LoB requirements (even beyond IT) succeeds gangbusters. You'll also see that IT from one domain is hesitant about picking up IT from a different domain - someone who was great at financials DBA will have difficulty getting hired to do pharmaceuticals DBA. It doesn't always make sense, and I (personally) haven't seen huge differences in success rates, but hiring managers gravitate to to folks with work histories they can relate to and evaluate easily. This effect generally gets more pronounced as you get more senior. So - you're at the right point in your career to monkey around in several different domains, see what you like, are interested in. I'm kind of wishing I had more background in fisheries management/natural resource management. There're some really cool-looking jobs in Alaska and Fiji that I can't get my foot in the door on, because I've never counted fish for a living.
Just one final point - there is a huge distinction between working in an IT shop in a LoB area (I currently do IT at the Federal Air Marshal Service, which is a cop shop), versus working in a company dedicated to your IT area (I used to do networking at Global One, a dedicated backbone network provider). The long and short of the difference, is that in a LoB shop, IT is always a second class citizen, and a necessary evil. There can be great challenges, great mission to support, good people. But IT will always be second fiddle. Pure IT shops tend to be fewer and farther between (there are a lot more non-IT shops that need IT services...), and the challenges are frequently much narrower (though usually deeper). It's a different world, and a different environment. Ideally, it's great to experience both, and really appreciate the tradeoffs. Also - consulting firms are something different again, and wildly variable.
Whoops, guess I forgot to mention that I pretty much have a full time job after I graduate with the company I work for now. I appreciate the job search advice though. :)
From what you said, I'm in an IT shop. We have clients in several areas, car dealers to physicians, to even a few government clients.
I would like to get deeper into web applications, not only is it what I have the most (of my very, very limited) experience in, I think that's where everything is going towards. The problem I'm having right now is that the framework we use to build websites, and the requirements of the websites we build, don't make for many opportunities to build them.
If you or Gudada are curious, I work for these guys. I love working there, but I don't know where I want to go right now, so I asked for advice. Thanks for giving me more than I had hoped for. :D
<- nattering, chattering old wookie :)
Yeah, don't get us started.
Anyone seen the GM?
He's posted 3 times in a new recruiting thread since he's posted in game here. The most recent of those was still 4 or 5 days ago. Kinda like his last post in this thread.
I'm thinking there's still something wrong since the hospital stay that he mentioned, but I don't KNOW anything.
Uh-oh, I'm hoping that nothing bad has happened. I know that appendicitis isn't anything to fool around with.
I sent a message to him asking as well. Hoping didn't have any complications.
Well in the interest of avoiding filling the PBP graveyard with another GM went MIA game, would anyone mind if I took over until Ryuko can GM again. I have the AP and I would like to think I'm halfway decent. IF anyone else would rather they do it, I'm cool with that as well.
I do not mind other than your character seemed really cool and I would have enjoyed playing with her. How long does one usually wait before looking to take over? I know he was gone and then showed up for a couple of days and disappeared again. I don't know the etiquette for PbP.
@talliree - I don't know the protocol, but I'm OK with that in principle.
I'm not AGAINST the idea, but I am hesitant.
Today marks 1 week since he's posted in this discussion thread.
We did something similar in another game where a player had the AP and took over after the original GM ducked out. The only thing is I work and I'm in school, so they will be times where the game comes to a screeching snail crawl if this does turn into a long term thing.
I've been wanting to play this AP for a while and I plan on running it after I have more free time (ie I become a college graduate) IRL, but this would hopefully be a temporary thing. Something to get us past the fight and into the break between parts and give Ryuko a chance to jump back in during a lull.
I can understand the hesitancy. I wouldn't suggest this normally, but it appears that he has gone MIA, From all appearances, he hasn't been on since Saturday or Sunday. If you want we can wait until Monday or Tuesday to give him a chance to post and let us know what's going on.
I will admit that I'm a little (okay, a good bit) impatient and I there are parts of this AP that I am look forward to. That is motivating me more than a little, but I am worried about Ryuko. If he had to go under the knife before, there may have been complications. I just hope that it isn't that and he got buried at work.
Back among the allegedly living after Worldcon. I see in the game thread that DM Ryuko hasn't resurfaced yet; given his health issues I'm willing to wait a bit longer yet.
So how was Worldcon?
Lots of fun, although daytripping in from forty miles away tends to constrain one's activities. I got to a bunch of good panels, spent the plurality of my time staffing the Green Room (and serving food to a number of my favorite authors and other luminaries, including Lawrence Watt-Evans, Charlie Stross, Robert Silverberg, and Ben Bova), and saw a lot of friends.
Cool. I know what you mean about day-tripping. I'm driving 150 miles three days a week to attend a class that I need to graduate.
Glad you had fun.
He has been gone a week. If he just disappeared then could be long time before he resurfaces since he started working again on another game he was running here. Just to do that for a couple of days and disappear worries me. Hope it is nothing major and he is just on bed rest.
Looking at Ryuko's profile, since he got back from his surgery he posted 30 times in roughly 8 campaigns (4 of which HE's the GM).
On Saturday, 24 Aug, he dotted a recruitment thead for somebody else's game. His last 2 posts were on Sunday the 25th, to games he's GMing (one of which was this one).
I think that whatever's happened doesn't qualify as good. The original surgery absence was 6 days, BTW. Real life is far more important than this game. I just hope real life isn't going as bad for him as we can all imagine it might be.
I know. I really hope that nothing bad has happened and that he just got swamped, but I also know that sometimes things go awry, especially in emergency situations like an imminent appendix rupture. I was just offering to pick up the game until Ryuko could get back on.
poke. Everyone still here?
still here. i peeked at ryuko's profile the other day, and he hadn't resurfaced. <concern>
Yep. I did likewise.
<shudder> Spent the past 4 days so far down I didn't even pick up the tablet, let alone turn on the computer.
All that hit me was allergies!
Resurrecting the dot....
y'know, I was just thinkin' about yous guyz last night :)
Still hanging around.
Still around but I got invited to an online table of this and have played through 2 sessions.
Dot? Ressurection?
Time limit on the dots, hunh? I didn't know that . . ..
It's about a week, I think. After that new posts also don't show up on your Campaigns tab until you've looked at the thread and maybe posted.
Well, the good news that I might be getting my computer back today seems to be less exciting for me now that I've read the posts in this thread... Hope he's okay.