it worker backgrounds

I have worked in technical support ten of the last eleven years, and have had significant interactions with people with all kinds of technical skill sets.  This post is about one observation I have made that I have not  seen anyone else make about people in general in the industry.  Specifically, I think technical workers are disproportionately from poorer backgrounds.

My observation that a lot of people in IT came from poorer families could be completely wrong, and it is almost certainly partially due to the fact that my career to this point has mostly been in technical support rather than something more glamorous in the industry.  I have seen a large number of technical workers who have purported to come from modest backgrounds, though.  Beyond this, I have also noticed an inordinately large number of people from modest backgrounds who have taken a significant interest in tech as their key to a better life, even if they have not ultimately gotten a technical job.

In some respects this makes total sense.  It seems like the industry more than most others rewards and punishes workers based on ability and intelligence.  Politics applies, but to a lesser degree.  If you're not cut out to be a programmer, or a systems administrator, or whatever it is going to matter less if your dad is the CTO for the company.  You probably could coast in a different department, such as Marketing, where individual contributions are more difficult to quantify.  On the flip side, if you are naturally skilled and someone gives a chance you can do well.

This also makes sense from the education perspective.  This is a white collar profession where a bachelors degree or a graduate degree is not required.  The same cannot be said for other white collar roles, from doctors to lawyers to mechanical engineers.  Sure, most technical jobs claim to require at least a bachelor's degree, but most of those will also allow for "equivalent work experience."  Less of an educational requirement means a lower barrier for people who don't have the money up front for a college education and/or four to eight years available to make a bet on a specific career.

I think the biggest reason for this, however, is the marketing from schools like DeVry and ITT Tech.  By their nature they target students with lesser means (in either time or money) than a traditional school targets.  Since the biggest bang for their buck is to target those industries where someone with an undergrad degree or less can make a decent living, they focus on the tech and healthcare industries.  I have worked with a lot of DeVry graduates, and an unfortunate side-effect of their education that seems to be a universal is significant student loan debt.  Since not everyone is cut out to work in technical fields, this presents a bit of a risk that the degree will not lead to a job to pay off the loan for the degree.  It presents a hidden risk to those who are cut out for the industry as well, though.

Something that I learned before I had much technical experience on my resume is that, unless your degree is from a relatively prestigious school, experience matters far more than education when applying for a technical job.  The places that hire straight out of school usually expect some specific ability or depth of knowledge that you don't necessarily get in the classroom.  The people who do well tend to be the ones who did a lot of out-of-class learning on their own.  This is a problem for any student with limited real-world experience.  For-profit school students, with their higher-than-average debts that will not go away until they are paid off, are in a much tougher situation, however.  A degree does not guarantee a job in the industry, and one may not ever be available for specific, individual graduates.

As a final note, I do seem to run across a lot of people who think that IT is the gateway to six-figure incomes, and I think this draws in people looking for something akin to an earned lottery payout.  There are people who make that but, based on what limited information I have, they tend to fall into one or (very likely) more of the following four categories.

• They hold a senior role.
• They live in an expensive city that necessitates high pay.
• They are a consultant and can tolerate the income variability.
• They happen to be an expert in a relatively new and highly-used technology.

Tech jobs pay better than those in a lot of other industries, especially for the amount of education required to succeed, but six-figure incomes are rare from what I can tell.

My foundational point is that technical jobs do offer opportunities that do not exist in other places, but they should not be pursued by people who do not have a genuine interest in the work.  The payout simply is not as high as some people think it is, and there is a good chance a person looking to enter the field for the money will have to fight for opportunities just to get a position to acquire the experience employers expect.  If you do like the work and have realistic expectations regarding what you will make, then entering the industry makes sense.

kony

I figure that most people reading this know about the "Kony 2012" video that has been circulating the web, but in case you haven't seen it, it is below. As a warning, this is a half hour long so it requires a bit of a time commitment to watch.


For the uninitiated who don't have a spare half hour to watch the film, the video details the goal to capture Joseph Kony, a warlord from the region around northern Uganda, so that he can be tried for war crimes. The goal is a noble one, at least in intent. Many will disagree with the notion that the U.S. should get more involved in foreign affairs, but a scant few would disagree with the assertion that the world would be a better place with Kony put away for a long time.

I get some positives out of this. First, I do believe that the nations that are the "haves" have a moral obligation to assist in dealing with the issues that the "have-nots" deal with that result in massive suffering and death. Second, while I am not technically a neo-conservative or a pacifist, I get some pleasure seeing something targeted to the people most likely to be pacifists making what amounts to a neo-con's argument.

Two negative things strike me about this too, and I don't know right now whether these two things are mindless gut reactions or valid concerns.

First, this video seems like it is promoting slacktivism, which is something that seriously bugs me. On some level I have always believed that purposeful people work to accomplish tangible goals and lazy people who want to feel good about themselves spend the mere seconds it takes to share a video to raise awareness. I know that is an unfair generalization, and I know that this post could be construed as slacktivist as well. However, generalizations usually have some grain of truth, and issues such as this do not exist for the sole purpose of allowing people to feel good about themselves for taking a popular stance on them. You're against a warlord stealing children from their families to use in his child army? You must be a wonderful, caring person!

Second, it occurs to me that Kony's victims may have different ideas regarding the best policy for capturing Kony than the video presents. Indeed, the following video from Al Jazeera—I know, the source isn't the most trusted with a U.S. audience, but bear with me—and the reactions they captured to a screening of the Kony 2012 video at least appeared overwhelmingly negative. Video can be cut to prove nearly any point, but I still have the open question in my mind regarding the best way to deal with Kony.


If I were in a decision-making role on this issue I would probably support the current course of action. I don't know if it is the right action, but on it's face it appears to be the best.  That said, if the locals did not support it, how could we, the foreigners?

I don't really have many more opinions to add. I think this is one of those topics where people bring their own opinions and really aren't going to be easily swayed from them. The issue genuinely is worth serious thought, though.

Update (3/17/2012): I feel I should note that the Ugandan government has responded to the video with what at least appears to be a reasonable point that Kony hasn't been in Uganda since 2006 when he was forced out by the Ugandan military, so U.S. involvement in the country may not be the best targeted. I don't know any better than anyone else if the military assistance that the U.S. is providing does any good or not.

Also, in case anyone reading this is wondering why I have not mentioned it, I know very well that Jason Russell, who was behind the creation of the Kony video, was recently arrested for pointedly embarrassing behavior in public. I just don't think that the incident is relevant to the question of whether the Kony video itself is ultimately a good or a bad thing.

something light

I actually have a very difficult time coming up with light topics for this blog.  The deeper or more involved ones take some time to type, but I usually have several in the back of my mind that I am mulling.  The problem with that is I expect that most people wanting to read a blog are not looking to commit a lot of time reading through multiple treatises that simply state the blogger's personal viewpoint, and are instead looking for something light.

So, here's a random list of statements about light.

• I used to think that foods labeled as "lite" were labeled using an improper spelling to get around FDA rules.  At least today, there are FDA rules for what can be labeled as "lite," so I was probably wrong.
• Thomas Edison did not create the world's first incandescent light bulb.  He created the world's first economically viable incandescent light bulb.
• A lightsaber's colors are determined by the crystal used in its creation.
• The person who was struck the most times in his life by lightning was Roy Sullivan, who was struck seven times over a period of thirty-five years and change.  He died at his own hand due to relationship troubles rather than directly due to the lightning.
• A boxer who is in the official Lightweight class weighs between 135 and 140 pounds.  The limit for  heavyweight is a mere sixty pounds more than the upper bound of this at 200 pounds.
• About ten years ago some researchers successfully stopped and restarted light by forcing it through a super cold cloud of atoms.  This all occurred in the span of a thousandth of a second, which makes you wonder if the validation process was the researchers asking each other, "You saw that, right?" and responding in the affirmative to make each other feel good.
• The poem Charge of the Light Brigade retells the true story of a cavalry charge in the Crimean War that occurred due to miscommunication.  The poem supposes that the soldiers knew the charge was a mistake, but gave their lives for it anyway.
• Hasbro has an online Lite-Brite that you can use to make and print designs.
• The first traffic light in a form similar to today had two colors (red and green) and used a buzzer as a warning of light change rather than a yellow light.
• Gordon Lightfoot's Wikipedia page lists his various musical styles as, "folk, folk-rock, and country music."  I could have sworn that was three different ways of saying the same thing.
•  The word, "lite," in Swedish means, "a little."

goals in marriage

This indirectly builds off a short post from earlier about communication in marriage.

I should note that this is not about some specific discussion or argument that Golden and I are having.  This is about me reflecting on how our approaches and motivations have been very different throughout our lives together, and we have not always identified that fact.

When I was seventeen, a Holiness pastor and general contractor I worked for told me something that irritated me at the time, but I have grown to understand.  He told me that romantic relationships at my age at the time were unwise because someone that age doesn't even know what he wants.  While I believe that God intentionally designed people to be very interested in the opposite sex at that time in life, I think my former boss was right about not knowing what you want at that stage of life.

I think the most difficult lesson that I have learned in marriage that has been that different people have different goals in life, and aligning them can be difficult or impossible.  It sounds so straightforward and easy to address, right?  Goals seem like obvious things that can be discussed with a future spouse and potential landmines diffused very early in the relationship.  It isn't so simple, though.  Goals like wanting a house or a certain number of kids by a certain age, or to make a certain amount of money or to own certain big-ticket items are only the tip of the iceberg when compared to the wants and motivations from which they are derived.

I'll pick an example that doesn't apply to Golden and me.  A couple may agree that they want to buy a house by a specific age.  While it will appear to both parties that they are in significant agreement, there is still far more not agreed on than agreed on.  What type of house do you agree you are going to buy?  Does one spouse want to buy a fixer-upper and fix it up and the other not want to spend the time?  Does one spouse prefer to spend on form and the other to spend on function?  Do the spouses agree on how much they will put down and who is ultimately responsible for coming up with the down payment, mortgage, upkeep, insurance, and taxes?  Does one spouse expect new furniture and decorations for the new house?  How hard and fast is that age limit?

This is only scratching the surface, but where one spouse assumes that they agreed to a smaller house with a big yard and a two-car garage that both spouses would work to save on until they got a 50% down payment even if it takes a few more years, the other might think they agreed to buying a split-level in a specific color with four bedrooms, two baths, and a good-sized kitchen with a 10% down payment or whatever they happen to have in savings at the age in question.  No one is more at fault than another in this scenario, but all of these little assumptions that one party had that the other did not will lead to both parties feeling like the other is not holding up their end of the agreement.  "He said we could buy a house when I turned thirty," and/or, "She said we would both sacrifice until we could afford a nice house," will lead to arguments and resentment.

So, all we need to do is be ultra-detailed in laying out our life goals, then come to a consensus about how to get there, right?  That's much better than before, but it's still not enough.

As I noted before, at least in my personal experience, even when you know what you want in life, you don't really know what you want in life.  You may think you want to be rich, but what you really want is peace, and what is necessary to reach a specific salary by a specific age causes more net anxiety than being moderately poor.  You may think you want to have a house full of kids, but you really are just drawn to always nurturing a baby, and when your kids get older you feel less fulfilled and more and more exhausted.  You may think you want to continue learning or improve your marketability, but you really want the honor and respect that comes from a graduate-level degree and letters after your name.  The long and short of it is that if you do not really know what you want your spouse does not know either, and any discussion about life goals without self-awareness is going to be incomplete.

Another pitfall is that it is easy to ignore potential differences in what you want in everyday life because any rational person would agree that it's important.  This is where I place the whole women want to talk about their day and men want to mentally shut down at the end of their day.  She thinks that, of course, any rational person would want to talk about their day; and he thinks that, of course, any rational person would want some down time. Any rational person would agree that spending time with the kids is more important than working overtime, and any rational person would agree that working overtime to pay the mortgage to put a roof over the kids' head is more important than a game of catch.  Any rational person would lease a car so as to always be able to drive something nice and classy, and any rational person would purchase and own a car for ten years or more to avoid constant car payments.  Any rational person would agree with you about a plethora of things.

Something further that I am still grasping is that, while spouses should work on goals together, it is not one spouse' responsibility to assure that the other spouse's goals are all met.  This is hard for me for a number of reasons, some of them rational and some not.  It seems to make sense that if you put all of your relational eggs in one basket for life, so to say, that the other person has some responsibility to help you be fulfilled, but this can in reality be a horrible burden to place on someone and a horrible burden to accept.  Some life goals simply are not possible, or impose too great a burden on the spouse or family.  Some goals will be mutually exclusive with the other spouse's goals.

All of this comes back to the inability to communicate when you are both speaking different languages, and the importance of learning the other person's language.  I think that God devised relationships in this way to help us grow in ways that we could not otherwise, and the effort necessary to learn the other person's perspective and language is a big part of that growing process.  Either that, or all of this relational confusion exists for His amusement.  I'm going with the first option, though.