Money or Job Satisfaction?

[Melesse]

Re: Money or Job Satisfaction?

My current job was taken solely for the money and the resume building it gives.

That being said, I am enjoying parts of it from time to time. I'm sticking with money as my answer, at least until the kids are out of college or I have enough experience to consult on my own. Then I'll relax a bit. One of my friends is trying to talk me into partnering with him in opening a restaurant, but I feel that's a little high risk right now.

Mel

[SkYzOpReNiCk]

Re: Money or Job Satisfaction?

Well i'm at the same situation, my jobs sucks I have many certs but the company just want to stick me in desktops area. Is a well paid job but i rather to do more challenging stuff and servers.

So i would said pick happiness, money is not everything in this life. You will have 1 million dollars but if you are not happy that money is useless.

[streaker69]

Re: Money or Job Satisfaction?

Well i'm at the same situation, my jobs sucks I have many certs but the company just want to stick me in desktops area. Is a well paid job but i rather to do more challenging stuff and servers.

So i would said pick happiness, money is not everything in this life. You will have 1 million dollars but if you are not happy that money is useless.

Having certs != great high paying job.

[SkYzOpReNiCk]

Re: Money or Job Satisfaction?

Having certs != great high paying job.

yup agree. Looking forward for a new place to go which could combine both, if not at least happiness and challenge.

[valkyrie]

Re: Money or Job Satisfaction?

Having certs != great high paying job.

Work would be awesome if it weren't for the people...

I don't agree with you streaker69. Those certs are only to demonstrate to people you got a cert. Yaah. And before anyone abuses me over this, I have lots of certs. Certs don't make me competent.

Currently I am working with a person who is very proud of her CISSP and tags herself as a "Security Architect." She is aware of my disdain of her, though I try to keep that tamped down because she can't architect, engineer, nor find her way out of paper bag.

Why am I disdainful of her? Because she can't architect, engineer, nor find her way out of a paper bag and is dishonest about that fact.

I would rather work with a group of heathens who don't know what a cert looks like but can fathom the concept of encrypting "data at rest" rather than any person with many letters strung after their name and personally they are as dumb as a rock.

No rocks were abused/hurt/annoyed in this experiment.

regards,

Valkyrie
_________________________________________________
sapere aude

[nofilmincamera]

Re: Money or Job Satisfaction?

I am happy to receive such diverse feedback. In the past I came to a conclusion of many that have replied. Let happiness exist on outside projects, make money while I am young. So the difficult part of this is understanding at what point do you make the shift. I am fortunate to have the choice at all, so I am just hoping to make the correct one. SkYzOpReNiCk said one work that I believe is very important to allot of us. That is being challenged at what we do.

[streaker69]

Re: Money or Job Satisfaction?

Work would be awesome if it weren't for the people...

I don't agree with you streaker69. Those certs are only to demonstrate to people you got a cert. Yaah. And before anyone abuses me over this, I have lots of certs. Certs don't make me competent.

Currently I am working with a person who is very proud of her CISSP and tags herself as a "Security Architect." She is aware of my disdain of her, though I try to keep that tamped down because she can't architect, engineer, nor find her way out of paper bag.

Why am I disdainful of her? Because she can't architect, engineer, nor find her way out of a paper bag and is dishonest about that fact.

I would rather work with a group of heathens who don't know what a cert looks like but can fathom the concept of encrypting "data at rest" rather than any person with many letters strung after their name and personally they are as dumb as a rock.

No rocks were abused/hurt/annoyed in this experiment.

regards,

Valkyrie
_________________________________________________
sapere aude

You say you don't agree with me, but it seems as though you do. IMO, having lots of certs just means that you're really good at passing tests. Doesn't mean that you can actually do the job.

Boot camps for getting certs has spoiled the market for them and devalued them over time. Some certs are probably worth it, the ones that are much harder to get, but over all, just because someone has a wall full of certs doesn't really mean a hill of beans to me.

I've had too many experiences with people with lots of certs with no experience to back them up and they feel that just because they have the certs they deserve a high paying job.

[valkyrie]

Re: Money or Job Satisfaction?

[QUOTE=streaker69;111891]You say you don't agree with me, but it seems as though you do. IMO, having lots of certs just means that you're really good at passing tests. Doesn't mean that you can actually do the job. [/QUOTE=streaker69;111891]

Perhaps I do my friend. Pandering and all that stuff just really annoys me. My apologies to you if I offended you.

[QUOTE=streaker69;111891]Boot camps for getting certs has spoiled the market for them and devalued them over time. Some certs are probably worth it, the ones that are much harder to get, but over all, just because someone has a wall full of certs doesn't really mean a hill of beans to me. [/QUOTE=streaker69;111891]

Never attended one except for the now defunct NSA-IAM. And that was a sham.

I've had too many experiences with people with lots of certs with no experience to back them up and they feel that just because they have the certs they deserve a high paying job.

Regards,

valkyrie
_________________________________
sapere aude

[valkyrie]

Re: Money or Job Satisfaction?

I am happy to receive such diverse feedback. In the past I came to a conclusion of many that have replied. Let happiness exist on outside projects, make money while I am young. So the difficult part of this is understanding at what point do you make the shift. I am fortunate to have the choice at all, so I am just hoping to make the correct one. SkYzOpReNiCk said one work that I believe is very important to allot of us. That is being challenged at what we do.

/me laughs. Live your personal passion. There is no one on the planet like you. Make as much as you are able while you are young, invest wisely. Then play madly and passionately about what matters to you. Making the shift is not difficult if you don't ignore your gut reaction. When you get your personal call, you will know it. Don't worry. You will know.

Regards,

valkyrie
________________________________________
sapere aude

[streaker69]

Re: Money or Job Satisfaction?

Perhaps I do my friend. Pandering and all that stuff just really annoys me. My apologies to you if I offended you.


Regards,

valkyrie
_________________________________
sapere aude

Nope, no offense taken at all. I attended one class at a bootcamp school years ago, and within a few minutes of being there I realized that I knew more than the instructor did and figured it was a complete waste of my time.

I guess I feel this way about certs because I've gotten every job I've had in IT upon my own merits and skills without the need for certs to get my foot in the door.

[valkyrie]

Re: Money or Job Satisfaction?

[QUOTE=streaker69;111894]Nope, no offense taken at all. I attended one class at a bootcamp school years ago, and within a few minutes of being there I realized that I knew more than the instructor did and figured it was a complete waste of my time.

I guess I feel this way about certs because I've gotten every job I've had in IT upon my own merits and skills without the need for certs to get my foot in the door.[/

I feel your pain. Really. It's a WTF moment. Certs only demonstrate that you understand the concepts and have paid a healthy part of your income demonstrating that. Conversely, I choose to work with people who are not conscripted, still have a generally "how can I hack this" outlook on life.

oh well, I suspect I am the fail.

regards

valkyrie

[theprez98]

Re: Money or Job Satisfaction?

oh well, I suspect I am the fail.

Au contraire, you are the win!

[astcell]

Re: Money or Job Satisfaction?

No one ever died wishing they had spent more time at the office.

Fill your life with happiness. If one happy portion coincidentally is your employment, great! But you can replace a miserable employer. It's harder to replace miserable family, miserable health, and miserable love. Jobs are plentiful.

[shrdlu]

Re: Money or Job Satisfaction?

I'm about to offer a different point of view on this. Mind you, for the most part, I agree that a job you like is better than a job that pays a high salary. On the other hand...

I've been in a situation, years ago, where I had a job that I LOVED, but I had moved to a place that made me miserable. After the required year (they'd paid for moving expenses, not a thing I would have wanted to have to pay back) I left there, and went to a job that was okay, but they paid for me to move myself (and my pre-teen daughter) back to where we wanted to be.

The jobs actually paid about the same, all things considered, but my reason for leaving that dream job was as follows:

"I'd rather be unhappy for eight hours a day, and happy for sixteen, than happy for eight, and miserable for sixteen."

I stayed there for 3.5 years, and then finally moved on (for various reasons), but in that case, the money was important, and I was extremely grateful to be rescued. Job satisfaction is important, and liking who you work with is also important, but money is still nice. Sometimes it's a tradeoff.

I also turned down a fabulous job at a research institute (while I still had a teenager at home), since it would have paid less than HALF of the salary I was making at the time. The job I had was not unsatisfying, and I had a great deal of autonomy, but it would never have equaled the research position. I don't regret not taking it, though it was a very hard decision to turn it down. Sometimes money is better. When you have a family to provide for, sometimes you just have to suck it up, and make the best of things.

[abyssknight]

Re: Money or Job Satisfaction?

I'm in/was in much the same situation. The issue for me started with my first job; at some point you max out your happiness in the situation you're in. For me, its learning new tech and moving forward with my career. I started at the small company working for peanuts, learned everything I could, and went out on my own in my last year of college. Learned a lot doing my own thing, but started hating having to manage myself (weird, yeah).

I then went on to work at a small company again, and it was a blast for the first 6 months. That seems to be a trend with me. I picked up a few more languages, had a taste of what having a budget means, and learned that even with all the freedom in the world I wasn't happy. I maxed out again, started bringing in new tech before realizing the corporate and IT visions weren't aligned. I thought I needed more organization and solid management. That's how I got where I am now.

Where I am now is huge. We're Fortune 50 listed, and I have a good solid management team. Funny thing happened though, about 6 months in I had integrated into their legacy and new development teams, picked up a new skill set, and took on additional roles (support, sys admin, dba); in essence, I had maxed out. They threw awards at me, decent pay raises (well, for this economy), and my own project. I practically managed myself for the last year; wrote the entire system and it went into production at the beginning of 2010. And I hated it.

So what did I do? I started looking for internal positions. Why? Well, jumping ship every 6-12 months just doesn't look too good on a resume. Especially this early in a career. I thought about going to Silicon Valley, like many of my friends, but after interviewing with Facebook and a shady startup, realized I was going to stay where I was for now. I started looking at positions way above my current pay grade, security clearance, and just went for it. It was exhilarating, even when the rejections came in.

What am I doing now? I've found something that works, or should work in theory. It's a leadership program wherein we change positions every 6-9 months. Long enough to max out without burning out. It'll take 3 years, but when its all finished I can write my own ticket.

Moral of the story? Do what makes you happy, and don't settle. Just don't expect happiness to remain a constant factor. You will change, your desires will change, and if you let it happen it can be the most rewarding thing in the world.