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More than anything else, the worst nightmare is the dirty politics. I really don't know why people succumb to base and mean-minded pleasures to satisfy their bestial instincts to satisfy their selfish personal chores. They fabricate stories on other poor scape goats just to advance thier prospects and have thier asses securely glued to the seats. 
Vasudevan Deepak Kumar
Personal Homepage
Tech Gossips
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts... --William Shakespeare
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Man you need to change employers, if that is your environment get out and get out now. No amount of money or opportunity can compensate for such an environment.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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Sometimes it is a cheap ploy deployed by base-minded skunks in isolated parts of this region wherein, they would prefer getting a newer cheap resource on whom they have more control than the one which has more control on the current established enviroment.
Vasudevan Deepak Kumar
Personal Homepage
Tech Gossips
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts... --William Shakespeare
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I enjoy taking the CodeProject polls and reviewing the results of the assembly, but I think this poll was very short-sighted.
Many of us are employees of an IT department that is integrated into an industry not traditionally technology-integrated. The position I hold with a Financial Advisement company (not handling financial transactions, but prescribing portfolio recommendations) is considerably more volatile in a bear market than in a bull market and has almost nothing to do with performance.
(Sometimes I miss working in a programming shop where it really was performance-based.)
--Taf
P.E.B.C.A.K.
(Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard)
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Taf Greenstreet wrote: Many of us are employees of an IT department that is integrated into an industry not traditionally technology-integrated. The position I hold with a Financial Advisement company (not handling financial transactions, but prescribing portfolio recommendations) is considerably more volatile in a bear market than in a bull market and has almost nothing to do with performance.
"It's an ill wind that blows nobody good." For the same reasons, we have customers that are extending their service with us (we provide subaccounting back-end services for mutual fund administrators), such that they are making up for other clients we've lost who no longer see our services as affordable. Plus, our department is making inroads on some of our biggest costs without requiring us to cut personnel, and our programming staff (me and one other guy) are the reasons why...which, in our company which seems to be run by hard-headed realists who can be convinced by hard data, means we've survived three rounds of layoffs without losing any of our people (instead, we've expanded). Sometimes it works  .
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That is what it takes. It will give you the security to quit any bad job without hesitation and the comfort to know that even a good job that turns sour can't ruin your disposition.
Can any one donate $49,999.99 to my job security fund
Need software developed? Offering C# development all over the United States, ERL GLOBAL, Inc is the only call you will have to make.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. -- Ernest Hemingway
Most of this sig is for Google, not ego.
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If you lend it to me. I fell pry to evil credit cards. (My fault). So now my savings is gone.
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Hello,
I was in a position for 15 years and got terminated. I was in a position 13 years and got riffed. I now keep looking for a "permanent" position.
Stress is not helping the health, but what are you to do?
djj
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Quit working for someone else and start your own company.
Is the glass half full, half empty... or twice as large as it needs to be?
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Be diversified, have skills that keep you employable. No job lasts forever anymore...
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Well my degree is in Mechanical Engineering but I am now employed as a DBA. I have worked in material testing, database programming (FoxPro), database programming (Oracle/SQL), VB .NET programmer and now the MS SQL DBA.
I try to go with the flow but seem to be on the short end of the stick.
I have too low self esteem to start my own company. Hey that is probably why I get let go. 
djj
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As Don Lancaster put it, it is foolish to be getting all, or even the majority of, your income from a single source. Better to have lots of small sources of income than one big one. When you have lots of small sources, when things start to go bad (e.g., customers stop coming back), you can analyze what's going wrong and fix it before it gets really bad.
In the software biz, that's a bit tough to accomplish, but I have found a couple of alternative businesses that I can pursue that minimize the impact of losing my main day-job. Which I will lose anyway in at most about 8 more years.
I already make about $15K/year teaching violin lessons, and I have to turn away students despite my recent rate increase. I also made about $12K/year teaching another class (for a state license), and I currently have to limit the number of students I have for that, too, simply because I only have time enough to teach the class once per month. Plus, I still do small programming projects on the side, which is currently not a major money source. Since my wife also works (she is a CPA), when I lose my current job as a programmer, that will be the loss of a little over 1/3rd my total family income -- bad, but not catastrophic. I should be able to make up most of that in 3-4 months by expanding my violin and other teaching schedules, and by starting other businesses.
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djj55 wrote: I was in a position for 15 years and got terminated. I was in a position 13 years and got riffed. I now keep looking for a "permanent" position.
Stress is not helping the health, but what are you to do?
My sympathies. The longest I've worked for one company was 5-1/2 years, and I think I'd still have that job if I'd stayed (not certain, but I did get calls once or twice from them asking what I was doing a year or two ago).
In the American market, someone who stays that long with a company without changing positions is often seen to be lacking in ambition or in competence by a casual observer. This is part of the reason why so many developers in America job-hop regularly.
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"In the American market, someone who stays that long with a company without changing positions is often seen to be lacking in ambition or in competence by a casual observer."
Ahhh.... that's not superflicious at all is it? Reading something into nothing, typical Freudien Bullshit. Obviously the company has become the mother "Ersatz" 
In my professional carrer I have worked for four companies (not including my time as a soldier). I have always been happy at all of them, only having to change because of the finicial situation of the company (twice) and because of my health problems (once, slipped disc). At the company I am now at I have reached the posistion of a Principal Consultant, not because I have wanted to, but because of the work I have put in and my skills that I have developed over the years, but to be completly honest, I'd rather be sitting at my desk, hacking away at the keyboard. It is far more satisfing than creating processes, or developing solutions, does that mean I lack ambition? Or perhaps I'm lacking in competence? I do a job because I want to do it, I do a job because I enjoy it.
As for secure, noone is indispensible, noone. If for whatever reason you have to go, you will be put out, full stop. So, what's the definition of a rock solid job? Be your own boss.
Who the f*** is General Failure, and why is he reading my harddisk?
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Phil.Benson wrote: Ahhh.... that's not superflicious at all is it? Reading something into nothing, typical Freudien bullsh*t. Obviously the company has become the mother "Ersatz"
*JOKE*
No, government's Mom, work's Dad. ) 's OK, they're not married yet and a lot of us kids are pulling for them to stay that way.
*END JOKE*
Phil.Benson wrote: In my professional carrer I have worked for four companies (not including my time as a soldier). I have always been happy at all of them, only having to change because of the finicial situation of the company (twice) and because of my health problems (once, slipped disc). At the company I am now at I have reached the posistion of a Principal Consultant, not because I have wanted to, but because of the work I have put in and my skills that I have developed over the years, but to be completly honest, I'd rather be sitting at my desk, hacking away at the keyboard. It is far more satisfing than creating processes, or developing solutions, does that mean I lack ambition? Or perhaps I'm lacking in competence? I do a job because I want to do it, I do a job because I enjoy it.
Yah, tell me about it. My one and only guaranteed shot at management (offer was on the table and everything, refused 'cause I thought my sick wife would make me less effective than the next guy...biggest mistake of my life ) included the opportunity to cherry-pick what I'd let the juniors write and what I'd write myself. Years and two layoffs later, I'm a happy developer again. I say "developer" because I do everything but business requirements and final user interface approval (my boss likes to do that); "coding" just doesn't allow the same freedom (in one job, I spent 60% of my time writing technical specifications for "coders", and being the "coder" for the more abstruse problems...if the problems hadn't become boring to the point of ego annihilation, I might still be there.)
But nothing is rock solid. This position is close, though
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My main job is a tech company, the whole company runs around software written by me and a couple of others. In any case, I get job offers most weeks, there's 3-4 people who chase me regularly to see if I've become available, as well as things that appear here and there. I'm not worried at all. I really just want to find a way to take a month off.....
Christian Graus
No longer a Microsoft MVP, but still happy to answer your questions.
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Been There. Done That. Got Let Go because they thought a new programmer was that Grass Is Always Greener Solution.
Laugh is on them - they said the new guy could do in a year what took me two years. After he, and a string of others (including two to replace just me), they finally have a new-ish version of their (only) product - just short of 4 years later. (Did I hear someone say 'oops' ?)
But - I wrote the code for their only product and was the only programmer - and was still just plain let go (and deliberately without warning).
Moral of the story? It's never too late to start worrying.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"How do you find out if you're unwanted if everyone you try to ask tells you to go away?" - Balboos HaGadol
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Balboos wrote: Grass Is Always Greener Solution.
Don't you mean; Graus Is Always Greener Solution.
*ducks*
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I know the feeling, Ive been switching jobs (My carreer as employee is short) to get better salaries, so everytime someone chases me, I endup changing the job and Im looking for that month-off for sometime now, and now Im probably going to return for my old job (they cannot do it without me) as they are offering good cash for my return. I will have to wait for another whole year before I can get that one month off again. My vacation keeps on getting postponed, maybe I will never have one. 
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Christian Graus wrote: I really just want to find a way to take a month off.....
Yeah, you really do. I did that in 2006 - took the entire month of October off. I and the family spent the entire month driving out west, going to the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, San Francisco ... wherever we felt like going. Man was that ever sweet. I resolved, at that point, to take a month sabbatical once every five years. There's nothing to compare to a month with no agenda.
-CB 
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Don't fool yourself. No one is indispensible. Besides, what happens if you get hit by a truck tomorrow? Might be very painful for that company, but they'll probably survive.
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True, there are no absolutes and life goes on and all that but there are people who can feel as-close-to-as-doesn't-make-a-difference rock-solid in their position.
Anyone can be replaced but it will be costly, time consuming and you may just find you lost the magic that made it all work.
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We've recently started on a new project that is guaranteed not to meet the schedule they've set. During the 90 minute kick-off briefing from the project manager, I lost count after the 12th time he said "we can't be late". We're being given 8 months to build a product that similar efforts have always taken 16 to 24 months to achieve. At the same time, three of our principle developers have been moved 'up' into management, and we're only getting two replacements.
Frankly, it feels like we're being set up to fail, so that they can terminate us for cause (therefore no severance payout) and outsource the development for the product  .
Software Zen: delete this;
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I hope someone's said this loudly to your project manager. Backed up by good analysis of course.
Engineers are supposed to be honest, that's why they don't like us talking to the customers... 
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I've said it several times, in several venues.
Unfortunately, since I'm the departmental token paranoid, I'm not taken entirely seriously.
Software Zen: delete this;
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