Ask Slashdot: Moving To an Offshore-Proof Career? 420
New submitter sundarvenkata writes: I am sure most slashdotters (including the ones who had the I-am-an-indispensable-snowflake stance in the past) have already foreseen the writing on the wall for the future of tech professions (with IT being the worst hit) given some of the ominous news in the past few years: here, here and here. Of course, there are always the counter-arguments put forth by slashdotters that "knowing the business" or "being the best in what you do" would save one's derriere as if the offshore workers will remain permanently impaired of such skills. But I was wondering if some slashdotters could share some constructive real-life experiences of planning a transition to a relatively offshore-proof career. If you have already managed to accomplish such a career change, what was your journey and what would your advice be to other aspirants?
Security clearance (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
ANY USG security clearance, not just a high one. Only a U.S. citizen may receive a federal security clearance. No exceptions. If the job requires the employee to hold a U.S. security clearance it can never be worked by a foreign national, including anyone on an H1B VISA.
Re: (Score:2)
ANY USG security clearance, not just a high one.
Note that a clearance doesn't imply a high paying job either. Recently I have seen ads for IT monkeys with a security clearance to go around various locations and perform some sort installation/maintenance/upgrade. The quoted rate was about $18/hr. And that surprised me as I thought a clearance would have garnered more of a premium. But I suppose an IT monkey is an IT monkey no matter who the customer is.
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Re:Security clearance (Score:4, Informative)
Citation needed on why it doesn't work so well. For one thing, railgun tech probably isn't all that highly classified. For another, offshoring to other members of the Five Eyes isn't going to reduce costs much -- and highly classified stuff generally couldn't be offshored anywhere that is much cheaper than the US. For a third, some highly classified stuff is NOFORN (not releasable to foreign nationals, even if they otherwise have appropriate security clearances and otherwise might have a need to know).
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Disagree with the above. While it is true that some things can be offshored, key technologies that fall under ITAR/EAR regulated by the State Department and Department of Commerce respectively require a US person to conduct the work.
http://www.state.gov/strategic... [state.gov]
https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.... [doc.gov]
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Incorrect. To hold any US security clearance requires US citizenship. No exceptions. Furthermore, if you look at BAE, Thales and the other multinational companies doing US defense work, they are heavily regulated such that export licenses and classified data controls are very strong.
Re: (Score:2)
US Military has been buying weapons from partner countries since the original M1. they still don't outsource jobs that need clearances
offshore yourself (Score:5, Interesting)
http://developers.slashdot.org... [slashdot.org]
http://itknowledgeexchange.tec... [techtarget.com]
in short: guy moves to malaysia (he had no ties to the area, just picked it on economic considerations) and doesn't just survive, but does well, on $16k/yr, working 10 hours a week
Re: (Score:2)
This is likely one of three options, the other two being entrepreneurialism and capitalism. An ideal solution mixes all three and provides diverse sources of income. With countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines you need to be a little vigilant about the possibility of needing to walk away, especially when you don't have dual citizenship.
Between automation, outsourcing, and government behavior in general, there is no fool-proof solution unless you can buy your own country. You he
Re: (Score:2)
you're one obsessed moron
you don't know anything about me but it's important for you to profile me, prejudice me, and act like we have some sort of relationship for you to spout stereotyped partisan ignorance as if i care or have a stake
you need friends. in real life. badly. you're sanity is leaking
Plumber (Score:3)
People's toilets will forever be stopping up. And it is a hands-on job to un-stop them. The wages are good, often better than IT.
Re:Plumber (Score:5, Funny)
Or an electrician, as shocking as that may sound.
Re:Plumber (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Barbers will also always be in demand, but at this point that's just splitting hairs.
Re:Plumber (Score:4, Funny)
Male prostitute, your boss won't mind if you lay down on the job.
DIY everything (Score:3)
Want to have the most crisis-proof career? Then start living the life of a survivalist. The idea is to grow, build and fix as much of everything you need. Then as a sideline, get any job that doesn't pay starvation wages and give you enough time off to starting growing, building and fixing the things you need. Make sure the stuff that you can't DIY is merely a luxury not an essential when worst comes to worst (nuclear winter, zombie apocalypse, asteroid impact, etc). Or at least make sure the thing is easil
Business Owner (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I agree. If you aren't your own boss, then you are vulnerable to offshoring.
Even if you are your own boss, if you work in a sector that is susceptible to offshoring,(and you don't offshore yourself), your potential pool of income will be diminishing in a race to the bottom.
Flip burgers or pour coffee? (Score:3)
Or will those be robots controlled remotely from India or China too?
Ah -- if you're in IT -- perhaps a better idea is to be the US guy in an offshore-IT-company.
More seriously -- be your own boss. Start a company and you choose if/when you offshore your own job.
Hardware/Software Systems (Score:3)
Re:Hardware/Software Systems (Score:5, Interesting)
Even better, specialize.
Generic Javascript/PHP/Java/C# "trained monkey" coders are a dime a dozen and most likely available for less than you are asking for, especially if the work can be done by someone overseas with 1/10th of your living expenses.
On the other hand, if you are skilled in mathematics, computer graphics (algorithms, not Photoshop!), statistics or artificial intelligence, you are going to be in high demand. These are skills that are a lot harder to find and command a good price. The downside is that you have to spend a lot of time by learning. That doesn't mean you must spend years and top $$$ on a university degree (it does help, though!), but you will need to invest some significant time there.
Basically, it is pretty much the same story as basic machinists working on lathes being replaced by CNC operators and robots - you need to bring some added value to the business. The low end - the basic programming - is pretty much a commodity today, especially for large companies who can afford to offshore/outsource. You are nobody special because you know Javascript or C# today.
The other option is to work local - there will be always a market for small businesses/consultants catering to mom & pop businesses that need a website built, accounting or customer management system created, perhaps some reporting beyond what Excel can do. Those are too small fish for the big guys like SAP to go after and too small to be able to afford a team in India/Eastern Europe to manage their systems, not to mention that it would be really impractical. It is a large market - not everyone has to (and can) work for Facebook, Google or Microsoft today.
K-12 Teacher (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
right now most of us are going to have many careers in our lifetime.
The idea that people are going to have many careers, and that people are changing jobs more frequently than in the past appears to be an urban myth that is not supported by actual data [wsj.com].
job stability hasn't changed all that much in the U.S. since the late 1990s ... the typical American worker's tenure with his or her current employer was 3.8 years in 1996, 3.5 years in 2000 and 4.1 years in 2008, the latest available data.
To be indispensable (Score:4, Insightful)
Either:
1. Do something someone else can't do
2. Do something that someone else won't do
Example of #1: Be the best darn $LanguageDeJour expert. But this requires lots of functioning brain cells
Example of #2: Work in places that others would turn down. This only requires lots of guts.
Although in the case of #2 last year I didn't even think twice about not considering a $200k/yr job because it was situated close to a lot of drug cartel violence in Mexico - but the work was available. On the other hand, years ago I made good money on a 6 month engineering project in Siberia and had a great time.
Currently there is a lot of money to be made in large scale engineering projects the middle east. Or recently there was a lot of money to be made in Fly-in/Fly-out work in Western Australia in the mining industry (it seems to have peaked), and possibly the fracking industry in the US. Both of these required people onsite, but the work and living conditions are sub-optimal compared to cubical land anywhere.
Planning for poor quality of life? (Score:4, Insightful)
The question in TFS is another way of asking "How can I spend my whole working life doing the same thing without risk of change?" It's not much of an aspiration.
Better questions might be:
And there's another several hundred good questions along those lines. How to avoid your employment being outsourced is not one of them. Your life deserves greater ambitions than planned stagnation.
Re: (Score:2)
Wish I had mod points, this is the perfect response.
Re: (Score:3)
The question in TFS is another way of asking "How can I spend my whole working life doing the same thing without risk of change?" It's not much of an aspiration.
Your opinion, of course. There are many people in the world who also find plenty of meaning in life outside work, whether in family, hobbies, traveling, other social activities, etc. There are many people who do not feel defined solely by their profession or job who would mostly prefer a stable work situation so they can enjoy their ACTUAL life.
In countries other than the U.S., this "life/work balance" is often better appreciated too -- in parts of Europe, for example, a large portion of the popularion
Pick a field you like (Score:4, Insightful)
Service industry jobs cannot be offshored. Garbage collectors, police, housekeepers, store stockers/cashiers and other 'must be physically present' jobs cannot be offshored. Chefs, construction workers, beekeepers, doctors, plumbers, longshoremen etc...
What do you want to do?
If you are in a job that can be offshored, your best bet is networking. Not as in TCP/IP type networking, but in talking to people. If you know what you are doing and lots of people at other companies know that too, you have a much easier time finding a job. Hiring a qualified person is time consuming and expensive. If lots of people 'know a guy' and that guy is you, they don't have to go through the effort and you have industry job security even if you don't have it in your particular company.
If you aren't that good? There's always beekeeping...
Re: (Score:2)
I'll bet that garbage collection could eventually be done by a self driving truck with an automated garbage can lift.
A lot of cashier jobs are already getting replaced with self check-out systems as well.
I'm thinking that politics is a pretty safe field to get into, since those jobs are geofenced by law. I'll bet that Dentistry is a pretty safe field as well.
Re: (Score:3)
I had a flash of insight the other day. I thought of being an actor that only plays dead bodies. Job should pay well.
ACTION!: Lie there CUT!: "That was brilliant".
Profit....
TAKE 1
Director: That was good, but let's get another, just to be sure.
TAKE 2
Director: Yeah.... Not bad. I'm just not sure that we're really nailing this. Let's try another angle....
TAKE 3
Director: Cut and pri-
Director of Photography: We could see him breathing.
Director: Oh fer fuck... alright let's try again. (to actor:) You know we hired you just for this, right?
TAKE 4
Director [reviewing tape]: Yeah, I see it. (to actor:) You blinked. You know dead people generally don't blink, right? Right?!
physical presence (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't find a "safe" job anymore. The best you can do is find a stable company and convince them you are indispensable.
If labour costs and skills were the same everywhere, then there'd be no risk of offshoring. So the quickest way to eliminate offshoring is to open the borders, both ways, for everyone. But the conservatives assert it'll have the whole world living like the worst of Africa or wherever, so we try hard to make sure we lose our jobs in a nice country, rather than raise the standard for the whole world.
C-Level management (Score:2)
That's basically the only chance you have to be neither outsourced nor replaced by H1Bs. I mean, who'd shoot himself in the foot?
Be the boss (Score:2)
I started my own company. Now I'm the boss, I'm the one who decides if I get fired. So far, that hasn't happened.
Move to India (Score:3, Insightful)
Then become an H-1B (Score:5, Funny)
Hands-on (Score:2, Insightful)
Work that requires hands-on access can't be offshored. If you work with just a keyboard and monitor, you're screwed.
But even hands-on work can be "dumbed-down" by using an offshored expert (via telepresence) with a cheaper local technician.
My approach (chosen because it is immense fun, not because it is relatively offshore-proof) has been to specialize in developing software for embedded/real-time systems, mainly instrumentation and controls, and more recently "IoT". While embedded software is my "job" (e
You could make it about you (Score:2)
Thinking way outside the cubicle, one non STEM-based possibility is something where people value and pay for your personal presence or involvement in the product or service; e.g., the entertainment industry. Not sure how much this can provide by way of a livelihood, though.
How about... (Score:3)
I think these fears are overblown. (Score:5, Insightful)
Being afraid that your job will be taken away by "overseas workers," besides its vaguely racists and xenophobic connotations, is just the latest flavor of a very old fear.
Back in the days of the industrial revolution, it was automation that was going to take away the jobs. And in a sense, it did. But the population of (for example) the United States is larger today than at any time in its history, and most people still have jobs. Whahoppen? And yet now some of the people who weren't even alive during the industrial revolution are worried that robots and other machines will take their jobs away. Or foreigners.
The best wait I can explain it is that you should never approach an employers with the idea that you are a consumer asking the employer to give you something, in this case a job. You should think of yourself a a business resource -- which is what you are, and in fact the most valuable one that exists on the planet. When you apply for a job, you are OFFERING an employer something. You are not the consumer. You are a supplier. So as an autonomous resource who has control of your own destiny, how do you increase your own value so that you are more attractive to your current and future employers? It ain't gonna happen by you taking a job and then sitting down at your desk and pretending you're going to do the same job for the rest of your life.
If you're afraid that you've got the kind of job that your employer could just hand to somebody else tomorrow -- somebody you've never met, somebody who's never met anybody on your team, somebody who maybe doesn't even speak the same language as you -- then my first question is, don't you like money? Why are you in that job, when it can't be worth what they pay you for it and you could already be doing a lot better for yourself.
A lot of tech workers seem to get confused and think their value to their employer is in the skills they have. That's true, partly. But I'd say at least half of being successful at any job -- and maybe even 80 percent -- involves interpersonal skills. How well do you work within the team? How able are you to anticipate what the business needs and act on that? In cases where there's a leadership vacuum, can you fill it? And then when it's time to follow directions, can you still do it?
Or how about this one: Do you LIKE your job? Do you show up every morning feeling good and ready for work, because you feel like what you do for a living is something worth doing? I've talked to a lot of people who don't feel that way, and honestly I feel like a lot of that is on THEM. Going back to the idea that you're not a customer, you're a supplier ... you've gotta stick up for yourself. For most of us (hopefully) nobody has stuck a gun to our heads and made us take ANY job. It's true that they wouldn't call it work if it was all fun and games, but many of us spend more of each 24-hour day at work than we do sleeping. And certainly more than we do spending time with our friends and families. My advice is to spend that time on something you think is worth doing -- not something that a 10-year-old could do for you, if that was legal.
Do that, and you're already ahead of the game. When you're in a job where your real value is not to some nebulous economic concept, but to the people who make up your business, then you're in a pretty good spot. You can outsource Worker X but you can't outsource Dave Johnson, because there's only one of him.
So don't be Worker X. Maybe it sounds glib, but that's really the whole game. That's your life.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think your take on reality is a bit off. For the last number of years, I have seen that the employer completely controls the job offer process for 99% of the jobs. Any prospective employee that walked into an interview with the attitude you have described would be laughed out of the office.
As far as worries about being replaced by offshore labor, it is a reality for many of us. I lost my last position to outsourcing. My whole team is gone. We managed/supported very specialized software for a major Telecom
Follow the money (Score:4, Insightful)
However, so long as scum bag companies (like Disney, firing 100’s of US programmers then claiming they can’t find help and pushing for an increase of H1B’s), the job problem will only get worse.
The fact is, the oligarchy that runs this country only cares about market cap, eps, and shareholder value. Screw American jobs, if they can reduce a cost by a penny, it’s done. If you’re at the top of the living scale country, you’re screwed – if you live in a 3rd world sh#t hole with no environmental, intellectual or labor laws, you’re king.
They only way to stop the trend is to take big money (IE: corporate dollars) out of politics. Use tariff’s like they are intended, recognize corporations are NOT people (neither are chimps) for the simple fact that no one is ever held accountable . So, unless you all want to start crapping in outhouses over rivers in which you bath and drink from (google river pollution in India – the nexus of where your job likely went) , get politically active and vote OUT anyone opposed to campaign finance reform.
offshore-sorta-proof (Score:3)
I've had fairly good luck in freelance computer repair. I found that there were enough customers to scrape together a living who were tired of "tech support" they couldn't understand and weren't any help.
I'd say, work for yourself, find a job that requires the personal touch, and just be better at it than any offshore or H1B contractor could be.
Engineering. Solve Problems (Score:5, Insightful)
Problem solvers are far more in demand than ever, and that won't go away till we get strong AI (at which point the problem won't be offshore, but inCPU).
I don't mean 'engineers' like code pigs or most IT drones (not a dig at IT, really good IT people are engineers too). You just have to be someone who can take all information about the problem, including the constraints, then design and implement the best solution given the constraints - that means time, budget, reliability, support needs, end of life, etc.
The trouble is that most people can't do that, which is why it's in high demand. Risk assessment and mitigation are crucial and mostly untaught skills. Most people will just do what you tell them to, or take their favorite hammer and chainsaw and use it on everything in disregard of practical requirements. Most offshore 'engineers' fall into this category as well, which is one reason engineering outsourcing has such a bad stink among those who jumped on the bandwagon in the 2000s.
Which leads to the other problem - it's nigh impossible to learn except by doing. Normal path is to get an engineering degree, then join an engineering firm and work on actual products - though if you join a big boring place like HP you still may end up just learning to be a code pig unless you're lucky enough to end up in one of their very few interesting divisions (memristors!). Obviously this is long term project, high expense. High risk till you get the degree, then fairly low risk.
The other option is to just start making things. Make 'products' for yourself and try to finish them - i.e. make it something you could sell, even if you don't. This is easier than ever now thanks to explosion of low cost boards, motor controllers, cameras, drones... Get your hands on. Someone who can code, breadboard, solder and do servo control is a highly contested prize.
The bad news is you may find you're just not suited for it. In which case your best hope is probably to find an avoided niche like COBOL.
The good news is that if you're suited for it it's ridiculously fun and rewarding. Some days are still gonna suck, but generally you're solving interesting problems and making real things and people are using the things you made (this is THE BEST). Usually not as lucrative as banking or politics, but making decent money and helping rather than being scum of the earth (unless you go to work for Facebook, *zing*) is worth a lot of peace of mind.
Re: (Score:2)
Problem solvers are far more in demand than ever
Which is why GE has research centers in Bangalore [geglobalresearch.com] and Shanghai [geglobalresearch.com] and IBM has research centers in New Delhi [ibm.com] and Beijing [ibm.com] (to name just a few companies and locations)
Don't make assumptions about where the smart people in the world are.
IT Security, PKI, CIRT, etc (Score:2)
Civil Engineering (Score:2)
As one person I know put it "I've had a good career, there was always steady work in roads and commodes". And I doubt there is a H1B threat out there. 've been to India and their infrastructure is terrible.
Another friend of mine has had a nice stable career in AC electrical, mostly architectural and industrial construction work. Both of which required on-site inspections and 'boots on the ground'. AC electrical is also in demand for integrate alternative energy sources with a grid. Which also requires local
Data Center Implementator? (Score:2)
they may be able to source say, something like network support overseas, but at the end of the day, when hardware fails or need replacement or new installs in data centers in the US, you still need those guys who can do cabling, swap 6509's and so forth -
I think the idea of a overseas proof career in IT are over, however. Ensuring you are always at the top of your game and being up on the latest skills even if it eats some of your personal time can go a long way though
RB
There is none other than in a secret service (Score:2)
Any skill level you can achieve in the US (I assume you are from the US) can also be achieved in any other country. Maybe India and China are not yet up to speed, but it is only a matter of time that they on the same level. Especially, when I look at today's students and their inability to code and to design software. Recently, I learned on an conference that my impression from my little world was shared all over the world. So you might be able to be above average, but from a general perspective for every a
Pizza (Score:2)
I was chatting with a guy who runs a small wood fired brick oven pizza oven at the local farmer's market. Turns out he is a former IT guy who quit his day gig to do the farmer's market circuit year round. Gets to be outdoors, and his work load is a lot lighter for about 7 months of the year when the days and hours scale back for winter. Can't say it would be my first choice, but compared to cube life it doesn't look too bad. So starting your own business is an option.
In my case I do mixed signal ASIC desig
A job where you have to improvise (Score:2)
For some reason offshore workers are efficient only when you tell them exactly what to do. If there is only a small part left to interpretation they will do it wrong. Jobs where you are given only vague ideas and you have to fill the gaps yourself should be safer.
I'm not saying that foreigners are worse than locals but those who aren't will not be the ones you'll get when you look for cheap labor.
Be a plumber.. (Score:2)
..or an electrician, or a carpenter, or a gardener or any other profession where physical presence is required to do the job
If virtual presence is good enough, you can be anywhere with good internet
Hands-ON Work (Score:2)
Get a job, or enter a career that require that YOUR HANDS touch the hardware. If you can use Skype, Webex, LogMeIn or TeamViewer to do your work, your job can be outsourced to India or the Philippines. (The Philippines are taking online-support work away from India because Filipinos often speak excellent English, while Indian and Chinese accents are sometimes unintelligible.)
For example, I work for a document management company that started as a copier company. Our copier techs drive to the customer's loc
Don't Seek A Career + Diversify (Score:5, Interesting)
Professor J. Rufus Fears taught me [amazon.com]that a "career" is a French word that means "path." He says it's a path to get from graduation into a retirement home. I have tried to internalize this concept, and it helped me take risks with quitting multiple career-type jobs to open up my own businesses. Roll the dice, and see how they land. Have an adventure, not a career.
One business of mine is a software development company. This is my primary means of livelihood. Right now, I mostly contract out development services to small-to-medium sized organizations that have trouble staffing programmers. The vast majority of my clients are not large enough to hire a full time, on staff, programmer to help do what I (literally me programming, most of the time) do for them. I've developed a relationship with a programmer in Kazakhstan, where I can take advantage of the lower costs to get things developed cheaper than here. However, now I am working primarily with a MUCH more expensive local programmer, since his efficiency is higher, the Kazakh guy isn't as available and finding a new one is a ton of work, and on some projects the local presence far outweighs the cost savings by outsourcing. Plus, the American is my friend, an early mentor that taught me about web programming when we were both employees, and things are slow with him now so I wanted to get started working together (on a relatively small project for a client.) I'm also working on developing a software product for passive income, but that takes a LOT longer, and is much riskier than contracting.
Another business I have is rental property close to the local university. That business is, by definition, tied to my geographical area. When software is slow, rents come in and I can work on home improvement projects. When software is busy, rents still come in and I can pay someone else to do emergency repairs, and put off improvements until a slow time.
The concept of relying on a single employer for all my income is extremely scary to me. I would much rather diversify my software earnings across multiple clients to mitigate risk. Similarly, I'd rather have multiple one-bedroom apartments to rent out as compared to a big house to rent so that when one of the college students decides he cannot pay his rent this summer, and that he's leaving two months early (despite his two, international, trips setup...) I still have rents coming in. I have two companies which provide me with income, in terms of about seven clients/customers/renters. Both the Albuquerque software industry (most of my business is serving local customers) and the Albuquerque university rental market would have to collapse, simultaneously, for me to be majorly screwed. If anything, I'm pretty tied to Albuquerque and should try and diversify geographically more! I love Albuquerque though...
I do not have a family to provide for. I'm working on changing that, with trying to be as good of a boyfriend as I can be, with the goal of getting married someday. I am not saying that you should throw away all sense of security for your family (if you have one) and become a hustler overnight. "Look kids, we get to have the BLUE Ramen noodles for dinner tonight! Insurance? Who needs it?!? Jesus is my insurance!" No, that's not what I'm talking about... My local, subcontractor, friend (that I am just starting to work together with) took the plunge about three months ago and went into business for himself. He has a wife and two kids. He prepared extremely well, and setup enough contracts to be making about 1.7x his salary for the first three months from basically day one. This is his first slow two week period, so we are working together. My local community has all sorts of people that are interested in promoting entrepreneurial activities, helping you get started, and providing free advice. I am extremely
Re: (Score:3)
Professor J. Rufus Fears taught me [amazon.com]that a "career" is a French word that means "path."
Professor J Rufus Fears would be laughed at by my french neighbors if he used that to ask for directions, or where the bicycle path was.
Knowledge and Experience Won't Save You (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that it won't, except in very special circumstances.
Let's be honest here: Most IT jobs - being a sysadmin, writing software, setting up a network - are not complicated. Most systems don't need much other than some some packages and configuration handled by something like Puppet. Most software doesn't do anything remarkable - it just shuffles data from point A to point B and displays a few things to an end user. Etc., etc.
A vast majority of IT jobs only require mediocre skill and knowledge. Most H1-B folks I know have rarely been mediocre, but they ARE cheap and management doesn't know the difference anyway. All they know is eventually their widget does the new X they've been asking for. So what if the code is a terrible mess and deployment is a gigantic pain? The management doesn't see or care.
Knowing the business? That's what project managers and other management-y types are for (or so they think). You and I know that a software engineer who is well versed in a certain business will design better systems, for example, but I've not once seen a manager that believes this way.
Management sees IT staff as nearly a commodity with people easily interchangeable. They're not entirely wrong - not entirely - but they think they're not wrong at all.
Remember: It isn't what YOU think that is important when a company is doing the hiring. What is important is what THEY think and how cheap they can get you and how much they can work you before you burn out.
The only thing you can do ... (Score:3)
installer installer installer (Score:2)
to qoute a certain chair thrower " installers installers installers"
cable installer, solar panel roof installer, wired home installer. installs man.
Re: (Score:2)
Physical labor like that tends to be real hard on the body. You can get away with it in your 20s and 30s, but after that you're looking at arthritis and early disability. I'd like to reach 60 without needing painkillers just to get out of bed in the morning.
Not really. There are lots of old plumbers showing their cracks around - and if they're more than a one-person shop, they have helpers, including other old farts. Also, there are lots of health problems that can compromise your ability to hold an IT job before you hit 60.
Look for something with an entrenched union.
Re:installer installer installer (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
A lot of it depends on your lifestyle. 50 years ago, nobody ever heard of "lifestyle diseases", but today they're the top killers. You want to sit around all day at work, sit on the couch and wish for the day when a robot can beer you, take the car to the corner store, etc. - you're going to be falling apart.
Exercise not only improves your physical health - it also keeps your mental facilities going so that you're never too old to learn.
Re: (Score:3)
Bullshit.
I'm in my 50s and in pretty good physical condition. The recurring back trouble I'd developed in my 40s has almost completely disappeared since I (a) got an adjustable desk and started standing to work at least a couple of hours a day, (b) started making a point of getting out of the house/office at least an hour a day, and (c) going hiking in the woods at least a couple of times a week. Making sure to drink enough water and eating a more balanced diet have also helped a lot.
As for the mental part:
Re: (Score:2)
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I think this must be a California thing, or perhaps certain sectors. I'm not seeing my early-fifties friends having any trouble landing jobs in their area of expertise. I wouldn't want to be trying to land a job in a start-up, mind you.
Also, I imagine there's a huge amount of noise in the signal. Often landing a job is just a matter of right time/right place/right skills. Have a run of bad luck, and landing a job can seem almost impossible.
Barber or Masseuse (Score:2)
Re:Barber or Masseuse (Score:4, Funny)
Or start your own theme park. With blackjack. And hookers. In fact, forget the park! Ahhh, screw the whole thing.
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Construction and burger flipping also come to mind.
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I went to burger joints in the 70's where people shoved raw patties in one side of a machine and they came cooked out the other. These days we could easily even automate the process of pulling them from pallets and wrapping buns around them. Don't be surprised if in the not-too-distant future that the only employee in most burger joints is the manager. And even that only to pull the alarm if the machine goes down.
Certainly, given what we've got, if we even bother with humans taking orders, they'll probably
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Barber or Masseuse. Something that requires your customer's physical presence.
While it's still legal to sell sex in Kanuckistan, they've made it illegal to buy it (though the police aren't enforcing the law because it would undo all the work that the police have done to reach out to sex workers to cut down on abuse and murder).
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In the end it was cheaper to hire full time programmers locally. Barrier to entry was much lower with outsourcing, but even within a year's time, the co
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(risking a whoosh)
Except your customers.
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Be your own boss. Then nobody can fire you.
But if you're as bad a salesman as I am, you'll starve trying to get customers.
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Upper management jobs are being offshored now. Sales and marketing aren't - they require knowing the nuances of the local population.
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yeah great until all of the other jobs are gone and the locals are all poor and unemployed
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From what I have observed among my friends and acquaintances, it is that nothing in the tech industry is safe from being offshored in our globalized world.
Any job that requires a physical presence can't be off-shored. And many tech jobs do require a physical presence.
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From what I have observed among my friends and acquaintances, it is that nothing in the tech industry is safe from being offshored in our globalized world.
Any job that requires a physical presence can't be off-shored. And many tech jobs do require a physical presence.
One word: Telepresence. Even surgery is being performed remotely nowadays. Now, if you don't mind being hated, you can always become a politician.
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One word: Telepresence. Even surgery is being performed remotely nowadays.
While that probably is inevitable, it isn't going to make inroads into the tech field until you can have a remote unit that is as supple, dextrous and reliable as a person at a price point that makes it cheaper than having local guy (plus who services the remote units?) - that would require an Asimov level of technology.
The surgery works because it is a highly specialized, high cost environment that is extremely regulated and controlled - you currently don't just wheel any old patient into a telepresence
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Automating surgery is actually harder. People are made up of squishy things that won't stay still or even have the decency to be the right size, shape, and location as in the textbooks.
Automating a datacenter is trivial. 19-inch standard racks made to hold boxes in multiples of "U" height. All you need is standard power and data bus points to avoid having to do custom wiring. Robots can easily slot in units or racks. Just back up an automated truck to the loading dock 2 or 3 times a week to deliver automati
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Since Wal-Mart is one of those stores that assumes that the majority of their customers are thieves anyway.
That's because, depending on where you're located, many of their customers look kind of sketchy [peopleofwalmart.com]
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Any job that requires a physical presence can't be off-shored. And many tech jobs do require a physical presence.
Requiring a physical presence may stop a particular job from being off-shored, but it does not stop it from being affected by off-shoring. As the jobs that can be off-shored leave, those former employees start competing for the jobs that cannot be off-shored. So any IT related job that needs to stay local now has many more applicants, thus driving down wages.
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Dice - you could save $ by offshoring timothy's job....
Given the quality of "editing" I thought it had already been done years ago.
Re:Plumbing! (Score:4, Insightful)
Until it doesn't need to be hands on anymore.
For example, TV repairman diddn't go away because it became their jobs were offshored, they went away because TVs crashed in price so that by the time a failure occurred repair was no longer as clearly economic. ...
Leadwork - using sheets of lead soldered on roofs to waterproof - has largely gone away due to the introduction of fibreglass and membrane films which do the same job vastly more cheaply.
Leaded glasswork - piecing together large panes from small bits of glass went away when techniques for making larger glass came around.
Lath and plaster construction went away when wallboard came in.
While there may always be a need for some services to be provided locally - don't assume that the jobs required for that service will remain constant.
For someone beginning their career, and going into building, a clear risk is large scale 3d printing eliminating a large number of the people conventionally employed on a building site.
A large machine that takes a couple of guys a day to set it up on site, and then one babysitter to produce an insulated watertight structure with reinforcement and plumbing/electrical channels already there, eliminating most roofing, bricklaying, cement, ... guys seems entirely likely in the 20 year timescale.
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To be pedantic, TV repair shops went away because the technology became so miniaturized that nobody could realistically repair anything anyway and because the cost came down to the point that it was a disposable item. Either one of those would have made it infeasible. They just happened to go hand in hand.
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TV repair is quite possible - given the schematics.
I've worked on reworking mobile phones, with much more dense circuitry.
It became largely impractical because both of secrecy by the manufacturers making service manuals impossible to obtain, and the much larger issue that the reduction in price, combined with the improvement in available TVs a year or two out meant that the price a repairer could charge became uneconomic.
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Yes, you can do surface-mount soldering, but it takes a lot longer than through-hole soldering, which in turn takes a lot longer than replacing socketed components. When repairs take longer, they get more expensive. Expensive repairs + cheap hardware = cheaper to replace.
Re:Plumbing! (Score:4, Insightful)
Replacing surface mount components is considerably faster than replacing through hole components. Replacing a passives takes a few seconds (heat with air, pick up with tweezers, drop new component, remove air) and replacing large multiple pin ICs is orders of magnitude faster (still seconds).
Repairing new electronics isn't more expensive because the reworking takes longer, it's more expensive because service manuals impossible to obtain, as the person you replied to stated. It also isn't considerably more expensive that it used to be, it's just considerably cheaper to replace a device than it used to be.
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There is one thing that can be repaired without too much trouble: the power supply. Electrolytic capacitors, especially from the 200x's have a bad history of blowing out. For $25 in capacitors and an hour of work, you can fix a broken power supply. I've even done it once myself. Of course the cost of LCD TV sets keeps going down, making it only really worth repairing big TVs, as the falling prices just make them that much less worthwhile to repair.
A TV repair place recently opened up near where I live, but
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Some time many years back, Sony (I think) advertised a TV with "works in a drawer". Basically, the electronics - excepting the actual high-voltage parts - were on phenolic circuit boards maybe something like 4x6 inches (give or take a meter). The idea was that a repairman could slot in a new one as easily as the older sets did with blown tubes.
I'm suspecting that in most actual cases, however, it was the high-voltage stuff that was most likely to fail once everything went solid-state.
In any event, higher-qu
Re:Plumbing! (Score:4, Interesting)
...the technology became so miniaturized that nobody could realistically repair anything anyway...
Miniaturization made the components smaller, but it didn't change the way the circuits work. If anything, the huge number of ICs used today have made the manufactured circuits much simpler and easier to understand (which is great because it's nearly impossible to get the schematics anymore).
There's still an electronics repair shop near my house and the owner absolutely repairs modern electronics. He doesn't just swap boards, either, he still replaces individual components. Electronic components these days are much smaller, but the concept is the same.
I've done a not insignificant amount of surgery on computers and phones and the like with a fine soldering pencil and a hot air gun. It's not difficult, it's just different. And tiny surface mount components are nice because they're cheaper and you can fit a huge number of components in a small space! You just need a good pair of tweezers and a loupe.
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It's already [cnet.com] here [archdaily.com]
Though, what is done is the building is printed in layers off-site, then the layers are shipped to the location and assembled.
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I'm working as a handyman/carpenter now. More work available than I can handle, get to pick my jobs and clients. I'll probably go back to scientific programming some day, but I'll do it on my terms.
handymantoby.com
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Learn a trade. You can't offshore something that needs to be hands on. It's either that or join the 1%ers. :-(
The trades cannot be off-shored, but they can be flooded by ex-employees of jobs that were off-shored.
There simply is not such thing as a safe good paying job. If you want above average income, you need ongoing above average effort in managing your career. For anyone under the age of 40 that usually means many career pivots before retirement. Very few industries will stagnate for 40 years in a row in order to provide someone a clear and easy career path.
Re:If you don't get Outsourced, you'll (Score:4, Insightful)
If you are able to be replaced by someone who barely knows the language, doesn't know the country, has to live out of a suitcase, well, mate, it is your fault, not theirs.
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If you are able to be replaced by someone who barely knows the language, doesn't know the country, has to live out of a suitcase, well, mate, it is your fault, not theirs.
Well, I see one little snowflake hasn't hit the griddle.
Yet.
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There is always the unvocalised issue that any IP sent to an Indian outsourcing company will be stolen.