Atomictumor

While stumbling through the break room at work on my way to the water (yes, water, because its too early for coffee), I noticed one of the geek magazines that take up residence in there boldly proclaiming something about how the IT industry needs “Generation Z”.  I didn’t read the thing, but I’m assuming the gist is blah blah blah IT needs Generation Z because its chewed up all of the older people.

If that is the case, well, theres trouble a-brewin’.

As a veteran of sorts in the IT industry, and as a tail end tagalong to “Generation X”, I’m probably the youngest of the folks who are in this racket that remember when computers were oddities.  Yes, everybody in my day had an Atari or Nintendo, and many had an Amiga or Commodore 64, but most everybody used em for games, and not to program Basic.  Furthermore, while everybody my age took ‘computer class’ in a room full of donated $1000 Apple IIe’s, not everybody got past the Oregon Trail they were playing to mess with the system settings.  It was like we had some arcane knowledge, that our peers didn’t understand or quantify.
We were born computer geeks. 

We were the ones that were up front and center in 1994-95-96, when computers all of a sudden became less of a object of geekery, and more of a object of general commerce, and all of a sudden that arcane knowledge was hella profitable.  We worked at ISPs, we learned HTML, we networked computers.  We worked for bosses who themselves didn’t get past the Pac-Man, and therefore didn’t understand the nature and limitations of the work we were doing, and pushed us to get it done.  We did it, because damn, we were making money off it.

When the heady days of the 90’s web bubble came crashing, we kept up that work ethic, because we had proven we could do it, but we weren’t worth nearly as much.  In fact, as more and more of my tailend generational geeks started coming out into the workforce, competition for jobs got to the point where know-how wasn’t quite enough, you needed more.  The A+ certification was necessary to get your foot in the door, but to get a decent job you had to drop a grand on the Microsoft certifications.  Once everybody gets them, well, now you have to get the Cisco CCNA certs to stay ahead of the pack.  Thats 1.5 grand, just for the baby one.  Ouch.

These days, you really have to have a degree, on top of the certs, to be worth it, and then you go to work for the bosses who don’t understand the nature and limitations of the work, and demand “rocks“, thus requiring you to maintain a heavy work week in order to get the work done.

So, to sum up:

IT $$$(2006) = BS in Comp Science * (MSCE + Aplus + CCNA)/60 hrs a week

Ouch.  No wonder so many kids now are taking a look at the IT field and figuring (rightly) that they can get the same money for a lot less hassle by going into traditional engineering, which gives them a very similar courseload.
The difference being that most of the kids growing up and going to school, who I can only assume are referred to in this unnamed magazine as Generation Z, are steeped in this IT stuff by cultural necessity. Its no longer a frontier to these guys, as it was to us, its just a masochistic, respectless drudgery.  I don’t see how the pride of being a computer geek, which I think everybody my age thats in IT has (even if they don’t want to admit it) can still exist for people growing up now on a general basis.

This causes a real problem for the corporate world, who relies on its IT employees coming into work for a long work week tackling the same old problems with zest and vigor.  What happens when employees to replace the ones burned out aren’t willing to work as cheap?

Well, it’ll get outsourced to India, more than likely.  Everything else is.

Like I said tho, I didn’t read the magazine, and it was early, so I may have just dreamed it.

In addition to Myron Iwanski dropping in to discuss the closed doors of the most recent Anderson County Commission meeting, our other District 8 rep, Robin stopped by.  Unfortunately, my Spam blocker evidently hasn’t been getting enough attention from me, because her comment remained blocked from the time she posted it last night at around 9:30, until now (when Netmom brought it to my attention, thanks NM!).

Robins comments were as follows:

“I did not succumb to any pressure Monday evening, I acted on the advice of your county’s law director, Mr. Yeager, on an imp’t on-going legal matter invovling AC and Clinton, for the past 5 years. He is the voice for AC in this courtcase. Legal council, whether for a group or individual entity is a personal matter, not to be taken lightly. In Exec Session, the law allows the legal representative to talk to the commission on the legality of the situation they are invovled in. Commissioners are not allowed to talk to each other- only to the attorney who represents them during that time. No action,or motions were taken; it was a question and answer time, which explains the duration, as many commissioners asked legal questions of our attorney, and he explained to us the seriousness of the case. The annexation issue between Clinton and AC has been a long process, and I am becomming more aware of all the ramifications of it, as I am now on your commission. Anyone who knows me from my different areas of service in Oak Ridge, knows I am a straight forward and painfully honest person. I feel by taking the advice of an attorney was in the best interest for OR, and the rest of AC. All of this will be coming out on the ongoing lawsuit, I am told, most likely in the next month or so.
Our meeting in Oct. will be the 16th, and @ 9:30 am. Folks are always welcome. Bring a jacket for the courtroom, as I almost froze in there Monday evening!
Now, since this is the first time I have ever used this system, I do hope I send it properly!”

Robin, I apologize for the rather facist nature of my spam blocker, and I hope it didn’t cause you any worry.

Furthermore, you, along with Myron, have completely explained things (or at least to my satisfaction), and I will send no more evil looks or hexes your way regarding this.  I still think the timing could have been better, just from the scandalous nature of A.C. politics these days, but I’m glad to see that you and Myron are taking care of things in Clinton.

Thanks very much for stopping by, and you (along with everybody else) are always welcome to drop by and correct me when I mouth off.

Hey folks,

In case you missed it, Anderson County Commissioner Myron Iwanski (Oak Ridge’s Eighth District) showed up on the ‘tumor to discuss this post regarding the closing of the doors for an hour or so at the first Anderson County Council meeting.  Here are his comments:

“…Here is my perspective. This issue goes back over 10 years. 5 years ago Clinton signed and agreement not to annex across the interstate. Without coming to the county to try to renegotiate, they simply violated the ageement and annexed anyway. We could have just let them violate, but we had no real choice except to take legal action. That is where we are with this today - in the courts.

Of course it wouldn’t be in the counties interest to discuss our legal options (ie., what are weakness and strenghts in the case and what are our chances of winning on each point) in an open meeting. Other government bodies, including our cities, do exectutive sessions routinely in legal matters. We take going into executive session very seriously and only do it if it is in the counties best interest and our legal coucil advises that we do it. In my 12 years on commission I don’t think we have used in more than 10 times, and most of those were for this issue.

In defense of our new commissioners, Clinton decided to wait until after the commission was in place to take this matter up again, so that is why the county law director brought it up at this meeting saying he needed direction on how to respond.

I expect this issue to be discussed in an open meeting in detail in the next month or two and each commissioner’s positon will be very clear as will the reason for any decision we make. Our case is weaker today than it was a year ago partly because the five year agreement is up but mostly because the state pulled the rug out from under us by changing the annexation laws (without our knowledge or opportunity to comment!)”

And he came back later with:

“We spent the entire meeting in open session except for the executive session to discuss this legal issue. We did the executive session as the last item of buisness and only talked about the Clinton Annexation lawsuit in the executive session.

After the executive session we went into open session so that if any commissioner wanted to take action base on the information the law director provided in the executive session they could make a motion and debate its merits in open session. After the executive session a motion was made and passed to release David Clark from the Rogers case since he cannot represent us. No one offered any other motions regarding the legal case, so we adjorned. I presume this is becase no one thought it was urgent enough to take action at this meeting.

This item was not on the agenda so no one knew it was going to come up. I do not think it would be fair to the public to take this important matter up without prior notice. I expect it to be on an agenda soon and voted on with an opportunity for public and commissiner comment in an open meeting.”

Which sums up his perspective of the meeting.  Frankly, the simple fact that he has the integrity to swing by the page to comment on a post like that goes a long way toward validating the situation.  I think it might have served appearances better to stage another time for the executive meeting, but given the circumstances, I think its understandable.

Myron, your comments are welcome here anytime.  Thanks for swinging by.

Watching Courage the Cowardly Dog a minute ago…

MastaG: “I think that bird’s gender confused”.

Tis’ the season when the Boxelder bugs come crawling inside the house. We like to call them dumbbugs at the Cemestos Gardens, because they have next to zero sense of self-preservation. They come in out of the cold and that’s about it. Luckily they’re harmless.

Don’t ever plant a Boxelder tree nearby your home, unless you want the bugs that come with it.