--
From: Gary Chapman
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: L.A. Times column, 5/10/99
Date: Monday, May 10, 1999 9:42AM
Friends,
Below is my Los Angeles Times column for today, Monday, May 10, 1999. As
always, please feel free to pass this on, but please retain the copyright
notice.
--
Monday, May 10, 1999
Digital Nation
Tech Workers Are in Demand, but Field Has Dark Side
By Gary Chapman
Copyright 1999, The Los Angeles Times, All Rights Reserved
College students who are nearing graduation this spring are entering a
booming economy, in which unemployment is at a 30-year low and starting
salaries and wages for jobs involving computers and the Internet are
amazingly high. In some cities, young systems administrators who can run
high-volume Web servers or large computer networks can earn more than
$50,000 in their first year on the job. As the rock band Timbuk 3 once sang,
"Fifty-thou a year will buy a lot of beer."
Sounds like a good time to be young, smart and computer-savvy, right? So why
aren't more young people rushing into this job market?
The main reason is that there is a darker side to high-tech work these days,
especially as workers age. Long hours, intense competitive pressures,
disappointments and regrets, loneliness and boredom all take their toll on
computer workers. And even the high salaries begin to look less appealing
when housing prices are astronomical, free time is rare, and commutes are
long and frustrating. The novelty of "cool" jobs wears off quickly as
workers mature. The chief characteristic of most workers these days is a
feeling of restlessness.
In a survey last year by George Mason University in Virginia, 40% of
information technology workers reported that they would choose another field
if they could relive their college days, with a majority of those indicating
a preference for education or another nontechnical field. That was the
highest level of regret in any specific occupational field, although,
interestingly enough, more than half of all the respondents in nontechnical
fields said they would now choose science and technology if they could.
"It seems that nontechnical people want to know more about technology, while
technology people are finding there's more to life than bits and bytes,"
said Dr. Alan G. Merten, president of George Mason University.
The demands of the "new economy" are severe on technology workers. Silicon
Valley has even developed a new term for the lifestyle it imposes on Valley
workers: the "total commitment" paradigm. Internet commerce is, as the
saying goes, "24 by 7," meaning it must go on 24 hours a day, seven days a
week, without fail.
In a survey of 250 information technology workers done in October by
ComputerWorld magazine, the average workweek was more than 50 hours, and
about half the respondents reported working an average of six hours on
Saturdays and Sundays. Almost two-thirds reported interrupting vacations to
check in with work, and 70% missed family or social events because of work.
Almost all IT workers carry beepers, cell phones or pagers to stay in touch
with work.
"I can't remember the last time I actually did some enjoyable reading, like
a novel. I can't remember the last time I went to a movie, either," said one
worker interviewed for the survey.
In a more recent ComputerWorld survey, released April 27, IT workers
reported frustration that they aren't typically involved in their firms'
strategic planning or in defining corporate objectives. "Two-thirds of the
940 IT professionals surveyed feel slighted, ignored or undervalued," said
the magazine. It is common to hear computer professionals say that they feel
like high-tech janitors for corporations, with their responsibilities
limited to keeping a server going or a network operating.
Computer work is often touted as exciting, stimulating and personally
rewarding, but many people find it plain boring. Finding and fixing software
bugs or responding to users' problems can be tedious and never-ending tasks.
The fast-paced change of the technology industry leads to a feeling of
"ephemeralization," as Buckminster Fuller called it 30 years ago, meaning a
career in high tech can have relatively few benchmarks of tangible
accomplishment.
The high-tech field also is notoriously hard on aging workers. It's an
industry that values youth and new skills, and programmers over 35 face real
difficulties trying to keep up with the technology and stay employed. There
are numerous stories of middle-aged technology workers who are laid off and
never return to their careers; in fact, less than 20% of programmers are
still programming after age 40.
Job-hopping and the new ethic of being your own "brand," a feature of the
extreme individualism of high-tech culture, can lead to loneliness and
anomie in the workplace and in society at large. The average length of stay
at a single job in Silicon Valley is a mere 18 months; human resource
manager
