Travis..
> Howdy. If you attended the Deja News talk, please let me know what
> you thought of it and how I could improve the next talk I give.
I thought it was great, very interesting, very relevant, full of the type
of information even most nerds don't know.. afaik..
> Here's some random thoughts and advice for students:
>
> Try and get some relevant work experience before you leave school.
> It is more beneficial than anything else at landing a job.
> It will also help you decide what you like to do, and be a better
> job-hunter (i.e. picking out employers that aren't going to screw
> you, seeing through headhunter hype, etc.) Trust your instincts.
> If it seems like they're trying to gloss over something, they are.
I'd have to agree with this, I'm not even a college student yet but in the
4 or so months I've worked for PHT I've learned several things and changed
my mind about a few ways I felt about my future
(1) I've always had somewhat of a problem with authority, at least when I
don't feel respect is mutual, and I decided a long time ago I didn't want
to work for anyone as a permanent career move.. I still feel this way but
PHT treats me extremely well and has made me feel less strongly about
this.. from speaking with friends of mine, this is *not* something that is
normal.. PHT kicks major ass in this regard ;p
(2) fairly related to the last thing, the amount of money you start at
isn't *extremely* important.. sure you've go to pay the rent, eat, and
party once in a while, but if you can find an employer who understands
when the shit hits the fan in your life, is concerned with things going on
in your life, like being a student while working for them, etc.. you're
lucky.. I've had friends who worked at places who would hand them a job
and say 'hey, go learn perl and get this done.. tomorrow' and, needless to
say, they hated their job.. I started at PHT only 4 months ago, give or
take a month, and I got a raise approved about a month before the standard
probationary period ends, and implemented about as early as they ever
allow it, few employers will give you a raise when you've been working for
2 1/2 months.. anyway my point isn't to say how great of a job I have
(completely) but that if you can find a job that you enjoy and don't feel
overly pressured, it's definitely a good thing.. I do a lot of
overtime-type work (like going to SIGLinux meetings) where it just doesn't
feel like I should be paid ;p anyway.. that's my point, if you find a job
that you enjoy and where the people treat you well, stick around a while
and see if the crappy money improves ;p if you can't pay your bills, well
then you don't have that luxury but if you do, take it.. a little cash
isn't everything.. oh yea and if they send you to comdex it's also nice..
> Also, don't be afraid to ask people for stuff. This applies to all
> kinds of things; scholastic administrators (same thing), airline ticket
> agents, the IRS, etc. Ask different people until you
> get what you want. Most of the time, getting what you want is
> dependent on asking the right question to the right person.
> Sometimes you can just wear them down. :)
I'll testify to this as well.. the story of my job at PHT is not much
different from the way that many people relate with different companies on
a day-to-day basis.. I was doing a review of TurboLinux 1.2 or 2.0 and
asked some sort of semi-technical questions.. my e-mail got fw:ed to
scott, our head developer at the time, he and I got to be friends, I set
up a newsgroup for TL b/c I thought it was the most kick-ass distribution,
I got an e-mail one foggy morning in february asking if I'd like to do
some lacky type stuff.. that didn't last long because I kept offering to
do more stuff, etc.. if you get a job that sucks, offer to do harder stuff
that other people don't want to do or can't do, like offering free copies
of turboLinux to every LUG in the us.. it's a boring job because it
basically encompasses sending an e-mail to 3 or 4 hundred people, but I
offered to do it, then I ended up doing presentations at LUGs, dealing
with some possible resellers, and, most recently, being the only
linux-literate PHT representative at comdex.. Do you know what my original
duties were? I was supposed to take press releases and appeareances of PHT
in the press, send them to places like LWN, freshmeat, slashdot, etc..
anyone who cared to see them, and then read newsgroups and the
SVLLUG/BALUG lists and reply to anything where I could be helpful and,
when possible, mention a way that TL makes it easier or does it better..
that's all, a few bucks an hour, a few hours a week, really boring stuff..
in three weeks I'm leaving for Oakland to work at the Cali offices for the
summer..
other than babbling and bragging about how great an asset I am to my
employer ;p my point here is that you might start out as bob the guy who
dusts off the servers and end up as roberto the IT manager, over time at
least..
Am I a super over-acheiver,and that's why this all works for me? no, I'm a
slacker, I make C's in school unless it's something that interests me or
is *really* easy, then I make an A.. I'm not saying that's one of my finer
points, I'm just trying to bring it home that all the straight-C slackers
out there can do just fine.. in fact this weekend, MTV had some kind of
show about that, how a lot of the really successful people today are
slackers, because slackers don't really just sit on their ass and do
nothing, they do what they want to do today instead of what they were
supposed to do yesterday, but it is ending up more and more that what we
want to do today instead of our homework is what we want to do tomorrow to
bring home the bucks ;p
just my two cents..
have fun all
btw Omar I wore that kickass SIGLinux shir ton thursday to ALg and
everyone was jealous ;p
-Justin
|--------------------------------------------------
|Justin Ryan
|Developer Relations / Support Associate
|Pacific HiTech / TurboLinux
|http://www.turbolinux.com / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
|WebMaster, PCHelp - http://computers.iwz.com
|[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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