Am I missing something here on car payments?

[Glenn E. Meyer]

BBI's post is excellent! There are historians who state that if you look at the fall of civilizations one major factor is the increasing divide among economic classes and the hollowing out of the middle. The inability of the average worker to provide a nuclear (not glowing) family environment is diagnostic of what we see. The failure leads to children without fathers associated rises in crime and drug abuse. Not to say that one must be in a Leaver to Beaver family but lack of family structure leads to societal disruption. It has been seen across the world.

Without solid jobs and families, civilizations fail. The elites, however, will prosper - until it all crashes. The angry will come over the walls of the gated community. Those who built retreats in missile silos and walled mansions with paid security, will see the security kill them and take their wives and daughters!

[Artemas2]

Well... their car payments are less than my now monthly mechanic bill and I bet their car doesn't drop dead 20 miles from the nearest cell signal or town (true story, long walk). So there is that.

Regarding factory jobs, I was talking to someone about money stuff and his observation was that the post WW2 and the subsequent boomer generation is the only generation that on a large scale could afford their own homes and live that middle class lifestyle as an average. Most families prior, were multi-generational homes or Un-married kids stayed with their parents often until their passing and inheriting what little was left.

After WW2 Europe was largely bombed back into the stone age with next to zero manufacturing, which gave the USA a huge advantage in manufacturing and the job market. We also already had the bones for high volume export. Allowing for even low end line workers to make solid wages. However over the decades, Europe has rebuilt and China was also able to benefit from this and is able to out-compete on cost due to forc...voluntary low wage labor.

We are now at the point of returning to a pre-WW state where the average person just isn't able to have there own home and car without massive debt. On top of that, a grossly over priced college degree is now practically mandatory if you don't want to work pouring coffee.

[BehindBlueI's]

Regarding factory jobs, I was talking to someone about money stuff and his observation was that the post WW2 and the subsequent boomer generation is the only generation that on a large scale could afford their own homes and live that middle class lifestyle as an average. Most families prior, were multi-generational homes or Un-married kids stayed with their parents often until their passing and inheriting what little was left.

I don't know that's an entirely fair characterization, but I would agree with the over-arching message that the modern robust middle class is a historical abberation. There has never been a time where power is more distributed and mobility more fluid, both economic and political, than in the modern western world. The question becomes is that something worth keeping, and if so, how?

[mtnbkr]

It happens in IT as well believe it or not.

Yup. I've been in IT in one form or another my entire career...26 years and counting. I've managed to stay ahead of bloodletting by being agile in what I'm willing to do. I started off in LAN/User support, then went into enterprise connectivity and firewalls, then got into security and eventually managed a global SOC. When my company started making noise about replacing expensive Americans with people in "lower cost economies", I saw the writing on the wall and maneuvered myself into a governance position where I was responsible for representing Ops globally (we have SOCs in 7 countries) in a variety of areas (pre-sales complex opportunities, product development, risk management, etc). I'm about to step into a new role leading a global team of security engineers who are involved in "Threat Management Continuous Improvement". This team is an evolution of the role I was initially hired for at this same company (that eventually led to me being the SOC manager), but 12 years later has expanded greatly in remit.

What I've found is as tech gets "easier" and more stuff moves into the cloud and needs less local infrastructure management, there is a growing need for people with "big picture" mindsets who can help customers understand how to make these tools work for them in an outcome-based approach. It has kept me employed and influential even while many of my US-based peers are pigeon-holed or outright let go.

It's a living I suppose.

Chris

[SecondsCount]

Who really wants a factory job?

There are thousands of openings for factory jobs right now and they aren't being filled because nobody wants to fill them.

[BWT]

Yup. I've been in IT in one form or another my entire career...26 years and counting. I've managed to stay ahead of bloodletting by being agile in what I'm willing to do. I started off in LAN/User support, then went into enterprise connectivity and firewalls, then got into security and eventually managed a global SOC. When my company started making noise about replacing expensive Americans with people in "lower cost economies", I saw the writing on the wall and maneuvered myself into a governance position where I was responsible for representing Ops globally (we have SOCs in 7 countries) in a variety of areas (pre-sales complex opportunities, product development, risk management, etc). I'm about to step into a new role leading a global team of security engineers who are involved in "Threat Management Continuous Improvement". This team is an evolution of the role I was initially hired for at this same company (that eventually led to me being the SOC manager), but 12 years later has expanded greatly in remit.

What I've found is as tech gets "easier" and more stuff moves into the cloud and needs less local infrastructure management, there is a growing need for people with "big picture" mindsets who can help customers understand how to make these tools work for them in an outcome-based approach. It has kept me employed and influential even while many of my US-based peers are pigeon-holed or outright let go.

It's a living I suppose.

Chris

Same experience. I started as a guy trying to get into computer repair 16 years later I work on R&S, Security, and Datacenter (less this than before with ACI dominating many customers. NX-OS though is solid).

I think part of it is you can see changes coming and it doesn’t happen overnight and you can change companies. But what you said above about being willing is the crux of the matter. Are you willing?

My priority is staying employed and feeding my family. If Cisco goes off a cliff - I’ll learn the next vendor. If we go Cloud - I’ll learn cloud. Datacenter? Datacenter. SD-WAN? Sure why not.

Just my opinion. One example of a guy I know was a CCIE Collaboration who shifted to Security. He went back to college, received an associates in that discipline, obtained lots of certs, made the change, and went from being a Managing Consultant in Collaboration to now he’s a Pen-Tester.

He saw cloud collaboration coming and shifted gears. It is what it is. Heck, I have a project putting an ISE deployment spanning the globe in AWS.

ETA: Cisco didn’t anticipate or prioritize firewalls sunsetting the ASA before a simple road map to Firepower was widely adopted. Palo Alto seized a lot of market share. Studying for the PCNSE now.

[jh9]

It happens in IT as well believe it or not.

Yeah, the software just keeps getting more complicated. The tooling just keeps getting more complicated. The requirements keep getting bigger and more grandiose with expectations to match.

On the dev side of the house there's no end in sight. Every new technology, framework or tool just means "oh it lets us do all this other stuff too, right?" The entire industry is thirsty as fuck for developers and nobody can keep up. Everything we automate (or just make easier) closes one metaphorical door then promptly opens ten more.

The number of people doing the job is growing... slowly. The complexity of the job is growing... not slowly. Don't get me wrong, I love it. But like BBI said, I still see people looking hard for an exit ramp because the job description bloat is real. And everyone has a ceiling where there's just no more room in the brain meat for ever-more-complicated work.

[Bio]

BBI's post is excellent! There are historians who state that if you look at the fall of civilizations one major factor is the increasing divide among economic classes and the hollowing out of the middle. The inability of the average worker to provide a nuclear (not glowing) family environment is diagnostic of what we see. The failure leads to children without fathers associated rises in crime and drug abuse. Not to say that one must be in a Leaver to Beaver family but lack of family structure leads to societal disruption. It has been seen across the world.

Without solid jobs and families, civilizations fail. The elites, however, will prosper - until it all crashes. The angry will come over the walls of the gated community. Those who built retreats in missile silos and walled mansions with paid security, will see the security kill them and take their wives and daughters!

Tyrannies in the Archaic Greek city states and most of Late Republican/Early Imperial Roman history speak to this pretty strongly. The very wealthy use economic downturns to amass property from the poor/middle class who become tenant farmers instead of independent landowners. Most of the Greek city states wrestled with this phenomenon, and some went through their own "socialist" revolutions where certain laws were passed to benefit poor farmers. The alterative was often tyranny, where those not extremely wealthy backed someone (with force) who promised to help the little guy out, even if he was extravagantly wealthy himself. There's nothing new under the sun.

Of particular interest to me is that the long-term successful states basically instituted some mildly redistributive laws and voting rights to the masses in order to keep tyrants out. In these cases, the wealthy could stay wealthy, but they couldn't control everything and grind the little guy into the dirt. They had a little socialism to avoid the outright revolt.

[TGS]

Same experience. I started as a guy trying to get into computer repair 16 years later I work on R&S, Security, and Datacenter (less this than before with ACI dominating many customers. NX-OS though is solid).

I think part of it is you can see changes coming and it doesn’t happen overnight and you can change companies. But what you said above about being willing is the crux of the matter. Are you willing?

My priority is staying employed and feeding my family. If Cisco goes off a cliff - I’ll learn the next vendor. If we go Cloud - I’ll learn cloud. Datacenter? Datacenter. SD-WAN? Sure why not.

Yup. I've been in IT in one form or another my entire career...26 years and counting. I've managed to stay ahead of bloodletting by being agile in what I'm willing to do.

My girlfriend has the same drive as you guys with pivoting around and learning new stuff, but for a different reason: she's still a contract employee, and wants to make herself attractive enough to get a direct hire position. She wants the stability....especially as an H1B still waiting on her green card.

[BWT]

My girlfriend has the same drive as you guys with pivoting around and learning new stuff, but for a different reason: she's still a contract employee, and wants to make herself attractive enough to get a direct hire position. She wants the stability....especially as an H1B still waiting on her green card.

Brother. It’s partially drive. It’s partially you’ve got a professional guillotine on wheels following you around and it’s called “complacency” in IT.

I’m not trying to be melodramatic with that statement. It’s just the industry. Maybe not every job. I’ve also tried to support my wife coming home (and replaced her income entirely thank God with my own) to raise our kids.

I might also just be wired different. It’s a mix of dread/enjoyment. Kind of like firearms. Some days I carry because I like it and it’s cool. Other days it’s because my wife/kids are reliant on me if something happens.

It’s an opportunity that being said I might influence my kids to go into electrical and/or plumbing as my job markets just so volatile in the sense we’re describing here. I’m okay with this life and I chose it for us, but I don’t know if I want that for my kids.

ETA:

Also, one guy on my team at work has four CCIE’s. Four. Two others have two. Multiples have one. But, as a consultant - it’s a different stress than on-staff IT.

Anyway, I’m rambling.